The pebble dropped to the underground pipes with a soft watery 'plop'…

Ryoma's fingers had long gone numb from holding the frozen can of Ponta in the bone-shattering cold. He placed the empty can by where he had sat down under a tree, pressing faint circular patterns onto the tiny shards of broken ice. Eyes closed, he reflected on the English test as his eyebrows furrowed in thought.

Why were her eyes so...weird? A little sad yet...a little thoughtful. Could it be because...that she was intensely hungry and in her desperation for food turned to me as a final resort? Or that I had something obvious and stupid stuck onto my face? Or perhaps that she was making an obvious attempt at trying out a creepy spell from those brainless horoscope books girls waste their money on? But regardless of how dumb she is...she should know better than doing whatever she was doing in the middle of a test...unless- His eyes sprang open in realisation, but were instantly squeezed shut again due to the blinding sun rays.

...Since she didn't seem the type of girl to go on a diet and starve themselves to death with only a piece of toast for breakfast and lunch, or the type of girl to chuckle behind his back about a wee piece of seaweed on his lip, not to mention the type to go purchase brainless spell books and try their contents on an innocent classmate (he hoped), then the only logical explanation for her 'looks' would be-

-because she couldn't do the test questions and expected me to help her. Heh...but did she really expect me to give the answers to her? How? By winking or tapping the Morse code?He smirked at the thought of him with a twitching eyelid after 'hinting' thirty answers.

... well, too bad, it's her fault she didn't study.

Ryoma arrived at the conclusion with a satisfied sigh. Yet he still could not wave the image of her eyes away, no matter how much he wanted to forget it... at least temporarily. He tried taking a nap under the golden spill of sunshine, but as soon as he closed his eyes the darkness in the girl's eyes haunted his mind, like a magnet sucking his drifting concentration back to the same place regardless of his attempts to focus on an irrelevant subject... eventually, he gave up. For nothing could be done when even memories of his cat Karupin failed to overcome the one of the English test.

Sitting up, he tried watching the tennis matches between a few enthusiastic first-year students, but he soon found them so dull and slow-paced that it was really no different from taking a nap. So he lay back down and, in his extreme desperation, attempted to imitate the female species and gazed up at the clouds drifting over the watery sky, trying to come up with objects the wisps of white fluff most resemble. However, that only made matters worse, for the silvery froths only reminded him of the silver ribbons the girl wore in her hair at the English test.

Ryoma gritted his teeth in frustration as he sat up to brush snow off his regular's jacket. He slowly stood up and strolled over to his final and most trustworthy resort - another vending machine. The coins jingled in his pocket as he fumbled for spare change. But before he could scooped out the three coins he touched, a voice that sounded behind him made him freeze on the spot.

"Ryoma-kun...!! Thank goodness...I couldn't find you anywhere..." Sakuno jogged up to him with a pink thermal container clutched in one hand and a small fluffy sports towel in the other. She was puffing violently and her short breaths exploded into clouds of white smoke in the bitter cold.

Ryoma shot a sideway glance at her but said nothing as he dropped a couple of coins into the machine and worked the buttons with obvious familiarity. The machine rumbled and spat out, to Sakuno's surprise, two cans of Grape Ponta.

Since when has he doubled the amount? That's bad for him, doubling the amount of sugar!...but I guess he does exercise -

"What do you want?" Ryoma's cool voice broke her train of thoughts as he scooped up the two drinks.

"Uh…I won't have anything, thanks-"

"...I mean, 'why are you here?'" It took all of his strength not to smirk.

"Oh." Her cheeks coloured furiously. "Err...I thought I'd catch you during the practice match..."

"Gee, I think you might be just a bit late for that."

Sakuno flinched at his harsh sarcasm, and, to Ryoma's regret, the faint light of sadness flickered back into her eyes.

"Can we...talk?" Sakuno asked as firmly as she could manage.

"I'd presume so... we are both humans, right?"

She flushed again. "I mean - uh - I need to -...Oh never mind! Can we just... sit down for a bit?"

Ryoma glared at her for a moment but mumbled an assent and walked over to where his tennis bag and an empty can of Ponta lay under the shade of the tree. Flopping down on the ground beside it, he waited.

Sakuno followed him and carefully sat down beside him on the snow. She smoothed her skirt and set the thermal in front of her. He watched her in mild fascination as she gracefully took off the lid of the container - which also served as a cup - and poured a stream of rich sweet-smelling liquid into it. For a moment he thought she was just going to warm her hands with it, for she gently cupped the container with both hands, but that simply proved to be an act of caution as she held the cup out to him.

"Here, drink it before it cools." Her tone showed a rare hint of authority as she gazed at him with a set expression. "It's my treat."

Although suspicious, Ryoma took it without a word and looked at her expectantly.

"Drink it," She urged with a faint smile, "...it's not poisoned."

Ryoma glared and replied: "You want to prove that?" and was slightly amused to see the immediate affect of his words as her pale face flushed to an attractive shade of pink. No doubt she was thinking about the 'indirect kiss' theory. But, being unusually 'food-irresistant' (as is the nature of a true sportsman, he insisted), he decided to lower his defence, just a little, and to take a sip of the steaming chocolaty drink in his hands as asked of him.

The thick fluid filled his mouth with heat and froth as he felt small lumps of milk chocolate melting on his tongue. The soothing liquid warmed his throat as it slid down his oesophagus and then pooled in the pit of his stomach. The flavour was heavenly and the aroma which filled his nostrils was beyond description. It took him every bit of self-control not to drain the whole cup in one greedy slurp.

Although when he did set his cup down - now only half-full - he was annoyed to see the delight and satisfaction written on Sakuno's face as she observed his expression, but had to admit that her hot chocolate was delicious beyond anything he had ever drunken...

Save, perhaps, Grape Ponta, as he stubbornly reminded himself.

"Is it good?"

"...huh?"

"The hot chocolate I made."

"...wouldn't it be harder to make bad hot chocolate?"

Sakuno sighed and sat back with a bitter smile. I guess that's the closest thing to a compliment that I'll ever hear from Ryoma-kun...She spoke quietly, calmly, as the strong aroma of chocolate wafted around them.

"...I came to... uh...apologize."

When she didn't receive any response, she turned to the boy next to her and saw that, even though his eyes were focused on some distant object straight ahead, he appeared to be listening.

"I'm sorry...for getting mad when you were only trying to warn me. I didn't mean to be so rude..." She trailed off and let the silence smoothen out her awkwardness. The cool breeze rustled the bushes behind them, sounding almost like the gentle laps of ocean waves.

There was a long period of silence, when Ryoma tried to mask his tumbling emotions with cool composure and Sakuno attempted to restore her confidence. However, before either of them could sink too deep into their own thoughts, Sakuno pulled herself out and drew the other boy from his by pointing to the cup in his hand.

"Seconds?"

Ryoma hesitated but couldn't refuse when she took the cup from his hands. Touching his cap in a gesture of thanks as she handed it back to him, he took out one of the cans of Ponta he had just bought and held it out.

"...Trade."

Sakuno's eyebrows shot up in astonishment but, after a brief pause, she took it from Ryoma's fingers with a smile and pulled on the metal ring. The light purple foam fizzed out of the hole like a sparkling fountain of amethyst. She hesitantly lifted it to her lips just as she heard Ryoma add in a barely audible mumble:

"How can you find the 'how did Jane arrive at school?' and 'what flavour was the ice-cream?' rubbish difficult?"

She choked. A thin line of purple liquid dribbled down her chin but it was neatly wiped away with a swift swipe of her handkerchief.

"W-What?"

"The English test, you seemed stuck." He lay back onto the ground with his emerald green hair nestled in his arms. Strangely, he felt unusually relaxed next to this...girl, possibly even more so than when he was alone. Because when he was by himself...the fear of being attacked by random girls never left his conscience, it haunted him like an evil phantom. At least with Ryuzaki, he knew she wouldn't just suddenly cling onto him begging for a photo or a date.

"I wasn't stuck..."

"Why were you looking at me, then?" His golden eyes were emotionless. Impossible as it may sound, he was obviously still unaware of the main reason for which girls would normally look at him.

Sakuno blushed slightly and said in a tiny voice. "At least I wasn't stuck on that bit..."

"But you were stuck?" He extended a finger to push his cap forward so that the white rim could shade his eyes from the glare of the snow.

She hesitated and fingered her braid in embarrassment, but finally did a tiny nod. Ryoma noted with quiet amusement as her face deepened to a shade of scarlet. Therefore, even though he heaved a heavy sigh, the boy sat up and reached into his tennis bag. The object he was looking for was buried under his three precious racquets and a mountain of tennis balls, he fished it out and tapped it on her shoulder.

"Which part?"

Surprise flooded over her as her eyes landed on the English textbook on her shoulderblade. The textbook with the initials "E.R" scribbled on the top. She gulped nervously, but the feeling which bloomed within her was not an unpleasant one. Taking the textbook, she flipped through the pages until she found one which has an underlined title of "Prepositions".

"Um...I had trouble with the sentences that we had to correct in the test...but Ryoma-kun doesn't have to teach me...I mean, if it's too much hassle..." She lowered her face and murmured quickly in an attempt to express her thoughts.

Ryoma smirked lightly. Normally girls would be fighting - yes, literally fighting - over such an opportunity for him to teach them English. Looks like this particular one is a little different than them, though.

"Don't misunderstand. I don't want to teach you, but I don't want to be blamed again for the fact that someone was looking at me, either," he mumbled.

Her eyes darkened. "I wasn't looking at you just because I needed your-"

"OK, let's start from the basics," he interrupted and pointed to a sentence on the page. He wanted to finish this as quickly as possible, before some nosy member of his fanclub discover them. "He is in the car...what's the preposition?"

"Err...is it in...?"

"Right, so in here is the word used before the noun the car, and so it relates him to the car." He tapped the words in turn with his explanation. Then his fingers moved down the page to indicate another sentence.

"What about this one...Venice is a place I should like to go to...??"

Ryoma-kun is really teaching me... Sakuno's lips slowly curled into a smile. A smile of gratitude, disbelief, and joy...

Ryoma saw the sad glow diminish. Instead, the warmth and laughter had returned to those deep hazel eyes, the eyes that were, slowly but undeniably, drawing him closer and closer to her, the girl who both intrigued and amused him.

Slowly, the wheel of destiny moved. Slowly, like soundless trickles of sand in an hourglass. Unnoticed, but undeniable through the passing of time...

A/N: Thank you so much for all the supportive reviews and constructive citicisms...My energy and enthusiasm is restored immensely every time someone shows their interest in the story and characters :) (Ahh...the wonderful 'ding' when a review sends to my account has indescribable effect on my mood)

Sorry that the update took a bit longer this time... in fact, the update times may be further and further apart in the future. Even though I am very very very sorry, school exams are horrible, evil, nasty things that should not have come into existence in the first place...and perhaps I'm even more horrible, evil and nasty to blame them for slow updates but, as much as I'd love to rebel, I can't really do much about them. So please bear with me for a month or two...OO

Cheers!