"Why must I go and walk that girl home?" Ryoma grumbled in a state of extreme irritation as he shot an angry glare at his father across the dining room of the Echizen household. The air between the pair seemed to crackle dangerously.

"What!? Are you nuts for not wanting to protect that beautiful gorgeous girl who doesn't look anything like that old hag!? Oh how did I manage to have such a dumb son??..." Echizen Nanjirou heaved a great exaggerated sigh and shook his head in grief. "If only I was twenty years younger..."

"It's Sakuno-chan's birthday today, isn't it?" Nanako smiled warmly beside Ryoma as she glanced up - for he is now taller than her - "A girl wouldn't want to fall into the hands of danger on her special day."

She already had. Ryoma thought grimly.

"Be grateful, young man, for such a rare opportunity to walk a girl home! At the speed you're going no new females are going to enter this house for another ten years…" Nanjirou made a horrified face as if the full meaning of the idea just struck him. "Go!! Now!! I command you!"

Yet, fearlessly, Ryoma stared straight back at his father's panicking face. He scowled. There was a spark, a sizzle, and the heated war between father and son roared into action.

"Oh, please, you two! …Ryoma-san, if you don't want to go, can you at least help me deliver this present?"

Nanako cupped her hands around her mouth to project her voice over the intense fight of kendo (with tennis racquets) and held out a delicately wrapped box to her cousin.

Not expecting this tactic, Ryoma gaped at the shimmering silver ribbons inches under his nose and his mind immediately flew back to the ribbons entwined in Sakuno's hair the day of the English test. The day his frozen heart first bathed in the warmth of her hot chocolate.

"You two have been plotting this, haven't you?" Ryoma's eyes shifted angrily from one grinning face to the other, knowing they would nag him like a pair of parrots until he had left the house.

"What are you talking about, Ryoma-kun?" Nanjirou smirked and then with one quick movement, grabbed his son's collar and dragged him into the entrance hall, ignoring the filthy shouts of fury from the boy behind him.

As soon as his father had dumped him by the shoe cupboard in order to let him put on his footwear, he sprang up with his eyes flashing every bit as dangerously as his father's.

"You can't make me go."

Once again, Nanjirou cursed and blamed Rinko for giving his son such bad genes, then he put out his hand to Nanako for the present. She obediently placed it on his hand with a smile and watched with an amused twinkle in her eyes as her uncle threw the box at his son.

Having been a tennis player all of his life, Ryoma's natural reaction to a small object flying at his face was, of course, to exercise his quick reflexes and catch it neatly in his hands. Nanjirou had assumed this, and before his son could react further, he had shoved him through the main door, kicked out a pair of his sneakers, and smirked at the young fuming face staring back at him in the chilly night.

"If you want a bed to sleep in tonight, you'd better go to the girl with the present and see her home, young lad."

Then the door slid shut with a bang.

Sparkling drops of green tea left faint blobs of leafy stains on her elegant apron like round paddocks of glazed grass, but she took no notice as she sprinkled a handful of crinkled tea leaves into a spotless glass teapot. A merry tune was humming between her lips while the heel of her shoe tapped rhythmically along with it.

Only one hour. Sakuno thought happily, One hour until home time, until I can leave this disastrous day behind.

She unscrewed the cap on one of the milk bottles and poured a few centimeters of white liquid into a metal bowl to make the decorative froth on a cappuccino. Then as the coffee machine screeched and beat the milk into light foam, she took out a small shaker filled with cocoa powder.

I wonder what Akito-kun has put into my locker? Sakuno thought to herself as she poured the milk froth onto the coffee like a thick layer of icing, then sprinkled the chocolate on lightly. Could it be a birthday present? Another plaster perhaps?

She chuckled quietly to herself as she placed the cup of cappuccino onto a wooden tray. She could still feel the heat of the plaster Ryoma had given her from inside her skirt pocket. It scorched as if it was going to burn a hole in the material.

The tray was so well-balanced that not a single drop of coffee spilled over the side of the gleaming white cup. Yet, basked in a feeling of pride and joy, she put down the cup with more force than necessary, and it clattered loudly on the saucer. Only then did the coffee stream down the curved cup body, forming a small pool at the base.

"Oh…I'm so sor-"

"What the HELL do you think you are doing!?" A rough male voice roared above all the noises in the café, making Sakuno freeze in the midst of an apology and a bow.

"Uh-Sir, I'm really sorry-" She started again but was cut off as the man stood up in a manner of extreme fury, his face purple with rage.

"What's with you waitresses nowadays!? Not one have I seen who actually concentrated and have manners!! Who do you think you are!? Huh!? So clumsy as to stain my shirt with coffee! My shirt!" The large man spat down at Sakuno and pulled his white business shirt so that the faded tiny brown spots were almost under her nose. They were unmistakably old stains...even if they were not that old, it certainly wasn't caused a few seconds ago. It took her an immense amount of effort not to wrinkle her nose at the smell of his breath which stank of alcohol.

Sakuno bowed again, so deeply that the tip of her nose almost brushed her knee. The entire café had become silent by then; every head had turned in the direction of the man and the slim girl who seemed dwarfed in comparison.

"Please allow me to clean that for you immediately-" She said as calmly as she could manage, although her hands had begun to tremble uncontrollably. She was just turning to find a cloth behind the counter when, to her dismay, the man grabbed hold of her arm so tightly she had given up hope of escape before she even tried. She dared not wince at the pain but her smile flinched for a moment before returning to its usual glamour.

"You stay right here so I can teach you proper manners, young lady! What attitude is that? Too busy to stand here and listen to a customer!? Oh no no, you stay right here…" The man slurred as if his tongue was too big for his mouth, and he rolled his eyes in a way which greatly reminded her of a boy throwing a tantrum.

"Sir, I'm terribly sorry for my carelessness…but you are hurting me-"

"How DARE you complain, didn't you hear what I just SAID? Not only rude but also stupid, huh? Well well, crappy cafés do give crappy service-"

"...Sir, it's fine if you insult me, but if you insult the others in the café I'll have to ask you to leave immediately." Sakuno's voice rang louder than she had expected, although she had the feeling that it grew quieter towards the end, for panic had began to prick at her overpowering anger.

A few people in the room gasped with shock.

She witnessed the change over the man's face as his expression blackened like a storm. Then the next thing she knew she was seized into the air, the man's hand clutching her throat.

"You will regret this…" The man's voice was as deep as rumbling thunder and as cold as the snow falling outside on the deserted streets. "When I see your manager-"

"-The manager is here." An equally icy voice sounded from behind Sakuno. "Please let her go at once."

Sakuno's body stiffened.

"No wonder the girl is rude, must have learnt it from those above her." The man snorted but only tightened his grip on Sakuno's neck. He grinned gleefully as everyone in the café watched on in horror at her wriggling body and sickening gurgles near the point of suffocation.

"Let her go." Akito's eyes flashed threateningly as he took a step forward.

Yet when the man ignored him once again, much to all's astonishment, the tall boy flung himself forward and knocked the enormous man over, followed afterwards were deafening noises of tables splintering and vases shattering.

Sakuno was flung into the air the moment Akito launched his attack. She landed with a painful crash and for the first few minutes, could only crouch on the floor, spluttering and gasping desperately for air as her lungs burned with the need for oxygen. She touched her neck where it was swelling from the rough grip and felt nausea rise from the pit of her stomach as countless black dots swam before her eyes.

When her senses began to recover at last, she became aware of the dead silence in the room and the people sitting absolutely still in their chairs -or, for some of them, standing - as if they had been turned into stone. She slowly sat up and turned her eyes to where everyone else's were looking - and was frozen in shock like the rest of the people by the sight she saw.

The man was lying as still as a rock on the café floor. His head was bathing in a small pool of fresh blood which was pouring out from his deformed nostrils. His greasy graying hair resembled bloody strands of liquorices and his fat stubby arms spread limply over the stained wood. Parts of his white shirt were now dyed a bright crimson and the small rise and fall of his chest was the only sign of life on his obese body.

Yet Sakuno's eyes focused on the two people standing over it.

Two people.

One of them she immediately recognized - sleek brown hair now in a tangled mess on his head, with a ripped sleeve dangling off his arm, was Akito, bending over the man who he had punched - Sakuno presumed that had been the case from the blood dripping off his left fist - and examining the body for any serious fatal injuries.

What stunned her was the tall figure standing opposite Akito and had his back to her. His black jumper had concealed some of his disorderly green hair, yet the piercing amber eyes were unmistakably familiar as he turned his head towards the girl behind him. There was a brief silence as their eyes met and his fingers stopped in the middle of fiddling with a stained tennis ball.

She felt her senses go numb once again.

"…R-Ryoma-kun…?"

The boy hesitated when he heard his name, but before he could respond or move to her side, another had rushed there first.

"Ryuzaki!! Are you all right? Where did he hurt you?" Akito's anxious voice pulled her confused mind back to her body and she painfully ripped her eyes from Ryoma's, just as she saw coldness drown out the concern or whatever feelings there had been in his dark pupils.

"I-I'm…fine…" She answered as he felt the Head Waiter's firm hands steadying her shoulders, only then did she notice that she was shaking wildly.

"Go get the first-aid kit!" He commanded to another female waitress who had turned as white as a sheet. Upon hearing the order, she fled out of the room like a bolt of lightning.

"Here, sit on a chair and I'll fetch you something to drink…" He drew over a chair on which she collapsed upon gratefully. And then he turned around and went behind the counter.

Sakuno took a deep breath and tried to calm her tingling nerves. She wiped her cold clammy hands on her apron, and then, all of a sudden, remembered Ryoma's unexpected appearance. Her eyes snapped up from the floor and focused on where she had seen the tennis prodigy standing.

But he was gone.

She gaped at the empty space and pinched herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming. Had it just been a trick of my mind? But…I was pretty sure-

"I think you've got more than enough injuries for now, Ryuzaki." She jumped as a stern voice sounded beside her. Looking up, she saw Akito's eyes fixed on her arm where her nails were making deep crescent-moon marks in the flesh from where the blood supply had been cut off. She smiled weakly and accepted the cup of steaming hot chocolate from him while he opened the first-aid kit on the floor.

It was not surprising for her to see that most of the customers have fled from the site - with a sincere apology from the café staff where possible- and the room was quiet save the murmurs of other waitresses reorganizing the overturned tables.

"…are you feeling okay, Ryuzaki?" Akito asked gently as he skillfully smeared a gel-like substance over the red bruises on her neck.

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine…" She smiled reassuringly but the frightened look in her large hazel eyes had not escaped Akito's notice. He sighed and laid a hand on hers understandingly.

"Go home now and get some rest."

"But-" She began to protest.

"Don't argue…I'll manage the rest," He spoke softly, in a voice as soothing as the ointment on his fingers.

"But at least let me help you clean up this place, it was entirely my fault…" She felt despair and guilt bursting through her veins like a flooding dam.

"Hush…" She flinched when she felt a finger brush over her unwounded cheek. "It's all right."

She was speechless for a moment as she felt a blush creep up her neck. A burning urge to embrace the boy in front of her became suddenly overpowering.

"Would you like me to walk you home?" Akito offered kindly.

"Uh…n-no…I should be all right…" Despite of the growling desire to accept the offer, she knew he still had lots more to do tonight. A grateful smile broke the grim line her lips were set in as she added a soft "Thanks."

His frown ceased when he saw her smile. But his tone was still concerned as he helped her up and led her to the back of the café.

"Be careful…Let me know when you get home, ok?"

"Yes…thank you…I-I'll definitely make up for this next time."

"Don't worry about it…just rest."

"…I will."

Her gaze followed after him as he went back out to assist in the sweeping and mopping. And it was then that her attention drew to an object in her locker.

A/N: Poor Sakuno indeed! (chuckle) And no I don't have an obsession with torturing her at all!! Although I must admit it seems ridiculous to have all these things happen on her birthday...Anyway, finally found some time to actually sit down and look over my fanfic folder (sigh) I know I have a tendency to write long chapters... maybe I should try to cut down on my descriptions? They just go on and on don't they? (laugh) Sorry... seems like I have an obsession of making everything vivid and descriptive. Do tell me if I've gone overboard with them!

Thanks again for reading! I've been absolutely thrilled just by reading through all the reviews and encouragements...you guys are the best.