"Shhh, here she comes," someone said from the door as they spied Yumi coming down the hallway towards their first-year Peach group classroom.
Katsura was in a panic. The leader of the clique of girls she had tried so hard and for so long to get accepted by, Asami Kamakura, had decided to play a nasty prank on "the quiet girl" in class by putting a lizard in her locker. Of course, the quiet girl in this case was Katsura's friend Yumi-san. What was she to do? If she squealed and told Yumi about the prank she would get thrown out of the group, but if she didn't she would end up hurting a girl that, not only did they live in the same dorm, but that she really liked. Yumi was too nice. She didn't deserve this kind of treatment just because she didn't fit in with "the crowd". Really, when it came down to it, Katsura knew she had only one choice if she wanted to be able to live with her conscience.
She started to walk towards the door where she could just barely see Yumi-san heading to class.
"Katsura-san," Asami said in a menacing voice, "if you warn her you will never again be able to hang out with us."
"Why would I want to hang around with a bunch of losers like you anyway," she said as she continued walking. "Just because your parents own the largest chain of grocery stores in Japan and everyone wants to toady up to you does not make you worth even one hair on that girl's head, Asami-san. This is just plain mean and I want no part of it."
"Your loss Katsura-san," Asami smirked, "you never would have been one of us anyway. You don't even have a family to boast about."
"I beg to differ, Asami-san," she retorted. "I have a wonderful family of girls, each and every one of which support me to the best of their abilities every day and love me for who I am, not for who my parents are. Can you say the same thing? And the one person that would do just about anything for me is right there," she said, pointing at Yumi who was now standing in the doorway, looking on confusedly as Katsura-san was making her hasty departure. "Come on Yumi-san," she said as she grabbed the pigtailed girl's arm and turned her around, "we need to go to the faculty office and get an exterminator. Too bad they can't exterminate the two-legged vermin in the class."
"Ehhh?" Yumi squeaked as she was forcefully turned around and pushed down the hallway towards the faculty office. "Katsura-san, what is this about? Why do we need an exterminator?"
Katsura sighed and explained about the prank as they headed down the hall.
"Ah, you shouldn't have worried about me, Katsura-san," Yumi protested. "I know how much you wanted to be accepted by those girls. If all it took was a little squeal from me when a lizard jumped out of my locker, well, it's only a small price to pay."
"It's too high a price as far as I'm concerned," Katsura mumbled. "You deserve so much better, Yumi-chan. With all you do for everyone in that class, including most of those girls, you deserve an award; not to have some nasty prank pulled on you."
They reached the faculty office and Katsura explained to their homeroom teacher what had almost occurred. Of course, by the time they got back to the classroom the offending lizard had been extricated from the locker and promptly deposited out the first floor window to scurry off into the bushes so no evidence was available. Everyone denied that there was ever a lizard or anything else placed in Yumi's locker and the teacher had no choice but to let everyone off with a stern warning against playing pranks.
Yumi was not shocked by any of it. She had had pranks pulled on her since her first year in elementary school. No one had ever really been punished for them and it had become an accepted part of her school life. No, what really shocked her had been Katsura-san's actions. She had taken Yumi's side over that of the popular girls in the class; the same group of girls that she had so desperately wanted to be accepted by. No one had ever done something like that for Yumi and she was unsure of exactly how to react in this situation.
"I'm sorry, Yumi-chan," Katsura said from the seat in front of her. The dark haired girl turned around to look at her. "They should have been punished, but they had too much time to get rid of the evidence."
"Ah, i-it's not your fault, Katsura-san and . . . um . . . I-I want to say thank you for everything. Y-you didn't have to do that for me . . . b-but you did . . . and I want you to know how much I appreciate it . . . and . . . and," Yumi was almost in tears trying to somehow convey how thankful she was that someone, for probably the first time in her life, had thought of her first and not of themselves.
"It's alright, Yumi-chan," Katsura smiled, putting her hand on top of Yumi's where it lay on her desk and giving it a gentle squeeze. "You mean more to me than they ever will."
And that simple statement was enough to send Yumi over the edge. The tears started to fall in earnest and were quickly joined by sobs that started to choke her throat.
"Sensei, can I take Yumi-san to the infirmary, please?" Katsura called from her seat. At the teacher's concerned and knowing nod she took her friend by the hand and led her out of the room and down the hall once more, this time in the direction of the infirmary but actually only as far as the first stairwell before she pushed Yumi down into a sitting position on the stairs and sat down beside her.
"Yumi-chan, you are just too easy a mark. You spend too much time alone, you don't make any friends, and you don't join in any of the general conversations about boys, or movies, or idols, or whatever. So from now on you will be eating your lunch with me and I'm going to watch over you. Understand?"
"B-but," Yumi tried to say through her tears, "w-what about the others? If you hang around with me too much, you'll j-just get pushed away by them."
"If they don't see the good in you, Yumi-chan, then I don't want any part of them. That Asami-san acts so high and mighty just because of her parents. Well, almost everyone in this school's parents are just as important as her's are if not more so. I don't know what I ever saw in her and her little clique in the first place. She may be pretty, with that long wavy blonde hair and those blue eyes of hers, but it's probably just a dye job and tinted contacts." That comment got a chuckle out of Yumi as she had finally started to calm down.
"K-Katsura-san . . . um . . . I don't know if I am worthy enough, b-but . . . would . . . would you mind i-if I were to c-call you my f-f-f-friend," Yumi barely squeaked out.
Katsura smiled and took Yumi into her arms and gave her a hug, "Yumi-chan, I have never been anything but your friend. And it would be a great honor to me if you considered me one of your friends."
"H-how a-about m-my only f-friend?" Yumi asked quietly.
"Yumi-chan, you have a lot more friends than you think," Katsura said with a smile.
Yumi just hugged her back and let the tears start to flow again, she was so happy.
She had a friend; and she even called her 'Yumi-chan'!
That afternoon, as the two girls stopped to pray in front of the stone statue of the Virgin Mary, or Maria-sama as she is affectionately called by all of the high school students as they routinely stopped to say their own prayers on their way to and from school, Yumi thanked the Madonna for providing her with a friend like Katsura-san and she promised to try to be worthy of the girl's friendship.
"Um, Katsura-san," Yumi asked shyly as the slender, brown eyed girl standing beside her finished her own prayers, "w-what do friends do?"
-oo-
"I swear that I will get my revenge on those two," Asami-san said vehemently as she stomped along the cobbled path followed closely behind by her two lieutenants, Haruka and Mariko.
"Well, Asami-sama, you did . . ." Haruka tried to say.
"I did what, Haruka?" Asami interrupted the girl. "Tried to pull a harmless little prank against a little nobody that is not fit to eat the leavings from my table?" she asked warming up to her tirade. "Hell, that little pissant should be thanking me for even acknowledging her existence! She is so far below me that she is not even worth my spitting on her! She and that Katsura too! They are both so low that if the school hadn't taken them in they would be wards of the state! Right now they would be sitting in some filthy public school and not dirtying up our precious Lillian!"
"I-if they are so beneath you, Asami-sama, and of course they are, then wouldn't it be better to simply ignore them?" Mariko tried to say.
"They accused me . . . ME . . . in front of my friends, and to a teacher no less! No Mariko, that is beyond acceptable! That is totally unforgivable and they must be punished!"
Haruka and Mariko just looked at each other behind their leader's back and shrugged. They both knew from experience that when Asami-sama was like this there was no talking to her.
Shimako Todou, the new Rosa Gigantea en Bouton since she had accepted the rosary of the current Rosa Gigantea, Sei Satou, simply listened to the ranting of the blonde girl as she walked a good twenty paces behind the three. In fact it was hard not to hear the obstreperous student. Normally she would have simply ignored her, but she was talking about getting revenge on two young ladies that Shimako personally liked and admired.
Both Yumi-san and Katsura-san were orphans, brought up by the church and living in the school dorm. Both girls also made good grades, in fact Yumi-san's were at the top in the class, and were well liked by others. Even more so, Yumi-san had gone out of her way on more than one occasion to help Shimako and all of her other classmates when they had needed a helping hand. Shimako thought the world of Yumi and, if she had been a little more outgoing herself, would have long ago tried to befriend the sweet girl.
No, this was one situation that she could not ignore. She had been planning on going straight home since there was no formal meeting of the Yamayurikai, the school's student council of which, as Rosa Gigantea en Bouton, she was now a member. Instead she turned on her heel and started heading to the Rose Mansion, home of the Yamayurikai and, if she was in luck, the place where she would find her onee-sama, Sei.
-oo-
"And that's everything, onee-sama," Shimako said as she finished explaining the situation to her grande soeur.
Sei Satou, Rosa Gigantea and thus one of the three elected Roses that made up the Lillian Girl's Academy high school student council along with the Rosa Chinensis and Rosa Foetida, nodded her head from where she sat on the windowsill of one of the four windows in the meeting room on the second floor of the Rose Mansion before glancing up and giving Shimako a smile. She and Shimako had only been soeurs for a few short months, but she adored her petite soeur even though she often did not seem to show it. Shimako's steady, serene nature and calm, lovely smile provided her a peace that she rarely found in her daily life. Sei currently wore the mask of the school flirt and prankster, but it had not always been that way. Shimako seemed to understand the true "Sei" underneath the public façade. Even more importantly, at least to Sei, Shimako accepted her for who and what she was, both public and private, without any questions or reservations. She had become Sei's rock, and to see her rock tremble was something that Sei would not allow.
"You were right to bring this to my attention Shimako-chan," she said. "I know the upstart first-year you are talking about and she has caused problems for more than one girl here since she entered high school. In fact, if I remember correctly she had issues even in middle school. I don't know this Katsura-chan or Yumi-chan that you are talking about, but I trust your judgment and if you say they are good people and not deserving of whatever it is this girl plans, then they are; simple as that," she said with a shrug as if it were self-evident. "You say that they are both orphans staying at the school dorm? Hmm, I wonder what Sister Agatha might have to say about this situation, although it sounds like going to anyone in authority would probably be the worst thing we could do for them right now. Well, Sister Agatha has never been one to stand on authority," she grinned.
"Well," the tall girl with short, shaggy blonde hair and piercing grey eyes said as she jumped down from her perch on the windowsill, "as members of the student council it is our responsibility to see to the well being of all of the students here at Lillian. Personally, I think that also would include being sure to teach one Asami Kamakura-san exactly where she stands in the natural order of things, but I can't make that decision on my own. Or at least I shouldn't," she smirked, causing Shimako to giggle. She knew Sei well enough to know that if she wanted to teach Asami-san a lesson no amount of arguing from the other two Roses would make any difference to her. She would simply do it and take her lumps afterwards, assuming that she didn't end up being praised instead.
"You don't think they will try anything as soon as tomorrow or the next day do you Shimako-chan?" she asked her angelic petite soeur. Shimako had wavy dark blonde hair that shone in the sunlight and blue-grey eyes that sparkled when she was happy, which was most of the time. She was also so beautiful that she was often referred to as "the Angel of Lillian." Sei, on the other hand, while beautiful in her own right, often came across as more masculine than most of the girls on campus. The fact that she was an avowed lesbian and would flirt with anything in skirts, except for her petite soeur, simply added to her extreme reputation.
"No, I don't think they will try anything so soon after being publically accused, onee-sama," Shimako replied thoughtfully. "Everyone would know that that they were behind it and that would not be good for Asami-san's image. I think we have at least a few days if not a week before she will try to take her revenge."
"Good girl," Sei complimented her, "that is exactly what I was thinking as well. So we have some time to try to put the fear of Maria-sama into her and get her to back off. Or if not Maria-sama," Sei said with an evil grin, "then the next best thing; the fear of Ogasawara-sama."
"Oh my," Shimako giggled behind her hand, "onee-sama, are you sure you want to pull out the big guns this quickly?"
"Actually, from what you say about this Yumi-chan," Sei smiled, "I think it might not be a bad thing for her to meet our good Rosa Chinensis en Bouton."
"Oh, onee-sama, you really are wicked, aren't you," Shimako said with an answering grin.
"Only when I want to be, Shimako-chan," she smiled.
At that moment, across town at the Ogasawara estate, a certain raven haired beauty with sapphire blue eyes shivered as if someone had walked on her grave.
"Are you alright, Ojou-sama," her maid asked as she brushed Sachiko's waist length, blue-black hair.
"I'm fine, thank you very much," she replied off-handedly, wondering privately who it was that was speaking evil of her at that moment.
-oo-
The next day was Saturday, a short school day, and Yumi usually spent her afternoons in the Library working on next week's homework, studying for the next round of exams, or looking for books that she could take back to her dorm room for simple pleasure reading. She enjoyed romance novels, but she was also happy reading history books, biographies, fiction, horror, suspense, and action novels. While sci-fi and fantasy were not her favorite genres, even there she had some authors that she liked. She especially liked reading the stories by David Weber about Honor Harrington. Now there was a strong woman that knew exactly what she wanted and how to go about getting it. And she loved the whole idea of the fiercely loyal and empathic treecats.
But this was also her first Saturday with having a friend, and she was unsure of what she should do. Should she ask Katsura-san if she wanted to go out for tea and a cake-set? She wasn't sure where she would go to get something like that. She actually wasn't even sure what it was, although she assumed it had something to do with cake. She had simply heard the phrase from some of her classmates. Or maybe she should invite her new friend to a movie? It was so frustrating at times like these when she didn't know what to do. Yumi was not really a social person so anything related to a social setting outside the dorm was beyond her experience.
She was so confused about the whole thing that she missed the call to stand and bow to the teacher at the end of class. Her chair scraped loudly as she quickly stood and bowed, causing a few girls to turn to look at her and giggle while Katsura-san gave her a concerned look. She sighed. Just what she needed – more drama!
As the girls were gathering their things and preparing to head home, Katsura turned around and asked, "Is everything alright, Yumi-chan?"
Yumi still could not get over the fact of being called 'Yumi-chan'. It warmed her heart like nothing had in such a long time.
"I-I'm fine, Katsura-san," she stammered and bent over to pick up her belongings, hoping to hide the blush she felt creeping up her neck. "D-did you want to walk home together or . . . or maybe go somewhere . . . f-for tea?"
"Ah, I'm sorry, Yumi-chan," Katsura apologized profusely. "I have club activities this afternoon. Can I please ask for a rain-check? Tea sounds wonderful, but I really have to go to this meeting today."
"That's right. Katsura-san is in the tennis club, right?" Yumi asked.
"That's right," the short haired girl grinned. "I want to get good enough to maybe turn professional when I get out of college. Well, probably not, since all of the great tennis players started out really young," she giggled, "but I at least want to be able to hold my own during the inter-school and regional tournaments."
"Are there any tournaments coming up soon, Katsura-san," Yumi asked, trying desperately to hide her disappointment. She probably didn't do a very good job of it since Katsura-san winced and apologized again, saying that the next tournament was two weeks away but would be held at another school.
"Oh, then you absolutely have to go to the meeting, and practice too," Yumi exclaimed, waving off the apology. "Um, if there is a tournament here at Lillian, would you mind if I came and cheered for you?"
"I'd love it, Yumi-chan! Thank you," Katsura said, taking and holding Yumi's hand for a moment before excusing herself and heading out to her tennis club meeting.
Yumi just stood there for a moment after waving good-bye to her friend, trying to realign her feelings and get back into her normal mode of . . . well, just back into her normal mode.
She was still trying when she heard her name being called, probably for the second or third time from the sound of the person's voice. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and turned to find Shimako-san looking at her with her usual, serene smile.
"Ah, I am sorry, Shimako-san, I was thinking about something else. Is there something that I can do for you?" she asked with a smile. Shimako was one of the few girls in class that Yumi had no problems getting along with. Even though she had become Rosa Gigantea en Bouton, Shimako was still the same down-to-earth and tranquil beauty she had always been. She and Yumi had spoken on a couple of occasions, usually with Shimako asking if she could help with some duty that Yumi had volunteered for. Yumi always thanked her kindly but said that she was fine doing it herself. The tasks Yumi usually volunteered for were not the ones that she would want Shimako-san to dirty herself with.
"Actually, Yumi-san, I was wondering if you had a few moments," Shimako asked her, "there is someone who wants to meet you."
"Someone who wants to meet me?" Yumi echoed incredulously. "Whoever would want to meet with me?"
"Ah, that would be me," she heard a strong, chuckling voice answer from the doorway to their classroom.
"R-Rosa Gigantea," Yumi stammered as the tall blonde seemed to simply suddenly appear in their doorway.
"You're right, Shimako-chan," Sei laughed, crossing her arms on her chest and leaning against the doorframe, "she does make some of the cutest faces. It's like her entire life is flowing past you on her features."
"Onee-sama!" Shimako squeaked in embarrassment. "I said no such thing. Please do not go putting words in my mouth. I simply said that Yumi-san had a . . . ah . . . very expressive face. I am very sorry, for my words and those of my onee-sama, Yumi-san," she apologized while trying not to giggle at the same time. Yumi thought it was very appealing. She certainly took no hurt from the girl's comments. She had been told since she was a child that anyone could know exactly what she was thinking simply by looking at her expressions.
"No apology is necessary, Shimako-san," Yumi said with a distinct blush, "You should never have to apologize for telling the truth."
"Amen to that sister," Sei-sama crowed. "I like this girl, Shimako-chan." Of course this comment simply caused Yumi to blush an even deeper shade of pink.
"W-what can I do for you, Rosa Gigantea?" Yumi stuttered.
"Let's take a walk, Yumi-chan," Sei grinned, taking the younger girl by the arm and guiding her down the hallway. "Have you ever been to the Rose Mansion?"
"Eeehh?" Yumi squeaked.