Ok guys.

I don't think that I will always be able to keep up with the length of the previous chapters. Things are getting busy what with Christmas rolling up and all and I'm pretty much finishing them on the day.

Yeah, yeah, I know...you'd forgotten about Christmas hadn't you :)

So yeah. Just a heads that's all.

Advent '08

December 3rd – 22 days to go

Wednesday.

That meant that today Kyoko would be spending all day in school, going to classes like any other teenager.

She also didn't want to, like any other teenager.

Yesterday Yashiro had specifically asked her to come to his office. He needed her help. They had come up with a plan.

Well....

Yashiro already seemed to have a plan. But that was beside the point. They had come up with a plan and Kyoko felt irritated at the thought that she couldn't be at L.M.E. and helping with that plan.

If she thought that she could get away with it she would just as easily skip school and go in today but she knew she couldn't. The president had gone to great trouble to arrange her schedule so that she could still get an education on top of her work demands and to be honest, she was grateful that he had. Nobody had ever really gone to such great lengths for her before and she didn't like to ask too much in case people thought her rude.

She grinned as she lay in bed.

So, although it was a little stifling having to do something when she really, really wanted to be doing something else she would go into school anyway.

Her decision made, Kyoko threw back her sheets and sprang out of bed. Grabbing her clothes she changed quickly, trying to keep as warm as possible in the cold morning air. She wasn't fast enough and she cursed under her breath as she shivered violently.

Making a face she pulled on her school sweatshirt and grabbed her bag from her chair. Checking her watch she strangled an oath when she realised that she was already running late and rushed out of her room. Clattering down the stairs she waved a good morning and a goodbye at her landlords before rushing out of the restaurant.

Not stopping, she swung herself onto her bike and peddled as fast as she could to try to make up for lost time. She might not want to go to school but there was no way that she was going to marr her record with a late mark.

She wouldn't want to repay what the president had done for her like that. It might not seem like much to others but it would feel like she was being ungrateful if she squandered one of the few gifts she had been given.

And she was anything if ungrateful.

She sped up and was pleased to see the school gates loom into view, students still chatting and laughing as they made their way into the building. As soon as she reached the gates she hopped off.

Brushing herself down she smiled in acknowledgement of the good mornings she received from the students she had come to know from class. Kyoko wheeled her bike through the gates and made her way behind the right wing to the bike shed.

Locking her bike away she stood and checked her watch.

Good, she had ten minutes before the bell rang. Tugging her skirt down she ran her hand through her hair, brushing in back into place from where the wind had tugged and tangled it. Checking her bag Kyoko jogged back towards the main entrance.

The chatter in the classroom was louder and more excited than normal. Kyoko glanced round uninterested. Her classmates had separated themselves into groups of two or three and were whispering between themselves. Every so often someone from one group would rush across to another.

Making her way through the throng she collapsed with a happy sigh into her chair. Dropping her bag down to her side she folded her arms on the desk and rested her forehead on them, letting the voices and noises of a normal school morning wash over her.

The click of the door had Kyoko jerking upright from her position. Standing with the rest of her class she made her good mornings to the teacher and sat down.

"Alright now class, settle down."

The students seemed to quieten down for a moment before the whispers started up again. Every so often one of the girls would giggle. Kyoko looked around in bemusement. She had absolutely no idea what was going on.

Why were her classmates acting like this?

Had she missed something important?

Glancing back to her teacher for some sort of confirmation only served to increase her confusion.

Her teacher, surveying the students in front of her just shook her head and sighed in reluctant acceptance.

Kyoko watched as she rustled around in her bag before bringing out the advanced maths textbook. Holding it to her chest she smiled sweetly at the class of students that were paying no attention to her.

Kyoko glanced around once more, her interest piqued.

Just what was going on?

And why was her teacher letting it go on so?

She froze as she looked back to the front of the class. Waves of dark energy seemed to be radiating off her Sensei. Kyoko shuddered at the sight.

Her teacher was still smiling but instead of making her look sweet it just made her look like she was going to kill something.

A bead of cold sweat trickled down the side of her face. Kyoko tried to wipe it away but she couldn't move, her eyes trained on the terrifying image of her teacher.

For some reason Kyoko knew that one wrong move on her part would unleash the wrath of her teacher.

She also knew that that would be a very, very bad idea.

With every second that ticked by without the students paying attention to what was happening at the front of the room the tension mounted. After two minutes had passed without the teacher saying anything Kyoko's nerves were shot and she was trembling as every muscle in her body clenched in fear.

When the teacher opened her mouth Kyoko actually flinched in anticipation, watching with barely hidden terror as the teacher raised the book above her head and brought it down onto the desk with as much power as she could summon.

The loud crack had every student jumping in shock. As one the whole class seemed to swivel around to look back at the front of the room.

The teacher stood, her head bowed and her hands still curled around the book. She raised her head, still wearing her smile and as one, the whole class shuddered in horror.

"Alright now class, settle down." She said through gritted teeth. This time every student sat facing forward and you could have heard a pin drop in the sudden silence.

The teacher exhaled before straightening and flicking a lock of hair that had fallen out of her bun out of her face.

"Right. I know you are all still excited about the news from yesterday but I would ask you to not disrupt my class even further with your discussion of it?"

She glanced around at the wide-eyed faces of her charges before nodding. "Good. Now, if you could all turn to page fifty six in your textbooks. I expect you to have finished the chapter by the end of the class."

She narrowed her eyes at them once more. Seeing everyone rush to do what she asked she moved and sat at her desk.

Kyoko let out a shaky breath in relief when she thought it was safe to do so. She had never noticed before how scary her teacher could be; she had always seemed so kind and easy-going before now.

Pulling out her textbook Kyoko flipped to the correct page and bowed her head as she began to try and figuring out the answers to the problems. It wasn't easy because as much as she tried to concentrate on maths the more she wondered just what had been announced yesterday to create such an atmosphere within the student population.

---/---

As soon as the bell rang for lunch Kyoko rushed out of the room and away from the tense atmosphere that had prevailed the entire morning.

Bringing along her lunch she made her way outside to try and find a spot where she could eat in peace. After five minutes of searching she found a bench underneath the bare branches of a cherry blossom tree and sat down.

It was freezing but thinking on it, she would rather eat her lunch in the cold than sit inside with her classmates and that strange atmosphere.

"Itadakimatsu."

Breaking apart her chopsticks she dug into her rice, enjoying her bento. While she was eating she thought about what she had overheard.

She knew that something had been announced yesterday, probably in the afternoon when she had been working at L.M.E. as she was sure that she would remember something being announced in the morning.

She also knew that whatever had been announced was big news. Even bigger than normal.

It took a lot to work an entire school of people working in the entertainment industry up and yet, that is what had happened. In every classroom and in every hallway both male and female students were whispering excitedly between themselves.

It made Kyoko wish that she had her own gaggle of close friends so that she could easily ask what was going on instead of having to go up to an acquaintance and look like a fool for asking about something that seemed to be popular and common knowledge.

Kyoko sighed. Her curiosity was killing her but she didn't really know who from her classmates to ask.

She'd ask the teacher but...

She shuddered as she remembered her teacher from that morning.

...yeah, that wasn't a good idea. If one teacher acted like that then all of them could and they were probably all going to be a little tense with all of their students ignoring them that morning in favour of gossiping amongst themselves.

No. Asking a teacher and possibly incurring their wrath was not the way to do this.

What she needed to do was to get close enough to a group to overhear what they were talking about and try and work it out from there. It was a good enough plan and with the knowledge that she obtained she could join a group and obtain even more facts.

She grinned at her own intelligence. The plan was foolproof, what could go wrong? All she needed to do was to find a place where she wouldn't be conspicuous and spy on her fellow students.

She chuckled to herself as she worked out the details before sneezing loudly.

Sniffling, Kyoko searched through her bag for a hanky and blew her nose. The first stage of her plan would to be to get in out of the cold and warm herself up before she made herself ill.

Finishing off the last few mouthfuls of food, she shoved her bento box into her bag and quickly made her way back into the warmth of the school. She sneezed again, drawing the attention of a group of girls who had been standing chatting in the hall. They stopped to stare at her as she walked past and Kyoko felt her cheeks heat up in embarrassment.

Her plan was not going to work if she kept sneezing conspicuously.

She sighed as she blew her nose again.

"I need to buy a coat."

---/---

The afternoon lessons did not go as well as the morning. Their teacher seemed to have become resigned to the fact that she couldn't stop the students from whispering and giggling between themselves.

Of course, this was perfect from Kyoko's point of view.

Instead of being uninterested in the gossip like she had been this morning, she feigned working to listen closely to the group of girls sitting behind her.

"It's all over the school!"

"I know! I've been talking to girls in two other classes."

"I can't believe he's coming here!"

"Well...it is the best choice isn't it?"

Kyoko frowned. The gossip being all over the school she could understand easily enough, she had seen that for herself.

But...just who was this 'He'? Why was this school the best choice? And just what was it the best choice for?

She needed more information. All eavesdropping had given her were more questions that needed answering.

Glancing up, she noticed that the teacher was looking over in her direction she made a few half-hearted attempts at writing own some answers, scribbling down a few words with her pen.

When she was sure that the teachers gaze and attention had moved on she concentrated again at the discussion being carried out behind her back.

"Best choice? Well...yeah I guess so. I'm just glad that I'm here!"

"I know! Forcing my parents to let me come here is making this all worth it now!"

"I can't believe we're actually going to see him!"

"He's so cool! I thought that I was never going to see him, not when I don't even belong to the same agency."

"Those bigger agencies are quite hard to get into."

Kyoko scribbled down another answer.

This 'He' that seemed to be coming to the school was apparently famous and, judging by the reaction of the girls, quite popular. He was also part of a large agency.

Kyoko tensed.

L.M.E. was a big industry...and it did contain a popular male star...

Kyoko's eyes widened. Was Ren coming to her school?

Was this part of Yashiro's plan?

Kyoko was overtaken by a sudden longing to be back at L.M.E. and talking with Yashiro. If Ren was coming to her school why had Yashiro not confided with her when he was outlining his plan?

Surely she deserved to be included in this?

It hurt her to think that Yashiro didn't trust her with this small detail.

If she had known she wouldn't have told anyone, she wouldn't have gossiped about him to her classmates.

Obviously, Yashiro had his reasons but Yashiro had called on her to help with his plan.

She bit her bottom lip in worry.

What was it about her that didn't inspire confidence?

She rubbed her forehead and concentrated one last time behind her. Now that she knew who was coming she didn't really need any more information but it always paid to be more safe than sorry.

"Never mind just seeing him...we could actually be working with him!"

"What?!"

"Yeah! Didn't you hear? It was all over Class Two."

"What is it? What do you mean working with him?"

"Well, apparently he's shooting a short video here..."

"That was why this school is the best choice."

"Because we're used to the working conditions in the industry?"

"Yeah."

"But still...working?"

"Yeah, I was getting to that. Well, apparently this video he's shooting, it's like...this high school winter romance thing..."

"No!"

"Yes! Anyway...they didn't want to pay to ferry over actors and actresses from their agency so, I heard, that they're asking selected students to play certain parts"

"Oh my God."

"I know! Isn't that so cool! By tomorrow we could be standing side by side with him!"

"A winter romance?"

"Yeah, he's playing the lead male character."

"Have they chosen the female?"

"No!"

"Oh my God! You mean one of us could be starring in a romance opposite him?!"

"Yeah!"

Kyoko flinched at the loud squeal of joy that all three girls made at exactly the same time.

The teacher glared at them and Kyoko hung her head and looked busy, hearing the group behind her do exactly the same thing. She had overheard some very big news and she needed to think about it.

Glancing down at her work, she grimaced.

She also needed to finish off her work as well.

---/---

Settling on her bed that evening, her uncompleted schoolwork scattered around her, Kyoko thought back on everything she had learnt today.

Ren would be coming to her school to shoot a video about a winter high school romance.

By the sound of it, it also seemed that he would be arriving tomorrow and that was what all the fuss was about.

It was odd, to say the least. In all the months that she had known him, Kyoko had never known Ren to take a part in a small video. Though, there was also the fact that she had only known him for a few months so she wasn't really a strong judge on what parts he usually did or didn't take.

Besides, this could all be a part of Yashiro's plan to get Ren to go to the award ceremony.

For all she knew the celebrities invited had to hand in some sort of small example of their work to get judged.

She didn't know, she had never watched or taken part in such a ceremony.

This brought her back to the fact that Ren was going to be shooting a video at her school.

If this was for the awards, then that must mean that Yashiro had somehow convinced Ren to go, or at least convinced him to enter in an example of his work to be judged.

Either way it meant that Ren was not completely adverse to the whole thing.

This brought her to her next thought. If Ren was going to go, then why did Yashiro enlist her help yesterday?

It was all very confusing.

And it still hurt when she thought that Yashiro didn't trust her enough to keep the secret of Ren filming.

Obviously she wouldn't have told anyone, but seeing as the school told the students anyway Kyoko just didn't understand why Yashiro didn't tell her. It made her feel a little left out.

She worked at the same agency as Ren. She should've known that he was coming before her classmates.

She sniffed desolately and rubbed her nose before sighing in frustration and picking up her pen and her maths work.

It was all very well to dwell on her thoughts but they weren't getting her anywhere. Tomorrow was Thursday. That meant that she would be at L.M.E. the entire afternoon.

She would just go up and talk to Yashiro then, ask him why he didn't confide in her.

Until then, the school work that she had neglected in favour of getting the latest gossip called to her.

She had a long night ahead of her.

R&R please :)

DS