Eighteen

The unexpected event had arrived to the Astrea schools. All three Student Council Presidents had been informed of this event but the administrations of the schools. They were to carry it out within the next couple of weeks, and since this would be an event between the three all girls school and two all boys schools, they had to come up with an activity that would get the girls and the boys to mingle with one another. The Student Council Presidents had thought it to be ridiculous but since they were the only three that thought it was, they weren't quite sure if the rest of the girls would think the same. Of course, they had no problem interacting with males, but those males were only from their families and they weren't strangers. So, how were they to interact with a bunch of males from another school that they hadn't met, or heard before? That was why they were stuck in the meeting room a little longer than usual on a Wednesday afternoon. Classes had been over and curfew was so far away. The only problem was that the Etoile didn't seem to even care what event the other three had come up with. As long as she didn't have to watch Nagisa being sweep off of her feet by some idiotic male, she was fine with it.

"Ballroom dancing." St Spica Student Council President said with a straight face. Her life away from the male population had been good so far, and she would rather have to worry about it after she'd graduate from high school, not now. Her family had somewhat of a high expectation when it'd come to her marriages. And in all honesty, she had never once thought of having a man as her spouse. Then again, she had never once thought of settling down when she hadn't achieved anything in her life yet.

St Lulim Student Council President just watched Toumori Shion's plain expression with an inaudible sigh. "I guess Toumori-san's idea is nice. A ballroom dancing so all of the girls and boys can get to know one another. However, what shall the theme be?" Once the question had been lifted into the air, ideas started to pour in Minamoto Chikaru's head that got her to be concerned about the size of her head being invaded by so many ideas.

"How about a Victorian theme?" Miyuki suggested. She knew that she hadn't even met her betrothal yet, but she had heard from her father that her husband-to-be was the same age as hers, though a few months older. She hadn't called home to tell her father about this ridiculous event yet. Her motive behind the upcoming phone call was to find out if her fiancé would be in one of these two all boys school.

Chikaru pouted a little at the theme. The Victorian theme would be nice and all, but where all the fun in that if they all had to dress up and just attend the dance. It would be much more fun if they had to guess who was who. That was when another idea struck her. She turned to beam at Miyuki before adding. "A Victorian Masquerade Theme! What do you guys think?"

"Masquerade?" Shion asked as she gave it a thought. Then she smiled and nodded in approval. "That sounds interesting. At least we should give these boys something to look forward to."

All eyes turned toward Hanazono Shizuma, the Etoile of the three schools, as they waited for the silver hair beauty's approval. Shizuma sighed and mentally shook her head. Everything that the council presidents had discussed about, she had to be dragged into it so the events or decisions could be carried out. She let her eyes roamed around the meeting table before giving out a small sigh. "I have absolutely no issues with a Victorian Masquerade Theme."

Shion and Miyuki only let out a small relief sigh as if Shizuma held the power to all of their decisions, while Chikaru only beamed in her seat. Now she had an extremely good excuse to design her own dresses and, of course, anyone else's dresses if they even trusted her to design the dress for them. Since it was going to be in a couple of weeks, she had to start on designing them soon and actually making them. Oh, this was going to be very fun for her.

The meeting finally finished and Shizuma finally could have some time to breathe. She knew that she had to help out with the decoration and preparation of the event soon, but right now all she wanted to do was breathe and find Nagisa. The curfew was an hour and a half away, so she knew that Nagisa would be around outside of the dorm somewhere. She began to search her memories of where Nagisa would most likely be, and when the Greenhouse came into mind, she smiled and started heading towards the place. On the way there she had noticed the Roses to be quite close to one another except for two other Roses. While the other Roses had paired up, only the youngest White Rose and the oldest Yellow Rose were the single ones. Now she wasn't one to meddle with these kinds of things. Then again, she wasn't one to meddle at all! But because of her curiosity she stopped just outside the lounging area and looked towards where the Roses were gathering. Toudou Shimako and Torii Eriko were sitting quietly sipping their tea, while the other Roses were chattering away. Eriko would put in a few comments here and there, while Shimako only sat there and observed everyone with a serene smile.

"Etoile-sama?"

Shizuma quickly tore her eyes away from the Roses and turned to look at the girl that she was just about to go and look for. A smile naturally appeared on her beautiful features and soon enough got the red head to blush adorably. "Hello, Nagisa. Were you just passing by or am I blocking your way inside?"

Nagisa quickly shook her head before smiling up at the silver hair beauty before her. "No, no, not at all!" The taller girl chuckled amusedly as the girl stumbled over her words. "Umm…Would it be alright with you…Can I -"

"Nagisa-chan!" A bright and cheerful voice called out from inside the lounging area. When the two girls turned to look inside, they saw Tamao quickly approaching toward them. The red head let out a sigh and just shrugged the disappointment off. Her friend couldn't have picked the right time to interrupt them.

"Tamao-chan…"

The red head's roommate came up to the two girls and smiled happily at Nagisa, then turned to give Shizuma the look that said 'She's mine'. "Come on, everyone is waiting for you!" The blue hair girl said as she grabbed a hold of Nagisa's hand before pulling the girl away from Shizuma. The silver hair beauty just watched on with an amused smile on her face until she turned away from the lounging area, the amused smile had quickly being replaced by an annoyed frown. She rarely could spend some time with Nagisa, and when she actually had some free time Tamao had to turn up and steal the object of her affection away. Well, she hoped that during the event, she'd get to have Nagisa all to herself.

Friday came that week and the event proposal had been announced publicly on the Strawberry Dorm's notice board. The majority of the girls were excited about the dance, not to mention about the boys as well. They may have girl crushes on the popular girls at school, but not all of them were actually interested in girls. They also never judged those that were interested in girls, not when most of those girls were the ones that they admired and looked up to. Well, while they were excited about the event that would happen in just a couple of weeks, the girls that already had girlfriends or were about to confess their feelings to one another didn't feel like they should be attending at all. Unfortunately, since all students were obligated to attend any sort of events that the three schools had to offer for them, they had to attend whether they wanted to or not. Among all the students there, Ogasawara Sachiko. Of course the heiress had to attend such formal parties that her mother had hosted and demanded her presence, she still wasn't too happy with all the men ogling at her like she was a piece of meat to them. Since their faces were no strangers to her, and they were in her family's venue, she didn't feel as afraid as having to actually speak to a man that was a stranger to her.

"Sachiko."

The heiress looked up at her Onee-sama from her teacup. "Yes, Onee-sama?"

Youko smiled softly at her petite soeur before she reached over and grasped at the girl's hand gently. "I know that you don't like to attend to events with boys that you don't know. However, you do know that you can't turn away from this dance, don't you?"

Sachiko sighed. "Yes, it is one of the school's obligation." Even though she wasn't one to admit defeat, she couldn't erase the school's rules.

Yumi reached over to place a hand atop of her Onee-sama's hand. "I'll be there, Onee-sama. I'll be by your side until the dance ends."

Sachiko squeezed the hand of her petite soeur and turned to smile at the younger girl. "Thank you, Yumi."

Youko retracted her hand and leaned back with a small smile. She was happy to see that her petite soeur had found someone to love and actually be loved in return. That only got her to think of the date on Sunday with Sei. So she turned her head over to gaze at Sei as the taller girl happily chatted with Shimako. When the blonde noticed Youko looking at her, she flashed a charming smile at the short dark hair girl making the latter to turn her head away to hide her blush. Sei chuckled as she turned to chat with Shimako once more.

"It's a Victorian Masquerade Theme!" Yoshino said excitedly as she started to bounce in her seat. Rei just shook her head at her cousin's giddy behavior. "Should we go shopping? Oooh, what should we wear?"

Yumi turned to look at her friend and soon enough she quickly found herself bouncing in her seat too. However, she stopped when Sachiko shot her a look that got the pigtailed girl to blush and halted her excitement. That didn't stop Yoshino to still be excited about the dance that was going to happen in two weeks. And that excitement didn't go unnoticed by a particularly Student Council President, Minamoto Chikaru. She was just passing through to go to where Kagome was sitting when she overheard the excited conversation from Yoshino. She giggled to herself before she turned to face the Roses.

"Good day everyone." She said cheerfully as the Roses looked up at returned the greeting with a smile. "I was passing by when I hear all the excitement coming from Yoshino-chan and Yumi-chan and I couldn't help but to stop by and possibly…pitch in." She added with a little giggle as Yumi joined her.

"Chikaru-sama, we were just discussing about the dresses." Yoshino said with her eyes sparkled with excitement.

"Dresses? Ooh, can I help in that department?" Chikaru asked as she clasped her hand together with a hopeful look.

"Help?" Eriko asked as she tilted her head to the side. "How can you help, Chikaru?"

Chikaru smiled with a hint of mischievous in her eyes. "I can design the dresses."

That was then that Yoshino stood up from her seat and went straight to Chikaru. The younger girl then clasped the Lulim's Student Council President by the hands and started to bounce in her place. "Really? Can you help me design mine?"

The long beautiful ebony hair girl smiled at braided brunette girl before her. 'She's so full of life!' Thought Chikaru as she giggled at the girl's reaction to her being able to design dresses. "Of course, do you have any ideas on what you might want your dress to look like?"

Yoshino paused to think for a short moment before she nodded. "Yes! When can we start, Chikaru-sama?"

While the girls chattered away about their dresses, the other Roses just looked on with amused looks on their faces. They were anxious about seeing one another's dresses. They already had an idea on what they wanted in a dress. All they had to do was go shopping for it or actually join up with Yoshino and Chikaru in designing their own. However, there was only one Rose member knew that she wasn't going to be wearing a dress because of a cousin of hers. The girl wanted her to wear a tuxedo, that was for sure. The Rosa Foetida en bouton let out a sigh that her grande soeur heard from sitting next to her. The older Rosa Foetida placed a hand on her petite soeur's shoulder and smiled softly when the younger blonde turned to look at her.

"Is there something troubling you, Rei-chan?" Eriko asked in mild concern.

Rei shook her head as the corner of her lips lifted up into a small smile. "Nothing, Onee-sama. Absolutely nothing."

Even though Eriko refused to take that as an answer but she left it as it was now. Later during the next week she'd probably going to find out anyway. One way or another.

A/N

Okay, I don't know what I'm thinking, but they need some nice event other than just waltz through the school days with unnecessary drama, right? :3