AN: Gawd I'm tired… Writing fanfics while being bombarded with homework is… tiring… yeah… *sighs* Fanfics are now my first priority. Writing in first person is soooo hard. I keep wanting to slip into third… School starts for Serena in this chapter! Peace out!

(Mitsuru Okita is 沖田 美鶴)

Chapter 2: Buttercups

"You know, Ilixo, that if you touch a buttercup to your chin and it rubs off on you, your chin turns yellow and it means you'll have good luck for the rest of the week! Buttercups are really, really pretty. They're yellow, small and fragile, but beautiful."

"Really? Let's go try that now!" There was a pattering of footsteps.

"Hey! Wait up! There aren't any buttercups anywhere near here, you know?" The footsteps stopped.

"Aw… Then why'd you tell me?"

"Well, when I grow up, I want to live next to a field of buttercups and… you can be my next-door neighbour and we can play in the fields all day long!"

"Hahaha… When we grow up, we won't be interested in that kind of stuff anymore… But I think that a field of buttercups will be quite an amazing sight, don't you?"

"Urg… This is horrible…"

Standing in front of the mirror, I looked at myself wearing my new school uniform. Me and dresses don't go. Everyone knew that! Me and skirts? Kill me now.

Our girl's uniform was a simple white blouse with a short, cream-colored short skirt, a red bow tie, a cream-colored sweater, and two sets of shoes, one for indoors one for out. Along with that, I wore a pair of black stockings, but left my ruby pendant on my desk. I sighed, deciding to deal with it. I looked quite good in a skirt, actu- no. I didn't look like me.

Glancing at the clock, I realized that I should be going with an 'Oh Shi-' and a fumbling of my stuff. I grabbed my single strapped bag and slung it over my shoulder, bolting down the stairs. My mom was calling me. I rushed into the kitchen and got a piece of toast before joining my mom at the front door with a shout of 'Bye, Dad!' Since I didn't know the way to school, mom was driving me. She looked irritated and I gave a sheepish smile as I climbed into the back of our large, shiny, new, red, family car. Mom started the engine and we headed off for school.

My mom was a Chinese woman, actually, my dad being the side which carried the blood that made me look foreign. Mom was tall and skinny with slightly curled, shoulder length black hair and mysterious black eyes. She was silent as she drove. She had to talk with the class teacher before getting me settled in since I was a little special. One, I didn't come to the opening ceremony held a few days ago (that wasn't really the start of school, just introductions), two, I transferred from America and, three, my Japanese was only so-so. I could communicate with Japanese due to taking classes back in America, but my writing and reading were all 'meh'. My mom had assured me that I'd be in the same class as Kayleigh, so I wasn't too worried about school.

After arriving, mom parked in the car park, many other students giving us curious looks. The only other student in this school who arrived by car was Kayleigh. The school was quite big with large front gates. The senior high-school building was a white building with three floors and places for P.E. class were scattered around behind it. There was an outside corridor that led to the junior high-school building which also had three floors. It wasn't as big as the school I went to back in America, but still pretty large. Me and Kay called them middle school and high-school out of habit.

Luckily, we didn't have to climb any stairs after walking in and we went to the teacher's office, but not before we changed shoes. As we walked in, we saw a silver-haired boy talking to a teacher. My mom and I waited behind them. The silver haired teen gave one last nod before backing off and letting my mom talk to the teacher. It was the kid I had seen yesterday at Udagawa. He smirked at me and I frowned back before trying to listen to the conversation my mother was having with the teacher. However, something caught my eye. A buttercup! It was sitting in a lonely vase off to the side and I marvelled at it. I've never know why, but buttercups have always been my favourite flower. Back in England, when Kayleigh and I had nothing to do, we'd go hang out in the buttercup field near our houses and just sit there and chat. We'd test our luck my touching the buttercup to our chins. It was always fun even if we never truly believed in this luck test. I smiled as I gazed at the buttercup before feeling an intense gaze burning into the side of my head. I twitched and glanced at the boy. He was staring with that same look of anger and confusion again, but there was a hint of sorrow in his gaze this time. When he caught me looking, he smirked again, annoying me.

Soon, my mom had finished her chat with the teacher, Mr. Kanagawa, and he led us to the lockers, where we put our outdoor shoes before going to the classroom. Mr. Kanagawa was a young man with short black hair and piercing black eyes. He looked more mature than his expression was. One look of him told me that I was going to enjoy his classes. He told us to wait outside before we were called to come in. So we did. While I was idle, I had a good look at the boy's uniform. Pfft. Their uniform was so much better in my opinion.

The boy next to me wore a plain white, short sleeved shirt with dark grey pants, a dark grey tie and a short-sleeved cream boy's sweater. He caught me staring, again, and smirked, again.

"What's with the stare, Yuki-chan?" he asked, twirling a lock of silver hair. I raised an eyebrow.

"Yuki?" I interrogated, "My name's Serena Clarks, thank you very much, and I was only looking at the boy's uniform of this school. Not you…"

"Oh? That's truly heart-breaking… hee…" the boy said, "As for Yuki, since your name is 100 percent English, it's kind of hard to call you by your last name… And your name does have 'Snow' in it."

"You could just call me Serena… Instead of giving me a nickname…" I suggested. The boy paused and widened his eyes before breaking into silent giggles. "What?" I demanded, frowning. I was liking this boy less and less no matter how cute or feminine he looked.

"Oh, Yuki-chan, didn't you know that only very close friends or couples call each other by their first names in Japan?" he asked, containing his laughter, "Unless you really do want me to call you that…"

"We just call each other by our first names in America and England. What's so romantic about that?"

The boy stayed silent for a moment, studying me with a smile on his face. "Hee hee… Who knows?" he then said, pissing me off even more.

"Plus, you could just call me Ms. Clarks or something if you think the English way of addressing people is too odd," I then suggested, turning to look at the closed door. Wasn't the teacher done yet? I couldn't stand another moment of being here with this creepy boy who had a girly giggle.

"… Fine then. I'll just call you Serena," he finally decided. The creep was about to say something else, but the door opened and the teacher beckoned for us to come in. We came in.

As we did, there were three things I noticed at once, but one after the other. The first was Kayleigh, smiling happily at me, the second was a very shocked looking, very familiar orange-haired boy, staring at the guy next to me, and the third was that a girl with short brown hair and glasses was looking at the creepy guy with the same expression as the orange-haired guy.

"These two new students will be joining us from today onwards. Neither had a chance to attend the opening ceremony. I hope you'll get along," the teacher said. Then Mr. Kanagawa turned to us. "Now why don't you two introduce yourselves?"

"Ladies first… Hee hee…" the silveret whispered at me, making me frown and cross my arms before putting on a charming smile.

"Exactly why you should go first. Please do," I replied.

"Why, you're quite the gentleman. Hee hee… Don't mind if I do," the boy smiled back and I mentally groaned. What was wrong with him? "Hajimemashite*. I'm Yoshiya Kiryu, but Mother and Father call me Joshua, and I guess you all can call me that, too… Hee hee…" What the-? He had an English name, too, and was urging people to call him by it, so why all the fuss with my name? A few of girls began chattering excitedly. Uh… what?

I sighed and scanned the classroom. Despite having to stand in front of all these people, I wasn't nervous one bit. "My name is Serena Clarks. I transferred here from America. Yorosiko**," I introduced myself, giving a light smile. No time for being pissed at this dude. Time to be happy and try to understand people and make some new friends!

Uh… Scratch that idea. That sounded cheesy.

The teacher sent me to sit beside Kayleigh and sent Joshua to sit next to someone called Neku Sakuraba as well as telling them to give each of us a tour of the school during lunch break. Neku didn't look very happy, having Joshua next to him, and I couldn't blame the kid. Josh was as annoying as a thorn in your side. I couldn't wait until lunch break and it came quickly, as we barely did anything class-like during our first day of class.

Turns out, Kayleigh was good friends with the brown-haired girl and another redhead, called Shiki and Eri respectively. Shiki and Eri were good friends with Neku and Neku and Shiki seemed to know the Joshua kid. Shiki and Eri decided to tag along with the tour and Neku mingled in, not wanting to be left alone with Joshua. Neku was pretty quiet while Eri and Kayleigh showed us the school after having lunch and Shiki seemed uncomfortable.

"… And these are the tennis courts!" Eri concluded cheerfully.

"Hey, Serena, what club are you joining?" Kayleigh asked.

"Wha'ja think? Archery, of course, Kay. It's fun," I replied.

"Aw… All three of us, me, Eri, Shiki are all in fashion design. Why don't you join? You're good at creative stuff," Kayleigh suggested.

"Yeah, but, I think Archery would be fun. You know, try new stuff," I argued.

"Too bad then…" Eri sighed, "It'd be awesome to have another in the club. What about you, Josh?"

"Me?" Joshua seemed surprised, "Fashion design does sound interesting… Hee hee…"

"What!?" Neku demanded, looking somewhat horrified.

Joshua smirked at him and twirled a lock of silver hair. "I was just kidding, Nekky," he crooned. Neku sighed and looked pissed, "If I were to go to any club, I think I'd go to archery, too, actually…"

Now it was my turn to be horrified. I sighed. Was he trying to stalk me or something? Oh well, this wouldn't make me give up archery. Archery was held near to the patch of buttercups the gardening club had planted, so I could see them every day if I had archery, and I didn't need to go past that place if I didn't have archery. "Great…" I muttered, rolling my eyes. Perhaps I could figure out the reason this kid was so annoying, but that didn't seem possible. "So… Neku. What club are you in?" I asked, deciding to make friends.

Neku seemed a little uncomfortable. Oops. I had called him by his first name. To me it seemed as if Neku, Josh and Shiki were quite close, though Neku didn't admit it. "Uh… I have art. Graffiti art," he said. I frowned. There was a club like that? I did see him looking at CAT's work though. A fan of graffiti art?

The bell rang.

"We'd better get back," Shiki finally spoke. We all agreed and went back for the afternoon classes.

* - A formal greetings in Japanese, 'Nice to meet you' Literally translates into 'First time meeting you'

** - A formal greetings in Japanese. Literally translates into 'Take care of me'

Chan is the suffix for the names of girls around the same age as you.