From last time…

Lavinia looked around the tennis court, searching for the person she wanted to see. Then, Lavinia saw the person she was searching for coming out from the corner of the changing room. Lavinia grew a bright smile.

"Ryoma-chan!" Lavinia happily called.

Ryoma stopped and rose her head to see Lavinia in front of her.

"Miyabi-…senpai…" Ryoma said, tilting her head.

Hearing Ryoma calling her back, Lavinia's mood brightened and she felt happier than she was before seeing Ryoma.

"Miyabi-senpai…" Ryoma said.

Before Lavinia could talk, someone interrupted them.

"Ochibi-chan, are you coming now? We are leaving," Kikumaru shouted, waving at her from the school gate.

"Ha-…" Ryoma stopped at Lavinia's sad expression. Letting Kikumaru waiting for moment, Ryoma asked. "Miyabi-senpai, is there anything I can do for you?"

"Ryoma-chan, can… can I talk with you a moment please?" Lavinia hesitated.

"Err…"

"Oi! Ochibi! Hayaku!!!" Kikumaru interrupted them again. Lavinia looked at Ryoma with pleading eyes. "Ochibiiii!" Kikumaru insisted.

"Ryoma-chan…" Lavinia insisted too.

"Ochibiiiiiiiiiiiiii! Hurry now!"

Ryoma was torn. Kikumaru's and Lavinia's insistence were making her feeling uneasy. Inside, Ryoma was more tempted to go with Kikumaru and the others. She didn't really want to be with Fuji's fiancée - her heart ached each time she saw Lavinia, hurting her deeply -, but Lavinia's sad eyes made her hesitated.

"Ryoma-chan, please…" Lavinia pleaded again, looking straight at Ryoma.

". . ." Ryoma didn't answer.

"Ochibi! Hayaku!"

Ryoma took a deep breath to clear her mind, then expired. She tried to listen to her inner mind.

'Of course you don't want to go with her because she is now Fuji-senpai's fiancée. Of course your heart ached each time you see her. And of course it hurts you. But you also know that if you leave her like this, she will be hurt too. You can see that she needs you now, for whatever reason she has. Can you bear the thinking that you'll hurt her when she didn't do anything wrong to you? Can you accept it without feeling guilty?' her conscience spoke.

'… No…' Ryoma self-answered.

'Then you know what you should do,' her inner mind said.

'…Yeah…'

"Ochibiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Kikumaru was being more insistent.

Ryoma expired again, then turned to Kikumaru.

"Go before me! I'll see you later!" Ryoma shouted back.

Kikumaru pouted, not happy.

"That girl I so hate her! Not only she's stealing Fuji, but Ochibi too!" Kikumaru groaned.

"Eiji, let them be," Ooishi half-heartily scowled him. "We should go now."

"Hai…" Kikumaru answered and followed Ooishi out of the gate.

The two girls were sat by the fountain in the middle of a park. No one was talking, merely listening to the water dancing. Lavinia was lost in her mind and Ryoma wasn't the kind of girl to start a conversation. Ryoma merely waited for her to start, looking at the trees in front of her. After all, Lavinia was the one who wanted to talk to her. They staid in silence like that for a long moment. Finally, Lavinia broke the silence.

"Ryoma-chan…"

Ryoma turned her attention to Lavinia.

"Huh? What is it, Miyabi-senpai?"

Hearing her name said by Ryoma, Lavinia smiled. Ryoma still called her by that name, even after that happen the other day.

Flashback

"Ryoma-chan, wait!" Lavinia called when she saw Ryoma stepping out of her classroom.

"Miyabi-… san…" Ryoma said.

"Hey you! Don't be impolite! Call her 'Lavinia-sama'!" a 3th year girl snapped at her.

Ryoma inertly scowled. It was the same girl you snapped at her when she first bumped into Fuji on her first day at school. And she also happened to be one of the 'first lady' of Lavinia's court, or whatever title she attributed herself. She was with the same two girls who always followed her everywhere behind her. The girl on her left snapped at Ryoma too.

"You are a first year right? How can you be so impolite to a 3th year?" she said.

"Honestly, the juniors of this year are horribly awful," the girl on the right side added.

'That's right! They don't know that I'm a girl, so they didn't make the connexion between the boy who bumped into Fuji-senpai and me,' Ryoma thought. 'They are still annoying even now!'

"Stop it!" Lavinia said, starting the three girls.

"Lavinia-sama…" the three girls whimpered, scared by Lavinia's angry face. It was the first time that they saw the sweet and elegant lady being angry.

"It was me who told her to call me by this name!" Lavinia said.

"Lavinia-sama, you… did…" the first girl stuttered.

"Yes! And she is the only one who is allowed to call me like this!" Lavinia added. "You don't have the right to say anything against her!"

"H-hai…" the three girls muttered, lowing their head, ashamed.

"Now leave!" Lavinia ordered.

"Hai… Lavinia-sama…" The three girls bowed to Lavinia and left.

Many minutes passed before Lavinia spoke again.

"Ryoma-chan," Lavinia said. Ryoma turned her head to Lavinia. "Please, keep calling me Miyabi."

Ryoma cocked her eyebrow, but agreed nonetheless.

"Er, hai, Miyabi-sa…!" Ryoma stopped. "Miyabi-senpai," she corrected.

Lavinia blinked.

"Why don't you call me '-san' like before?" Lavinia asked.

"Because before, I didn't know that you were going to transfer here. Now, you are my senpai, so I must call you 'senpai'," Ryoma explained, deadpanned.

Lavinia smiled.

"Very well. I understand."

End flashback

Lavinia smiled at the souvenir. A little bit more, Ryoma would probably stopped calling her 'Miyabi'. Her Japanese name was her pet name. Only few people dear to her called her like that, like her parents. For the rest of the world, she was Lavinia, but mostly 'Countess Lavinia' or 'Countess de Lavoiselle'. Here in Japan, it was 'Lavini-sama'. However, the first time introducing herself to Ryoma and Ryoga, Lavinia didn't know why she instinctively told them to call her by her pet name 'Miyabi', but she was happy she did it. There was something special about the two brother and sister that made her liking them. One would think maybe it was from her gratitude toward them for helping her, but Lavinia knew it was more than gratitude. Lavinia smiled as she looked at Ryoma. The short black-green hair girl was probably the only person in the school who saw her as a person and not as a countess. Ryoma was the only who could make her felt like a human being again, which was why Lavinia liked Ryoma very much. In any case, she couldn't picture hearing Ryoma and Ryoga calling her 'Lavinia'.

'Lavinia-sama.'

Thinking about the way people called her, Lavinia lost her smile. Each time she heard that naming, it painfully remained her how she felt lonely her in Japan. She was alone by herself. Her parents couldn't came with her and staid in France. Her nanny was sick so the old woman couldn't came too. She was brought here to be the fiancée of a stranger by a cold woman. Lavinia couldn't refuse the arranged marriage because it was contracted between her father and Fuji-dono. Fuji-dono saved her father from bankruptcy. In exchange, Fuji-dono asked Lavinia to become her grandson's wife. Lavinia's father couldn't say no nor Lavinia herself couldn't say anything against him. And that was how she ended up in Japan.

While Lavinia was lost in her thinking, Ryoma's mind too wasn't at peace. During these two weeks, she barely saw Fuji. For some unknown reason, Fuji didn't come to school. He only made an appearance for some hours then left. Ryoma only had a few glimpse of him, and it was when he crossed the school gate where his personal driver was waiting for him. From what Kikumaru told her, Ryoma knew that Fuji had search for her because he wanted to see her. However, Ryoma wasn't ready to see him after what happen between them at his birthday party.

It had only been a few month when Ryoma started to notice something different about herself. More specifically, it was after the training camp that she noticed something different about herself. She, who never paid attention to anyone (at least she knew it!), had start to look at her tensai senpai. And very frequently! During practice, if she wasn't playing, her eyes were constantly on Fuji.

'Even when he's not playing tennis,' her inner mind added.

That fact alone was enough to put Ryoma upside down. Before the training camp, when Fuji played, she would watched him. Fuji wasn't playing, her eyes would search for another person who was playing. After the training camp, Ryoma it seemed to her that Fuji was always in her sight (nothing to do with her eyes following him).

'Something must have happened during the training camp that I don't know,' Ryoma often told herself.

The problem was she didn't where to search to find out about that 'something'. But there was still one thing that she knew: she had a weird dream. When she was sick, she dreamed that someone kissed her.

'And the worst of it, I was imagining that it was Fuji-senpai who kissed me.'

Once again, Ryoma was amazed at how her imagination was vivid and strong: she could still remember the softness and the warm of Fuji's lips on hers in that illusional kiss.

'That's right! It was an illusion,' her logical mind stated.

But illusion or not, that dream disturbed Ryoma from that day. Because the dream permanently stuck itself in her head - she didn't what to do to remove it out -, Ryoma could no longer see Fuji as the usual tensai Fuji Syuusuke. Not only that, but her imagination was getting a havoc too. She often had the illusion (again!) that Fuji watched her many times. And she also had the illusion that his eyes were very soft each time he watched her.

That was something that she was scared about.

Questions:

1) Why do you think Ryoma is so scared that Fuji often looked at her?

2) Now what you know a little bit more about Lavinia, what do you think about her?