Hi Everyone. I'm so sorry that this chapter is being posted so late. Life just kind of happened. Comic Con was a lot of fun, but the time leading up to it was a little stressful. I had all my costumes done but had to make a few things for one of my brothers and a costume for my cousin.

My costumes were Merida from Brave, Lucy/Wildstyle from The Lego Movie, and Lucy Heartfilia from Fairy Tail. I'm still sorting through pictures but I will hopefully get them up on my pinterest page soon, if you ever want to go look at them.

If you're curious my brother was Thor from Marvel Comics and Movies, Emperor Zurg from Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, and an OC character, I can't remember what he named his character. My cousin was Natsu from Fairy Tail.

So here is chapter nineteen, finally. Again I'm really sorry that I took so long posting it. I hope that you all like it and I promise to be more on top of it for chapter twenty.

Disclaimer: I do not own Skip Beat or any of the characters from it. Skip Beat is the property of Yoshiki Nakamura.

Ren's Thoughts

Ren watched as Maria came back and sat down next to Sebastian. 'She is behaving differently than usual. Not to sound vain or anything but she would normally fight to sit next to me. Or she would at the very least run up to give me a hug. Also why is she ignoring Kyoko? She never ignored Kyoko before. What happened? She has been this way for about a week...'

Suddenly a thought struck Ren. 'She couldn't.' He objected instantly to the thought. 'If she had seen she would have asked what we were doing. Wouldn't she?'

Ren had been looking at the wall letting the girl's voices pass over him as he speculated about Maria. He turned his gaze back to Maria. She wasn't smiling but she didn't look as annoyed as she had before. However she still wasn't talking to Kyoko normally. Kyoko was doing most of the talking with Maria giving monosyllable replies.

Ren turned his gaze to Sebastian, who was watching the exchange between Kyoko and Maria with a impassive expression. 'Maybe I should try asking Sebastian if he knowing why Maria is behaving this way. He is almost always with her. He must have some idea as to what is going on with her.' Ren looked at a clock on the above Sebastian and Maria. 'There's about six minutes of the break left. Might as well ask him now.'

Ren caught Sebastian's eye and tilted his head slightly asking silently for Sebastian to join him on a walk. Sebastian raised his eyebrow but didn't say anything as he and Ren got up.

Kyoko looked at Ren as he stood.

"We'll be back in a minute." He said with a smile.

Kyoko smiled back and nodded.

Sebastian kept an eye on Maria as she sat down next to him. 'She is starting to look bored. I guess she wants to get back to paint-balling already. We still have a few minutes before it starts up again.'

He caught a glimpse of her eyes and saw something in them. 'Her eyes are getting brighter again. There is a small spark in them. What are you thinking Maria? Are you feeling even better that I suspected? I have known you for a while but you are so hard to predict.'

Sebastian felt he was being watched and looked up into Ren's eyes. 'He must want to talk about Maria.' He raised his eyebrow as Ren tipped his head. He stood up and briefly placed his hand on Maria's shoulder before moving out a earshot with Ren.

When they were out of ear shot from the girls Ren turned to Sebastian. 'I doubt that he will tell me anything but I have to try.' "I was wondering if you could tell me what is wrong with Maria." He said quietly. "She hasn't been her normal perky self for a while."

Sebastian looked at Ren. 'So I was right. I know that he and Kyoko do care about her but there isn't anyway that I can tell him what is wrong with Maria. She would most certainly find out and then she would stop trusting me. I can't have that. She is basically my kid-sister and I will not hurt her.'

Sebastian thought all this as he said, "for give me Tsuruga-san but it is a private matter of Maria's. I am not at liberty to talk about it."

'I didn't think he would tell me but I have to try. I don't like seeing Maria upset.'

Ren sighed. "Is there really nothing you can tell me? I want to help her."

'I know you do. However there is no way you can help this time. At least not yet. You might be able to eventually but it will only be when she is ready for your help.'

"No. You will have to wait until she is ready to talk about it."

Sebastian bowed to Ren and went back to the girls.

'Well it was worth a shot.' Thought Ren as he followed Sebastian.

Kyoko looked up as Sebastian and Ren returned. She gave Ren a questioning look but her just shook his head to indicate that he would tell her later. She nodded as he sat back down next to her.

A few minutes later the employee, Tadao, came back. "Ready to begin round two?" He asked in a cheerful and excited voice.

Everyone except Sebastian nodded. He just stood up when everyone else did.

"Very well. Before you begin we need to get more ammunition for your guns. You're going to have different colors for this round."

They followed him to get their ammo. Ren and Kyoko got green paint-balls while Sebastian and Maria got blue ones.

Once their guns were loaded they reentered the arena.

Once again Sebastian and Maria slipped away without being noticed by Ren and Kyoko. This time they stayed on the ground floor and head towards the back of the arena. The back half of the ground floor was a maze. There were windows on some of the walls that you could shoot through and a number of alcoves that you could hide in and wait for people to pass so that you could shoot them and duck away into another passage without being seen.

'This place is perfect.' Thought Maria. She looked up at Sebastian and whispered, "I want to move around this time. Last time was fun but I have a lot of energy now."

"Very well." 'I should probably to her to stay close to me but I won't. She trusts me, I should show her that I trust her.'

Just as Sebastian was thinking this Maria asked, "Is it okay if I stay with you? This maze is kind of confusing."

Sebastian nodded and he and Maria went a bit further in until they found two alcoves about six feet apart. Maria hid in one while Sebastian hid the the other. They put on their masks and waited for the air horn to signal the beginning of the game.

It blared about a minute and a half later.

Kyoko looked around. "They've disappeared again." She said in a quiet voice.

"I wonder where they went this time. We need to pay better attention next time we walk into the arena." 'I was so immersed in my thoughts that I didn't notice them leave.'

"So which way should we go?" Kyoko asked in a hesitant voice.

Ren thought for a minute before replying. "I think we should go to the second level. There are some places up there where we can see the ground floor. We might be able to catch a glimpse of them if we go up there."

"Okay," Kyoko said and they made there way up to the second floor.

They stopped near the middle of the floor. They would squatting near on of the openings in the floor. There were a pile of sand bags around them so they couldn't be seen until someone was right on top of them.

"Do you think they're up here?" Kyoko's voice was just above a whisper.

"I'm not sure," replied Ren. "We'll find out soon enough."

He put his mask on and Kyoko did them same.

Not long after the air horn sounded and the game began.

Half an hour later the four players heard the air horn again and made their way toward the doors. The two teams me up about two yards from the doors and got a good look at one another. All of the players had a decent amount of paint on them. It was very difficult to tell which team had won or if it was a tie.

As soon as the air horn went off a second time Maria took off her mask. She was panting but smiling. "That was a lot more fun than last time. But I have no idea who won." She looked at Sebastian. "Do you know, Sebastian?"

Sebastian, who had also taken off his mask, shook his head. "I believe this round ended in a draw." 'I should have remember the openings on the second floor. I was thinking about Maria and therefore was distracted. I had planned on us winning again. However it doesn't seem to matter. Maria appears to be very happy and this all that I need to worry about right now.'

As he was thinking this Maria had grabbed his hand and started walking towards the doors.

The horn sounded and as one Kyoko and Ren removed their masks. Both of them were panting.

Kyoko grinned. "I think we did better this time than last time."

Ren smirked at her becoming Kuon for a moment. "If by 'better' you mean we hit Sebastian and Maria as many times as they hit us, then yes we did. However I think you and I got hit even more times this round than last. So in that sense we didn't do better."

Kyoko huffed in annoyance. "You know what I meant, Kuon. At least we didn't loose this time."

Ren laughed as he grasped Kyoko's hand. "Let's go. I could use some more water and I bet you could too.

Kyoko nodded and they made their way towards the exit.

Tadao was waiting for them again with more water bottles. They each took one gratefully and drank. "How was round two?" He asked the group in a happy voice.

"Tiring," was Kyoko's reply while Maria nodded.

Tadao smiled. "I had a feeling that might be the case. All of you are wearing a lot more paint than you were before. Why don't you take a little longer of a break this time?"

"I think that would be a good idea." Said Ren and Sebastian nodded in assent.

The group moved back to the benches and all sat down.

They didn't talk much during this break. They drank their water and had a few snacks from the vending machine.

'Maria seems almost back to normal.' Ren thought as he watched her eat some peanut butter crackers. 'I'm still curious as to why she has been upset. I have suspicion but I'm really not sure. I don't see how that could make her so depressed. Then again it might be that at all. I guess I really will have to wait until she is ready to talk about it.'

Ren put those thoughts to the back of his mind when it was time to start the third game.

The third and fourth games were very similar to the first two. The third one ending in a tie and the fourth one being won by Sebastian and Maria. However it was a close call.

When the fourth game was done the girls went to their locker room and the boys went to theirs. There were fully equipped showers in the locker rooms that the four took full advantage of.

'This feels SO GOOD!' Kyoko thought as she stood in the shower. 'I can already feel it soothing my muscles. I'm not sure how much other practice for laser-tag I'll be able to do today. Oh well. It was worth it. This was a lot of fun.'

She stepped out of the shower and got dressed. Maria was already in the main part of the locker room combing her hair.

"That was a lot of fun, right?" Kyoko asked her hoping to get an enthusiastic response from Maria.

Maria looked up at her and smiled. 'It was fun. I really can't believe that I had so much fun with Ren-sama and Onee-san. But I bet that's because Sebastian was playing with us too.' She thought. Out loud she said, "yeah it was!"

Kyoko smiled and sat down to put on her shoes. When she was done she and Maria walked out to the lobby where Ren and Sebastian were waiting for them.