[Kaname’s POV]

It's been thirty minutes since I’ve been walking around the club fair with the President, and I haven’t seen Sleeping Beauty or Kikyo anywhere. ‘The band must be setting up somewhere else then,’ I conclude to myself.

“It’s hard to believe that it’s our final year as high school students,” says a third year student to Nana.

“Yeah, don’t remind me,” adds another third year, unenthusiastically. “I’m not trying to think about all the studying I have to do for the entrance exams. Oh! Which reminds me. Madam Pres? Can I join the study group sessions? I think they’ll really help me out a lot?”

Reminding the other third year of the study sessions, she jolts in remembrance and says, “Yeah! Same here! My parents already have their eyes set on this one University they want me to attend.”

With Nana’s friendly smile unwavering, she responds, “Sure! I’ll add you both to the group chat.” 

As the President takes her phone out from her pocket, I take the time to look at my own phone and notice I missed a call from Kikyo. ‘I didn’t even notice she called me,’ I think to myself. ‘I wonder what she wants?’

“Mr. Takahashi?” 

After hearing a soft, but high pitched voice, I take my attention away from my phone. ‘There’s a short girl invading my space,’ I think to myself. ‘She has short hair to compliment her height too. How cute.’ I continue to study her. ‘But just about everything on her is small. Definitely couldn’t handle me…she’s too fragile.’ Having that thought, I couldn’t help but smile. ‘I’ll just go easy on her, then.’

 “How can I help you?” I ask, as I proceed with a welcoming smile.

“I just wanted to welcome you back. You didn’t know me back then, but everyone pretty much knew you.” The girl chuckles bashfully at her own words. “I also never got the chance to talk to you back then. And after what happened, I decided when you came back, I would build up the courage to approach you.” The gesture is adorable, so I can’t help but feel amused.

Staring at her intensely, I reply, “It’s good to be back. And I’m glad you did.” She looks at me with adoring eyes. “Although,” I add. “It is a shame we didn’t talk back then.”

“Why do you say that?” She asks me, curiously.

Her response and the look in her eyes is so pure and innocent, I decide to tease her a bit more. “A cute girl like you, we probably would’ve had a lot of fun. Don’t you think?” Giving her a frivolous grin, the girl visibly becomes nervous, her face turning bright red. 

“Uhh, sorry.” Breaking eye contact with me and trying to hide her face with her hand. “You just really do look like Madam Vice.”

“Is that so?” I lean my head down close to her ear and whisper, “Does that make you not want to flirt with me?”

Covering her face to hide her embarrassment, she runs over to her friend, who’s still conversing with Nana, and quickly pulls her away. “Hey! I wasn’t done talking!”

“Let’s go,” the sheepish girl says without looking back. 

“Slow down!” Her friend shouts. “What’s with you, all of a sudden?!”

“Bye?” Nana says as she watches the two girls run out of sight. 

I can feel the President staring at me as I look at my phone, staring at Kikyo’s missed call notification again. Grasping what must have happened, she walks up to me and says, “What was that all about, huh?” 

‘Maybe I should call Kikyo back,’ I think to myself, acting like I didn’t hear the President’s question. About to dial my sister’s number I felt someone tug on my arm. 

“Did you forget how to answer the phone? Dummy,” says none other than Kikyo.

‘Looks like I’ll be thinking about my sister to the point of appearance all day today, it seems.’  I think as I look at Kikyo catching her breath. ‘She must have ran here.’ “What’s up,” I ask her. 

“Perfect timing Kikyo,” Nana starts. “I just talked to a couple girls and they-“ 

“Sorry, Nana,” Kikyo interrupts. “But I need to steal my brother from you! We can talk later, okay!” Without waiting for the President's response, Kikyo drags me, with her, down the hall. 

“Sooo, what’s going on?” I ask again, as we get further away from the President.

“Knowing you and how you are with girls, you didn’t want to tell Nana that you didn’t want to hang out for too long. So I decided to save you.” Kikyo responds with a proud smile on her face. 

“Do you want me to tell you thank you?” I ask, feeling compelled to do so.

Still leading me by the arm, she says, “No need to thank me, just yet.” 

 ‘Maybe I should ask Kikyo about who the President was to me, in the past,’ I ask myself. ‘If anyone can tell me exactly who she is, who better to say than Kikyo?’ 

We stop outside of two big doors, next to a sign that reads, ‘Auditorium’. Slowly letting go of my arm, Kikyo turns back to look at me. 

“Before we go in,” Kikyo says, holding the door handle, to the Auditorium. “Please try to keep the fighting to a minimum. I know, being that you’re guys, if things need to get physical then so be it. But you’re also like brothers, or you used to be. So…try not to be too hard on him, okay?”

Walking through the doors, with me in tow, close behind Kikyo.The stage is the first place I look at. ‘Oh? She’s talking about Renji.’ I realize, as I see him on stage, sitting at a drum set. I sigh to myself as I approach the stage, and have another thought, ‘I don’t have a problem with Renji though. He’s the one that seems to have an issue.’

I search the rest of the stage, to look for the rest of the band. Besides Renji, there’s only Kikyo. ‘Aren’t they about to start soon,’ I ponder to myself. ‘Where’s everyone else?’

“I know what you’re thinking,” Kikyo says, as if reading my mind. “We’re a 3 person band. I’m on vocals and guitar. As you can tell, Renji is our drummer, and the third would be our bass player. He forgot something in the band room, so he’ll be here.”

I glance at Renji and say, “I see.” I have a separate thought as I watch him still twirling his drumstick, his feet up on one of the drums, ‘If you’re acting like this towards me, what did my sister have to do to convince you to join the band? Unless…your animosity is really just towards me?’

“I would say hang out backstage for the performance if you would like,” Kikyo suggests, interrupting my thoughts. “But I’m sure you won’t want to be there.”

 Looking at her, in confusion, I think, ‘Why wouldn’t I want to sit backstage?’ 

As if she can see the question written on my face, again, she looks past my shoulder and gestures for me to also look in that direction. As she insists, I look out to where the audience will soon be to find Sleeping Beauty sitting alone, writing in a journal. “I think this would be a good time to make a better first impression, wouldn’t you say?”

“Why is she sitting there?” I ask instantaneously, wondering why she’s not sitting backstage.

Kikyo playfully shrugs her shoulders, while giving me a teasing smile and says, “Why don’t you ask her yourself? Oh, and…I believe now…a thank you is in order.”

With Kikyo’s smile unchanging, I couldn’t help but smile too. I start to roll my eyes and say, “Thank you.”

“For?” She adds playfully.

“Thank you for providing this opportunity for me to redeem myself.”

“Uh-huh. I hope so.”

“Kikyo! He’s here!” Renji says, as the final band member arrives on stage.

“I gotta finish setting up. Good luck!” She says, leaving me to join the rest of her band on stage. 

I lift my hand to grip the back of my neck. “ ‘Good luck’,” I let out a long breath. “I should be telling you that.”

Staring at Sleeping Beauty’s, or Yue’s, side profile, I realize she isn’t staring aimlessly at who knows what, like she did before. She’s rather truly immersed in writing in her journal. ‘A better first impression, huh,’ I think to myself. ‘How hard can that be?’