[Days Later- Elitia University]

Tetsuya finished packing his stuff into boxes as a gentle breeze cooled down the room. He snuck a glance at the golden letter on top of the nightstand and quickly picked it up.

"Are you done yet?" Serrano asked as he entered. "I finished checking us out."

Tetsu nodded, taking another glance at the letter he had received a week ago. It was from Rosa, who was wishing him luck and how she looked forward to seeing him once again. Though he dreaded seeing her again. He hadn't been able to activate Agnes since the battle with Suzuki weeks ago. If she knew, she would be disappointed in him.

"Yeah," Tetsu said, slipping the letter back into the pockets of his washed-out blue jeans. "Let's get going."

Serrano's eyes were focused on his cousin's hidden hand. Tetsuya gulped. Did he notice? Serrano smiled, picked up his stuff, and headed toward the door as if seeing Tetsu hold a golden letter was something he saw every day.

"Hey. What are you going to do now? Find a school to teach at?" he asked as they both walked down the hall.

"I'm going to try to get a job as a substitute and earn enough money for grad school. I want to get my master's degree," Tetsuya responded as he looked down at the big box in his arms.

Serrano chuckled. "Don't worry about getting a substitute job. After serving as an active knight, your graduate school fees will be paid in full."

Tetsuya smiled. "I sure hope so... but that's only if they accept me as a knight." He stared at his bracelet and sighed. "So, how about you?"

Serrano closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm going to be returning to the capital. There's something that I must do there."

"Does it involve the upcoming war? Or perhaps your engagement?" Serrano was engaged to some girl whom Tetsu had yet to even meet. He didn't talk much about her. It almost as if he wasn't too fond of the idea of marrying for reasons other than love. Though Tetsuya didn't blame him. Marrying for interest was never his thing either.

His face flushed a little as he opened the door. "K... kind of. But not really."

Tetsuya raised an eyebrow and snickered. "What kind of answer is that? Heavens, you're awful at deflecting."

Serrano remained silent, speeding up.

"Hey!" Tetsuya yelled, chasing after him. He's hiding something, but what?

The two of them descended down a pair of glass stairs to the first floor, where several others littered the area. Some decided to abandon furniture outside, while others had movers take it out to take it to wherever they were going. Serrano and Tetsuya couldn't afford such luxuries. They instead had rented all of their furniture directly from a school organization. They were to pick the stuff up once they vacated the apartment.

"Serrano! Tetsuya!" Ximena yelled as she jogged toward them. "You two returning home?"

"Yeah," Serrano answered, grinning. There was a hint of blush behind his smile. "This city is nice, but home is where the heart is."

"True," she said, crossing her arms. "Hey, I just wanted to..." A couple of hands pushed her away.

Several girls had gathered around Serrano and Tetsuya-like usual.

"Tetsuya, give me your phone number!" one asked, well, more like demanded. She stared at him with eyes sparkling.

"I... I don't have one," Tetsuya responded, backing away. It wasn't a lie. He actually didn't have one, not even an old fashioned one. And owning a cell phone was out of the question with his ma's small salary and his lack of a job.

"Come on now! Don't be that way," the girl continued, jumping up and down.

"How about you give it to me instead?" another asked, pushing the first girl away.

"Girls, please let us pass," Serrano pleaded, smiling nervously.

"Where are you two going?" another girl asked, completely ignoring what was just said.

"Hey!" Ximena yelled, pushing the girls away. "They asked you to move aside nicely. I rather not use force, but if you do not move, I might be required to do so." The girls stepped away from them, their eyes on the tip of Ximena's rapier.

"Thanks," Serrano said, rushing out.

"Bye, Ximena!" Tetsuya called out as he followed his cousin.

"Take care, you two!" she yelled as she kept the wild girls at bay with a fence made out of vines coming from her silver rapier.

***

"Phew! We finally made it out," Serrano said as they made it to the edge of campus to where the shuttle bus out of town awaited.

Tetsuya laughed. "Yeah... I never thought that they would let us out without making up some phone number."

"We really owe Xime one," he said as they boarded the self-driving bus, which was mostly empty. Most kids who attended Elitia University were wealthy enough to afford their own cars or hire someone to pick them up.

Tetsuya poked his cousin with his elbow. "You should visit her. It's obvious that she likes you!"

He averted his golden eyes. "Yo-you know that I have a fiancée."

Sighing, Tetsuya headed for the closest pair of seats, taking the window seat. "Why don't you break it up?"

Serrano shook his head as his eyes drifted to the black linoleum floor. "You wouldn't say that if you knew who her family was."

Yeah, because you never bothered to tell me.

Leaning back, Tetsuya looked out at the verdant summer leaves on the young oak trees dotting the edge of campus.

Serrano leaned on Tetsuya's shoulder, noticing the letter Tetsuya had taken out of his jean pockets while he wasn't looking. "Isn't that a royal letter?" he said, eyes wide. He moved away as Tetsu turned to look at him. "Did Rosa send it?"

"Yeah."

Serrano narrowed his eyes. "So you were keeping this a secret from me. Don't tell me that the second princess and you are lovers? I knew something was up between you two! She even went as far as to give you that book."

Tetsuya turned completely red. "W-what? N-no! Nothing like that. Besides, she's is a princess while I'm a farm boy. Not to mention, she's five years my junior."

"I think that makes you more attractive in Rosa's eyes. She's into older guys, and also into that whole fairy-tale stuff."

"Are you shipping us?" Tetsuya asked, crossing his arms together.

Serrano snorted. "Maybe. If you do ever get together with her, we can go on double dates. After all, my fiancee and her already know each other."

Tetsuya narrowed his eyes at him. "Alright, now you got to tell me who she is."

Serrano snickered. "You'll find out when we arrive at the capital. Wait, do you still plan to return home?"

Tetsuya nodded. "Yeah. The meeting isn't taking place yet. So, I'll like to see Ma, Takuya, and Teresa while I can. I want to let them know that I'm fine and where I'm going."

"You're a good son," Serrano said, nodding. "I guess that I'll accompany you back home, even if there's no one waiting there for me."

Tetsuya shook his head. "Not true. We're your family too, ya know? I'm sure that Ma and the others will be happy to see ya."

Serrano chuckled upon hearing Tetsuya's accent return. "Yeah. And maybe aunty will make us her famous grape pie." Both their stomachs grumbled, just thinking about it.

***

[The Next Day]

"Tetsuya, wake up," Serrano said, nudging his cousin. "We're here."

Tetsuya opened his eyes and noticed that he had been drooling against his cousin's shoulder. He quickly sat up straight. "Sorry!" he cried, his face flushed with embarrassment.

Serrano wiped his shoulder with a handkerchief. "It's fine," he said, beaming a smile. "Kind of used to it by now. Or did you forget you used to do this when we were kids too."

Tetsuya wanted to kick him for reminding him! It was bad enough to drool over his pillow, worse was doing so on a person's shoulder. Though his siblings and mom found it 'cute'.

Serrano gave him a slightly sadistic smile. "Look, I even took a picture of you!" he said, shoving a blue phone in his cousin's face.

"That's a new a phone? Since when did you get it?"

"Rosa gave it to me, said it was a gift from my fiancée."

Tetsuya narrowed his eyes. "Rosa? I understood why she delivered my shield to me, but since when did she become a straight-up delivery person? You didn't steal it, did you?"

He scoffed. "I'm not some thief." He put away his phone into the pockets of his blue jeans. "Anyway, I'll be showing this here pic to aunty and the others!"

Tetsuya reached for his pocket, but Serrano jumped out of the way, causing him to fall face-first on the dirty floor of the bus.

Serrano chuckled. "Silly Tetsu. You should know better than to challenge me!"

Pushing himself up, Tetsuya reached once more for the phone. "Hand that over!"

"Are ya two a buncha kids?" a familiar voice called. The two turned to see Teresa waiting by the steps. She looked no different than she did last year, maintaining her raven black hair long. Her fashion still remained as revealing as before with her wearing a black tank top corset.

"No!" Tetsuya shouted.

Serrano ran over to show her the pic. "Look, Lil Tetsu still has the same habit as before!"

Tetsuya hands curled into fists. "Don't call me that!" He swung for a punch, but his cousin ducked, causing his fist to land on his sister's face.

"Tetsu," she said, flashing him a furious grin.

He backed away slowly. "Sorry, Tere..."

She turned around and sighed. "I'll let ya out of the hook for now. Come, Takuya and Ma are waiting for ya. We've prepared you a feast."

"Will there be enough for four?" Tetsuya asked, glancing back at Serrano.

She nodded. "We made enough for five. Ma even made ya favorite pie."

"Yes!" the cousins yelled.

"Well then, I'm off to show this to mom!" She paused as soon as she jumped off of the bus. "Wait, where did ya get this phone? It looks much nicer than ya old one."

"His fiancée gave it to him," Tetsuya responded.

Teresa's eyes darted toward what Tetsuya considered the latest model phone to reach small towns like his. "She must be loaded. Is she the daughter of some phone company executive or something?"

"Huh?" Tetsuya asked, tilting his head.

"This phone has barely come out in the big cities, even the capital barely got it the other day," she responded, raising it up to my eyes as I got off. "It's a Universe WXYZ-10!"

Tetsuya stared at Serrano in awe. He didn't know much about tech, but Teresa sure did. She was always into the latest trends in the big cities. Tech and fashion being among her favorites.

"Alright, so maybe you didn't steal it," he whispered into his cousin's ear.

Serrano snatched his phone back from Teresa and shoved it back into the pocket of his thin blue cotton coat. "I told you that I didn't steal anything."

"When will ya tell us who she is?" Teresa asked, nudging him. "She's the one who helped ya get into that school, right?"

Cousin scoffed. "No. I did that all on my own. I wouldn't use her name for my own benefit."

She ruffled his hair. "Such a good young man ya grew up to be! Glad to see that living in the capital for ya teen years didn't corrupt you."

He slapped her hand away as his face reddened. "Stop that. I'm not some child."

Tetsuya ran over and did the same. "Aww, look! Little Serra is getting flustered."

He elbowed me in the gut. "Don't call me that!" he screamed, face redder than the ripest tomatoes Tetsu had ever seen. "Sounds like a girl's name. At least your name's shortened version is clearly a guy's name."

Chuckling, Tetsuya rubbed his stomach. His abdominal muscles had absorbed most of the hit. Though, Serrano did hit pretty hard even when he wasn't trying to hurt someone.

Tetsuya wrapped an arm around his cousin's neck. "Let's go and stuff our faces! We deserve it after all those years of tests!"

Serrano grinned. "Yeah!"

**Solar Note: Hope that you enjoyed this first half of the chapter ^^**