"So you live in a house full of men and go to a boys school… why in the world did you agree to such a situation?" Ayame asked with an expression that made Melody believe the woman thought she was insane.

Melody laughed and shrugged, "It's not that big of a deal. It's just high school but no other female students." The two had met at a café in the shopping district. Apparently, Ayame planned to drag Melody with her to go shopping.

"I suppose but I've heard rumors about that school, aren't they all delinquents?" she asked as she stirred her coffee.

"I really don't know that much about all that. None of them seem to be that bad, though they like to make it seem like it," she said with a smile.

Ayame smiled, "So pretty much like most boys."

The conversation didn't feel to be going anywhere to Melody so she sipped her over sugared (perfect to Mel) coffee, "You still haven't told me how you and Daisuke met or why you kept it a secret."

The older woman paused before sighing and giving the teenager an exasperated look, "And I thought you'd be open to some girl time before we got down to that conversation."

Melody smiled a bit sheepishly, "Sorry but I think it's fair that I know what's going on, especially if you're going to me my future sister-in-law." She said then realized something and put a hand over her mouth in shock, "You're not pregnant are you?"

Ayame laughed, shaking her head, "No, I'm not pregnant. But I do have a child. Her name is Mai and she's three years old." At Melody's expression, Ayame continued, "Her father died in a car accident before she was born so I've been raising her by myself with the help of my parents and younger brother. Daisuke and I waited to tell anyone other than our parents about our relationship because I wanted to be sure of where this was going before letting my daughter get attached to him."

Melody understood her reasoning but she still wasn't happy about being left out of the loop, "Can I meet her one day?"

She smiled brightly, "That would be wonderful!"

Yankumi had called a handful of the guys from 3-D to meet her at the park but of course she was late as usual. She'd convinced Shin to show up, or bugged him until he agreed depending on who was asked. She left Shin to get Kuma, Uchi, Minami, and Noda there. Then because she couldn't ask Melody to go, she asked Mel's brother Nathan, whom Yankumi had been very glad agreed, though reluctantly.

The park they'd been asked to meet at had a number of fields for soccer, baseball, and basketball but they were just sitting in the bleachers next to a random unoccupied soccer field.

"Why's Yankumi got us here anyway?" Uchi whined as he turned to look at Shin.

Shin shrugged, "No clue. She said she had some kind of game or something planned."

Noda sighed, "That's so lame." He then turned to Nathan, "What are you doing here anyway? You're not in our class so where's your sister?"

Nate grinned at him, "What? You don't want me around if Mel's not here? She's out shopping or something with our brother's fiancée."

Kuma turned to look at Nate, "No, we don't have a problem with you but I thought the only reason you tagged along with us was to stay near Melo-chan."

Nate shook his head, "Nah, that's not it." After he'd realized his sister had been hanging around Sawada a lot, he'd asked some of his own classmates about him and the others in 3-D with Melody. Of course their answers were all the same, that everyone in 3-D were trash and the worst of the school and that while Shin had the highest grades, he history was questionable. Nate had only recently been told about how Shin had hit one of his teachers at his last school. While he didn't know Shin's reasons, he had seen enough from Shin to know the guy would have a friend's back no matter what.

Shin was laying back on one of the bleachers in the set with his eyes closed, attempting to catch a nap. He was annoyed that Yankumi had bugged them to come but was late.

Node nudged Shin, "Look over there."

Shin sighed and sat up to look at whatever it was Noda and the others were looking at. A group of guys he recognized as Ara high students were heading toward them, the only one he could name was Izaya, however.

"What are you doing here?" Nate asked, "if you're here to harass my sister again, she's not around."

Izaya was surprised by the accusation, "I don't know what you're talking about but I'd like to hang out with her again. I haven't seen her since she blew her secret with your friends here," he said gesturing to the others around them but he looked directly at Shin.

Shin's face didn't show anything but he didn't like the idea of Melody spending time with this shady guy, "You still didn't tell us why you're here."

"They're here because I asked them to come," said another voice walking up behind them. When they turned to look, Shin saw Eiji Inouye, Mel and Nate's brother.

Nathan looked at his brother, "Alright then, here's another question: What are you doing here?"

Eiji shrugged, "Teaching. You all aren't Yamaguchi sensei's students, are you?"

The 3-D guys all exchanged looks before looking at Nate to answer for them. Nate sighed, "Yes but I'm not in her homeroom. I'm just replacing Mel."

There was another shout before Yankumi came running up to the group. She bent over, catching her breath, "I'm so sorry I'm late! I missed my bus!" she said frantically bowing to Eiji in the next moment she noticed Nate standing in front of him, "You know Nathan?"

"He's my kid brother," Eiji said with a smile, "I didn't realize you were a teacher at Shiroken."

There was a resounding, "EEHHH?" from everyone minus the brothers, Shin Sawada, and Izaya Kenshi.

After the cafe, Ayame dragged Melody to the mall. The two chattered about this and that while they wandered around from shop to shop, buying a few things every now and then. Eventually, Ayame dragged Mel into a dress shop, much to Mel's complaining.

"Is this really necessary?" Melody whined.

Ayame just laughed, "Don't be such a baby. Your brother said I could take you to get a new dress for a recital or something."

"I don't have any recitals, though, or competitions."

She paused for a moment, "How about fancy dates then?"

Melody sighed, "None of those either."

"Seriously? I would think that you'd be getting dates all the time," she mumbled as she brushed her fingers over a satin dress before moving onto another rack. "It wouldn't hurt you to go out and do something fun with a guy."

Melody picked up a dress curiously and held it up in front of a mirror, "I do, my friends from school are guys, remember? I hang out with them a lot," she said, choosing to ignore the first part of Ayame's statement.

"Yeah but you're like one of the guys to them, right?" she said as she turned to face Melody again only to gasp and bounce a bit, "That dress would look great on you! Why don't you go try it on?"

She blinked and looked back down at the dress in her hand. "What would I even wear this for?"

"You could always sign up for a piano competition. Or even play for benefits." Ayame suggested.

Melody gave her a look with her brow furrowed, "I don't do competitions and you have to be invited to play at benefits. That means you have to have recognition as a pianist."

"How do you get recognition?"

She frowned at her soon to be sister in law, "Competitions, concerts and other performances… Or internet if you're lucky."

"Hm...Okay.. Go try on the dress."

Mel sighed, "But Ayame, I just said-"

"Just do it, please?" Ayame said as she ushered Melody toward a changing room.

Shin sighed as he watched the others. Since the 'game'- it was more like a trivia game than any sort of sport since- started all anyone did was argue and try to pick fights until Yankumi had to break them up. Nathan sat down on the ground after another fight had broken out.

"You know this might actually be easier if Mel was here. At least they tried to behave for her sometimes."

"Only because most of them want to make a good impression on her so she can set them up with a girl friend of hers."

Nathan sighed, "She doesn't have very many girl friends. All her friends are guys or they have boyfriends already I think."

That didn't seem very surprising to Shin. She seemed to get along with guys better as it was because of her many brothers.

After a couple moments the guys quieted down and he didn't even hear Yankumi or Eiji shouting anymore so of course it got his attention. When he looked up he saw Mel walking toward them with a few bags in her hand, she was giving Eiji a strange but amused look.

"I didn't know you were teaming up with Shiroken, Eiji." she said with a laugh.

Her brother sighed, "Neither did I but if anyone could get along for five minutes maybe we could get something done."

Melody laughed, "Good luck with that." she said as she watched her classmates' faces. They were all staring at her in shock still.

"You don't seem too upset about having another school learn your secret, Melo-chan." Kuma said, his eyes still wide with shock as he moved to run his fingers over his short blonde hair.

She shrugged, "They've already figured it out the last time you dummies decided to get into a fight!"

Eiji blinked at that, "What was that?"

Mel and Nate flinched at the same time and turned to their older brother, as well as his own students. That was when Nate decided to conveniently evade that question, "So Mel, what were you doing all this time?" he asked curiously.

Izaya sighed, "What's it matter. We're not doing anything now, can we just go?" which of course started up grumbling with all the others. It seemed that the desire to be anywhere but here was the only thing Ara and Shiroken had in common.

Yankumi attempted convincing them to be more motivated but Mel knew better than to believe they'd go for it easily.

Eiji frowned at the lot of them, but as he opened his mouth to complain to them his phone rang. He blinked and looked at the name on the screen and then turned to walk away.

A guy with orange dyed hair smirked at Eiji's back, "Hey! What happened to your rule about staying off phones, teach?"

Eiji ignored him and stayed on the phone. Something about his stance made Melody pause though. She was watching his back.

Nate had the same idea. He stood beside her, watching Eiji as Shin walked up to her other side. "What's going on?" Shin asked, bored as usual but it seemed he could see that something was off as well.

Melody shook her head, "I don't know…" she said, chewing her lip nervously.

After a moment on the phone, Eiji turned to face them, a look of worry painted across his face. Suddenly it seemed like no one else was there, just her brothers and Shin. Mel and Nate both stared at their brother until he finally told them what was upsetting him so much.

Eiji swallowed the lump in his throat, "Dad and Daisuke were in a car accident…"

AN: Sorry for the long, long delay on this update! A lot of things came up and got in the way! But anyway! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!