"Serena?"

"Hello? Earth to Serena...?"

She came back from the slight daze she had somehow fallen into during the course of the conversation. "Sorry," she apologized. "I didn't mean to be so rude." The girl sitting across from her smiled. "No, we should be sorry," the brown-haired female responded as the others sitting around the table nodded in agreement. "This must be hard for you, after all."

Serena only smiled. If only you knew, she thought quietly, willing herself not to say the words aloud. The frustration over her lost identity had been building up since the day she realized she had no recollection of her life, and although leaving the noise of Tokyo had helped, the sudden swarm of "old" friends seemed to stop the calming progress.

But she knew that these people had nothing to do with why she was always so exhausted. It was her inability to recall; they had no part in it. So she tried her best not to snap, even though it was all she wanted to do sometimes.

"Maybe we should call it a day," the only masculine voice at the table suggested. She looked at Andrew, the restaurant owner and, apparently, a senior of hers back in high school. She had met him through her cousin Mina the day she arrived to Juuban. He was handsome in a prince charming type of way and very gentle.

"Don't worry about me... Andy," she hesitated before calling him by the shortened version of his name. Apparently, she was the one who started referring to him as Andy. But of course, it was another one of the many things she couldn't remember.

The quiet brunette sitting beside her spoke up. "Are you sure, Serena?" The short haired med-school student asked, with concern apparent in her tone. Although the blonde knew that she should be grateful for the consideration they were giving her, she only felt even more agitated by the situation.

"Yes," she responded a bit too dryly. She cleared her throat when she realized the sharp tone of her voice. "I mean, I'm sorry. Yes. I want to spend more time with you guys," she smiled, hoping it would compensate.

"Anyway," Mina interjected from her seat, smiling brightly as she always did. "Daddy told me that your doctor's finally back from his trip."

"Is that so?" the girl responded rather disinterestedly. She had met with multiple doctors since the accident, especially since she apparently had some good medical connections in the city. She had actually seen so many of them that changing physicians was no longer a big deal. Plus, after watching so many of them fail to recover her memory, she was no longer hopeful or excited for the possibility of oncoming success.

"You don't mean?" Amy asked. Serena turned to the girl beside her, noticing the slight shakiness in her voice.

Mina nodded seriously. "Yes. Chiba."

Everyone at the table, save for Serena looked towards Mina. Serena, feeling the strange tension that had come over the table, cleared her throat. "You guys seem so afraid. Does he... suck at being a doctor, or something?"

Andrew was the first to respond. "No, Sere. Actually, he's one of the highest rated in the country."

Her brow raised in wonder. "What's the matter then?"

"Nothing." Lita declared with great certainty. "You'll be in good hands. I'm sure Mamoru will take good care of you," she added with a smile.

The blonde nodded, letting the topic go. She was just about to start another conversation when she heard a buzzing sound from inside her purse. She pulled the device from its compartment and quickly glanced at who was calling.

She gulped. "Um.. Excuse me guys, I just have to take this call," she explained as she got up from her seat. Once out of earshot, she pressed the green button on the screen and answered the call. "Hello?" she greeted as she continued to walk towards the cafe entrance. "Hi."

It couldn't be.

It just couldn't be.

But it was. Wasn't it?

Darien stood there with his eyes practically bulging out of their sockets. Just a few seconds ago, he was walking down the street towards his girlfriend's studio, where he had left his car the night before. He was just minding his own business. In fact, he was so caught up in trying to make up wit Rei over the phone that he wasn't even looking in front of him.

And then, BAM! His forehead met the glass door of Crowne as it opens, and the cellphone slipped from his fingers and landed right on the pavement.

His first instinct, of course, was to shout at whoever had opened that damn door and head in to yell at son-of-a-bitch Andrew for having a door that opened outwardly in the first place. He just couldn't understand why his best friend refused to change the damn thing.

But upon seeing the apologetic blue eyes that were looking towards him with an insurmountable amount of concern, all the words he had quickly prepared disappeared from his mind. He knew those eyes. They weren't just familiar. He'd looked into them a thousand times before. They were the eyes of a person he had once known. Someone he hadn't seen in almost half a decade.

Those eyes belonged to Serena Tsukino. His first love.

Something told Serena that there was something wrong with the way the raven-haired man was staring at her. First of all, she wasn't even sure he'd blinked yet. Second, it had been over a minute since his forehead collided with the hard glass and he still hasn't picked his phone up from the ground.

"Are you there?" the voice from her own mobile phone came from the receiver. "Did something happen?"

She shook her head. "No. Well, I think I might have hit someone by accident," she answered. "Um, is it okay if I call you back?"

She quickly pressed the red "end" button on the handheld device after hearing a mumbled goodbye from the person she was speaking to. She placed it in her back pocket and proceeded to pick up the blinking piece of technology from the pavement, aware of the fact that the man's gaze was following her every move.

"It's ringing," she told him as she got back up. When she got no response, she looked at the phone's screen. "Rei's calling."

Finally, the man responded and quickly grabbed the phone from her hand. She noticed that his gaze didn't veer away from her, even though he had already pressed the answer button on and placed the device near his ear.

"Okay then," she muttered in confusion, feeling a strange awkwardness towards the stranger. She began inching back towards the cafe entrance, thinking about how much of a shame it was that the man she had just encountered was so strange. After all, he was pretty cute.