By Meredith Summer
Author's note: Heheheh…I've given up on trying to guess how often I'll be able to update. Life…my life especially…has a way of becoming complicated and crazy. Anyway, I wanted to give a heads up that this chapter is a bit short…Sorry about that. On with the story.
Chapter 5: A Princess' DutiesThe three new princesses sat across from Tohru and the rest of the student council. All four princesses wore simple calf-length dresses of dark burgundy. Tohru's dress was trimmed with gold ribbon while the others' dresses were trimmed adorned with silver.
"So, you three, the most time consuming princess duty is encouraging our students in their pursuit of athletic or intellectual glory."
Mikoto elbowed Yuujiro who sat next to him. "Sakomoto-sama sounds just like Arisada-sempai, doesn't he?" he whispered. Yuujiro chuckled in response.
Akira ignored the commentary and continued describing their duties to the new princesses. "Last year, the three princesses did all of this together all the time because the designer insisted that the costumes only worked if all three were seen together. This year's designer isn't so picky about that, so we'll be doing things a little differently."
Mikoto stood up and pulled out a white board. He pointed to the first column of writing. "As you can see here, there are a total of fifteen sports teams and culture clubs requiring encouragement. Eventually you will be separated into pairs so that each club can get more attention, but in order to be fair to all the clubs, you will all four go to all the clubs every day this first week."
Sayaka, Fuyuki, and Aeryn looked stunned at this news; Tohru simply looked resigned.
Yuujiro took a turn explaining the cheerleading schedule. "During the second week, Tohru and Sayoko-hime will cheer for the first eight teams on the list. Yukiko and Aeryn-hime will take the remaining seven teams. After three days, the princesses will switch so that Yukiko and Aeryn will cheer for the first eight teams for the remaining three days of the week."
Akira broke in, hoping to reassure the new princesses. "We're hoping that by breaking you into pairs, this activity will be less of a burden on your time and energy. During the third week, Tohru will pair with Aeryn-hime and they will take the first eight teams for the first three days of the week. It's basically the same thing except that the princess pairs are different."
Sayaka and Fuyuki were beginning to look eager—Aeryn still looked pretty freaked out.
Tohru stood up and all eyes turned to him. "The fourth week follows the same kind of schedule, except that it will be Yukiko-hime who cheers for the first eight teams on the list with me. The fourth week is also the last week we have to cheer for all fifteen teams and clubs. At this point, all the clubs and teams will participate in local competitions. Those games overlap, so we don't have to worry about them." The three new princesses sighed in relief without even considering yet what it would mean if they had to go cheer at those games. Also, although Sayaka and Fuyuki felt eager about the whole princess thing, they were beginning to feel overwhelmed. Aeryn had simply become resigned to her fate.
Akira's next words, however, put disbelief on all three faces. "If any teams win the local competitions, then when they go on to compete in the regional competitions all four hime-dachi will cheer at the practices in the two weeks until the regionals and all four hime-dachi will attend the regionals in costume."
The older boys had decided before hand that they would allow the girls to digest this bit of news before mentioning the nationals. The four boys watched in amusement as disbelief turned to amazement and back again to disbelief.
Sayaka pointed at Tohru. "Y-y-you went to the regional games d-d-dresses as a-a-a-a-a g-g-g-girl?" Akira and Yuujiro burst into masculine laughter as Mikoto blushed furiously and Tohru merely smiled brilliantly at the three girls. "It was a job. Besides, no one who doesn't know me has no idea I'm not really a girl when I'm in costume. How is it different from you three pretending to be boys every day?"
Fuyuki and Aeryn had said nothing since the revelation. Now Fuyuki smiled. "You know, Tohru-niichan, I think you, Shihoudani-kun, and Yutaka-kun made beautiful girls." Yuujiro and Tohru grinned at the mortified Mikoto.
Akira cleared his throat. "There is one other aspect to the cheering component of your jobs. Should any teams actually win the regional competitions, they will move on to the national games and all four hime-dachi will cheer."
Mikoto added, "Last year, none of the teams went to the nationals—thank God. But this year will be different. The older students are so excited to have Tohru-hime back that they're working really hard. I heard the kendo captain telling his team that they have to make Tohru-hime proud to have come back." Tohru rolled his eyes at this and Aeryn giggled.
Sayaka shrugged. "Well I guess going to the nationals is no worse really than going to the regionals."
Mikoto tapped the white board. "For now, your official duties only include the cheering. However, there is a tradition of unofficial duties that the students frequently ask the princesses to perform. The presence of the Princesses was created to provide relief to an all-boys school. Therefore, we ask that you are cheerful at all times and that when students ask for solace you give it to them. Kouno-kun will show you what this means."
Yuujiro snickered. "Listen to Mikoto when he had to be bullied into acting cheerful and providing solace!"
After the three new princesses had left to try on their new costumes, Yuujiro turned to the others. "You know, if we're going to have a dance with the St Luminous all-girls' school, we're going to have to make sure the students know how to dance."
Akira added, "We should also arrange for the students to meet the girls at St Luminous before the dance or it will be an uncomfortable failure."
Tohru added, "Remember last year at the School Festival, how Mikoto's older sister was bothered by some of our students? I think we need to make sure our students know how to behave with these girls." The four boys just looked at each other and slumped in their seats.
Ding Dong "Would Kinomoto Aaron, Sakomoto Yukito, and Kouno Sayoran please come to the student council room immediately."
The students clustered around Sayoran groaned as he extricated himself from the group. "Sorry minna-san. I've got to answer the summons. I promise I'll be back as quickly as I can."
Sayoran met up with Aaron and Yukito in the hallway outside the student council room. "Do you have any idea what they want this time?" Aaron asked as soon as he saw the others.
Yukito shrugged. "No idea. The cheerleading is going well, but I bet it's some new thing they want us to do."
Sayoran nodded. "You know, if I didn't know that Tohru-niichan has already done this, I'd say they're asking too much of us."
All three exchanged rueful glances as they entered the student council room, each thinking they might not have been so eager to do this if they'd known how much work it would be. The door had barely closed behind them when they stopped in surprise. In addition to the four members of their own student council, there were nine other people: one young man and eight young women. The young man wore black pants and a charcoal grey blazer over a crisp white shirt while the ladies all wore identical uniforms: burgundy skirts with white blouses embroidered with pink and burgundy.
Akira smiled at the uncertain looks on the faces of his little sister and her friends. "Ah, hime-dachi, welcome. We have news for you."
Tohru gestured to the strange young man who sat between him and Mikoto. "This is Nathaniel Young, from America. He's our newest student."
As the three younger students nodded hello to Nathaniel, Yuujiro gestured for them to sit on the unoccupied sofa. "As you know, in order to keep your secret, we've decided that the princesses will be escorted to official functions."
The three looked at him in mild shock. He laughed. "Don't worry, they already know about your secret. Anyway, the problem has been that since Tohru is both a princess and a member of the student council, we're short an escort. Young-san—"
Yuujiro was interrupted by the new boy. "Please, everyone, call me Nathaniel. At my old school, we only got called by our last names if we were in trouble."
Everyone laughed at this and nodded to Nathaniel. Yuujiro continued. "Anyway, Nathaniel has agreed to be Sayoko-hime's escort. We haven't yet come up with a position for him to have on the student council, but we will."
Fuyuki was the first to recover. "It's nice to meet you Nathaniel-kun. You and I will have to have a chat later. Sempai, I understand why you've told him our secret, but who are these other people and why did you tell them that we're really girls?" Sayaka and Aeryn nodded their agreement.
Before Yuujiro could answer her, the young women who sat in the middle of the strangers cleared her throat and smiled. She was a willowy young woman with flaming chestnut hair, pale perfect skin, and brilliantly blue eyes. "My name is Meredith Summer, student body president of St Luminous Girl's Academy. These," she gestured to the three girls to her left, "are the other members of the student council. These," this time she gestured to the four girls to her right, "are the girls we wish to become our first Prince Charmings."
Sayaka, Fuyuki, and Aeryn stared in shock while Tohru and Yuujiro looked amused, Akira wore a blank expression, and Mikoto struggled to maintain a neutral face.
Eventually Aeryn recovered enough to say faintly, "Prince Charmings?"
One of the other St Luminous student council members, the one seated next to Meredith, smiled and said, "Good looks, brains, athletic prowess, kindness to others, a good personality, and unfailing politeness. Those are the qualities we looked for in selecting our first official Prince Charmings."
The petite blond girl sitting next to the one who'd just spoken said with feeling. "A school with nothing but girls can be just as bad as a school with nothing but boys, believe me. Meredith-san has sort of been an unofficial Prince Charming for the last couple of years, but as student body president, she's too busy to do much. We need help training our Prince Charmings."
The last member of the St Luminous student council, a tall girl with chocolate colored skin, added, "Meredith-san's older brother was a princess here six years ago. When Meredith started high school she was astounded by the lack of school spirit, the amount of cat-fights, and the viciousness of the students. She approached the student council with examples of how well the Princess System works here at Fujimori Academy, but it wasn't until the school had seen how many changes she made in the people who were around her when she acted like a Prince Charming that she was elected the student body president. In her first term, however, she wasn't able to find anyone suitable. In addition to everything Jade mentioned, there also has to be a physical component as well…the same thing that has made you three princesses pass so well as boys since you got here. It doesn't really work that well if a girl has obvious breasts."
The boys from Fujimori Academy blushed and squirmed a little bit at this comment.
The chocolated-skinned girl continued after smirking at them. "This year we have four girls who fit all the requirements, but Meredith-san is too busy to show them what to do."
Akira leaned forward, "What exactly is it you want from us then?"
Meredith also leaned forward and smiled. "We want you to allow our Prince Charmings-in-training to shadow your four Princesses for two weeks. I believe that seeing how the Princesses behave when not in costume will teach our girls how to behave when in costume."
Author's note:
So a few things to say about this chapter before I get to the usual stuff. I actually sat down to type up this chapter about two weeks ago. I got to the scene where Sayaka, Fuyuki, and Aeryn are standing outside the student council room wondering what they are doing now. I had to go do something else, don't remember what it was, and when I came back, instead of finishing typing the chapter, I decided to see if there'd been any new Princess Princess stories since the last time I checked. There were and several of them not only had dances with all girls' schools but also had some sort of Prince system at the all girls' schools. I was so upset. The thing about being a writer is that you understand that on some level nothing is original, it's all based on some idea someone else had. I mean that's the basis of fanfiction, right? Our stories are based on someone else's work. However, I was upset because I wasn't the first fanfiction writer to get my version published so to speak. It's one thing to know that everything is based on something else and it's an entirely different thing to have the exact same plot element as someone else. The dance at the all girls' school didn't bother me all that much. After all, I believe I was the first one to have it mentioned on If you think back to the beginning of chapter four, Akira mentions that the dance is part of the conditions for the girls' school records to show that they attended St Luminous, although I didn't name the all girls' school at that point. Chapter four was published back in early October. In addition, I'd written up through that point long before I published even the prologue. But I had to do something about the Prince thing. I couldn't decide what to do, and that's why it's taken me so long to finish updating…
New Characters:
Nathaniel Young- remember the student transferring from America who got the single room Yuujiro would've been in? This is him.
Meredith Summer- I always name a character of my fanfics after my penname. Don't worry, she isn't really me…she's what I would kill to actually look like though…she'll be a relatively minor character in this fic.
Li Jade- the only other St Luminous student council member to be named so far. She kind of looks like Hermione from Harry Potter, except she has black hair.
I'm going to go ahead and give you the names of the other St Luminous students although right now I'm not going to tell you who's who. Kudos to anyone who can guess which animes I'm borrowing the names from.
Haruka Tenoh
Meryl Stryfe
Rico Swanson
Kaolla Su
Ichino Yanagida
Seira Mimori