Anyone who's known me for any length of time knows that this particular manga series holds a hallowed space on my book shelf. Honestly, its one of Tokyopop's better manga, and thats saying alot, cause I normally Bash Tokyopoop up and down the sidewalk cause they bastardize manga like no tomorrow (For example: Chobits. You don't re-name a principle character after a fruit. Its Sumomo, not Plumb you idjits. End example). Their translation of this particular title is suburb.

Now, onto the reason i started this thread. Volume 13 left off with Tina dragging everyone off to Hakata, her home prefrecture. She recently got a phone call from her parents telling her to come home to the U.S., and she hasn't really gotten around to telling everyone yet (If you've seen Ai Yori Aoshi ~Enishi~, you know atleast part of this). Mayu over hears this conversation (Since she understands english), and confronts her about, and somehow they start talking about Kaoru, and Tina's feeligs for him. Mayu, in a compleatly out of character twist, encourages her to confront those feelings. Has volume 13 closes, Tina takes Kaoru to her old elementry school, which is being closed, and she gets him to help dig up a Time Capsule that her class buried, and inside they find a camera that she put in there, and she takes him up to her old class room, and the volume cliffhangs with her about to tell him something... Bum Bum Bum... (dramatic music plays)

When volume 14 starts, tina confesses to him, and just as kaoru is about to respond, Tina shocks him buy revleiling that she knew about Him and Aoi from the time she met Aoi, and her reason for moving in her appartment was to get to know the Woman who had taken kaoru away from her, she was jealous, but the more she got to know her, the more she couldn't hate her, and then tells him never to stop loving Aoi.

Just before they return, at the air port, Tina shocks everyone buy say that she's going back to the U.S. after she graduates.

After they get back, Tina tags along with Aoi while grocery shopping, and when they are on their way home, Tina takes her to her 'favorite place' to see the sun sets, and there she confronts Aoi about her relationship with kaoru, wanting to hear it from her, and challenges her by saying that if Aoi doesn't, she will. Aoi tells the truth.

As the volume closes, on the last page, you see a television screen with a news announcement saying that someone important in the Japanese Buisness world has died. (Keep in mind that Aoi and Kaoru's families both own large corperations). I'm not going to spoil that.

That would be just mean.