Author's Ramble: Hey madlang tao! Another cute little Kurama fic! So though most despise Kitajima Maya-chan, I don't know why I don't but I don't. Maybe because I believe Kurama deserves a sweet little angel by his side. So here it is! My first KuramaxMaya fic! Enjoy guys and review please! You don't know how much your point of view matters to us writers.
Summary: It was suppose to be a nice, lazy day at home with his mother, so how and why on Earth was he scouring a forest for a ghost? That's right. He couldn't say no to the two of them.
Disclaimer: On my profile.
The sun shone softly through the blinds into eight-year old Minamino Shuichi's room. The gentle yellowish-white beams painted the room, delicately tinting little Shuichi's messy red hair and soft peach skin with pale gold.
Shuichi yawned softly, stretching his little form to the full length of the bed. Little palms rubbed the Sandman's magic out of his emerald green eyes. He smiled at the window as he sat up, the sun kissed his cherub cheeks, the morning wind lovingly patted his head.
It was Saturday, and it was going to be a good one.
Most children loved Saturdays, would give all their toys and their right hand to have Saturday served on their calendars everyday. And for once, Shuichi was among those children.
Butter and maple syrup mixed heavily with the aroma of roses as the redhead dragged his small feet to the bathroom, almost tripping twice due to an intoxicating cocktail of sleepiness and too-long pajamas.
Dressed in a pink polo shirt and blue denim shorts he made his bed and made his way downstairs, stopping at his desk first to pick up a few textbooks and a pencil. As he hopped down the steps, the breakfast scents grew stronger and roses smelled fainter. Minamino Shiori's cooking.
"Good morning sweetheart." The young mother's voice echoed across the home.
"Good morning Mother." Shuichi answered, smiling softly at his mother as he scrambled up a chair. He silently cursed a Makai curse at how small he was now, but the gentle giggle that slipped through his mother's lips made it worth it.
Sizzles and bubbles were the only sounds in the Minamino household, other than Shiori, humming a lower key version of some nursery rhyme Shuichi couldn't place, and the scritch-scratch of Shuichi's pencil as the boy did his homework.
It was Saturday, and it was starting to be a good one.
Plates clanked and utensils clicked as the mother and son setted the table for breakfast.
"So any special plans for today Shuichi?" Shiori asked her boy in-between forkfuls of fluffy pancakes dripping in syrup.
Minamino Shiori was lovely for her age. Though tiny wrinkles and crow's feet, the usual marks of age, gently filigreed her face, it did not hinder her natural beauty, but even enhanced it, adding a touch of experience and maturity to her kind expressions. She had soft, wavy locks, which in certain shades and plays of light, would appear a rich chocolate-brown, or a dark, shiny ebony. Her vanilla-strawberry skin was still smooth and soft, slightly calloused with years of hard work as a mother and a housemaker, without a blemish to speak of. Other than the cuts on her arms. Yet she wore the scars with pride, as they were testaments of her love for her son, and her determination to keep her boy safe. This kindness and love made her even more beautiful, a gentle breeze that flamed the already roaring blaze of her beauty.
Inari, Shuichi loved her.
And Inari, would he give anything to make her happy.
"Why? Do you need any help today Mother?" Shuichi answered her politely, as always, pushing a delicate forkful of pancakes into his little mouth.
Shuichi always had impeccable manners, Shiori noted. Unlike most boys his age, who would gorge down their breakfast in a minute flat, if not less, then be out the door in even less time than that, ready and eager to start the day playing, Shuichi would eat slowly, properly for a lack of a better term at the moment, taking his time to chew and swallow. And unlike other boys, her little Shuichi was more considerate. Instead of dashing off, he would wait patiently for her to finish, then he would clear the table, and then do other little chores Shiori would allow him to do. Most mothers would've been thrilled, but Shiori would rather he run off and play. It was her job, not Shuichi's. But the boy would insist, bat those long lashes and big, emerald eyes at her, and she would give him another little task, something that won't tire him out if he wanted to play later. But he won't play. And then the next thing the young mother would know, her little angel would be brushing his teeth, ready for bed, and the sun had been gone for so long that even the most stubborn little boys would've hustled home to their own mommies.
Kami, Shiori loved him.
And Kami would she do anything for him.
"It's not that honey. I just wanted to know." Shiori smiled, picking up her glass of juice.
"Nothing special Mother. I planned to spend the day with you. Is that all right?" There was a bit of shyness in Shuichi's tone, as if he thought it would be a bother.
"Of course it is Shuichi." Shiori expected as much, but other than the feeling she had that he should be out in the sun, having fun instead of cooped up with his old mom, she was thrillled. There was not much to do today anyway, so there were no chores the redhead could comandeer from his mother. Which was good, because this should be a day for relaxation and recreation. And besides, the time will come when her Shuichi would become his own man, when he wouldn't even have the time to give her the time of day, though it wouldn't be from rudeness, she knew her boy to be respectful and polite, but from other things that would call his attention. She sighed to herself. He was growing up so fast, too fast. It felt like just an hour ago, she was holding the newest addition to the Minamino household in her arms.
"Mother? If it's a bother then it's all right; I can stay in my room and do my homework instead."
Kami, did he have just as impeccable hearing.
"No, no, no Shuichi dear. Why wouldn't I want to spend the day with my boy?" Shiori smiled, getting up from her seat to hug him from behind his chair to prove her point."So what's on the agenda? Movie? Story? How about-"
Shiori's suggestions were cutted short with a sharp clang of metal.
"It seems someone's at the gate." Shuichi looked at the window, his small hands wrapped around his mother's forearms.
"It seems so." Shiori agreed with the same formality, looking out the window as well.
Their visitor was no where to be seen.
Another clang was made and heard.
"I'll get it." Mother and son volunteered simultaneously.
"We'll both get it then." Shiori unwrapped her embrace reluctantly, outstretching her hand and enveloping his in hers.
"Minamino-kun!" Little eight-year old Kitajima Maya screamed at the top of her small lungs.
She was a pretty girl. Long brown hair was pulled into a loose ponytail, so much different from her usual bun, a few strands and locks carelessly sprawled around the rosy pale skin of her face, while a few was blown by the wind into her big, gooey-melty chocolate-brown eyes. She rapped her small coin harder against the black, steel gate, calling out the name louder. The sun that gently kissed little Minamino's cheeks about half an hour ago, beated down on the little group with the passion it held back on with the red-haired boy. She wore a white, short-sleeved dress with a pair of pink ballet flats to match. She was glad she did.
"Maya-chan. we've been here forever! How are you so sure he's even home?" Tsubasa Arisa whined, purple locks strewn just as carelessly as her friend's. Her slanted eyes, just as purple and dark and shiny as her style-less hair, stared up into the sky. She wore a pair of black jogging pants and a dark pink blouse and wasn't as glad as Maya was in her choice of attire.
"But I know he's here! Where else would he go?" Maya defied, giving one last, hard smack before turning to the group.
"Maybe he heard us but just won't come out. Too high and mighty to come face-to-face with us commoners." Yu Kaitou muttered under his breath. Why go through all this trouble for a kid who didn't even want to come? He looked at Maya as she gave another, last, hit at the gate. And why would she go through all that trouble to look nice for him, when there was a little-to-none chance the guy would come anyway?
"Don't say that Kaitou-san! Minamino-san won't do something like that. He isn't like that." Arisa voiced the very thoughts of Maya's head, rising from the hot, concrete block of sidewalk she was previously sitting on.
"Then why hasn't he come out yet eventhough we've been screaming like banshees here for half an hour? Why go through all the trouble for one guy? And why do you go through so much trouble to look nice when there isn't any certainty that he'll even come if he does come out?" Kaitou retorted, looking at Maya instead of Arisa.
"Well of course Maya-chan has to look nice if she's ever going to impress Minamino-san! Otherwise, Mai-chan here would probably win his heart! No offense Mai-chan."
Katada Mai blushed brilliantly alongside Maya. The girl was the redhead's long time neighbor and best friend. Many about them were alike. Intelligent and wise beyond her years, her ocean-blue eyes held a certain depth and maturity yet still played with the shores of innocence. Much like Shuichi.
"I-It's not like that! And he is coming. He promised." Maya blushed, whispering the final words of her statement. It was obvious why she was so intent on this. She liked Shuichi, it wasn't hard to see. Well, at least to everyone else. But to Minamino Shuichi...
She looked at the wooden door of the Minamino home, anything to avoid the piercing gaze of her friends. At the instant she looked, the door opened, revealing the lovely Minamino-baasan and her beloved Minamino-kun.
Her blush would've faded if he didn't look even handsomer than he usually was. His crimson hair, short and boyish, was styled and dressed by the wind, yet it seemed the wind favored him more than her or Arisa-chan. His soft hand, the very hand she silently wished and dreamed to one day hold hers, was intertwined with his mother's giving him an innocent, more child-like appearance.
Most boys would retch their palms from their mothers' the second they are in the presence of others. Minamino-kun did nothing of the sort.
Maya knew she just fell for him even more.
"Kitajima? What are you doing here?" His sweet voice lifted across the air into her ears. She could spend eternity listening to that voice of his.
She always had an affinity for the supernatural. Ghosts were her forte, werewolves and vampires, her speciality, the paranormal, her calling. She could tell you everything you needed for an exorcism, the whole nine-yards of Frankenstein's anatomy, accurate statistics of UFO abductions, all the symptoms of the becoming of any and all monstrosities. Yet nothing was as strange, as unknown, as scary, as exciting, as the churning and twirling in the pit of her stomach, the thump-thump-thump of her heart, the heat pushing to her face, the sweatiness of her palms, the giddy-happy-nervous-concious-scared-embarassed feeling, whenever Minamino Shuichi was within her vicinity.
She knew there was something special about him, something different. She just didn't know what.
But she was going to find out, Kami, she was-
Wait a second... Is Minamino-kun blushing?
This was not what he expected.
"Kitajima? What are you doing here?"
Yu Kaitou, looking simultaneously smug and annoyed, was leaning against the stone wall of their home, cladded in his school uniform. The spectacled genius snorted a bit the second their eyes met, and though about ten feet apart, Shuichi could still hear as a consequence of his top-notch hearing. About five others were among his academic rival.
Tsubasa Arisa waved excitedly.
Igarashi Hiroshi and Igarashi Hikari, twins, jumped up and down beside her. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, their features were fully Asian to the bone and cell, from the tilt of their eyes to the curl of their hair. They were in matching pants, shoes and shirts, different hues of pink, blue, purple and green the only difference in attire.
Inu Mira was a neighborhood child and a classmate like the rest. Her hair was as dark as the night sky, and her eyes just as dark and deep and mysterious.
Katada Mai called out his name from a distance. She was dressed in her usual outfit of a white polo shirt much like Shuichi's, a light gray cardigan that run up past her small hands, folded back to her wrists, blue denim shorts and white sneakers. Her long raven hair was pulled back with a white butterfly clamp and, as usual, she had in her hands her tattered Biology textbook the two of them had memorized by heart since they learned how to read. Which was when they were two. Her cerulean-blue eyes sparkled warmly.
But the sight he really didn't expect to see was Kitajima Maya.
Okay scratch that, of course he expected to see her there. She was the only one who would actually try to get him out and about. Mai, his best friend and neighbor, would usually come over with a few books and games. She knew Shuichi. Though he wasn't by any means wimpy or weak, he was more of a it's-such-a-nice-day-so-I'll-stay-inside-and-read than a let's-get-out-and-play-ourselves-dead type of kid.
But Maya... She looked really... nice. It was rare for anyone to see Maya not wearing her hair in a bun. And her dress looked nice on her too... It was a bit refreshing.
Probably the only thing that exceeded Shuichi's surprise was Shiori's.
She looked down at her boy a fraction of a second after he asked. She assumed Kitajima was the little girl who looked up when Shuichi called. The little girl blushed a deeper shade of red. But what Shiori didn't expect that her boy would blush in turn.
Her boy really was growing up.
"Shuichi, dear? Why don't you introduce me to your friends?"
Shuichi snapped out of a, most likely, momentary trance. Introductions were made and the young Shiori, ever kind and gentle, invited the children in for breakfast.
"No thank you Shiori-baachan. We all just stopped by to pick up Shuichi." Mai answered in suit, just as polite and respectful as Shuichi, yet hers held a bit more affection.
"Shuichi? For what?"
"Ghosthunting!" The band of children answered in chorus, all but Kaitou enthusiastic, the only reason the little know-it-all came was to prove Maya wrong.
"I'm really sorry but I can't. I've made plans with my mother." Shuichi apologized, ever polite.
"Eh?! But you promised Minamino-kun!" Maya walked up to the boy, small fists pushed up against her chin. "You not only promised, but pinkie-promised! Pinkie-promised!"
She looked at Shuichi with her big, brown eyes, her long lashes batted once in a while, her lips puckered and pouting.
She looks just like Shuichi when he begs for chores... Shiori thought.
Mai looked from her friend to her best friend, lips playing in a teasing smirk.
How are you getting out of this Shuichi? She thought to herself.
Minamino Shuichi looked confused and conflicted, lips curled in an awkward, nervous smile, green eyes wide and quirking. He looked to Mai.
She was teetering on the edge of her rare, yet trademark smirk. No hope there.
He looked to his mother in an effort to seek help.
Her own brown eyes were closed shut in an effort to keep the giggles at bay. Her soft hand, which comforted him and caressed and loved him all these years, laid to rest on her mouth which spoke the most loving and tender words anyone could ever hope to hear. Yet he could see. He didn't only have wonderful hearing, but of course 20/20 vision. She was smiling, a smile of pure happiness and amusement and joy.
He knew what he had to do. And it didn't seem so bad.
"Mother, may I?"
Yu Kaitou couldn't believe his ears. If he had a yen for all the times anyone has invited Minamino Shuichi anywhere or to anything, and the young pretty boy had refused, he wouldn't have to be a famous novelist for anything but the love of literature.
He watched as his rival waved goodbye to his mother, after the initial shock faded from her face, she gave him the go signal that it was fine. The elder Minamino still held her sweet expression of joy on her face, softer and lighter yet ever-concentrated with happiness.
Well. I guess, as they say, "Hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn." Minamino...
He watched as Maya intertwined her hand with the red-haired prodigy's, both immediately wearing a slight red shade on their faces as Maya pulled him off towards the horizon.
"Where are we going?" Shuichi yelled shakily as they ran.
"Mushiyori Local Park. They say the spirit of a woman searching for her unfulfilled 'happily ever after' lives there." Maya smiled excitedly, for the moment forgetting that she was holding hands with her first, and probably only, love.
Especially if you have two of them...
Author's Ramble: Finally! So what do you think? Please review and I'm really glad you've stuck with this until the end. I'm just a bit sad that there aren't many Maya-fics when she is Shu- I mean Kurama's first love, sorry since I've been referring to our favorite redhead kitsune as Shuichi for hours on end. So once again I hope you enjoyed and please review. By the way, the saying "Hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn" isn't mine, but I can't remember who it belongs to. Also, Tsubasa, if I remember right, actually exists in the manga. She's Maya's friend who called Kurama when she went missing in the two-shot. And lastly, Katada Mai is an actual OC of mine, whom which I have witten two other fics about. And one more, last, thing. Hikari and Hiroshi might reappear again, yet not as Kurama's classmates. Unless I make another fic about Kurama as human child Minamino Shuichi. So, that's it. Ja ne!