Chapter 1: Hello, I Imprinted on You

All Seth wanted to do was to throw off his cutoff shorts and boxers and shower pronto. Even though Jacob had brought them out for a brief meeting to check the perimeters for rogue vampires, he felt sweaty and hot. Leah had already beat him home by the time Jacob and Sam had agreed that everything looked normal. He had tried to run home to catch up with her but ended up tripping over a large tree root in his path. He hadn't broken anything but was forced to go slower the rest of the way home to avoid hurting himself. Great, just great.

He caught his breath as he made his way into the door and saw that everyone from Embry to Emily had already made it there. Emily was busy cooking and the rest of the gang were fighting over something stupid. Quil was the only one not seated as he was wiping up a mess on the floor which looked like spilled juice and squished breakfast potatoes. There must have been a fight over the food. Barely anyone had noticed that he had made it in other than maybe Emily who ordered him to wash up before eating. Even with his "friends" he was invisible.

He headed over to the bathroom and sighed unhappily to see that the door was closed. He could hear the shower water running and her groaned. Leah was probably in there, hogging all of the hot water too. He started banging on the door loudly and yelled through the door, "Leah! Come on already! Don't take all of the hot water, I just got back!" He thought he heard the shower turn off and he grew impatient. He heard drawers being opened and closed and guessed that maybe Leah was trying to purposely make him wait by combing her short, dark hair slowly. Not wanting to wait any longer, he grabbed the door handle and found that it wasn't locked.

"Honestly Leah," he began irritably as he opened the door, "Couldn't you just-" He quickly cut off his words as he saw that the figure occupying the bathroom was definitely not his sister but a petite girl with long dark hair that fell slightly past her waist. It flowed over her chest at the moment and a moist bath towel covered her body. Her amber brown eyes met his and Seth felt like a complete idiot for barging in on a naked stranger. Wait, scratch that a beautiful naked stranger.

Instead of screaming or crying out, the girl simply replied in an apologetic manner, "I'm sorry about that. I'll move to Leah's room so you can shower." Seth's face reddened as he stammered his apologies.

"Wait, hey uh," he struggled to say, "I, I didn't really mean any of that stuff! I thought it was my sister in here taking her time. I didn't mean to open the door on you. Do you want me to leave so you can change?"

The girl opened her mouth to speak when his sister came up behind him and smacked him on the head.

"You are such an idiot!" she snapped harshly at him as she grabbed the girl's hand and began leading her to her room, "Since when did you decide to go spying on my friends showering?" Seth gritted his teeth and tried to not to get angry since it could very well end up making for an ugly mess.

"I thought it was you in there hogging the shower," he stiffly replied, "I didn't know, okay? I told her I was sorry." Leah looked steamed still but her friend broke away from Leah's firm grip on her wrist and turned to face Seth.

"Your apology is accepted," she politely told him, "Sorry, I'm Michiko Sanashi, just call me Michi." She held her hand out and Seth shyly took her slender fingers in his massive hand. He could hear his heart thudding in his chest as he met her large eyes. Then the spell faded as Leah irritably broke up the magical moment by dragging Michi to her room and Seth slipped into the bathroom to shower. His hand shook slightly as he gripped the handle for the shower and cranked it to the left. He kicked his shorts and boxers off and stepped under the stream of hot water.

How could Michi stand hanging out with his sister? Sure, he loved Leah since she was all she had left after their father died but still, she was capable of being, well, annoying. As the stream of water flowed onto his head, he closed his eyes to shut out the drips of water rushing toward his face. His face grew warm at the thought of Michi standing here only moments ago under this same shower. His shower. He thought he saw hourglass curves under her towel's lifeless shape but it was hard to tell. And her voice. It was soft and melty, kind of like ice cream on a hot day. He smiled slightly and was startled by the sound of Embry's voice calling through the door. Seth grasped the knob and turned the water off so he could hear Embry better. Yelling or talking loudly seemed to be a difficult thing for him since he managed to mumble a lot.

"How long are you gonna be in there man?" demanded Embry on the other side of the door. Seth grabbed a towel and placed it over his wet, short hair to dry it. Then he wrapped the towel around his waist before yanking the door open to face Embry.

"I'm out," sighed Seth as he began heading for his room. Embry called after him with some annoyance in his voice.

"It's not the shower I wanted," he snorted at the younger boy, "I was just telling you that we're gonna play 7 Minutes in Heaven and wanted to know if you wanted in." Seth rifled through his drawers for clean boxers and sweats and Embry took this as a moment to share something.

"We're mostly doing it because of Leah's friend," he admitted as Seth pulled a plain white t-shirt out of his drawer. Embry looked over his shoulder to make sure that she wasn't passing by suddenly before turning back. "It's mainly because she's not grouchy like Leah and she's pretty hot for a newbie."

"What? What's that supposed to mean?" Seth warily asked as he slipped the t-shirt over his head.

Embry leaned on the dresser top as Seth walked to change in his closet. "Well she's new in town and Leah met her through school," he casually offered, "She got along with your sister when talking about how superficial most of the chicks in their class seemed. And usually we make fun of the fact that none of Leah's friends are hot enough that we'd imprint on them anyways." Imprint. That word made Seth freeze in the closet and slowly he realized that he just imprinted on Leah's new friend. Whoa. He shook slightly since he really like Michi so far but grew concerned at how she would react. For all he knew, she could have be trying to be nice to him because he was Leah's baby brother.

Embry frowned and called out to Seth in the closet as silence settled in. "Are you alive in there?"

Seth swallowed hard as he pulled his sweats on quickly. "Yeah," he murmured, "So uh why was she using the shower?" Embry smirked as Seth emerged and folded his arms across his chest.

"Quil went all gooey on her and tried to offer her juice and breakfast," Embry snorted, "Because that didn't sit well with Jared, well, he tripped Quil on purpose with the intention of him getting the breakfast mess all over but instead he stumbled and it landed on her." Seth winced as he stretched his arms skyward and imagined the ugly sight.

"How bad was it?" Seth asked as he walked over to Embry.

"Pretty bad," Embry replied thoughtfully, "Potatoes got caught in her hair and the juice splashed all over the front of her shirt. Emily was really upset and thought it was Quil's fault so she made him clean up the mess immediately. Then she made Michiko go shower and threw her clothes into the washer. Careful with Emily right now-she's a bit testy today since Jared tried to sneak off to peek at Michiko in the shower." Seth gritted his teeth and could taste the iron, unpleasant fluid running through his mouth at the moment from accidentally biting his tongue. It figured that he wouldn't have a shot with her. Quil had already imprinted on Claire but she was barely old enough to have a grown-up conversation with him that contained any decent meaning. As for Jared, well, who knew what that guy wanted anyways?

"So are you playing or not?" asked Embry, breaking into Seth's thoughts.

"Sure, I'm game I guess."