Whatever affair she'd had with Jack was over. Done. Finished. It couldn't even be called an "affair". "Affair" was too grand and meaningful a word to describe her relationship with him – it would be more suitable to describe it as a passing phase, or even a fling. Yes, that was better: a fling. A harmless fling that meant nothing to her.

She was with Rai now, charming, romantic, safe Raimundo. It should have been like that from the start – she always knew he liked her. Shamelessly flirting almost from the day they met; incidentally, it was the same day she met Jack.

When she met Rai, he seemed almost exactly her type; tall, athletic, a small smirk always gracing his tanned face, one that said he was attractive and he knew it. He flirted with her constantly, which she figured he was doing simply because she was the only option. Well, two could play at that game. So she flirted right back, albeit in a more subtle manner. But she quickly realized it meant a bit more. Oh, he was very good at hiding it; his mask almost fooled Kimiko herself. But there were tiny hints thrown out here and there, many accidental, a few of them shown to her deliberately, things so subtle only a girl could pick them up. Clay and Omi were oblivious, certainly. But the tiny glances, subtle entendres, preferring to sit next to her instead of anybody else…

And then there was Jack. Ridiculous, dramatic, childish Jack. He was taller than her, although most people were. He was skinny, not an ounce of muscle on him, and he was chalk white. His crazy hair, his childish mannerisms, his strange sense of style, his obsessions with world domination… Kimiko was first surprised with him, then lightly intrigued, and then just plain annoyed. He was always there when a Shen Gong Wu activated, an incredibly persistent obstacle – despite the fact that he was ridiculously incompetent, one could only admire his determination. He was less than subtle with his interest in her. Although he was a year older than her, he made no secret of his crush; while very brief, it was almost alarming how confident he was when it came to flirting with her. It could have had something to do with the fact that she was sitting in an overlarge bird cage at the time, though. And when she rejected him, he only seemed slightly put out; he accepted it, and never so much looked at her strangely again.

But all that was years ago; twelve of them, to be exact. Kimiko was twenty-three now, living in her homeland of Japan again. She and the other Dragons, minus Omi, had left the temple after almost a year of radio silence on Dojo's inner Wu radar, when Kimiko was nineteen. Clay had returned to his family ranch in Texas, Raimundo had gone back to Brazil, and Kimiko herself had returned to her Papa in Tokyo. She hadn't seen any of them in years – then, out of the blue, she saw a familiar face in the crowd. Rai? She could hardly believe her eyes, but there he was, and the first thing he did when they finally stood in front of one another was kiss her full on the mouth.

They had been together ever since; he'd even moved to Japan to be closer to her. He had bought an apartment a few blocks from her house. She loved him – deep down she knew she always had and always would, even when she hated him. Even when they argued, which wasn't often. They were so rare, in fact, that however tiny the subject of said argument was, however unremarkable their disagreement, it always left her shell-shocked, and he always apologized, even if it wasn't his fault. Kimiko supposed it was because they hadn't seen each other for so long, he didn't want to alienate her after they finally got together, especially since he was well-aware of the explosiveness of her temper.

But the thing was, she hadn't gotten worked up, really worked up, in forever. Not since… him.

She could still remember how they had gotten into their… "fling". There had been a showdown, and she was sixteen. The dragons had split up because of several Shen Gong Wu activating at once – by pure chance, Jack had decided to go after the same one she was. She found out later that Tubbimura, Katnappé, and the Chameleon-bot (version 3.0) had gone after the other ones. She and Jack had touched the Wu, which was up a tree, at the same time, and she had challenged him to a race across the tree branches. She had lain in the lead for a while, but suddenly he was in front of her. And looking back at her to grin smugly, he tripped, which sent him sprawling and sent her tripping right over him. They tumbled, miraculously not falling out of the trees, and somehow he ended up on top of her, their faces dangerously close together, breathing heavily.

And then he, possibly high on adrenaline, suddenly closed the distance between their lips and kissed her. For whatever reason, she didn't kick his sorry ass and instead found herself kissing him back. And so it began.

At first she tried to pretend it never happened. But then she caught herself thinking about him on multiple occasions, staring into space with a strange look on her face, which Omi took delight in commenting on while quoting from his damn Ancient Guide to Females. She dreamt about him more than once, shamefully erotic dreams from which she woke drenched in sweat with her blankets wrapped around her knees. God help her when she actually saw him – somehow she found herself studying his face, his body, his hair, being more critical and objective than she'd ever bothered to be before. And she bizarrely found that she wasn't entirely as opposed to what she saw as she used to be. When two more Shen Gong Wu activated at the same time and she was paired up with Omi to go retrieve one of them while Clay and Rai went to get the other, she prayed to whatever deity that was listening that she wouldn't meet him again. But there he was, with Tubbimura, and Omi and Tubbi entered a showdown, which left Kimiko and Jack alone together.

Somehow his lips found hers again, more aggressive than before, and she responded, answering his aggression with pent-up passion she didn't know she felt for him. They kept finding ways to be together, keeping it a secret from everybody around them, their friends and their enemies. And it worked.

He wasn't her first when they finally hit the sheets – she'd had a boyfriend or two that she'd messed around with before – but he was the only one who made her feel anything even vaguely resembling pleasure. She never found out whether she was his first or not, but she honestly didn't care. She wouldn't have been surprised if she was, but he didn't act like it. He knew what he was doing – either that or he was just a natural. She'd never thought one way or the other about sex before – when she was with him, she wondered absently why people didn't just have sex all the time, if everybody else felt the way she did when she was with Jack. She never thought she'd say it, but she was falling in love with Jack Spicer.

She loved what they had – the sex, the passion, the entire thing wrapped in a secret kept from everybody but them. They argued – oh, hell yes, they argued. They fought like animals, over anything and everything, but they always got over it. The screaming was half the fun, like foreplay without the drunken double entendres.

The most fun, however, was acting like there was nothing between them when others were around. Whenever there were showdowns, Kimiko made sure she was the one to compete against Jack. She was never easy on him; quite the opposite, in fact. She always fought harder against him, made sure she'd win, because she knew it would piss him off. It was always more fun to piss him off for later. She remembered one time when they were in a showdown together – she couldn't remember what the contest was – and they kept bouncing insulting innuendos off each other in front of the other Dragons and Wuya, without them noticing a thing out of place.

She hardly remembered why she broke it off. She thought it had something to do with her friends getting suspicious about her relationship to him, and she knew how badly they would take it. She knew they'd rip him to shreds if they found out – her too, if she stood in their way. But she remembered Jack's reaction. He went completely still, eyes hard and flashing like steel. He didn't say anything, though she knew from the look in his eyes that there was nothing he'd rather do than yell at her and plead with her, scream himself hoarse at her. But he didn't. He just stood there, and then he turned away.

She didn't see him for weeks after that. He didn't come for the Shen Gong Wu. The others wondered where he'd gone, but Kimiko kept quiet and didn't join in their wild guessing games. She knew it was her fault. She kept to herself during those few weeks. When there was no training, no chores, and no Wu, she isolated herself from the others. She tried to convince herself that whatever she felt for Jack Spicer had been just hormones and lust; anyway, the whole thing had been meaningless. But there was a part of her she wasn't always aware of, deep in her subconscious, that warned her not to deny her feelings.

She ignored it.

When she finally saw him again… She hardly recognized him. Perhaps it had just been a while since she'd seen him, but he seemed a little taller, a little older, a little harder around the edges. His clothes were the same, his hair was the same, even those damn goggles were still glued to his forehead. But his expression was so un-Jack-like that she wanted to run up to him and kiss him, hold him, make up like they used to. But she couldn't, because they were finished. And besides, she told herself, she didn't love him.

She couldn't love him.

Yet it was so hard to remember that, looking at him. She hung back, let Clay take the showdown. Wuya screeched at Jack to make an effort, damnit, stop fooling around and get the Wu. And he did. He sailed straight through the challenge and won the Wu without so much as blinking an eye. And when the landscape had returned to normal, when they were back on solid ground, Jack turned around and looked Kimiko straight in the eye. She remembered how her breath had caught in her throat when she saw the anger, the pain, the sheer want in his eyes. Even after what she'd done to him, he still wanted her back. Poor, hopeless, delusional Jack. It was all she could do to restrain herself from taking a running leap into his arms.

The Shen Gong Wu stopped activating soon after that. There was no longer any reason for them to meet, so she stopped hoping. When Master Fung announced that they could go home, she rejoiced. Not because she was going home to Papa, although she was happy about that too. No, Tokyo was far away from Jack Spicer, and her friends in Japan would provide a long-needed distraction. Not that she would tell them, of course; she knew them well enough to know that they'd make a mountain out of a mole-hill and start claiming she was still in love with Jack Spicer, that she needed to go back and apologize for all she was worth. But she didn't love him. She didn't. Honest.

For a while it worked fine – it was only at night when she missed his company, and occasionally she missed having someone to argue with, just for the sake of arguing; and alright, she did enjoy discussing everything and nothing, watching movies when they couldn't sleep and it was too late to go anywhere, keeping a passion locked up for the sake of appearances so that when it was released, it exploded, filling every corner of the room with the sounds of two people hopelessly in love…

Except they weren't. In love, that is.

And then she began to miss him. Like, really miss him. Miss his face, miss his touch, miss the way his hair flopped over his face when he bent down to look her in the eye. Miss the way his tongue stuck out the corner of his mouth when he worked on his robots, miss the way he yelled for pudding cups when he couldn't concentrate, miss the way his eyes took on that amused glint when he insulted her during showdowns, knowing full well that she'd get revenge on him in the bedroom later. She marveled at how different nineteen year old Jack had been from twelve year old Jack, and wondered what he'd be like if they met now, now that she was twenty-three and he was almost twenty-five.

Kimiko looked down at the picture she was holding. Seventeen year old Jack Spicer and sixteen year old Kimiko Tohomiko, squished together within the frame of a photograph, forever frozen in a moment at the very beginning of their relationship. No, not relationship. Fling. It was a fling, damnit, not a relationship. She stuffed the photo back in the shoebox from whence it had come, along with a bunch of other memorabilia from those remarkable years. She stood on her tippy-toes to push it back onto the shelf where she'd gotten it from. Rai didn't know it existed. Nobody knew it existed. Nobody but her. Not even Jack knew she'd kept all these things, although how could he? They hadn't so much as spoken once since she told him it was over – he'd probably burned everything of hers she'd ever left or given him. God only knew how many things she'd burned from old boyfriends, especially if they'd dumped her in a particularly heinous way.

Rai was coming. They were going to dinner. A fancy restaurant she liked, which was nice because it was a sushi place and Rai hated sushi. If it had been Jack, they'd have fought tooth and nail about where to go –

But no. She wasn't going to think about Jack Spicer any more. He was gone. History. She'd probably never see him again. Rai was better for her anyway. He loved her and did anything for her and they'd been friends for years and he was sweet and generous and so mature now. And he got on well with Papa and made her feel safe, and was romantic and charming and always complimented her and told her exactly what she needed to hear when she was sad and he made all her friends jealously wish they had guys like him. Not like…

Do not think about Jack Spicer. Do not think about Jack Spicer. Kimiko repeated the mantra in her head over and over in the shower. Do not think about Jack Spicer.

Except… Just chanting that simple sentence in her head made her think of Jack. It was so wrong. Jack was no longer a part of her life. She had Rai now, a real boyfriend. She dressed quickly, trying to keep her mind as blank as possible. But she was too quick, because suddenly she was ready to walk out the door, and there was still a half an hour before Rai was supposed to pick her up. So she sat down on the couch and tried to watch TV. When that failed she tried to play some Goo Zombies (number 26) but she couldn't think straight about that either so she just kept dying.

When the doorbell rang she practically tripped over her own feet in her haste to open it. There was Rai, sweet, gorgeous Rai, standing on her doorstep with a bunch of flowers which he presented to her. "Sorry I'm late," he apologized. "Traffic was a bitch."

"You were late?" Kimiko repeated, half surprised. The clock had ticked so slowly anyway, she hadn't noticed.

He held out his arm, a gentlemanly gesture his younger self would have mocked him for. Indeed, a lot of the things he did for and around her nowadays would have induced taunting calls involving the phrases "whipped" and "chivalry is supposed to be dead, you moron" from any number of earlier versions of himself, ranging from ages ten to seventeen. But not anymore.

She didn't know what had made him change, but he had. Maybe she'd changed him; maybe he changed because he thought that would be what she wanted.

The restaurant was crowded, but there was a table at the back that he'd reserved just for her, because he knew where she liked to sit. He ordered her favorite seaweed wraps for them, and the sauces she liked to dip them in. In one way it was kind of weird, if seen from an outside perspective, how two people who had been friends for years suddenly were tossed into a relationship and went out on dates and kissed and touched like nothing else mattered in the world. And on the other hand, it was completely natural. Two people who knew each other well and cared about one another couldn't help but fall in love sooner or later. And then they'd kiss and touch and date as much as they pleased, because that's what people did when they were in love.

And suddenly, over dessert, there was little black box with a diamond ring sitting on the table where their glasses had been only moments ago. Kimiko looked up in alarm to see Raimundo eyeing her hopefully. "Marry me, Kimiko," he pleaded.

Kimiko didn't know what to say. Her eyes filled with tears, both because of general emotion and especially guilt. Guilt for reminiscing about her time with Jack Spicer instead of focusing on the wonderful boyfriend she had right now. So she said yes.

If there was anything that could possibly have made her feel worse, it was the absolutely overjoyed look he gave her when she accepted.

…

This was originally supposed to be a Harry Potter fanfiction, with Harry/Hermione replacing Kimiko/Raimundo and Draco/Hermione instead of Kimiko/Jack. I tried writing it like this, but quickly realized that it would fail (me + writing Draco Malfoy's character = a bad idea so far), and so I switched to Xiaolin Showdown. Therefore it might seem a little off, which it is.

I myself am not entirely happy with it – on one hand, I think my writing style here is better than before; on the other I think it would have fitted better if I had managed to write Malfoy's character. I did my best to make Raimundo, Kimiko, and Jack as in character as possible, but there is a good chance I failed miserably. Constructive criticism is enthusiastically encouraged and wanted, on everything and anything at all. That's why there's a "review" button.

Originally it was 10k words long, but I decided the longer version seemed a little too drawn-out and like a rom-com without the com. So I shortened it. You're welcome. I like italics. And the word "and". Excuse me.

In addition to this, I'm going to interrupt my own author's note to ask for assistance on FictionPress – one of my stories needs a facelift, and I'd appreciate the assistance of a beta. If you don't want to be a full-fledged beta and just have an idea or five, PMs are open and heartily welcomed. If you don't have a FictionPress account, send me one here on FanFiction; just specify what you want to help out with, if you want to be a beta or if you're just a helpful citizen looking to make the streets of Story Land a better place… All contributors will be credited and thanked profusely.

Anyway, I think my writing year is getting off to a good start: two oneshots and one FictionPress chapter already up, and it's just barely the middle of February. I agree, it could be better, but at least I'm improving, right?

Happy Valentine's Day, guys, even you people out there like me sitting alone with junk food and romantic comedies that make you feel contented at first and then miserable because you don't have a sweetheart like that and you never had, and you'll just know you'll never find love like that because fairy tales don't exist, and then you cry silently into your carton of cookie dough ice cream because it's so unfair, and why are you the only single one of your friends on Valentine's Day of all days, and the nicest sentiments you've gotten all day are the ones your mother wrote in the silly little card she gives you every year, but it doesn't mean anything because she's your mom, and why oh why couldn't you have at least one single friend so you could be miserable together, and good GOD you hate Valentine's Day, and then you put on another movie and dig into another chocolate bar…

Ahem. Sorry.

But seriously, folks, I hope you enjoy yourselves with your special someones today. The world needs a little more love.