Raymond Kon knocked on his best friend, Lee,'s door. Ray sighed and looked at the size of the pile of homework he was carrying. He and Lee were going to get together to work on it.
Lee, however, did not answer the door. His little sister, Mariah, did. Ray smiled sweetly as Mariah looked up at him and then raced off to shout, "It's Ray!" He heard Lee's voice yelling back, "Well let him in, Mariah!"
Ray didn't wait for Mariah to come back. He slid through the door and shut it. When Mariah got back, she blinked to see Ray already standing there. But then she shrugged and ran off somewhere.
Lee often thought his sister to be annoying, but Ray had a soft spot for the four-year-old. Though both of them were only six, Ray and Lee both lived alone, except for Mariah with Lee, of course. Ray's parents were never around, so he took care of himself, and Lee and Mariah's parents had died when Lee was two and Mariah just a baby. But their grandfather was the head elder, so they still had a guardian; he was just never around, same as Ray.
"Did Mariah bug you?" Lee asked as Ray entered the kitchen. Ray shook his head and sat down.
"Well, let's get started" Ray said, and Lee nodded.
A few minutes later, when Ray and Lee were struggling on a particularly difficult math problem, they heard tiny footsteps outside the kitchen door.
"Mariah" Lee said, rolling his eyes. Ray shrugged and got back to work.
Three minutes later, they were still working on the same problem, with no luck.
"Nine" a small voice said from the doorway.
Ray and Lee turned around to see Mariah standing there, looking shy but fairly certain of herself.
"Mariah, what did I tell you about interrupting us when we're doing homework?" Lee said, crossing his arms. Mariah sank a little.
"Wait" Ray said, walking over to Mariah, "What did you say earlier?"
"I said nine" Mariah repeated. The boys looked at each other, confused. Mariah sighed.
"The answer's nine. I heard you guys reading the problem"
Ray raised his eyebrows. He knew Lee's sister was a lot smarter than Lee seemed to give her credit for, but this was a math problem two years above her level!
"She's right!" Lee cried, having taken figured out how to do the problem at last, and worked it out.
"Hey Mariah" Ray said, grinning, "You wanna help us with some more of our homework?"
Mariah's eyes lit up, and she nodded vigorously.
"Come on then" Lee said, motioning to the bench at the table.
Mariah practically sprinted over to the bench, and used one hand to launch herself onto it.
The boys smiled as they began to go over their homework with Mariah, whose eyes were shining as she quickly began to scan the homework papers.
Author's Notes: I came up with the idea for this story when I was re-watching my one and only (besides the movie, but that doesn't count) Beyblade DVD, Hidden Tiger. I loved the stories of their past and thought they were adorable when they were little, so I decided to do a story on it. And yes, the other White Tigers will appear, but I wanted this chapter to be all about the main three.
Just to clarify the ages:
Ray: 6
Lee: 6
Mariah: 4
Kevin: 3
Gary: 7