AUTHORS NOTE:

Well, this is my absolute first serious try at fanfiction for anything, so forgive me if it's wildly OOC. Nuriko is my second favorite bishounen EVER, so it seemed fitting to write from his point of view. It's a reincarnation fic (how original), except that in my reincarnation of the seishi, Nuriko and Tasuki are stuck as brothers, twins in fact. This is why I played around with their last name a little. Nuriko won out, so they both get his real last name instead of Tasuki's.

The title to the story is a working one...I have a very hard time coming up with titles for things, and this just kinda popped into my head when I tried to think of something. Now that I think about it again, it's a pretty bad title, and is subject to change.

Just as a note, I gave this story a rating of PG-13, because I'm not sure exactly how bad it's going to get. I will try very hard to keep it clean, but it's certainly not G, because I like to let Tasuki swear when he wants to. It's also going to be shounen ai, which should be expected with Nuriko as the main character...

I'd like feedback…especially about how I did Nuriko's character. I'm sure it's not completely right, because I have a hard time writing someone else's character. That, and feedback makes my world a much happier place to leave, even if it tells me I suck, because at least it means people are reading the story.

DISCLAIMER:

Nuriko/Ryuuen, Tasuki/Genrou/Shun'u, Kouji, and the dream guy (hmmmmmmm, who wonders who the dream guy is??) don't belong to me. Fushigi Yuugi doesn't belong to me. Eventually, once everyone else shows up, they won't belong to me either. I'm just borrowing them and playing with them (and giving Nuriko what he wants…Hotohori!) Suing me would do no good, because after paying $450 for books this semester I was practically broke, and the rest of it I spent at Cog-con on Fushigi Yuugi manga, a Seiryuu wall scroll, anime music, and pocky.

Himitsu on the other hand is mine, ALL MINE!!!!! I haven't let anyone take him yet…and I'm not about to either. All others so far are just random characters, and if you take them I won't be too angry, but if you can't come up with your own random characters that's pretty sad…

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chapter 1: first day of school

Another summer gone, another year of school beginning. Same old, same old. Except that this was the last year of school, and Shun'u was back from reform school, so he'd be in my homeroom, like he had our freshman year of high school. Oh, and because old Mr. Carter had finally (forcefully) been retired (I'd heard that his heart had given out on a roller coaster over the summer) that meant we had a new homeroom teacher.

I sighed as I put on the final touches to my makeup. Over on his side of the room, Shun'u, or Genrou as he'd told me to call him after he'd gotten back a week earlier, was rolling his eyes and trying desperately to forget he was related to me. It was the same thing he did every morning, and it definitely wasn't something I'd missed while he was away. But, to be honest, I hadn't missed much about sharing a room with my brother at all while he'd been away at reform school.

I put down the lipstick, pressed my lips together, and appraised my appearance in the mirror. It wasn't perfect, I could never get it perfect, but it would do for the first day of school, and that's all that mattered. My violet hair was loosely braided, looking like it was just something I'd done to keep it out of the way, even though it had taken me a good half hour to get it to stay the way I wanted to. I had on just the right amount of makeup, not so much that it looked fake, just enough to enhance. After all, that was the point of makeup.

Standing from my seat in front of my smaller mirror I moved over to the full length mirror right next to it. I was wearing a simple pale blue dress that day, loose, but quite pretty. It was one of my favorite dresses, even though it was probably the simplest as well. I gave an experimental twirl, watching the skirt flare out, and I heard Shun'u (Genrou, I had to remember he wanted to be called Genrou) snort.

"Do ya even remember how to act like a guy?" he asked me. I looked over at him and shrugged.

"Why should I?" I asked.

"'Cause ya are a guy dammit!" he exclaimed.

I didn't really have a good response for him. The matter had come up several times already, and I hadn't had a response for him any of those times. It had been something he'd been bothered by even before he'd gone away, but now that he was back it had come up even more. Luckily for me, I didn't need a response, because at that moment Mom decided to call us down for breakfast.

"Ryuuen, Shun'u, breakfast!" she called. I didn't bother to respond with what I would have said at one point. Instead I grabbed my backpack and headed downstairs to get some breakfast.

"It's Genrou dammit!" he exclaimed angrily, but he grabbed his backpack and followed me.

"Ryuuen honey, are you sure you want to go to school looking like that again?" Mom asked when she saw what I was wearing. I sighed, it was starting again.

"Yes Mom," I said. I'd been through this far too many times. It happened at the beginning of every school year, and periodically throughout the school year as well. "I'm going to school in what I'm wearing."

"Ya look like a girl," Genrou commented from his seat at the table. He'd already started eating.

"That's the point and you know it," I said.

It was just like it had been before he was sent off to reform school. The only difference was that we were older, and he insisted on us calling him Genrou. He said that his name, Shun'u, sounded like some kind of sneeze. I had to agree with him that Genrou sounded like a better name.

But it was still all the same. Mom tried to get me to change, at least into a pair of pants. Genrou kept making comments about how I looked like a girl. I tried to ignore the two of them and just eat my breakfast, and when I was done I headed out the door to start walking to school, not even bothering to wait for Genrou.

"Oi, wait up!" he called, bolting down the rest of his food and running out the door to follow me. "Hey, Ryuuen, wait!"

"I thought you didn't want to be seen around me?" I asked, directing a glance back at him. "After all, I am the freak…"

"Ya still know how to get to school," he said. I turned to stare at him incredulously and started laughing.

"You forgot how to get to school?" I asked, and he glared at me, but nodded. "How did you do that?"

"It's been over two years," he said. "I had better things to remember during that time!"

-

And that was how I ended up with a rather angry and annoyed looking Genrou following me to school for the first day of our senior year. It was much like our freshman year, which was the only day of that whole year that we actually arrived at school together. Of course, as soon as we spotted the school he took off, not wanting to be seen near his freak of a brother.

There was a time when I wouldn't have even admitted that I was Genrou's brother. Sister maybe, but that was when I called myself Kourin and swore I was a girl. I'd gotten over that a year or so ago, but I found that, even when admitting I was a guy, I enjoyed dressing like a girl. It was weird, but I felt comfortable doing it, and Mom and Genrou would never get me to change that.

I saw Genrou meet up with his best friend Kouji, and the reunion started. They hadn't seen each other in two years, and I could tell that Genrou had missed his friend. They were close, close enough that some rather nasty rumors had started about them our freshman year. Never mind that I was the one who had claimed to be a girl, Genrou was the one who they said was gay, because of him and Kouji. And the fights that he got into because of that were what had gotten him sent off to reform school.

I ignored the two of them, walking past them to enter the school. On my way I heard a few guys throw insults my way, things like "queer," "girly boy," and "freak." I was used to it, and I ignored them. It had been like that since before I'd stopped thinking of myself as Kourin, and what those narrow-minded boys thought didn't bother me. Or at least, that's what I told myself, and unless I stopped to think about it I could convince myself it was true.

It was the girls at school who bothered me more. Most of them, as I walked by, muttered among themselves. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I knew anyway. They were jealous of me, because I was prettier than most of them. And when girls are jealous they get mean. Most of the rumors that floated around the school about me were started by the girls, not by the guys. Life at school was not always fun, because of the girls.

"Ryuuen!" a voice exclaimed, shocking me out of my thoughts. I recognized the voice right away as one of my few friends at school. She was a fun person, and unlike most of the girls at school, she didn't really care that I was prettier than her when I tried. Well, she cared, but not in a bad way, and not enough that it strained our friendship. Rather, she treated me like just another girl, which was the way I liked it.

"Hey Beth," I said, noticing that she was really excited for some reason.

"Have you been by your homeroom yet?" she asked. I shook my head, and she bounced up and down. "Mr. Carter's replacement's in there already! He's young, and cute! You are sooooooooo lucky!"

"Don't you have history with him?" I asked.

"No," she said, hanging her head. "Couldn't fit it in my schedule. I'm taking the other American history class instead, with the General teaching it."

She stuck out her tongue in disgust, and I sympathized. The General was one of the worst teachers in the school. It wasn't that he couldn't teach, it was that he was old, and mean, and very, very demanding. I'd had him before, and I didn't envy Beth. I'd heard that he was starting to get worse…

-

We continued to talk like that for a while. Unfortunately, we had to stop before the school day actually started, because she was in a different homeroom than I was. So, not too long before the bell rang, we separated and I headed for homeroom, hoping that Genrou would be there.

He was supposed to be there, because homerooms were arranged alphabetically, but knowing him he would decide to skip even the first day of school. He decided a long time ago that hanging out with Kouji was much more fun than sitting in class. That was another thing that got him sent to reform school.

I was relieved when I saw him sitting, grumpily, in homeroom. I was actually surprised that he wasn't with Kouji until the last possible moment though. I looked for my assigned seat, something I hated, but was usually pretty inevitable on the first day, and found it right next to Genrou. This annoyed me a little, since I would have thought he would at least tell me that I was sitting next to him. After all, I'm his brother, and he was watching me, with a look of annoyance and almost disgust, the whole time.

"You could have said something," I muttered to him as I sat down.

"More fun this way," he said, with the smirk that he always used when trying to get on my nerves.

"Baka!" I said, slamming my elbow down on his head. It was a bad habit of mine, hurting him whenever he annoyed me. It was a hard thing to break, because he liked annoying me. It wasn't like he meant to really make me mad, and I didn't actually hurt him either.

Of course, that habit of mine was about the only time I still slipped into Japanese. We'd lived in the US since…well, since Dad and Kourin had died in the accident, and that had been for at least ten years. Mom had wanted a change after our lives had changed, and moving to a different country had been the best change she could think of. I'd slowly worked the Japanese out of my speech since then, and by then the only times I fell back in were when I was reacting to Genrou, or when I was mad.

"Excuse me, young lady!" a man's voice said as soon as I brought my elbow down on Genrou's head. I could hear snickers from the rest of the class, who all knew that I wasn't a girl. I assumed the voice was from our new teacher, who obviously didn't realize I was a guy.

"He's no lady, man," Genrou said as I sheepishly turned to look at the teacher.

"I really wasn't trying to hurt him," I said quickly, at the same time as Genrou was talking. "He's my brother. It's something we do all the time, and…"

I trailed off as I saw who I was making excuses to. I'd forgotten Beth's comment about my new teacher, so when I saw him I wasn't prepared at all to see a young looking man who was cute. And that is what he was. He didn't even look old enough to be a teacher, probably somewhere around twenty. And he was…well, the best word to describe him would be beautiful. But it wasn't a girly kind of beautiful, like I was, but a very, very masculine beautiful.

It was the kind of beautiful that my dream guy was. I kept seeing in my dreams this guy. He was the most beautiful man I'd ever seen, and at that time my dreams of him had started getting…well, erotic. I'd never met anyone like him before, and I had no idea why he was in my dreams, but he was something I never told anyone about. It would be to embarrassing.

Anyway, my teacher was beautiful in the same way that my dream guy was beautiful. He had slightly dark skin, making him look like he had a tan, and very long hair. I think his hair was longer than mine was at the time. It was red too, not a natural red, but the actual color red.

And his eyes were bright green, which I discovered after I turned, because I was looking straight into them. He seemed to be laughing at me. I felt my face get warm, and I immediately turned away, embarrassed. Genrou started laughing at this.

"So I see," he said to Genrou. "Well, young man, please don't hit him, even if he is your brother."

"Ok," I said quietly.

Genrou continued to laugh as I blushed furiously and the teacher made his way up to the front of the room. I had to restrain myself from hitting him again, and instead glared at him angrily. He just smirked.

Then the bell rang, and the teacher cleared his throat to get our attention. That didn't work, of course. He was just a teacher (even if he was cute) and he was new. That was two strikes against him in trying to get the class to quiet down.

"Hello…!" he called out, and everyone quieted down.

"That's better," he said, smiling a little. "Now, I know you've all been through all of this before, so I'll keep it short. I'm Himitsu Ryuujin, and as I'm sure you've all assumed, I'm going to be your homeroom teacher from now on, since Mr. Carter was ordered to stop teaching by his doctor. I don't mind if you don't call me Mr. Ryuujin, in fact, I prefer it that way. Just call me Himitsu."

For a moment I wondered just what kind of parents he had had to have the name Himitsu. Who would name their kid "secret"? But then I decided that it was probably just odd parents. After all, my own parents had named their children Shun'u, Ryuuen, and Kourin. Those weren't exactly normal names either, more like something out of an old story.

"Anyway," he continued. "You're all seniors, and I hope you all know the rules by now. So, I'm going to skip that, unless you actually want me to go over them?"

"Hell no!" Genrou exclaimed, and I stopped myself from hitting him again. A few others in the room agreed with him.

"Very well then," Himitsu said. "But, even though I myself have no problems with swearing, I'd ask that you follow the school rules and not do so here." He directed a glance at Genrou. "And now I suppose I should take attendance, to make sure that everyone is here."

He started reading off names on the list. I waited, bored already. Genrou and I were almost at the end of the list, so it usually took a while to get to us, especially on the first day when Himitsu was getting corrected for pronunciation and nicknames with almost every name. Then, finally, he got to us.

"Ryuuen Chou," he said, and I raised my hand, saying "Here." "Shun'u Chou."

"Call me Genrou," Genrou said. It surprised me. I'd never had a teacher pronounce my name right, and Genrou's was usually mangled more than mine was. But Himitsu had gotten both right.

The rest of homeroom was boring. We sat there for a while, talking. I was bored, because none of the few friends I had were in my homeroom, and Genrou was making it very clear that he didn't want anything to do with me. So I sat there, and I started to daydream.