"Well, I'm not the one who took three years in the bathroom!"

"I'm not the one who had to eat five bowls of cereal!"

"I'm a growing boy! I need supplement!"

"Would you both shut up?" I shouted. My two cousins, Kaia and Dean, were arguing as usual. Their constant bickering was annoying enough, and the fact that it was raining did NOT help my mood.

"Sorry." Kaia and Dean said in unison. That was almost as annoying.

I almost hissed at them. Almost. We couldn't have people in our new school guessing anything strange about us, could we? You see, our family, the Curnas, are cursed. We turn into Zodiac animals when we are hugged but the opposite gender. It kinda sucks, especially because I'm the family outcast, the cat. My aunt (Kaia and Dean's mom) says there are other families like ours, bu I'm just not seeing them.

Kaia is the boar (rapid mood swings and stuff, but pretty cool otherwise) and Dean is the dragon. They're twins, and always fighting. We live in a house in the middle of the woods with Shoji, the snake, as our chaperone.

In our last school, people had started to suspect there was something strange about us, so we had to move. Now we live in Japan, which is on the other side of the world from our New York home, and on the other side of the world from our family. Not that I mind. Today is our first day in a Japanese school, and Kaia and I are the only ones who can really speak it, picking it up from Shoji and Tomoko, a maid we had had back home in America. Dean could speak just enough to get by.

As soon as we walked into the classroom, I was jealous of Kaia. All the attention was drawn to her with her long brown hair, soft brown eyes and pretty face. Me, on the other hand, has flaming orange hair and almost red eyes (sort of orangey- red). The second thing I noticed was there was a guy sitting in the back of the classroom who looked a lot like me. Except he was drop- dead gorgeous. But the flaming orange hair and red eyes was the same.

"Class," the teacher announced. "This is Kaia, Dean, and Shawna Curna. Please Welcome them to our class." Kaia and Dean smiled and waved, but I was too busy staring at my could- be twin.

When I sat down, the girl next to me smiled and said, "Hi! I'm Tohru Honda. You're Shawna, right?"

I smiled, relived that people here were friendly, and nodded. "Nice to meet you Tohru. Yes, I'm Shawna."

"I really like you're hair. It looks like Kyou's. Are you related to him?" The practically bounced out of her seat as she spoke.

"Thanks, but, no, I'm not related to that guy. I'm assuming you mean him?" I motioned to my could- be twin.

"Yes, that's Kyou!" smile smile

"Curna- san, It's a pleasure to have you join our class. I'm the class president, Yuki Sohma." I looked up to see yet another drop- dead gorgeous guy standing in front of me.

"Hi." Being so stunned, I realized (too late of course) I had spoken in English instead of Japanese and said 'yes' instead of 'hi'. I silently cursed my American background and quickly corrected myself.

"I'm sorry. I meant Hello. I'm originally American, you see. 'Hi' there means hello, and here 'Hai' means yes. I apologize." I could feel my face go beet red as I rambled on in Japanese, hoping no English was slipping in.

"It's all right Curna- san. After all, you're just human." He smiled kindly, but I noticed his smile was not like Tohru's. His smile seemed more forced, and more of a formality than a true smile.

At lunch, Tohru introduced me to all of her friends. Hana- chan and Uo- chan seemed pretty cool, but the one who interested me most was that guy, Kyou. I found out from Tohru that he was Yuki's cousin, though they looked nothing alike. As I watched him, he scowled at his food, like it had deeply wronged him in a past life or something. He even acted like me on a rainy day.

Finally, I decided to say something to him. "Hey. You're Kyou, right? I'm Shawna Curna." My tone had a low growl in it that I felt I didn't need to hide with him like I did with everyone else.

"Yeah." He seemed to tense slightly.

"Relax," I said softly, but still with the growl. I sat next to him and sighed. "I'm like you." I knew I wasn't like him, buthe had to think I was just some grumpy girl.

"I don't think so." Kyou growled back.

"Oh really?" I said, getting a little annoyed. Here I was, trying to be friendly!

"Yeah." Then he got up and walked away.

I sat there, shocked, for a minute, but then got up and ran after him. I was pissed. "Hey! Wait a minute!"

I grabbed his arm and was surprised when he used an expert martial arts move on me. Luckily, I was quick to recover, and retaliated. Unfortunately, for this retaliation,I had to sacrifice my footing and fell forward after landing my punch.

I fell on him, and, due to natural human instinct, our arms snapped around each other.