DMG: Hey, I'm back! (No, I'm not dead or anything.) Well it's not like anybody cares anyway. REVIEW PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! I need reviews! I am soooo depressed right now and they would really cheer me up! No flames please. Since they're so few, I'll get around to answering reviews sometime. 'Cross my heart and hope to die. *drops dead* heh heh, oh well, I have good intentions…

Still don't own it. This is a relatively pointless chapter. *shrugs* oh well.

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Aspen was finally finishing up with what she considered to be one of the worst days of her entire life.

*flashback*

            BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

            "@#$%" a voice thick with sleep moaned from beneath a twisted mass of sheets as the pale outstretched arm smacked the 'sleep' button on the offending alarm clock.

            "Owww…" Aspen groaned, clutching her abdomen. Her body was curled up in a tight ball in an effort to relieve some of the painful cramps. "Just a few more minutes…" With that, she pulled the covers back up over her head, which was throbbing dully.

            An hour later she woke up to see that she had 20 minutes left to get to school.

            "Kuso…" she stumbled over to the cabinet to grab a Motrin and a quick dose of caffeine.

            With disgust Aspen pulled on a rose-pink sailor outfit, which was the uniform for the school she went to. The color was truly repulsive and clashed horribly with her eyes.

            After hurriedly pulling her waist-length black hair into a ponytail, she grabbed her bag and ran out the door.

            Just seconds before the late bell rang, Aspen sunk into her desk chair, gasping for breath.

            She listened in horror as the teacher assigned them 5 pages of Algebra to do that night for homework. She turned to make a sarcastic remark to Katsura, but found her friend was absent. All she was were the mild green eyes of Shuuichi. He didn't look at all upset at the amount of homework they were assigned. Stupid teacher's pet…stupid HOT teacher's pet…

            Her mind kept rambling on, full of pissy thoughts, until the bell finally rang. Aspen was sure the clock was slow.

Gym was no less than torture.

            "Mile run today class," the jock teacher cheerfully announced. "Timed!"

            "Uh, 'scuse me," said Aspen. "I really don't think I can run today…" her hand was still on her stomach. "I've got cramps." 'If you know what I mean…' she added to herself.

            He considered. "Just try the best you can," he said. He turned to the rest of the class. "Ready? One, two, three!" He blew the whistle.

            As she breathlessly completed the second lap, Aspen was cursing every male on the earth to hell and menstrual symptoms.

            Aspen's normally pale face was beet red when she hurtled through the door of the biology classroom five seconds after the bell. Thankfully, the teacher was talking to another student and didn't notice her late arrival. Small blessings.

            At least this was biology, one of the better classes…

            "Today we'll be doing a lab," the friendly-looking teacher announced. "Here are the lab partners…"

            Aspen was paired up with Shuuichi Minamino. She wasn't sure if this was lucky or not; she always had the tendency to blush whenever he was around. However, he was also really nice and a hard worker. Yeah, he was pretty much perfect.

            "We will be measuring the femur length of these African crickets," the teacher said and produced a bucket of dead GIANT crickets. "Come up and get 8 of them to measure."

            Aspen approached the dread container with a paper towel. The teacher dumped a pile on the paper towel, which was on her hands. "Ewww…" she said softly.

            "Alright, here they are," she said to Shuuichi. They put on latex gloves and picked up one each. Aspen held the ruler closely up to the right leg of her cricket and measured the length. The thing twitched. "GYAHH!!" she cried, leaping backwards into Kurama. He caught her and helped her back up. "It…moved…" she said uncertainly.

            "Are you sure?" he asked her. She nodded mutely.

            He leaned closer. "Hmm, it looks like this one's still alive," he said thoughtfully.

            THUMP. "Aspen?" he asked.

            @. @ Groan. "I don't believe this…"

            Kurama once again helped her back up. The rest of the period passed without a glitch.

            Literature was the last class of the day. It wasn't too bad, she supposed, except that she was so spaced out that someone had to slap her before she realized the teacher was calling on her to read a passage. "Uh, where are we?" she asked.

*end flashback*

            Aspen hurried to her apartment. She absolutely COULD NOT stand to be in a pink mini-skirt for one more second. She changed into a black sweatshirt and jeans. She laced up a pair of clunky boots of the kind her mother hated, and headed out to the park.

            On the way to the park, Aspen was nearly hit by 2 random passing cars. 'Fate is really out to get me this time,' she thought. She was getting sick of the pavement, so the park seemed like a good place to go.

            Kurama walked home from school more slowly, enjoying the clear blue skies and fresh air of a day in late September. A few golden leaves were starting to fall from a few of the trees.

            For some reason (authoress powers) he kept thinking about that girl, Aspen. Kurama nearly laughed out loud when he remembered the expression on her face when he told her that cricket was alive. It was priceless!

            Yet she was a puzzle also; her unexplained awareness kept nagging in the back of his mind. He was sure she saw something different about him, and she most certainly knew when Yusuke fired his spirit gun. There was something else also, Kurama was sure of it. And it was his job to find out.

            Shaking troublesome thoughts out of his head, Kurama dropped his bag off at his house. "I'll be at the park," he called up to his mother who was upstairs.

            As he strode through the pleasant park with his hands thrust nonchalantly deep in his pockets, Kurama noticed a familiar someone leaning over a railing, looking out at nothing in particular.

            "Hey," he said.

            She jumped. "Hey," Aspen replied.

            "Do you mind if I join you?" he asked carefully.

            She smiled slightly. "Not at all…"

            Kurama stood next to her silently, watching the sunset.

            "I love sunsets…" Aspen said dreamily. "They always make me feel so…peaceful…" she sighed.

            Kurama nodded slightly in agreement. Suddenly he experienced a strange feeling, of watching the sunset with a girl…

            They lapsed into silence, content with the other's company.

            Aspen walked home after dusk, grinning to herself. Perhaps it wasn't such a bad day after all…

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NOW REVIEW!!! YAY! I'm starting to get into the plot…relationship…thingy… oh well!!! I hope to post more soon!

Oh and ya, there won't be a real "plot" per say, just a developing romance! After all, that is what I'm best at!