And the Kaya arc goes on! :D I just want to thank you all so much on the positive reception of Darren's character! I always have no idea what any of you will enjoy or not so I'm happy to hear a lot of you enjoy a cynically sarcastic and sassy character like Darren. So, without any further delay… Enjoy! :)

({No POV})

Misaki was laying in bed fast asleep until she woke when she heard a commotion coming from outside the door of her grandson's former now turned her room.

She saw light underneath the crack in her door as she started hearing muffled arguing.

Misaki sighed to herself, knowing what was happening. But, she knew there was no purpose in trying to will herself back to sleep with all the noise outside her room.

So she got out of bed and started out of her room and the yelling only getting louder as she heard her daughter exasperate, "This is the 4th time this week! Why do you never listen to anything I say?!"

"Maybe because nothing you say ever makes sense! Will you just get off my back?!" Kaya yelled back.

At that moment, Misaki rounded the corner to see Kaya, still in her patrol uniform, and Karai continue to bicker as a clearly tired and stressed out Leonardo stood off to the side with the forefinger and thumb on his right hand pinching the bridge of his nose, further showing his stressed state.

"Will you just listen for once! You could get seriously hurt out there by yourself if you don't watch it!" Karai yelled, frustrated maternal fury lighting her eyes.

"Dammit! Stop treating me like a child when I'm not!" Kaya interjected in indignant rage as Karai immediately countered, "You're MY child!"

It was silent for a moment as that statement sunk in. Kaya's eyes flickered to floor before looking back at her mother once again.

But before anyone had a chance to say anything, Kaya grunted and just stomped past her grandmother out of the kitchen until the last thing heard from her was her bedroom door slamming shut with a loud, resonating thud.

After a moment Karai had a similar reaction as she strutted out of the room in frustration. "Karai…" Leonardo started as he followed after his wife to try and calm her down.

This left Misaki on her own, a thoughtful expression on her face, before she walked back to her room.

Later that morning

Karai brought a box into the main room of the dojo and started taking inventory until she noticed her mother briskly walking past her until she turned back and announced, "I'm going for a walk… I'll be back by this afternoon."

Karai quirked up an eyebrow but had no time to respond as her mother just walked out the door without another word, leaving behind a rather curious yet perplexed Karai.

(Kaya's POV)

I just shut my locker and I glanced at Sammie across the hall with Ricky plucking at his ukulele that he carries around the hall at all times.

They just started dating last year but he and Sammie have done dance and show choir together since 4th grade.

I mean he's totally weird, but he's a nice guy.

Actually nice is a bit of an understatement when talking about Ricky, honestly a total understatement. Like Sammie, he just smiles almost constantly.

Which is really ironic since his last name is 'Blood' and you'd think anyone with the name 'Richard Blood' would be a either a total bad ass or a comic book villain.

Yet, instead you get an incessantly smiling drama geek who walks around during passing period playing a ukulele.

But, hey, he's a good guy and he keeps an eye on Sammie with me to keep her from walking into things.

I mean, I love Sammie but she is just such a jinx that it's amazing how she hasn't broken every bone in her body or got a concussion by now.

I was about to turn to walk out when I heard, "So, what's the plan, princess?"

My jaw felt like it locked as I looked back to see Darren one strapping his backpack over his left shoulder, that bored expression still glued to his face with the only change being a quirked up eyebrow.

I gave him a death glare, still not believing how I haven't cut him to ribbons yet since school started 3 weeks ago, as I said out loud, "Look, will you cut that crap out and stop calling me that. Is it your goal in life to just keep pissing me off or something?"

Darren just shrugged at me and said, "Takes one to know one."

I grit my teeth until I just decided to roll my eyes and say, just getting straight to the point, "Look, what do you want?"

I'm not going to deny and its still blatantly obvious that he still annoys the crap out of me.

"Well, in case ya forgot, we're partners and we got assigned a project today that needs tah be done by next week. So, what do ya wanna do?" Darren said, very direct.

Well, I have to admit that as much as Darren irritates the crap out of me just by looking at me… he does have the redeeming quality of at least getting to the point with everything.

I pursed my lips, trying to think of something.

Not that it really matters since as long as we have internet, we could do the majority of the project until we need to make a poster and present it in front of the class. That should be interesting seeing Mr. Deep Holler Monotone over here give his part of the speech.

I was about to say we could go to the library and call it even when Darren looked at the hall clock before saying, "Well, I got stuff to do so just meet me at my house. It's not far."

Right then Darren quickly wrote in his notebook before tearing off the page and handing me a piece of paper with actually pretty nice handwriting for how fast he wrote showing the address.

I just shrugged and said, "Okay, whatever. I'll be there."

Just then Darren just strutted past me and was immediately hit with the smell of what I can only describe as frying oil mixed with soup… and he smells like that every day.

Not that its disgusting… but, it's just really damn weird to me that he always smells like that and nothing else.

I shrugged and rolled my eyes as I just walked toward the front of the building.


I was following the GPS on my phone and I quirked up an eyebrow as I saw I was walking into the Chinatown district of New York and then got even more confused when I saw where the rest of the directions led me to.

It was a building done in that typical Chinatown style of Chinese mixed with Western architecture and a window also acting as it's main sign with a logo etched into it. It looked like the outline of an ancient Chinese pavilion with the name written in both English and probably Mandarin of I had to take a wild guess below it.

Jiang's Golden House.

Then in the corner of the window there was this piece of paper with an American flag on it and "Discounts for active service and military veterans!" written below it.

I kept looking at what I now know is a restaurant and thinking initially that Darren just gave me the address to a restaurant in Chinatown instead of his house just to mess with me and is probably at home just relishing in it.

Even though I've still never seen him laugh or smile ever about anything.

Sure I still don't know much about Darren, but considering how much both of us don't like each other… I wouldn't put it past Darren to take a shot at fucking with me like this.

I was about to message him and call him an ass when I saw Darren walk by the window on the inside of the restaurant. His backpack still over his shoulder as he tossed it into one of the booths before taking off his flannel shirt.

He turned around and grabbed what looked like a waiter apron to tie around his waist.

Then I noticed the same logo from the front window on the left pectoral of the black t-shirt, or one of them, that he wears every day to school under his flannel shirt.

Well, at least he wasn't trying to pull any crap on me apparently.

I guess he works here?

What? Does he live in the boiler room of this place too like a drifter? But considering what Darren acts like… wouldn't surprise me if he did. Then again Darren and I really don't know anything about each other, mainly because we barely even talk to each other unless we absolutely have to during class.

I decided to just walk in since I just wanted to get out, do this project, and go.

I walked in and almost immediately I heard a woman call out to me, her voice having a pretty thick southern accent, "Be with ya'll in a second honey."

Just then I saw this woman with long black hair about the same age as my parents maybe a little older, pretty much fly past me with menus in her hands. To me, she definitely looked like she had mostly if not all east Asian heritage like my mother and grandmother.

I watched her help out a table and look like she was taking orders.

Since I had no idea what the hell else to do, I just stood there looking around the room since the room was a bit overwhelming at first by all the colorful yet somehow muted decor.

The tables had a fair amount of people seated and eating as traditional chinese music played overhead and a lantern lit in the center of each table.

I kept glancing around the restaurant until I got to the seating host booth next to me where I saw a picture of a very old looking man smiling that was embedded in a plaque that read: In honor of Ping 'Peter' Jiang.

Around the plaque was a dollar bill framed in a shadow box and also an article from the news framed next to it.

Since no came up to me yet, I just started reading the article that was titled:


"New York's Latest Hit Fusion Cuisine?"

Nestled in the heart of Chinatown is New York's latest arrival in its large family of varied cultural cuisine restaurants, diners, and dives. Jiang's Golden House from the outside may seem ordinary to any passerby. The traditional decor, the smells of delicious traditional Chinese cuisine wafting out into the street… but it's not all what one would expect in New York. Its Texas born owners that are also a husband and wife team (Austin and Lola) run the restaurant together with their children to make it quite the family affair and add a very unusual yet pleasant combination of traditional Chinese cuisine with some good old fashion southern hospitality…


"How can I help ya sweetie? Just one of you today?"

Shit!

I had to stop myself from jumping as I saw the middle aged seating hostess with the southern accent smiling at me and grabbing a single menu.

Which was hard not to since she literally kind of freaked the crap out of me, and I'm a trained kunoichi.

But, I evened out as I help up the piece of paper Darren gave me, now even more confused than before as I said, "Um… I was supposed to meet Darren here to do a project?"

Her name tag said 'Lola' so I was assuming she was the owner and she probably knew Darren if he worked under her.

Just then her face lit up even more as she said, "Oh! Are you a friend of Darren's at his new school?"

But before I could answer I saw Darren behind her, his usual facial expression on point with boredom neutrality, as he said, "So you came?"

I just remained nonchalant even though there's always something about everything he says when he's talking to me that just really pisses me off.

But I just crossed my arms and said through my teeth and lips, "Uhm-hum."

"Oh well it's so nice to meet ya! What's your name honey?" Lola said, and held out her hand.

I was a bit irked by the fact she kept calling me things like sweetie or honey considering that no has called me that since my dad when I was like 7.

But, I kept my cool and shook her hand as I said, "Kaya."

"Well, it's nice meetin' ya Kaya. I'm Darren's mom, Lola. You two can go set in the back overflow dinin' area tah study. School always comes first so you two go on ahead and do yer thing."

Just like that she just sped off again and kept tending to customers.

"C'mon." Darren said as he just started walking.

Well… I can see the human trait of having emotions must have skipped a generation in this family.

I decided just to follow as I started, "I thought you said we were meeting at your house?" Darren just gave me a look and said very matter of factly, "This is my house. We live upstairs."

In hindsight I kind of feel stupid I didn't realize that since my family has the same deal going on. Considering we have our family business below our 3 bedroom apartment too.

Also, at least now I know why Darren always smells like frying oil and soup since his family runs a restaurant.

But, rather than give Darren the satisfaction of catching me out, I just shrugged and rolled my eyes before saying, "Whatever."

Darren didn't even acknowledge me as he picked up his backpack on our way to this backroom. As I followed him I couldn't help but notice that this was the first time I've seen him not wearing a loose flannel shirt and just by looking at his arms and shoulders, Darren actually looked like he was pretty... athletic.

Actually he looked like he could be stronger than my dad or Kaito just by looking at his arms alone. Sure he didn't look so muscular that it's kind of freaky like my cousin Jimmy or Uncle Raph, but he definitely looked like he didn't just sit on his ass and do nothing in his spare time.

Not that I care since my skills as a kunoichi would still probably beat him into the ground.

As my grandmother always told me, "Size doesn't automatically guarantee a victory."

I kept following Darren as we walked into these beaded strands hanging over the doorway into the back room Darren's mom told us to go to.

It was actually really nice, but the air conditioning was cranked even more in here than in the rest of the restaurant.

At one point I felt a chill and immediately crossed my arms as I complained/commented on reflex, "Can it be any damn colder in here?"

Not even skipping a beat, I just heard Darren shoot back almost immediately, "I mean, probably if we were inside yer heart."

I froze for a moment as I felt every blood vessel in my brain clench as I could feel my neck just robotically turning to look at him. I literally felt like I could have just cut his head off with a nearby knife from a table because just… WHAT THE SHIT WAS THAT?!

But instead, I gave him a beyond pissed look as I said in a matching but somehow quite tone, "What?"

Darren just gave me an unreadable glare as he shrugged and defended smoothly, "You started it."

UGH! SERIOUSLY?! I swear, as much as I thought my mother was the only person that could really get under my skin…. I swear Darren is probably a close second when it comes to just totally pissing me off like no other.

Just in very different ways.

Somehow Darren always says just the right thing to just irritate the crap out of me like some kind of verbal hives that just burn and sting me in annoyance.

I was going to say something else when Darren just sat in a booth nearby and just looked at me as he said, "So, 're we gonna do this or not?"

I clenched my teeth but just sat down and started pulling out my stuff from my backpack. "A'right, you can take chapter 4 and I'll take 3. I made notes on it earlier." Darren said, completely casual in his usual bored sounding tone.

Which leads me to something else that conflicts me about him.

Despite both of us pretty much hating each other and not having barely anything good to say about the other one… I do have to hand it to Darren that he is a really good partner for class. Also, and as much as I hate to admit it since it means saying anything close to a compliment about him… but he's a pretty smart guy.

But, it doesn't matter. Like I said, we don't need to be friends.

All we want is to get a good grade and call it a day.

Well, like I said… Darren may be kind of a neutral to bored demeanored character, but there's no denying that he's kind of a 'sassy fella' who doesn't deal with any of Kaya's 'crap' so to speak. Haha. XD I also hoped you enjoyed a further introduction into Darren's background as the son of restaurant owners, kind of showing Kaya that her Darren have more common ground than she thinks. But, again, this was just a small taste of Darren's character and there is so much more to come! Have a lovely rest of your week and constructive reviews are also appreciated. Also, I'm always open for more oneshot suggestions if there is something you'd like to see.

Stay Classy!

Dexter1995