Ami 7

Rei 8

Jaden 9

Zach 7

Love at Fifth Sight

Part I

Sitting in the backseat of the car with her hands folded neatly in her lap and the blunt metal tip of the beach umbrella poking into her thigh, Ami peeked cautiously at her cousin Rei, who was sitting in the seat to her right. Rei was a few months older and had been orphaned recently. Her mother was Ami's mother's older sister, and her father had no siblings, so Ami's parents had received legal custody.

Ami was extremely shy, but sympathy for Rei's situation had induced her to make an effort to be friendly and get to know her. So far, Rei was proving to be very good at being silent and unresponsive. Her form of intimidation was one of the best Ami had seen, and Ami had met a good number of intimidating people during her relatively short lifespan. Her small stature and reading habits seemed to draw bullies on the playground in an almost magnetic fashion. Rei wasn't a bully, but she was definitely scary.

When Rei's fathomless purple eyes turned her way and her left eyebrow arched, Ami quickly tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and pretended to be engrossed in the scenery. It wasn't very interesting – they were on a crowded, jam-packed highway that was certainly contributing more than its fair share to the destruction of the ozone layer, and what grass grew beyond the edge of the road was browning and dusty due to the chokehold of the summer heat.

She glanced forward and backward: nothing to see but car after car…some trucks…SUVs…exhaust fumes…a boy sticking his tongue out at her…

Ocean-hued eyes blinked twice in surprise. As the car crept forward at a snail's pace, Ami wondered if she had been imaging things. Nope – when traffic stopped again (her father muttering something inaudible under his breath as her mother murmured for him to watch his language), the car in the left lane drew even, and the boy sitting in the backseat blew out his cheeks so he looked like a monkey. He had unruly, riotous blond hair streaked with coppery highlights and looked to be about her age. She glared at him, but before he could respond in kind, he was shoved aside by another boy.

This boy was a true blond, and his facial features bore a slight resemblance to those of the first one. He grinned impishly at her and then pressed his face against the window so it looked all mashed and deformed.

Ami sucked in a breath, and Rei asked quietly, "What are you looking at?"

She pointed, and Rei said immediately, "Ew. Boys." Ami smiled, but before she could say anything, Rei unbuckled her seatbelt and swiftly climbed over the cooler in between them.

"Here's what you have to do," she proclaimed confidently as Ami cast a shocked glance at her parents, who hadn't noticed anything amiss going on in the backseat. When she looked back at Rei, she found her cousin sticking her tongue out at the short-haired boy.

He looked very shocked but was taken aback only for an instant – in the next minute, he retaliated, she communicated her reply, and the war was on between them. Ami watched in fascination as they moved on from the tongue battle to the competition of who could make the weirdest faces.

As soon as she saw that the cars ahead of them were beginning to move (and the ones in the boys' lane was not), Rei stuck out her tongue one last time, smirked superiorly, and flounced back to her seat, getting her seatbelt buckled a second before Ami's mother peered at the backseat.

Impressed, Ami turned her attention back to the front of the car as they zoomed away. The ice between them was broken, and they soon began chattering away so rapidly that Ami's parents almost wished that serene silence still prevailed.

They reached the beach around midday, and had a quick lunch of sandwiches. Ami's mother took them to the edge of the water as her husband set up his easel and paints a safe distance away, his gaze intense yet vacant as he focused on capturing the landscape. They splashed happily in the water for awhile, with Ami's mother taking turns to ferry them out to the "scary dark water."

When their lips turned blue, she toweled them off and pulled out a stack of medical articles. "You can stay by the water and play, but don't go into the water past your knees, girls. Understand? I'll be watching you from here." Kira had set up the beach chair and umbrella close enough so that she could reach them before any serious mischief occurred.

They both nodded furiously, then raced to the water's edge again.

"What should we do?" Ami asked, ready to follow Rei's lead.

"Let's build a sandcastle," Rei said decisively. "But let's find the shells for it first."

They split up and spread out to collect the seashells they were being washed up. Ami was so engrossed in snatching a shell with a pearly, iridescent inside before the tide swept it away when clouds of sand were kicked up right in front of her face, and she scrubbed frantically at her eyes to get the sand out.

When she could see again, albeit tearily, the shell was gone, and the two fair-haired boys she had seen on the highway the day earlier that morning were racing around by the surf, whooping and yelling loudly.

Rei ran back to her, shoving the short-haired boy so he yelped and tumbled unceremoniously into the foamy water, and helped Ami wipe her face. They walked back towards her mother, and Ami glared at the boys, sniffling. They, in turn, were both scowling at Rei.

The grains in her eyes felt scratchy and uncomfortable, and her hair and face were dirty. She'd thought they were bad enough in another car, and if they were on the same beach, she was sure they would make the beach outing miserable. Rei was right – boys were icky. They would always be mean, and loud, and they'd always pick on her because she was so small and skinny...but they'd always have cooties.

Ami nodded in satisfaction as the trio headed to the restrooms so she could rinse her eyes out. That must be their punishment for being nasty: they were forever doomed to have cooties. She liked having justice doled out.

When they returned, Ami was surprised to see a red-haired woman with a hand firmly on each of the boy's shoulders. They were looking at the ground with particularly sulky pouts on their face. Seeing this, Ami bit her lip and started worrying. She hated it when grown ups made kids apologize. The teacher did it at school sometimes, and even though the bullies said they were sorry, they would get their revenge on the playground.

"Hello. I'm Eileen Coruni, and these two miscreants are my sons, Jaden and Zachary. I believe they have something to say to your daughters."

Rei cast her aunt a brief look before returning her attention to the blue-eyed boy, who stepped forward. "Sorry," he mumbled vaguely in Ami's direction.

"Yeah," the shorter boy said after a minute.

Before Ami could say anything, Eileen swatted at Zachary's head lightly. "Not so fast, young man. I want an apology, not an agreement with your brother."

He peered up at her with indignant green eyes, rubbing the sore spot dramatically. When she only looked back at him expectantly, he sighed and said, "I'm sorry too. Okay?"

"Okay," Ami whispered, even though the "okay" was directed more towards his mom than towards her.

"There really wasn't so much harm done, right, sweetheart?" Ami's mother held out her hand to the boys' mom. "I'm Kira Mizuno. This is Ami, and that's Rei."

"Nice to meet you."

As their conversation continued, the boys ran whooping to the shore, throwing off their embarrassment in a matter of seconds. Ami and Rei proceeded at a more sedate pace, eavesdropping on the conversation going on behind them.

"…my husband, he wanted to take a day trip to paint…"

"…every summer…the cottages are really quite affordable and…"

"They must get to stay here every summer," Ami said to Rei, eyeing the candy-colored cottages at the edge of the beach town.

"Lucky," Rei responded. "Come on, we're only here for a few more hours. Let's build the sandcastle!"

"Hey, girls – come on and play with us!"

Ami shrank away from Jaden's exuberant call, while Rei eyed him suspiciously. Apparently he had no hard feelings. "What do you want?" she demanded.

He strolled up smiling. "It's more fun with four people than two. We'll play tag."

"Well…okay."

"Rei!" Ami hissed, appalled at her agreement.

As Jaden waved to Zach, Rei whispered confidentially, "Don't worry. Aunt Kira and their mom are right behind us, and it's our chance to get even."

Eileen Coruni was feeling harassed and a little mortified. She and Kira watched from the beach umbrella, intervening when necessary, as the girls were really setting Zach and Jaden off. The boys were already rambunctious to begin with, and they were even more so on the first day of their vacation.

Most of the time, Ami was their prey. She was quieter and liable to cry, while Rei stood up for the two of them and gave as good as she got. Eileen had been shocked – she hadn't seen anyone take on both of her hellions at once before.

Unfortunately, poor Ami had been splashed numerous times, dragged underwater by the boys (Zachary was especially good at grabbing ankles and dunking his victims), snuck up on countless times, and doused with buckets upon buckets of sand and seawater dumped on her head. The boys had insisted on enforcing their rule that the person who was "It" in tag carried around a bucket filled with seawater to dump over his/her victim.

Jaden and Zachary weren't really being bullies; Jaden was the target of Zach's dunking almost as often as Ami was. The novelty was just greater with Ami because Zach would be able to drag Jaden underwater everyday for the next month or so. They were having fun and enjoying themselves, and they were always surprised when Ami burst into tears. It wasn't that they purposely made her cry or wanted to be mean; they liked jokes. They just weren't aware of the fact that it wasn't as fun for those they teased as it was for them.

As the day was winding down, Rei and Ami sat at a safe distance from the waves crashing onto the shore, engaged in building a sand castle. There were buckets, shovels, and shells to be used for decorating strewn around them, and they were having a wonderful time –until Zach, running backwards to catch a frisbee, stepped right in the middle of their nearly-completed work of art. "Oops," he managed insufficiently.

Ami watched in disbelief as its golden turrets fell before her eyes, the foundation crumbling into mere formless sand once more. Tears provided no outlet for her this time, and a hot, sweeping gush of anger flowed through her. Fury lit her blue eyes, the same color as the sun-dappled ocean on clear days, and she stood up, clenching her small fists at her sides. "I hate you!! Why do you always have to make fun of me and bother me? Why can't you just leave me alone?!"

He stared at her, too shocked to even apologize, and Jaden skidded to a rather late stop behind him, his eyes wide. Too late to salvage the situation, Eileen and Kira also came up to them just then.

Even Rei was taken aback. Patting her cousin's grimy, sand-plastered hand gently, she said, "It's okay, Ami. There's still time. We can make another sand castle."

"No! I don't want to make another sand castle! I want you – and you – to leave me alone!!" With that, she whirled around and ran off to a distant dune, plopping down with her back to them.

Jade nudged his brother and muttered in awe, "Never knew Ami had it in her."

"Me neither," Zach managed to say, his eyes fixed on her slight figure. Turning to look at his mother's dark expression, he flushed and scuffed his bare foot in the sand. "Uh...sorry, Mom."

"I don't think I'm the one you have to say sorry to, Zachary. I told you to be nice to her."

He gulped nervously. That was never a good sign. His mom hated it when she had to tell him to behave more than once, but… it was too dire. He had to ask. "What if she – what if she bites me?"

"Don't be silly!" Eileen snapped, at the end of her rope.

Her other son spoke up in agreement, "Yeah, these girls are scary. I mean, that one," he indicated Rei, "she can push. And hit. And kick. Hard."

She smiled innocently. "I don't really think now would be a good time for them to talk to her."

Sighing, Eileen gave her sons a remonstrative look that promised severe punishment later on, vacation or no vacation, and she walked over to Ami's hunched-over form.

Brushing herself off primly as she levered herself off the ground, Rei fixed the two boys standing before her with her startling violet eyes and said matter-of-factly, "Don't worry, you'll get what you deserve. Ami says you'll have cooties forever 'n ever."

As she walked off, she heard Jaden say, "Hey, we don't have cooties...do we?"

Zach shrugged, a baffled look on his face. "The only thing I'm going to say is, those girls aren't normal. They're not like the ones back home. We'd better leave them alone for a while. Hey, look, what's that thing that looks like a plastic bag washing up on the beach? It look gross."

He grinned as inspiration hit him. "Bet you're too afraid to touch it."

"What?! I am not!" Jaden squawked, offended at being challenged by his younger brother.

"Are too!"

"Are not!"

"Okay, prove it," Zach smirked.

Jaden eyed the pulsating object warily. "Well – why don't you? I bet you're too chicken."

"I bet first," Zach explained in a lofty tone. "Scaredy-cat."

"I am not!! See, it – OWOWOWOWOWWWWWWWW!"

Rei peered in the direction of the dramatic screams coming from the waterside curiously. "What do you think is happening?"

Ami sniffed. "The cooties probably got him and burst all the cells in his body." She tried out the words, "A-pop-tosis and he-mo-lysis."

Overhearing this, Ami's father shot Kira a somewhat perturbed look. "Have you been letting her read your old pathology texts again?"

When Kira only shrugged, smiling innocently, he continued stowing their beach gear in the trunk and asked resignedly, "Did you girls have fun today?"

"Well…" Ami's voice trailed off as she thought about it. Some parts had been horrible. But some parts had been fun and exciting, even the chasing and tag games. "Yes."

"Yes," Rei agreed.

Richard raised his eyebrows, while Kira just smiled tiredly, "It's a long story…"

When she finished telling him about their day on the car ride home, she added, "But you know, those boys were really very cute. And you know what they say about boys that age – if they tease girls, it means they like them."

"What?! My Ami?? Don't go jumping to conclusions, Kira. Besides, she's not allowed to date until she's thirty. Better yet, thirty one and a half."

"We'll just wait and see," Kira said serenely. "Only time will tell."