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Kurama looked up startled. It was a girl from his class, with long black hair and two deep, brown eyes. She was actually very pretty, but Kurama had seen her sitting alone before in the back of the class in the far corner.
"Yeah?" he asked her, turning his bright green eyes up to her face.
She blushed a little. "May I sit here?" she asked, stuttering slightly, indicating to the chair opposite of him.
At first Kurama was a little surprised by the request. 'Someone's asking for permission to sit next to me?' he thought, surprised. 'Asking to?'
"Yeah, sure!" he replied enthusiastically.
The girl, seemingly encouraged by his happiness, blushed again and sat down, setting her lunch in front of her. She looked up at him shyly. "My names Loriko," she told him.
"And my name's Shuichi," he told her happily.
"Where did you come from, Shuichi?" she asked him, taking a bite of food from her pink chopsticks.
"I just moved here from Tokyo last week," he told her, taking a bite himself. "My mom and I live just up the street."
"I went to Tokyo once," Loriko told him. "It was really loud and crowded."
"You probably went to the center of Tokyo," he told her. "I lived on the outskirts, where there aren't as many people."
"Why did you move?" she asked him.
His friendly smile weakened. "My dad died a few months ago," he told her. "My mom wanted to get out of that house. She wanted to start a new life." He shrugged. "I think the memories there haunted her too much, she just couldn't handle it."
Loriko looked at him, sympathetic. "I know how you feel," she told him. "My own father died when I was little."
Kurama shook his head, as if trying to shake something out of it. "Lets talk about more happy things," he told her.
She nodded in agreement. "Do you play any sports?" she asked him. "I love gymnastics. We have a lot of good sports teams around here, maybe you can get involved."
"No," he told her, "I don't play any sports. I was thinking about joining something, though. Do they have any martial arts clubs here?"
Loriko nodded. "A lot of kids around here are really into martial arts," she told him. Then she looked up at him shyly. "But if you won a fight with Usho, I doubt you need it."
He looked at her for a moment, eyes wide. Then he smiled and shook his head. "I'm not that good," he told her. "It was mostly just luck. Besides, we weren't really fighting."
"You weren't fighting?" she repeated, surprised by his attitude. "Then what were you doing?"
He just shook his head again, avoiding the question. "Anyway," he told her, "I really want just learn how to get self-control and things. My anger sometimes gets out of hand." That was the understatement of the years.
Loriko looked at him for a moment. Then, as if accepting the odd boy for who he was, smiled at him. "Sure," she told him. "Would you like me to take you to the room after school? It's right by the gymnastics hall, so I wouldn't be going out of my way or anything."
"That'd be great!" he told her enthusiastically, reverting back to his same old self. As if he pulled Loriko back with him, she too blushed at his enthusiasm.
"It's settled, then," she told him. "I'll meet you outside after school?"
"Yeah," Kurama agreed, smiling at her. "That'd be great."
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"Hey, Shuichi!" someone called from behind Kurama. "Wait for me!"
He stopped and turned around, looking for the person who had called for him. Running in his direction was Loriko, panting and out of breath from the run.
Kurama stopped and waited for her to catch her breath before continuing to walk.
"Didn't you have gymnastics club today?" he asked her as they walked down the sidewalk.
Loriko shook her head. "The coach is sick today, so we have the day off. What about you?" she asked him. "Don't you have Karate every day after school now?"
"Uh-uh," Kurama told her. "Today is for the little kids. I'm too advanced to go to that class. It'd just be boring."
She laughed at his tone of voice. "Well, aren't you all high and mighty!" she mocked him teasingly. "You've really improved since you moved here just a year ago."
"Yeah," he agreed. "Sensei said I have 'natural potential of great lengths' or some fancy wording like that. He's always talking in big, complicated sentences, but I think it's mostly just to impress the students."
"You shouldn't talk about your teacher that way," she scolded him, frowning.
Kurama just shook his head. "He really isn't that good," he told her. "But that doesn't matter to me. I came to learn self-control, not fighting."
Loriko just laughed. "Shuichi, you are something else," she told him.
"I know," he said smiling at her. 'But I don't think you really do,' he thought at the girl.
"Hey, Shuichi," she said. "I heard they just opened a new pizza restaurant down the street. Do you want to go check it out?"
"Pizza?" Kurama asked. "What's that?"
"It's some kind of popular American food," she told him. Then she frowned. "Actually I heard it originated in Italy or France or some European country like that, but it's really common in the states."
"Sure," Kurama told the girl. "That sounds good."
Then she laughed, and ran forward. "Last one there has to pay for the food!" she yelled back at the demon gone human.
"Hey!" Kurama yelled at her, running to catch up. "No fair! You got a head start!"
Loriko just laughed, and Kurama ran to catch up with her, but still being careful to stay just a little bit behind.
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"Um," Kurama said, running his tongue over his lips. "That pizza was good. American's sure know how to eat."
"Uh huh," Loriko agreed, walking quickly to keep up with Kurama's long strides. "We both polished off an entire pizza each! I didn't think I was that hungry."
Kurama laughed at her comment. "You probably weren't," he agreed, "but that pizza's so good, it's hard not to eat it."
They walked in silence for a moment, side by side, enjoying each other's comfort. Loriko looked up at the dark sky, with dark clouds going over a barely visible crescent moon. "We'd better hurry home," she told Kurama. "It's getting dark. Plus, with those dark clouds it looks like it's going to rain."
"Okay," Kurama agreed.
Suddenly, Loriko tripped over something in the dark. "Look out!" Kurama cried, reaching out, trying to catch her falling body.
"Yipe!" she cried, her legs giving out beneath her. Kurama threw himself forwards, catching the girl just before they hit the ground.
"Ouch," Kurama moaned, rubbing his other hand on the arm he had fallen on. He opened one of his eyes in pain, then noticed that he was directly facing Loriko, VERY closely.
She starred at him, wide eyed in surprise. The young girl looked very pretty there, sitting on the cement, midnight black hair cascading down her back and onto the ground like a waterfall. The nearby lamplight caught her eyes, making them glimmer and sparkle in the dark like stars. Her skin was naturally pale, and even more brought out by the lack of light. 'She's the perfect image of beauty,' Kurama thought. 'Help me, I think I'm in love.'
She leaned forward slightly, and he did also. They watched each other for another moment. Then leaned in even more, so that there lips were almost touching…
"Aw," a voice said from behind them, "isn't that sweet?"
The two children looked up startled. There standing in the alley next to them, was four men. The one who had spoken looked cruel and smug. The man next to him sneered at them. Another of them looked similar to the other two, but the man in the far back looked worried, and kept looking at the two of them nervously.
"Isn't young love sweet?" the big man, supposedly the leader, asked the man next to him. His companion grinned wider.
"What do you want?" Kurama asked them, in a mixture of fear and defiance.
"What do we want?" the big man repeated, then laughed coldly. "Why, we just want what's rightfully ours."
Then, before either of the children noticed, another man had snuck up behind them. He grabbed Loriko, clutching his hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming, but she managed to make several loud squealing noises.
"Loriko!" he cried, lunging at the frantic girl. The man holding her used his other hand to knock him away, still clutching the squirming girl in his other hand.
"We just want our toll for crossing," the lead man said slyly. "Now, because you're just little kids, we'll cut you a bit of a deal and just make it 30000 yen."
"Boss?" the nervous man said, speaking quietly. "Can't we just let them go? They're just kids?"
"Shut UP!" the man yelled, knocking the man who had spoken, into a pile of trashcans where he lay unconscious.
"Now…" he said, turning back two Kurama. "Give us our money, or the girl gets it."
That was it. I couldn't control my anger. All those long Karate classes had been for nothing. I tried with all my might to hold myself down, breathing heavily and hard.
Then I heard Loriko's frantic cry from between the man's fingers, "Shuichi!" That was it. The last straw. And suddenly, my eyes flipped to silver, my fangs and claws grew, and I lost myself in the power.
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Kurama lay on the ground. It was hard and cold and his body was stiff. He blinked his eyes open. 'Or did I? I can't see anything.' Then, when he saw the stars in the sky he realized it was night. 'But what am I doing lying outside at night?' he wondered to himself. 'What happened?'
Then he remembered. The walking, the almost kiss, the men, the threat, and his transformation. 'But what had happened after that?' he wondered.
He slowly sat up and looked around letting his eyes a just to the darkness. What he saw horrified him. Bodies of the men lay strewed out upon the grounded, each surrounded by a puddle of blood. Each and every one of them were unconscious, and Kurama feared to think of anything worse.
Kurama then heard a sound. It was small and quiet, but the only sound in the entire alley. Then, he saw where it was coming from.
Loriko was curled up in a little ball in the far corner of the alley, facing the wall. She rocked herself back and forth, sobbing quietly to herself as she did so. "Loriko," Kurama whispered slowly.
He stood up slowly. Then, as if unsure of how sure he could walk, toddled forward slowly. "Loriko," he called softly. She didn't hear him.
"Loriko?" he tried again, this time only a few feet from the small crying girl.
As she continued to sob, Kurama took another step forward, until he was right behind the small girl. "Loriko," he said again, setting his hand lightly on her shoulder.
Her reaction scared him. Loriko wheeled around, facing him. Then, seeing who it was, she screamed. Clutching the wall franticly, she tried to get as far away from him as she could, hiding herself in the deepest part of the corner. She looked at him like a wild animal would look at its hunter, terrified, her eyes wide and frantic.
"Loriko! It's just me!" Kurama told her, trying to calm her down. "It's just Shuichi!" He put his hand towards her, trying to set it on the nearest body part to him, her foot.
She screamed again, jerking her foot away from him. The girl curled herself up in the tiny corner, as far hidden as possible. She continued to sob uncontrollably. And every time he tried to touch her, she screamed.
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Hey again, everyone!
So, how did you guys like my double-stuffed chapter? I've been writing these so quickly, I got like three chapters before we actually were online. I couldn't decide whether to put them in one at a time, or put two together. What do you guys prefer? The double-stuffed chapters will be longer, but I'll only be able to do two or so a week, but the shorter ones will come out about every two or three days? Let me know, PLEASE!
Sorry, I did make it a girl he liked, but that's just how it played out. Don't worry, you won't be seeing much of her any more!
I don't think I'm going to make it into a Hiei and Kurama fic, just because I want to stick pretty close to the story line of the anime. However, I'd like to include Hiei in the story's later chapters. If anyone knows how Hiei and Kurama met, before they stole the items, it'd be a great help if you could email me! I will say this, though, Kurama and Hiei won't hate each other's guts. At least not after the story gets going a bit more…
I think that's it… Oh! Wait! A new chapter will be up either tomorrow if you guys are happy with a short one, or a double-stuff will be up on Thursday! Let me know what you prefer!
Dream Fox