Carly-Chan: Um…hey guys please read…uh this is the next chapter…uh….after this it will take a bit longer for me to update because I haven't written all of the next part yet…er…if anyone is reading this…uh thanks
Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman King….feh I wish…I only own the three OC that are in this story um ok
I ran over to the door and opened it quickly looking out to see Ren who had gotten here pretty quickly considering what he had to get away from. Ren's hair looked good, he must've fixed it on the way here. I could see how he had tried to fix his clothes up but I could still see some of the wrinkled places in his shirt and his pants where the girls had grabbed at him. I thought it might be rude for me too keep staring at him as he stood out in the hallway and I sensed that he might be getting a little agitated also. "Come in." I said moving aside and gesturing with my arm for him to go in. He did and I smiled at him.
"Please sit." I said gesturing for him to sit down on the nearby couch. He sat down and I sat down next to him.
"So… about that 'you explaining everything' thing" He said as he looked back at me, staring at me with wondering eyes, beautiful and deep golden wondering eyes. Oh yes of course I must try to focus on the matter at hand.
"Yes well…you sure were quick to bring that up Ren." I spoke softly staring back into his eyes.
"Yes and you are quick to avoid the subject, why is that?" He questioned, there seemed to be an edge in his voice but it was still cool, calm and soothing. It was purely beautiful.
"I suppose it is because I haven't really thought out exactly how to tell you this." I confessed as I paused and looked over at him sighing as I was about to continue.
"It's simple if you are going to confess your love to me like all of the other girls just say it." He said abruptly.
"No that's not quite it." I assured him. "Now if you think about what I told you that's not something that I know about you now is it." I spoke smoothly but I could tell he was getting annoyed by my slightly taunting him.
"Would you please just tell me what it is?" He said trying to keep as calm as possible, perhaps in fear of losing the chance to find out what it is that I know about him.
"Yes all right. I am like you, in many ways Tao Ren. I am not like you because we go to the same school or both get good grades or any silly human thing, but something much stranger.' I paused seeing the way his eyes lit up as he heard me stress the word 'human' perhaps now he had realized what it was that made us the same.
"So you see Tao Ren I have known for quite some time that you are a shaman and I will tell you my secret that makes me the same as you." I may have lost him, I think that he was still dwelling on how I knew that he was a shaman, and I decided then to bring up something else for him to dwell on. "By the way Ren, nice job in your first match of the preliminaries Ren, you were magnificent."
"How do you know these things, and about my match how could you have known? Could you have possibly? Is there any way that you could have… been there without me noticing?" He seemed quite shocked by all of this.
"Ren I don't think that you are quite following what I'm trying to tell you." I said, perhaps I hadn't had much time to plan this but I was always fairly good with words and this was going quite smoothly. "Oh and as for how I saw you fight and went unnoticed, It's a little something that I learned from Heala, she has the best timing and I acquired that talent from her." I watched as his face lit in a very strange expression as he remember the name Heala, I had used it in conversation with him once before, it was the first time that I gave a hint of knowing who he really was.
"Ren look at me." I mumbled scooting closer to him on the couch and turning my body so that I had one leg on the couch and was facing him. I stared into his eyes for a moment and then brought my hand up and placed it under his chin, tilting his head upward slightly so that he looked into my eyes. We were so close at this moment, I had an urge to move in closer and press my lips to his. What am I thinking I don't want to kiss him I want to tell him the truth. "Ren I know that you are a shaman and I have known for quite a while, but now it is my turn to let you find out my little secret that makes me so different from most of the world and so very much the same as you." I leaned in closer and whispered into his ear "I am a shaman Ren, I am like you in oh so many ways."
He pushed me away slightly so that now we were simply sitting across from each other, looking at one another. There was a very short awkward moment of silence as we stared at each other both trying to guess what the other was going to do next. What happened next I hadn't really seen coming at all.
"A shaman." He mumbled seemingly to himself. He moved closer to me, I couldn't take it anymore, we were so close again, I wanted to kiss him so badly. 'Why don't you succumb to your desire?' A voice in my mind had whispered to me. Could I really do that, could I? I had told Ren that I wasn't looking for his love but…maybe…just a little kiss wouldn't hurt so much. 'If you can't do it let me do it for you, let your desire take control!' That time I had succumbed to my little desiring voice. A moment later I had kissed Tao Ren and to my great surprise he had responded to the kiss, what started out as a little kiss became a bigger one, my little voice of desire had taken control. I was altogether amazed when he added more force knocking me backwards, sprawling me out onto the couch, we continued to kiss as I fell back. I looked up at Ren, who had currently positioned himself to be leaning over me, with wide eyes. Soon I let my mind give in completely to the sweet temptation.
As we lay there on my couch a strange feeling came over me, Heala knew of what we were doing, perhaps she saw and then turned away, or perhaps she was watching right now. I didn't care however, this moment was pure bliss and I didn't want to give it up just because Heala had seen, I would have told her later anyway. So we continued to kiss for a little while longer. I had closed my eyes not wanting to see anything that might distract me or pull me out of this perfect moment but then I felt Ren pull away, when I opened my eyes he was no longer leaning over me but kneeling. "I-I…sorry" He mumbled quietly.
"What?" I asked I wasn't sure if I'd heard him right, did he just apologize for letting me experience the most wonderful thing I'd ever known.
"I'm sorry" he mumbled again. "I guess we got caught up in the moment." He spoke calmly and slowly. I found it cute the way he said 'we' as to not take full responsibility so it wasn't really like he was apologizing
"It's ok Ren… really." I muttered quietly as a slight blush swept across my face, it was better that ok it was wonderful. Hmm, leave it to Ren to keep talking after I've said it's ok.
"You seem to like me for reasons not like the other girls, not because I'm cool or good looking… something else. It was just different.' He trailed off. Also leave it to ren to flatter himself like that.
Ren went home soon after that, and to my surprise Heala wasn't angry with me for kissing Ren.
'It's ok Mei, I knew you would succumb to temptation and desire eventually.' Was what she had said when I asked her about it.
In the next few months Ren and I grew ever closer and then we decided it was time to take a different step, to change our friendship into something other than a friendship. Heala seemed to have been the only girl who wasn't mad when Ren and I had declared ourselves an official 'couple' to everyone. Ren's fan girls all hated me and all of the guys at our school thought that perhaps I was using him for something. But the most common rumor was that if Tao Ren was dating an unpopular weird girl like me I must be blackmailing him or he could be using me or something along those lines. Of course it was all lies, It didn't mater if they hated me, glared at me as I walked by or made idle threats to me in the hallways or after school. None of what they thought or did mattered as long as Ren and I were happy together what other people thought about it didn't matter one bit. As I went through the school day I had no idea of the very strange night that would follow.
I went home, did my homework, talked to Heala for a while and all of the other things that I normally did. I remember it being around seven o' clock at night and I was folding clothes wearing a long black dress with flowers at the bottom of it as I folded the laundry and suddenly this feeling that I had awakened from some sort of sleep came over me and I looked up to see that I had my head laying in Ren's lap at he stroked my head. "What am I doing here?" I asked him sitting up with a shock.
"Mei are you all right? You came here an hour ago, it was dark out and raining and you weren't wearing any shoes and you didn't have an umbrella, like you had just run out of the house. You weren't out of breath though and you were crying. When I opened the door you threw yourself at me and hugged me, we went over to the couch and I've been trying to get you to tell me what was wrong but then I decided to try to make you calm down. A little bit ago you started mumbling something along the lines of; 'Soon will come an ultimate pain for me but an even greater pain for you Tao Ren. The next shaman fight will be upon us sooner than we think and then the day when we are torn from each other despite our hopeless struggles will come to be.' That's what you said, I don't know what you meant by it but you said it.' He explained to me.
"Oh…. Uh yeah I understand what happened now… it actually happens quite a lot. Um… why was my head in your lap Ren?" I questioned.
A slight blush crept across his face. "Oh yeah…um I was trying to comfort you and calm you down, I think it worked a little." he mumbled.
"So I really said all of that did I?" I said as I drew circles with my finger on the seat of the couch next to me.
"Yeah you did." He mumbled barely believing it himself, for most of the time he had known me I was either cheerful or quiet but never had he heard me incoherently mumble premonitions.
"I'm sorry. Uh…I could figure out what it means but it may take a little while. When I find out would you like me to tell you?" I asked
"Alright, since it has to do with me anyway I might as well know." was his response. "I'll walk you home, it's still raining though." He mumbled.
"Alright." I replied still blushing a bit. "I don't need shoes Ren…I'll be ok." I blurted out before he could even think of worrying himself about it.
"And what about an umbrella? It is still raining." he questioned eyeing me strangely as he walked over to the closet to get his coat.
"Nah. I like the rain, I like it a lot as long as it's not the kind that stings when it touches your skin." I said with a happy smile on my face.
"Alright then." He said as he grabbed his coat and put it on. "Shall we go then?"
"Okay!" I jumped up off the couch and ran over to him as he opened the door and motioned for me to go out first, so I did. I waited as he locked the door and then we set off towards my place. We were fairly silent on the way there, both focusing in on our thoughts. I was starting to try to decode what I had said to Ren before. During our next shaman fight, and we will be torn apart no mater what we try to do. But what could it be? What will happen that will bring the two of us this pain? I glanced over at Ren and thought that he too was looking at me out of the corner of his eye. I stopped walking, noticing that I had stopped he stopped too.
"Ren…" My voice was soft and quiet. "I will figure out what is going to happen and I won't let it hurt you, I won't let it hurt us." I moved in closer to him and kissed him passionately. We stood there in the rain kissing for a moment and then we stopped, the sound of a car coming making us realize that we were on a public street, Ren and I both scowled at the car as it passed by us. We then continued on our way to my house, we got there fairly soon, sooner than I expected at least, or was it really sooner than I hoped?
He walked me up to the door of my apartment, kissed me goodnight and told me "Go inside and get some sleep, don't worry yourself over all of this right now."