Ch9: He's Baaack!
(No, this chapter doesn't have to do with Yoko's return.)
That evening, Kurama and I were walking along the beach together, watching the sunset, the rising tide, smelling the aromas of pinewood trees and the sea. Soon, we stopped at a small cove to rest.
"Kurama, I-" I began to say, but I stopped.
"What?" he asked.
"I'm not...who I seem to, um, be..." I said, stumbling with my words. I sat down on some rocks near the edge of the cove. He sat next to me.
After a minute, he said,"It's okay. I know who you really are, Tyranda." I was in shock, staring straight ahead. How does he know! I thought. I suddenly slipped off the rock and fell into the crystal clear water below. C-cold... v-very c-cold...I thought, my skin freezing because of the water. I broke the still, almost solid-looking surface, gasping and coughing. As my eyes cleared, I saw Kurama slipping off, too. He fell into the already distubed waters of the cold cove, only a few feet from where I was. Someone near the edge giggled loudly as Kurama came up to the surface, oddly covered in bright green seaweed.
"Who the...TAYA!" I yelled as she ran away, still giggling. "Don't ask," I muttered angrily, swimming to the edge.
"Has she always been like this?" he asked, pulling some of the seaweed off as he sat next to me. I glared at him, then sighed woefully.
"It's too hard for me to stay mad at you."
"I know." We burst out laughing.
"All right, all right, I'll tell you!" I gasped between laughs. "It started at the end of seventh grade of Demon Jr. High School. You know, up in Makai? Anyway, she had gotten over her first major crush, and we were argueing about what was worse: Homework or band with Mr. Octa..."
Another Flashback (Here we go again...)>
Taya and I were getting up from the lunch tables as the health/phys. ed. teacher told the area to go outside.
"I'm telling you, homework is worse than band with that son of an octopus, Mr. Octa!" she insisted, her face flushed with anger.
"Did you forget what happened last band class? You almostpassed out!" Kamiel, a chameleon, nearly yelled, his skin turning the color of the frozen silver freezer.
"Calm down! The lot of ya!" yelled Tamiel, Kamiel's girlfriend , as she quoted one of her favorite movie lines. Suddenly, someone knocked me and the girls down.
"Tyranda, it gets easier to push you around all the time!" sneered someone as they stepped on my hand. Owwwwwwww! I screamed in my head. I cracked open an eye to see Sano, the serpent spirit, and his gang of assorted reptile and predator spirits laughing at us. The teachers were too busy helping an ostrich with a tray! What's worse, they were afraid of that gang. The reason was because he had killed a teacher with his fangs before, and everyone else was afraid of him, too!
"Back off, Sano!" growled a boy's voice. I saw Kuronue and Kamiel help Taya and Tamiel up.
"Are you okay?" asked a soft voice to my left.
"My ankle hurts," I replied as whoever it was helped me up. I glanced at his face and was forced to suppress a gasp. Helping me was a kitsune, but no ordinary one. His eyes were like the sun, a bright, burning, yet piercing golden yellow, his hair went straight past his shoulders and shimmered a soft, yet sharp silver-white color, but that wasn't what made him anything but ordinary. It was his voice, the way he told Kuronue he'd be helping me to the nurse's office. There was something in his voice, but what was it? Worry? Compassion? Wisdom? (Strike that last one.) Or did I even dare think it...love?
"Who are you?" I asked as he picked me up bridal style.
"My name is Yoko Kurama, and may I ask your name?"
"Tyranda. Serenity Tyranda Himoura Makio."
"That's a long name. It's different. And it suits you."
"Well, my mother's name was Maive Hinata Himoura, and my father's name was Jack Makio. They died a few years ago. My older brother, Ronnoc, a falcon, isn't really my brother. I'm his adopted sister. Plus, he's thirty years older than me!"
"I had a brother like that once. Here's the nurse's office. I didn't say it before, but I help the nurse sometimes. I was headed down here before Sano, that jerk, knocked you down," Yoko explained, gently putting me on my feet again. I tested my foot as he went to tell the nurse I was there and that he was reporting for work. It wobbled badly as I put some weight on it, so I leaned against the wall.
"You can come in now, Tyranda!" called the nurse. I hopped in, literally, and sat on the bed-couch thing that students were supposed to sit on when they went there. Suddenly, the phone on the desk rang.
"Hello? What? She almost passed out again? If this happens again, I'm reporting that teacher for pressuring her so hard!"
The nurse hung up and said, "Yoko, give this girl some ace bandages and an ice pack. I'll be right back. Taya nearly passed out again. Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" She left as Yoko made a face.
"She never does anything! Take off your shoe so I can put a bandage on it." I took off my tennis-shoe and folded the pant-leg around my ankle a bit. What I saw on my leg didn't soothe how I felt. It was a throbbing, bright red bruise, but the strange thing was that it was't where my ankle hurt! As Yoko put the cloth-like bandage around my ankle, he didn't ask about the weird bruise. Although he was careful, my ankle twinged with pain.
"If you want to go home, I can call the office," the kitsune offered, sitting next to me as I tied my shoe.
"I'll be okay. Thanks for helping me. If you and your friends weren't there to help, Sano would've had me for second lunch!" I said, getting up. My leg shook a little as I put some weight on it, but it wasn't like it was earlier.
"See you later," he said as he opened the door for me.
"Bye."
As I left the bandroom with Taya, I told her what happened.
"..and then I left," I finished, sitting down on the bus seat.
"Hmmm...I think he likes you," she said, taking out her science notebook and studying.
"What! I don't think so. He's got a huge fangirl club that follows him wherever he goes. Besides, he's popular and I'm...well...not popular."
"Hey, at least you're more popular than Elan, that weirdo eel."
"Yeah, you're right, but the only reason Elan's not popular was because he kissed a female chessclub member."
"Oh, right. All the same, you're better than him." The pale red and black bus slowed to a stop and the bus driver opened the door.
"See ya at school tomorrow, Taya!" I called, about to get off when the bus driver suddenly told me to be careful going home alone. That was weird, I thought.
As I walked along the alley to my house, someone grabbed me from behind and tied a blindfold around my eyes and tied my hands. Here we go AGAIN! I thought as I was pushed to a cave. I was forced onto a small, chair-like boulder. Someone in front of me lit a kerosene lamp, the faint light just barely penetrating through the thick cloth.
"We meet again, Tyranda. Will you cooperate this time?" asked a man in front of me.
"Tch. Yeah right, Yomi. Like I'd help the likes of you!" I yelled. He slapped me in the face, but it didn't hurt like it used to. Besides, I was brought here every other day! I heard Yomi back off and whisper something to his partner-in-kidnapping, a ningen named Al Junicah. Suddenly, three arrows, each sharp and covered in scorpion venom, (I could smell it. Nasty smell that stuff has, especially when it is mixed with raspberry seed.) pierced my chest, one near my heart and the other two almost in the right lung. I ignored the pain for now.
"You... monster..." I managed to say, shuddering.
"YOU ARE GONNA GET IT THIS TIME, YOMI!" yelled several voices at the mouth of the cave. I felt a hand on my chin and my head lifted up forcefully.
"I will finish what I started, Tyranda, count on it. I WILL have you used and tossed aside like a piece of tissue," snarled someone in my ear.
It wasn't Yomi, and I knew it wasn't one of my friends, or Yoko or Kuronue for that matter. Whoever it was let go and ran off with Yomi away from my enraged friends.
"Yoko, I will go and hunt down those freaks with Tamiel, Kamiel, and Taina," said Kuronue as he and the others followed the pair of kidnappers. Yoko untied my arms and the blindfold around my eyes. I could now see again, but, when I checked my wounds, I wasn't too happy when I saw blood pouring down my shirt and onto the floor.
"You know, you're always getting hurt and I'm always helping. We need to quit meeting like this," joked the kitsune, wincing when he saw me glaring at him for the joke.
"Please don't make jokes. Yomi's captured me fifty times already in the past three months. Last month I hit him in the head so hard he couldn't even think, so he didn't try to get me for a bit. OWWWWWWW! WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING TO MY ARM!"
"Trying to fix a leech bite," he replied as he sewed the bite together with a very thin vine.
"I can get the arrows," I said, trying to get up. "Oh my head..." I collapsed as the venom from the arrows overwhelmed my body. The kitsune caught me in his strong arms so the arrows wouldn't go clean through to my back.
"Tyranda, can you hear me?" he asked, making sure I was still conscious.
"Yeah, but barely. The scorpion venom from those arrows just got to me, that's all. I just need to rest, that's all. Can I go to sleep?" I asked in reply when he turned me onto my back. He put his hand on my forehead to see if I was fevered.
"You're burning up. Can you wait here while I go get something?"
"Just hurry. I don't want to be by myself if Yomi and Al come back," I said, looking at him and smiling. "While you're out there, I'm gonna try and get these arrows out of me." He left, leaving a blanket of tightly interwoven plants that smelled vaguely like lilies if I got cold. As I painfully pulled the arrows out of my upper chest, I took a bathing suit top out of my backpack to try and stop the bleeding. When I finished tying it in the font so it completely covered my torso, Yoko came back with some water from a nearby stream.
"Don't look at me like that. I had to get those arrows out or else the wounds would've been infected," I scolded, leaning back onto the wall.
"Just hold this on your forehead. It'll hopefully cool you off," said Yoko, handing me a piece of water-soaked cloth. As I relaxed against the wall with the wet rag against my head, I cried a little.
"Is something wrong?" he asked, cleaning the bite on my right arm again.
"I'm just thinking about my mom. It's been a really long time since she died..." I trailed off, staring at the stalactite-covered ceiling."Can I go to sleep now?"
"And risk not waking up again? By the way, why do you carry a bathing suit around?"
"I go swimming with Taya and my friends sometimes, so why not have one ready?"
"Well, that was a good idea using the top of it to cover your wounds."
"Thanks...Why's it getting all dark in here?"
"Great. The venom's attacking your insides again. Hey! Don't go to sleep!" I could hear his voice, but it was very far away. I fell asleep anyway, the cloth falling off of my forehead. The kitsune put the blanket on me as I went to sleep, and he laid me on my back so he could keep the rag on my face.
"I just hope she lives..." he said to a small, reptillian animal. He sat against the wall near my feet and, eventually, dozed off himself, that strange reptile around his shoulders.
(That last part was because Tyranda wasn't fully asleep.)
When I awoke, I found that my upper torso was completely wrapped in bandages, and a female, almost human-like reptile healing the bite on my arm. I tried to sit up, but it (or "She," rather) gently placed a scaly, cold hand on my left shoulder and shook her head, as if to tell me to lay back down because I was still weak from the venom inside me.
"Who are you?" I asked, the reptile-girl still by my side.
"I'm no one special. Just a cousin of Tamiel's," she replied, taking the rag off my forehead and dropping it into a bowl of water. "My name is Tsukina Tano. No need to tell me who you are, Tyranda." She stood up as a strange aura came in. "That's not funny, Gana. Just because you're a spirit of the winds and whatnot doesn't mean you can sneak up on us!"
"Geez, calm down," Gana said. Her voice carried a slight touch of sorrow.
"Am I still in a cavern?" I asked.
"Yes. You were too wounded to move you out of here," explained Taya, coming in with some cloths for me to wear. "I thought you were dead, too, because those arrows were pretty close to your heart! That Yomi actually gave up on getting you!"
"Well, I'm okay now. What time is it?" Boy, did I have a lot of questions!
"3:37 in the afternoon. Plus, an explosion in the cafeteria caused school to be out for awhile," replied Tamiel, coming in as well.
"Where's-"
"Yoko? He had to go home. You've been out for a couple days, and he took care of you during that time. Remember what I told you?" Taya reminded me. As I put some fresh clothes on in the back of the cave, the girls stayed at the mouth of the cave to make sure no boys came in.
"Oh man, I forgot what a clean T-shirt felt like!" I exclaimed, glad to have a shirt that wasn't covered in blood.
Several days later, after school was opened again, I was leaving the bandroom alone because Taya had been sent home unconscious.
"Um, Tyranda?" I looked behind me to see Yoko standing by the water fountain.
"What? Oh! I never thanked you properly for saving my life. Thanks," I said, blushing a bit.
"Actually, my dad's hosting a dance at the Salamander Hotel tonight. I was wondering if you and Taya would like to go," he explained.
"I'd love to, but I need to ask my older brother. He's my guardian-brother or something," I replied, a little nervous.
"Uh, this wasn't my idea but...Can I walk you home?"
On the way to my house, I told Yoko about the strange plants that had been growing around the area.
"That is strange. The plant you are talking about was supposed to have died out centuries ago. Are you sure it wasn't something else?"
"No, I'm sure of it. I checked the wildlife books and it said the kind it was." When we finally got to my home, a cozy one-story, I went inside to find my brother, Ronnoc Tsegrah, studying for his finals at college. His wings had frozen and the bones had shattered the day before, so he had been temporarily expelled from his first year of Flying High Jr. High School.
"Hey, Ronnoc, can I go to a dance tonight? Please?" I asked.
"Depends on whether or not you get your homework done, clean your room, and if it's school sponsored," the falcon replied.
"Well, Yoko's dad is one of the assistant principles, so I believe it is school sponsored, my room is already clean, thank you very much, and I have homework, but it's a science essay that isn't due till next Wednesday."
"Okay."
"Than- What?"
"You can go. I know Yoko's dad from demon high school."
"Thanks! I better get a head start on my homework." I went to the study room and turned on the metal lamp. (In this story, Makai is WAY more advanced than we were at the turn of the decade of, say, 1960?)
"I'll pick you and Taya up sometime later. How does six o'clock sound?" asked Yoko, standing by me.
"Sounds good," I said, looking up from my paper and smiling.
"Okay. I'll see you then," he said, smiling. As he left through the door, I called Taya, who, thankfully, had woken up, and told her about the dance.
"I'll be right over at...quarter till six, then!" she said, excited. "Um, Tyranda, I need to tell you something...I, erm..."
"You have another crush, don't you? Hang on...Ronnoc! Quit eavesdropping over the phone!" He hung up quickly.
"Yoko."
"Huh?"
"I said I have a crush on Yoko, okay!"
"Me, too..."
"Okay, okay, okay! Tyranda, Tana needs to ask Ronnoc something."
"Ronnoc! Phone for you!" I went into the kitchen to grab a couple potato chips when I heard Ronnoc drop the phone.
"Of course I'll take you to the dance, Tana," he said after he picked up the phone.
(This memory is getting kinda long, ne?)
At quarter till six, Taya and Tana arrived looking dressed to party all night and then some. Taya was wearing black designer jeans with and a tight black and purple tanktop, Tana was wearing a short (but not too short) denim skirt and a gold and silver-gray T-shirt with a frayed denim jacket, and I was wearing pair of tight, light blue jeans, a dark, earth-green, short-sleeve blouse, my hair done up in a ponytail, and a turquiose necklace. Ronnoc was wearing baggy jeans (how typical..) and a T-shirt that said Always Forward...Never Straight.
"You just HAD to wear that, didn't you?" asked Tana, pulling her dark brown hair up into a bun. He grinned sheepishly.
"Yeah."
"Hello? Anyone home?" called a voice from outside. I opened the door to see Yoko already there.
"Well, you're early," I said, opening the screen door.
"Well, the dance starts early. Dad's idea."
"Come on, you guys!" I yelled, going outside, only to be greeted by a blast of cold air. I stood shivering like an idiot, until Yoko handed me a jacket that he had picked up on the way.
"Thanks, but you didn't have to," I told him, blushing a little.
"I wanted to, and it's supposed to be cold later," was his reply. He headed back for the SUV his dad was driving, and I noticed he was wearing normal clothes. Why is he being so nice to me? I haven't done anything to help him yet... I thought, following. When he opened the door, he helped me get in. The second I saw Kuronue, I was forced to suppress a gasp. He was wearing a normal pair of a T-shirt and denim jeans!
As the dance ended at only three in the morning, Taya and I stood on a balcony overlooking a large forest, argueing about...
"I felt bad for Tamiel when Sano dropped that whole punch bowl on her..." said Taya, staring at the horizon.
"Well, she WAS acting like the queen of Ningenkai," I argued, actually defending Sano's choice to drop the punch bowl.
"Hey, quit argueing!" yelled Kuronue, stepping outside onto the balcony. "Tyranda, Yoko needs to tell you something in the dining room down the hall." I went inside, and, before I even got five feet away from the balcony (which, I forgot to mention, had curtains draped over the entrance), Taya scream with joy for some odd reason.
"What's her problem?" asked Kamiel, walking by with a towel-bound Tamiel. I shrugged and they left.
"Woah...Tana just kissed me..." said Ronnoc, sitting by a window and wiping lipstick off his cheek. He was blushing and smiling at the same time. I went into the dining room to find Yoko cleaning up the mess Sano made.
"Hey," I greeted, picking up a washcloth and helping him clean the floor, "Kuronue told me you wanted to tell me something?"
"Uh, yeah. Erm, I, uh..." he muttered, not able to talk right for some reason.
"Can I say something first? Yoko, when you helped me that day about a week ago, I've had the strangest feeling that you had some sort of feeling for me, and I sort of had a feeling for you after you saved me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I...I, erm...I love you, Yoko," I confessed, blushing a beet red.
"... I've felt the same way about you, too, Tyranda. I love you too," he said, helping me stand up. We went out on a balcony together as the sun began to rise.
"A sunrise as beautiful as this only comes once in a very long while," I whispered softly, my hand in his.
"Just like you."
"Hmm...I guess. I'm not all that pretty, am I?" I asked, unsure of how beautiful I was compared to the sunrise.
"You're more beautiful than any sunrise or sunset, Tyranda. How beautiful a girl is doesn't matter to me. It's what's on the inside that counts. Don't ever change who you are," he said to me, hugging me close.
"But I-" I began to say. He silenced me with a kiss that, at first, I wasn't ready to return it, but I did after a moment.
End Flashback (Finally! Sorry it took so long!)
"...and that's why she's goofy and why I'm here right now," I finished, somewhat out of breath. Kurama didn't say anything; he seemed to be listening for something.
"Hey sis! I'm baaaaack!" yelled Ronnoc, landing on the rock near the one we were on.
"Oh no," I moaned sarcastically.
"Ack!" the falcon shrieked, slipping off of the rock and hitting the cove's crystal clear waters. "Great! I finally graduate from Flying High College and what do I do? I fall off a freakin' cliff!"
