BACK WHEN WE FIRST MET written by HieiKitty

Written on October 16th, 2005

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Cared For

"Rei...Rei...You need to get up..." A soft but masculine voice persistently whispered into her ear. The kitsune hanyou groaned and rolled to her side, hitting something soft and warm. She slowly opened her dark purple eyes to see a clothed chest. For a moment, she just stayed still staring at it, wondering why the heck it was there. When she realized who it was, a small blush raised to her cheeks. A small chuckle was hard from above her head and looked up to meet with deep green eyes. Her blush deepened and she suddenly had the urge to just disappear. "Hi..."

"Good morning, sleepy head. Do you know how long I've been trying to wake you up? Rei, I'm sorry to tell you this but you have to get up and get ready for school." Kurama told her in an amused voice. Rei nodded and unclasped her hands, which she just noticed had been clasping on to Kurama's shirt. She quickly scrambled off of him and the bed in a such a fluster that she basically fell off the bed. The red head smiled as he stood up from the bed then helped Rei off the floor and on to her feet. "After you're done getting ready, I need to stop by my house to change into my uniform."

"Okay." Rei simply answered and just stood there. Once the kitsune hanyou got a hold of herself, she rushed to the bathroom grabbing a towel along the way, her face flushed like a tomato. Kurama chuckled to himself then left the room and headed to the living room to wait for her. It took about fifteen minutes for Rei to finish her shower then five more minutes for her to change into her school uniform. When she only had to do her hair, she started towards the living room where she thought Kurama would be. She was just putting her hair back into a low ponytail when she walked into the room. "Okay, I'm ready to go...Kurama?"

An empty room stared back at her. The room looked like it had not been touched since the last time Rei and Kari had watched TV in there together with Kai. She had been sure that Kurama would have been in there. Where else could he be? At that moment, a thought came to her moment. What if he had left her alone? This thought quickly left her mind though when some one grabbed a hold of her hair tie and gently pulled it out of her midnight blue hair. Rei quickly turned around to come face to face with a grinning Kurama. "You know, you look better with your hair down."

"Kurama, you're such a jerk!" Rei yelled angrily at him then hit him lightly in the chest. He had truly scared her when she didn't find him but now that he was there, a small wave of relief swept over Rei. She tried to glare at him but it only ended up looking playful. Kurama just smiled at her. "Come on, let's go."

Rei scoffed and shot him a look. The red head just smiled innocently as he handed her, her bag for school. The two of them were soon on their way to Kurama's house, small conversations going on between them. After a while, they reached Kurama's house where Kurama opened the front door with a key and held it open for Rei. It was just like she remembered it from her last visit. Kurama saw that Rei was thinking to herself when he closed the front door and he put a hand on her shoulder. Rei jumped and turned to him, glaring. Kurama laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. "Sorry."

The kitsune hanyou once again scoffed but smiled slightly. Kurama smiled back and then lead her through the house into the kitchen where his mother and his younger stepbrother were. Shiori Minamino was washing dishes with her back to them while the younger Shuichi Minamino ate a small breakfast made up of cereal. Shuichi looked up at them and tried to talk with his mouth full, which got his mother's attention. Shiori turned around and a huge smile crossed her face when she saw Rei and Kurama standing there. "Shuichi! Reina! Good morning!"

"Good morning, Mother."

"Good morning, Mrs. Minamino."

"It's so nice to see you again, Reina. Please sit down and have some breakfast." Shiori beckoned the hanyou as she steered her over to the seat next to Shuichi. Kurama made his getaway and left to go change for school. His mother was busying herself to make sure that Rei liked her breakfast. She poured Rei a bowl of cereal and gave her a glass of orange juice. Once Shiori saw that Rei was satisfied, she went back to washing the dishes. Next to Rei, Shuichi was giving her a suspicious look. "Are you my brother's girlfriend?"

Rei choked on her food and coughed to clear her throat while her face was blushing. Shiori chuckled amusingly but continued her work on cleaning. Shuichi watched as Rei regained control of herself and then turned to him, her face still flushed. "Well, um, not really. Maybe in the future but not right now. I'm trying to get over something that just happened so I can't really say anything about the future. Do you understand?"

"I'm not a little kid. You just broke up with your old boyfriend. Duh." Shuichi boredly said then excused himself from the table. Rei just sat there, shocked at what the boy had just told her. Shiori dried her hands, now done with the dishes and came over to her, sitting where Shuichi had been sitting. She smiled over at Rei. "Reina, you can talk to me whenever you want. I won't make you talk but I can tell that something's upsetting you."

"How could you tell?" Rei asked. Everyone was surprising her with all this talk. Shiori smiled sympathic and patted her shoulder. "Reina, I'm a mother and I can tell when something's wrong. Plus, I know that Shuichi stayed with you last night. He was surprised too when I told him I knew that he was with you when he mentioned a friend."

"Thank you very much, Mrs. Minamino. I can't talk to you about it right now though. I'm not ready." Rei told her in a whisper as she looked down at the tabletop. Shiori nodded in understanding and reached over to give her a hug. The hanyou hugged her back lovingly. It was like she had a mother again. The two pulled away from the hug just as Kurama entered the room. He looked back and forth between the two with a questioning look while they just smiled at him. "Well, you two should probably go to school now. You'll be late if you don't hurry. Oh, come over tonight for some dinner, Reina. Bring your sister."

Rei stood up with a nod and put her breakfast dishes in the sink. Shiori too stood up and gave both Kurama and Reina a hug before ushering them out of the house. Rei laughed when she closed the door behind them once they were standing outside. "Wow, your mom really wanted to get rid of us, didn't she?"

"What were you two talking about?" Kurama asked her, changing the subject since he was a little suspicious. Rei shot him a look and placed her hands on her hips. "None of your business. And why are you asking when you probably heard with those ears of yours? Hey, get back here!"

Rei ran after Kurama when she had realized that Kurama had began to walk quickly away when she accused him. Once she caught up with him, she hit him lightly on the arm and shot him a look. "How rude! You did hear, didn't you!"

"Let's talk about something else." Kurama suggested with a nervous laugh. Rei scoffed and looked around them as they walked towards the school. The two of them had small conversations as they reached the busiest part of the city where the schools and businesses were located. Rei was pulled from one of their conversations when something caught her eye. She rushed across the street, barely missing cars, and ran up to a store window. Kurama followed her, only taking a safer route. "What was that about? You shouldn't just run across the street, Rei. You're going to get hit by a car."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm not Yusuke. Kurama, look at this! Isn't it cute?" Rei asked as she pointed to one of the items in the window. Kurama looked at what she was pointing at and understood. There sitting in the window display was an assortment of stuffed animals. In her room, he had seen many stuffed animals, especially cats and bears. But the stuffed animal she was pointing at was an orange and white fox. He looked over at her with a raised eyebrow to see that she was pressing her face against the window. "I can't believe it! Do you know how rare it is to find a fox stuffed animal? I only have three! And that's because my friends bought them in the States!"

"Are you going to buy it?" Kurama asked as he watched Rei pull herself off the window. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "I wish. Since Kari and Yusuke spent my paycheck at Sun Coast that one day, I don't have that much money. I have to keep the money I have for the bills. Damn bills."

With one last sigh, Rei took her last look at the stuffed animal before walking off again. Kurama walked after her, catching up easily. When they reached a crosswalk and had to wait for the light to change, Rei looked up at a clock positioned on a nearby building. A smirk rose to her lips as she turned to Kurama. "Well, what do you know? There's only five minutes until school start. Knowing that, there's no way we could make it there in time. So, I think I'm going to go home now."

Rei immediately turned to walk back the way they came but was stopped when Kurama grabbed a hold of her arm. An agitated groan escaped her lips as she turned her head and shot him a look. Kurama went unaffected by this and just smiled like always. "We'll just tell them that we got caught up in traffic."

"But we didn't take a car!" Rei whined as she tried to find some way to get out of going to school. Kurama chuckled at this and the kitsune hanyou pouted in return. A cough to clear a throat got the attention of the two. They turned to look at the source and saw a boy their age with black eyes and matching hair. He looked slightly like Kuwabara, in Rei's opinion, but he wore glasses and had a superior look on his face. Kurama let go of Rei's arm and smiled at him. "Good morning, Kaitou."

Rei wanted to say something about how the guy had the same name as her younger brother but the guy said something before she could. The guy, Kaitou, slightly glared at the red head. "So, you transferred from Meiou for this? A different reason from what I had originally heard."

Rei glared at him but Kurama took a step towards Kaitou. His green eyes narrowed as he glared at him. "What do you mean?"

"I had heard that you transferred to Yusuke's school so that it would be easier to keep in contact but obviously, it was for a girl. I guess that she's one of those new detectives Genkai's told me about. The younger twin, I suppose?" Kaitou asked in slight anger but also held amusement in his voice. Kurama let out a small growl and tried to put Rei behind him but Rei moved to his side and flipped Kaitou off. "I bet you're one of those guys who are jealous of Kurama and think that you're really better. Well, the truth is that you're not better than him and don't talk about me like you know me."

Kaitou scoffed and glared at the kitsune hanyou. "Quite a rude mouth you have and such rude gestures. I'm surprised that Shuichi's even interested in you. Well, I guess someone has to be."

Now this really got under both Rei and Kurama's skin. But before Rei could punch Kaitou in the face like she wanted to, Kurama forcefully pushed her behind him. Rei stumbled backwards slightly but caught herself. She then looked at Kurama's questioningly, though she could now only see the back of his head. Her eyes widen when she saw a few strands of silver. "Kurama?"

"Hmph." Kaitou scoffed again and walked off without another word. It was like a conversation had just happened between the two boys and Rei couldn't hear it. Rei watched Kaitou leave then she walked around Kurama to look him in the face. Just as she suspected after seeing his hair, Kurama's once green eyes were now gold. Those said eyes slowly looked down at her. Rei laughed nervously and rubbed the back of her neck. "Well, that took some time. At least now we won't have to go to school since there's no way we have enough time to make it there before the bell rings."

A smirk rose to Kurama's lips as an idea popped into his mind.

End of Chapter Thirty-Eight

HieiKitty: So, how was it? Nyuh? Anyways, it's true about the whole fox stuffed animal thing. Those fricken things are so hard to find! I only have four. (cries) (cough) Anyways, I guess this chapter was a little bit longer but I am trying to make them longer! SORRY!

Kuronue: Just review so that the next chapter comes out soon.