She was jumping to conclusions. Yes. That was it. This entire ordeal was making her antsy and quick to make assumptions about anything that swayed even slightly in one direction. So what if Raimundo had a black pen? That didn't mean anything. Sure, it was his only pen (as he'd announced when he requested/demanded their help finding it) and he was rather irked for having to borrow one of Clay's blue ballpoints, but who wouldn't be after losing their only pen? Well, maybe it wasn't lost, and maybe Kimiko was holding on to it just to scribble on the papers to compare the ink of the two. She had to admit, it was a little odd that it happened to be a perfect match, but she was foolish to think them to be the same pen. There were millions, maybe even billions, of those pens circulating throughout the world, many people are bound to possess them. So there. She was just getting a little out of her head. It was merely a coincidence. Imagine, Raimundo being her...and that she even thought he...she laughed at the idea. Ha ha ha.

She stopped laughing when the next letter was written in blue ink.

---

Kimiko did her best to put her suspicions out of her mind, and surprised herself by doing a fairly good job. However, she did have her moments when they got the best of her, and she purposely brought up the admirer in Raimundo's presence simply to monitor his reaction.

"Do you think it's weird," she'd spoken obnoxiously to Clay one day, as Raimundo fiddled with a game from her expansive collection. "That the color of the ink in the letters changed from black to blue?"

She saw Raimundo tense; barely, and only for a fraction of a second, but in that fraction she caught him tightening his often-limp shoulders. His attention was not deterred, though, and he remained focused on the game he was playing.

"Well, I don't know, missy. He could have just ran out of ink on his old one." Clay said monotonously, as he was half-asleep anyway, with the brim of his hat concealing most of his face.

"Or lost it." Kimiko pressed, hoping it would earn her a more definite hint. "He could have lost the old pen and had to use a new one. I guess that makes sense."

"Do you think maybe you're reading a little too much into this?" Raimundo shut off the game and jumped uninvited into the conversation, and there was a glean in his eyes that Kimiko could not decipher. "Maybe he got sick of black ink, huh? What does it matter anyway?"

She hid a satisfied smirk when she broke him, and tried to mask how pleased she was with annoyance. "I'm curious, I want to figure out who it is. Why are you getting so beat up over this?" Raimundo shoved the game into her hands forcefully and huffed as he stood up.

"Because don't you think that this secret admirer dude wants to stay, oh, I don't know, a secret?"

"What's the fun in that?"

Raimundo growled and mumbled something about going somewhere before storming off, the black cloud hovering over his head clearly visible. Kimiko couldn't help but feel a little guilty for her behavior, but her curiosity was getting the best of her. She had to know the identity of her pursuer. More importantly, she had to know if her gut was telling the truth.

Because if so, things could wind up getting very complicated.

---

When Kimiko entered her room to put away her game, she jarred when she noticed that the curtain blocking the doorway had shifted to the right, as if it had been moved. With lightening speed she rushed inside, praying to catch the assailant in the act. She had no such luck, as the room was empty, but

her disappointment dissipated into thin air when she saw the graceful little peony flower adorning her pillow. With a riant smile and a nervous giggle, she knelt and took the delicate plant into her hands. It was lovely, an ethereal shade of pink with seemingly thousands of tiny petals intertwined with each other.

The craftsmanship reminded her of a spider's web, meticulously woven and spun to create the most beauty it could. A sweet fragrance drifted from the heart of the masterpiece, and she held it up to her face to inhale and felt the tender kisses of ten dozen pink lips caress her face.

Wrapped around the blazing green stem was a note. After lowering the bud, it caught her eye and she carefully unraveled it. It was written in blue ink, in the same loopy, messy handwriting she'd come to recognize.

Just a little something so you don't forget me.

Kimiko closed her eyes and resisted the urge to sigh. Everything was so horribly romantic, she didn't know how much longer she could go without knowing who was sending her such wonderful things. She had to see them face to face. She had to see the face of the admirer she slowly found herself admiring back.

There was a knock on the wood frame of her doorway, and she tucked the gift safely into the front of her tunic, where it would not be seen. She told the knocker to come in, and Omi entered, brushing off his own tunic as he did so.

"Master Fung requests our presence." Kimiko rolled her eyes at the downer; she predicted that they would be doing some new chore, and manual labor always killed her buzz. Omi didn't bother waiting for her, as he always had to be the first to arrive when Master Fung called them, and so she rose, stopping briefly to check that her robe completely concealed the plant, and proceeded to the entrance of the temple alone.

---

"Young monks, I have a different sort of chore for you to complete." Master Fung alerted upon everyone's arrival. They groaned quietly, save for Omi, who beamed boastfully.

"Oh, I am most excited for this new task, Master Fung, for I am certain I will excel, as a often do. Oh, but I jest...I always excel!"

With his ego swollen to unimaginable heights, Omi could not see Master Fung raise an eyebrow at him and quietly smirk.

"I am pleased to hear this, Omi." Omi's head expanded even greater than it had been and the other monks grumbled at how Master Fung was merely fueling it. He eyed each individually, and they snapped to attention and gave him the respect he expected and deserved.

"I believe you will be pleased as well, when you hear my request." They all glanced at each other confusedly but made no other show of it. "It seems that the temple is running low on a number of items. I would like you to obtain them for me." Everyone deflated at the lackluster news.

"So you're telling us we should be happy...to run your errands?" Raimundo said flatly, and the Grand Master smiled.

"In order to procure them, I will need you to go to the market."

The monks instantly lit up; being able to leave the temple for something other than Shen Gong Wu was a blessing in itself, but being able to leave and buy whatever they desired was like Christmas. They had been devoid of the modern essentials for far too long, and while the market was by no means modern, it was exhilarating to think that they could at least come close to purchasing them.

Dojo slithered off Master Fung's shoulder and grew to his true, enormous state. As everyone hoped on, Master Fung distributed small lists of required items and pieces of silver.

"I ask though that you return within the hour, and do not allow yourselves to overindulge in fanciful items and foods." he warned.

"Oh, because material possessions are fleeting and unsatisfying?" Omi suggesting, and Master Fung shook his head.

"No, because you're spending my money."

With that, Dojo took flight and set course for the ancient market a few miles away.

---

The market was buzzing with life. The air was thick with persuasive shouts from venders and the bargaining hisses of the buyers who unfailingly haggled their way down. Children begged their mothers to buy them fruit, tugging on the hems of their long skirts, only to be swatted at and chided for being nuisances. Farmers dragged immense oxen and horses to be traded for barrels of seeds, and the high pitched arguments over price were made all the more amusing in another language.

Dojo, having reverted back to his smaller shape, coiled his way around Clay's leg and slinked all the way up his neck, where he bent comfortably around the wide brim of the cowboy's hat. He was aware of the wide-eyed awe and titillated shine that overcame the monks upon entering the market place, and waved his tiny emerald arms to get their attention.

"Alright, kids. Master Fung wants me to watch you and make sure you don't do anything stupid. Just get what's on the list...but if you wanna pick up a little something for yourself, fine by me. Note; little! That means small, compact, tiny, miniscule...you get the idea. Nothing over the top. And nothing extravagant."

All eyes fell on the Japanese girl who was fingering a silk robe, and when she realized she was the focus of the groups lusterless stares she flushed and

snatched her hand away as if the garment had been made of the element she wielded.

"What? I like nice things."

"...We'll finish faster if we split up." Dojo continued, moving back towards the original topic. "Let's agree to meet right here in twen-" He stopped himself when he noticed that no one in the group had a method of telling time, and that there wasn't a single functional clock for miles. "-How about when the sun moves behind that tower? That work for everyone? Good? Good. Now get moving!"

They were off like carnivores on the hunt for their meal, slicing off in four different directions and not-so-considerately darting through the throngs of people.

---

Kimiko, being the grade A shopper that she was, completed her list in a matter of minutes. With one item left and time to spare, she ambled through the long, endless rows of tables and cloth awnings and browsed. There hadn't been anything that had really sparked her interest; she purchased a pair of glass chopsticks to pin up her hair with, but nothing else. Truthfully, she hadn't been as thrilled about shopping as she expected to be. Her mind kept drifting, and she found herself torpidly buying what she was instructed to, the purchases lacking the fun and glee that they usually held.

Kimiko turned down another row of tables and glanced at her list to check what was left. Incense. Easy. The place was crawling with it. With another quick left she floated towards the table she wanted, her head casually meandering away from her body at about the same pace she walked.

She remembered the peony flower that she had hidden, and with a reflexive look over her shoulder she withdrew it from her tunic. It hadn't withered in the

slightest, still radiating with affection and beauty. Distractedly and with the speed of dripping molasses, she began to pluck the petals off one by one, mentally humming the classic mantra that every girl has uttered at least once; He loves me. He loves me not.

Kimiko felt a tug at her lips as she looked at the flower and a rush of cold run up the length of her spine. She hadn't meant to get roped into this whole thing, she merely liked the attention and thought it was fun. But now...things were starting to change. She was constantly consumed with thoughts of him; who he could be, did she ever meet him, how was he so smooth...and when she wasn't thinking about him, she was anxiously anticipating and guessing what his next gift could be. Maybe it was because of her old fashioned ideals of romance, or because she had been starved for the adoration of someone like this for far too long, but she was falling for him. A little. Actually, a lot. She just kept telling herself otherwise.

"Hola, chica." a voice murmured like honey into her ear. She yelped in surprise and whipped around, glaring when she found the source.

"Not cool, Rai." The Brazilian boy grinned cheekily and walked in step with her.

"Sorry, couldn't help it. You were acting like a total space cadet, I had to snap you out of it somehow." Her grimace deepened as his smile widened.

"I was not a space cadet."

"Girl, you were cruising past Jupiter by the time I found you. You're lucky I had to swing by here to pick up wontons. Lord knows where you would have

ended up." Kimiko sighed and shook her head, letting her exasperation flutter to the ground in flakes as her gaze fell upon the plant again.

"So, what's got you all loopy?" She didn't respond immediately, and he suddenly saw the plant she cupped gently in her hands. He made a face, unseen to her. "Oh...I assume that's something from your new boyfriend?" His tone was laced with a strand or two of resentfulness, with a hint of scorn as a decoration. Kimiko didn't remove her gaze.

"He's not my boyfriend." she replied cooly, slowly plucking off the petals again, silently repeating those two youthful little sentences.

"Yet?" he asked, sounding much like a lonely puppy whining for its master. Kimiko locked eyes with him, a little puzzled, and shrugged.

"I don't know, maybe. Everything's just moving so fast, I don't..." She paused, unhitching her gaze from Raimundo's forest orbs and fixing it on the gift again. "I can't like someone I don't know."

"But do you?"

His voice startled her with its calm, velvety tone, flavored with just a tinge of what she thought to be-sadness? No. Probably fatigue. He's just exhausted because he didn't get his normal 14 hours of sleep. That makes sense.

"...Maybe."

He laughed then, genuine and false at the same time, and tucked his hands behind his head.

"I can't believe it. You don't really like this stuff..." Raimundo quieted, sea glass eyes fluttering over to her imploringly. "...Do you? Like this stuff?"

His tone startled her again, enough to cause her to momentarily halt in her gradual destruction of the flower. Whereas his previous words had almost been dripping with saliva from the way he spat them at her, these seemed to glow with a warm, refreshing ray of hope and an eagerness to hear her response, and another something that he kept under lock and key; something that Kimiko desperately longed to release. She unfroze, melting the ice in her fingers until they had thawed enough to resume their task.

"Well, yes. I mean, who wouldn't-"

"Don't."

The ice shot through her veins again, and eyes of the same color were glazed over with frost as she shifted them to him.

"Ex-cuse me?"

"Don't do that." He elaborated, pointing to her handiwork. She realized he was referring to the plant, which, despite missing nearly a quarter of its luscious petals, did not look any less breathtaking. Raimundo stopped walking and unspokenly instructed her to do the same, and reached down to remove the gift from her. The frigid winter that resided in her morphed into immaculate spring courtesy of the electric volts that blazed through her when his spider leg fingers grazed her piano key ones.

"Don't waste it." He went on, after he had transferred it from her hand to his. Without hesitation, he took another step in and boldly cradled her porcelain cheek with more gentleness in his experienced hand than Kimiko thought he possessed in his entire body. She hoped the deep divots and crevices of his palm would not feel the scorching burn that surfaced once they sank into her.

"If you've got something nice, you should at least show it off." With his free hand he wove the vivid stem into her silken sooty locks, brushing his thumb over the petals to ensure they each glowed to their full capacity.

There was a snap when their eyes met, or at least Kimiko thought there was. Perhaps not a snap, but some type of sound similar to it; one made when two things shift into place and remain there. Raimundo's hand had lingered a moment longer than it should have, and she had glanced to see what had happened. Then, snap. Perfect.

Raimundo did have nice eyes, Kimiko resolved. Warm, unpredictable, the type of eyes that could belong on a facetious little boy or an aged man with enough stories to spin to make a quilt. They held a glimmer that always made it seem like he was laughing, and another sort of sheen that was inviting and open to everything. The color wasn't bad either. Green suited him. Young, wild, carefree, naive, kind...green did suit him very well.

He tore away almost instantly, keeping his little boy eyes (which now looked very much like they belonged on a little boy, because they were swimming in guilt) locked on the ground and an experienced hand, having been ripped off of Kimiko's skin fast enough to shred it, dug into the coils of his mahogany locks.

"I'd...better get those wontons." He mumbled, and scurried off in the opposite direction. Kimiko watched him go, confused at the odd way he took his leave, and tenderly stroked the flower he put in her hair.

Only after his silhouette had faded into the dense crowd did she realize that her heart had been pounding hard enough to crack and shatter her chest.

---

Everyone met back at Dojo's allotted spot at the appropriate time, comparing their spoils and sheepishly confessing their splurges. Omi had not trailed off the line and proudly showed off every item that he was instructed to buy; nothing more, nothing less. Clay allowed himself to buy some exotic dish he'd found (he didn't specify what it was, but it was assumed to be either billy goat or python), and Kimiko presented the single pair of glass chopsticks, surprising everyone.

What was even more surprising was that Raimundo had bought the most; a pump-type thing to refill his soccer ball, a scroll of an ancient folklore to hang in his room, and something else that he would not reveal. He kept it buried at the bottom of his leather satchel, snidely refusing anyone a chance to see what it was. Eventually they tired of pressuring him with no success, and so they departed for the temple.

What Raimundo hadn't realized though was that when he sat, the satchel's cover would fold up and away from the rest of the bag, letting anyone close enough to peer in and view its contents. Kimiko smiled to herself when she noticed this, and when she was sure he was not paying attention (Omi had picked a fight and Raimundo was flustered with anger) she leaned in and took a peak.

At first all she saw was orange, and then the full picture fell into place. Tiger Lilies. Fresh, from what she could see. Quite pretty, too; her favorite flower actually. She wondered why he would want to hide those.

---

Kimiko sat underneath her favorite cherry blossom tree at sundown, the place where she went to do most of her thinking. She had removed the peony from her hair and had gone back to do exactly what Raimundo had chided her for in the market. She was almost done, and the rosy tissues were gathered at her feet and floating like tiny ballerinas in the lazy breeze. She smiled as she plucked, still murmuring.

"He loves me not..."

Kimiko had never been in love, but she had always assumed that when she fell, she would know it. She thought that the smack of the pavement that splattered her brains would catch her attention, but the crash she felt wasn't particularly unpleasant. Truthfully, she enjoyed it.

"He loves me..." She was initially unaware that she held the last petal in her hand, and stared at it in disbelief when the fact settled upon her. Her smile melded into a grin, and she felt warm as a delighted entity massaged the back of her neck. She could feel it now. Crash.

And then it fled as recognition reared its ugly head.

Exactly who had she been thinking about?

That night, there was a bouquet of fresh Tiger Lilies waiting for Kimiko when she returned.

And the plot thickens! But like I said, don't be quick to assume. Things may not be what they seem! Anyway, I'm gonna cut this short because I'm at school and I don't want to bug my roommate. Please review peeps! I'd love you eternally!