As Max gets older, he gets to see what any other pre-teen goes through, center of girls' attention. How will Saori handle it?

Chapter 6: Witnessing a Crush

Around the same time that Max was heading back home along with most of the Five, he saw a couple of girls around his age waving at him and giggling as they're looking at him. Although he's very polite towards them, Max has his sights set on one girl...Saori. Though he couldn't help but wonder why are all those young girls interested in Max all of a sudden. He could never figure out why that is the case, but as Monkey witnessed all those girls saying hi to Max and them waving at him, he looked at the adolescent tiger cub and just lets out a very sly smile on his face and walked towards him and said, "You're quite the charmer, kiddo."

Max was confused on what that meant and asked, "Me?"

"Yep, all those girls are falling over for you." Monkey said, elbowing him.

Max blinked his eyes and took a few glances at Monkey wondering if what he said was true, but as soon as one of those girls walked towards Max, it suddenly hit him...he's a chick magnet.

"Hello, Max! You're so cute!" one girl exclaimed.

"We're on your MMA class. I don't know if you remember, but I was your sparring partner one day." another girl replied.

"Um...I think I do remember you." Max said, scratching the back of his head.

Both girls were giggling at the same time and they both walked off with their hearts fluttering and Max was just confused on what just happened and Monkey said, "Like I said, you are charming with the ladies."

"I'm flattered, but I've got only one on my mind." Max replied.

"Oh...you mean Saori? I saw the way you always look at her whenever she walks your way." Blaze said, teasing at Max.

Tigress blinked her eyes as she overhears what Blaze was talking about with her stepdaughter and she was made aware that Max has a crush on Saori for a while and sometimes used to have a lot of resentment over Max his positive and forgiving nature, but since she's become friends with him now, she hopes that she'll make up for lost time to leave in friendly terms before Max leaves the Valley of Peace for good and she said to Max, "She's always been talking about you a lot."

That made Max's heart flutter and asked, "Really? What would she say?"

"That she would want to be your mate for life." Tigress replied.

Max was speechless on that bombshell and did not expect to hear that from Saori and asked, with a squeaky voice, "She did?"

"Yeah." Tigress replied.

"Oooh...someone's starting mating season early." Monkey said, giggling.

And not long afterwards, Max looks up and sees Saori walking with her finest dress with pants underneath it and the more Max stares at her, the most fascinated and intrigued he became whenever he looks into her eyes and once they locked, Max blinked a few times and he said, "Hi, Saori."

"Hello, Max. Hi, everyone!" Saori said, waving at them.

"Hello, Saori." everyone but Max responded.

Saori comes towards Max and she said, "So...whatcha doing?"

"Um...we were just talking about you." Max answered.

Before Saori could respond, she notices a couple of other girls staring at him and waving at him and also locking eyes with Saori as a warning to say 'I had him first', but Saori gave them a much half menacing look that reads, 'He's taken, so back off' and as they're walking, Saori looks at Max and asked, "How come all these girls were looking at you?"

"That's a good question. But I've already got one girl on my mind...and she's right in front of me." Max answered.

Saori was definitely happy to hear that Max has her and only her on his mind and she said, "I hope you don't forget about me when you leave the Valley of Peace."

"I'll visit and I'll send your letters whenever I can." Max said, in reassurance.

Both tigers gazed into each other's eyes as they have forgotten that everyone is looking and Saori takes him somewhere that no one can see and once they headed to the front porch of the Bushido-Akio's, Saori kissed him on the lips and Max responded back as well with a kiss. Max had no idea about this feeling, but he somehow wraps his arms around her and at the age of 11, he has no idea what that moment of getting a first kiss is like, but he likes the feeling of it.

Both of them were unaware that Samurai, Tsunami and Sage were watching and all three were shocked to see Max kissing Saori and Samurai said, "Should we tell dad?"

Stay tuned because it's about to get real...with Max's adopted siblings teasing him about liking girls!