First of all, thank you so much for the favs and alerts, they made me so happy! And the 5 reviews I received made me even happier, so an even bigger thank you to extremely anonymous reviewer (thank you for reviewing my stories, your reviews really make me laugh, it's a bit hard to do this since you're so anonymous, but you know who you are), kamikorosuXP, Ayjah, Koatan and Lemonpop (eheh, sorry for taking so long with the update...)! You guys rock!

Then I'd like to say that I'm sorry that it took a month to get the next chapter up. I'm most certainly not one of the I-update-every-week-on-the-same-day writers. And since this is a rewrite of a story written years ago, I have to rethink a lot of stuff to keep the plot going and characters in-character. It's hard, I tell you, especially since I'm such a lazy bum xD

I guess that was all of my blabbering for now. Enjoy chapter two of EFMIF! ^.^

You always meet someone unexpected at a party!

In her room at the Yato mansion Kagura sighed tiredly. It had been a week since she met that sadistic yet, annoyingly enough, handsome man and she had yet to get him out of her thoughts. It was strange, she had never been like this before.

Someone knocked at her door. "Kagura, are you even trying to get ready? We have to leave for the party soon, you have no time to waste." It was her father again. He had been pestering her since five am, and no amount of violence could keep him away. He had a reason, quite a valid one at that, though.

Today was the day of Kagura's engagement party. It was also the day she would meet the crown prince face to face for the first time. The day she would leave her family estate to live in the palace with her fiancé. In short...

"The worst day of my life," Kagura mumbled darkly and sighed yet again.

At the royal palace Sougo was throwing knives in his room, his target being a picture of Hijikata. Even if his poker face revealed nothing, Sougo was actually experiencing the worst emotional storm since Mitsuba got married. He was annoyed by the whole ordeal of getting engaged, had no desire to go to the party, was resolved to please his dear sister even at the expense of his own sanity and, strangely enough, he was upset for some reason he couldn't quite figure out. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he hadn't been able to forget the violent girl whose face had stubbornly etched itself into his memory and wouldn't let him forget it. Especially those clear blue eyes that fearlessly glared at him, seeing him, not the prince...

'I must be going mental,' he thought as he successfully hit Hijikata's picture between the eyes. 'There's no other way to explain this.'

"Sougo-sama," a maid called for him from the hallway, "it is time for you to join the party. Do you need assistance with your preparations?"

"No. I'll be there in five minutes," he answered.

"Understood. Please excuse me."

Sougo waited until he was sure that the hallway outside his door was empty before flopping down on his huge bed. He closed his eyes and sighed resignedly.

'A random stranger is coming to live with me, to sleep in my bed and most likely to spend the rest of her life with me, and I'm supposed to love her,' he thought and chuckled bitterly. "This sucks."

Kagura looked around her like a wary animal. Soon after they had arrived she had lost sight of Umibouzu and her elder brother, the only ones she knew in that unfamiliar environment that screamed 'rich' and 'high class'. As if she wasn't experiencing enough hardship and emotional stress already, she was now all alone among people dressed in their finest, sizing her up and down with their hard gazes and whispering amongst themselves. Usually she wouldn't be bothered by such behaviour, she was used to it after all, but with everything else weighing her down she was starting to get extremely uncomfortable.

Suddenly as she was passing a pack of young women one of them knocked over her glass, sending all of the liquid flying towards Kagura. Left with no time to react, Kagura could only watch in shock as her beautiful yellow dress was stained with red wine, the stain covering a fist sized area on her left hip.

"Oops, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to ruin the dress of the lady of the day," the woman apologised with a look of extreme satisfaction on her face. Her friends snickered behind her.

Kagura raised her chin up and glared up at the taller woman haughtily. "Oh, if it isn't the lady who wasn't good enough for the prince! I heard you were too old for his taste!" she commented loudly. Of course it was a blatant lie, but she was extremely pissed off. That dress was one of her favorites, and that jealous bitch had ruined it!

Kagura swiftly turned around and walked away with dignity before any of the women got over their shock. 'That's it, I'm getting out of here!'

Sougo's patience was quickly running thin. Sure, her respectful father and ever-so-annoying brother had arrived, but the most important person herself had somehow gotten lost on the way. To add to his foul mood he had had to socialize with desperate and not-so-bright women everywhere he went and keep up the polite and friendly facade.

Sougo frowned as he scanned the crowd. He was looking for a girl who looked to be lost and was wearing a yellow dress with a delicate flower pattern on the left side. He hadn't caught even a glimpse of her yet. Just more annoying women vying for his attention.

'This is ridiculous. I'm going back, someone else can find that troublesome woman.'

He turned around to return to his table when he ran into someone. Staggering back a few steps he got ready to apologise but stopped when he saw who it was. 'No way, it can't be...'

"Watch where you're going, jerk! Are you blind?" the girl yelled and looked up to glare at him with those shockingly blue eyes full of fury.

'It is.' "Hello to you, too, China. Fancy meeting you here."

Kagura's eyes widened in surprise. 'No way in freaking hell, it's him!' "What...are you doing here...?" Her speech was much quieter and slower compared to her earlier outburst.

He blinked. "That's my question. What are you doing here?" he asked back.

Kagura crossed her arms stubbornly. "I asked first so you have to answer my question first," she demanded.

He opened his mouth to say something but then stopped. Instead of speaking, he looked at her from head to toe and back up. His gaze was making her nervous and she felt her face heat up. 'Why am I blushing? Stupid body!'

"Hey China," he asked, suddenly sounding very nervous. "Did you come here with someone?"

Kagura frowned. "Yes, with my father and big brother. Why? Wait, you just avoided my earlier question!"

"You don't happen to be lost, do you?" he asked, completely ignoring her questions, his face paling at an alarming rate.

"Well, maybe a little...hey, are you okay? You look paler than I do."

'No way, this is a nightmare, it has to be!' Sougo practically screamed in his head. "No, I'm in no way okay right now. This is your engagement party, isn't it?" he asked, although he already knew the answer.

She blushed. "Yeah, what about it?"

Right then and there Sougo seriously considered pulling out his sword and slicing his throat open. Or killing everyone else in the vicinity. Or maybe he'd just settle with killing China.

"You're acting stranger than last time. Don't tell me you fell in love at first sight or something?" she taunted him and laughed obnoxiously.

"No, I'm planning my death right now so shut up for a minute, China," he said and ran a hand through his hair. 'This is crazy. I can't get married with the China monster.'

"I could assist you if it's death you want," she offered a bit too eagerly. "But why do you wish to die all of a sudden?"

Sougo sighed and leaned onto a pole that was conveniently next to him. "It's because I don't want to even think about marrying my fiancée."

"Eh, you're getting married, too? Who's the unlucky soul?" she asked curiously.

"You."

A moment of silence passed between them while Kagura tried to digest than one bit of information. "Huh?" she finally asked in disbelief.

"This is our engagement party. You and I are engaged and supposed to get married in the near future. What part is too hard to understand?"

"So...you're the prince?" Kagura practically screamed, attracting a lot of attention from the nearby guests. "No! Absolutely no! There's no way I could live with a sadistic jerk like you!"

"If you think I want to live with a China monster, you're dead wrong," he answered with a look that screamed disgust.

Kagura growled and lashed out at him. "You -!"

"Kagura-chan!"

She froze and turned to see her father walking towards them with a stonehard expression on his face. "Papi," she muttered in surprise.

"I know that you show affection in your own "violent love"-way, but the guests might not understand the way you two flirt," another voice, much more melodic, came from a nearby table.

Kagura whirled around and glared at the young man sipping his tea. "Kamui," she growled, "what do you mean by -?"

She was cut off when she was jerked back as the prince pulled her to him and draped his arm over her shoulders. "We're sorry if we caused some misunderstandings. Come now, I'll take you to our table," he said in a sugarcoated voice, smiled charmingly and started leading her away.

At first Kagura tried to wriggle out of his hold but then he leaned down to whisper in her ear: "If you don't want to lose face and honor, you'd better be a good girl now."

She involuntarily shuddered as his breath tickled her ear and cheek, but upon noticing the looks people were giving them she understood his point. 'Well, if I mess up here I don't have to marry him. But if I do that, no one will ever want to marry me and our family probably loses all of its status. Ugh, why me?' she thought and resisted the urge to scream. She glanced up at her fiancé. 'But then again, despite his rotten nature, I might learn to like him eventually.' Kagura laughed at her thoughts. 'As if! Not in this life!'

"Hmm, so even China can smile."

Kagura looked his way only to find his mockingly smirking face an inch from hers. She yelped and jumped away from him, her face flushed and eyes wide, her finger pointing at him accusingly. "D-don't come so close to me! And who said that I can't smile, huh?" she yelled at him.

"Your angry face is pretty much all I've seen so far, so you can't actually blame me for being surprised. If you smiled more often people might actually like you," he deadpanned, reverting to his passive self.

"Who would smile for a jerk like you?"

"You're blushing."

"Am not!"

"Are too."

"Am not, you, you...!"

He smirked again, his smirk making Kagura's blush worse, and took the few confident steps needed to stand right in front of her raised hand. He took a rather tight hold of it with his own and locked eyes with her. "Okita Sougo. Welcome to the family, China."

Sorry if you were expecting a brawl, but remember that they are at a formal party, not in some bar, and they are expected to behave themselves in front of guests. The fist fights will have to wait ^.^"

So, even if it is "this is good/crap" or "update faster or I'll shoot you", please leave a review! ^.^

~~poakkis