Sorry for the wait, I haven't been home quite as much as I've planned to be, and whenever I was home I wasn't really in a mood to write. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter!

DISCLAIMER: I do not own the song that they are dancing to here. I just like it, it makes me smile 8D

Chapter Ten

This is something new, the Casper Slide part 2, featuring the platinum band, and this time, we're gonna get funky. Everybody clap your hands!

Grinning wildly, the three of us girls joined one of the lines that were forming, clapping our hands to the beat.

Clap, clap, clap, clap your hands.

Alright, now we're gonna do the basic step. To the left, take it back now y'all.

We eagerly followed the dance's instructions, sliding first to the left, and then sliding backwards.

"What in the world is this?" Kyo's voice grumbled behind us. I stopped dancing and turned to look at him.

"You've never heard the Cha cha slide?!" I demanded. He shook his head, and I resisted the urge to smack my forehead. Instead, I took his hand and dragged him up to the line.

"I can't dance," He protested, seeing my intentions.

"Of course you can, all you have to do is listen to what the song is telling you to do."

Right foot let's stomp. Left foot let's stomp. Cha cha real smooth.

It was pretty hysterical, watching Kyo following along. His reactions to the song's directions were almost always just a moment late, making a pretty funny picture.

Turn it out.

I turned to the side and glanced over at the rest of the group. I could see Momiji dancing along, following the steps perfectly. He was also trying to get Yuki and Haru to join him, but they refused, of course.

The rest of the song went normally. Kyo eventually managed to get on time, and every once in a while one of us would slide the wrong way and ram into someone, laugh it off, and keep going. At some point, Tohru managed to convince Yuki to join us, and watching him do it was even funnier than watching Kyo, just because Yuki was the one who was always so calm and formal.

Too soon, the song ended. We laughed some and regrouped. The rest of the dance went without incident, except for the boys being horrified and the girls amused at my knowledge of the lyrics in Sir Mix-A-Lot's Baby Got Back.

After a while, the deejay announced the last song, and we all groaned as he put on a song that everyone either disliked or didn't know. Our group migrated over to the wall, to allow room on the dance floor. We started chatting about random things, and somehow the conversation turned to the Sohma family.

"You hafta meet Kagura, and Ritsu, and Kisa and Hiro, and Rin, and Hatori!" Momiji cried, bouncing excitedly as always.

"Anyone but Ayame," Yuki said dryly.

"She already met Hatori, when he was working with her wounds," Tohru pointed out.

"Actually, she knows Hatori more than we thought… right?" Kyo asked, looking at me.

I blushed slightly. "Yeah, turns out I've known him since I was a kid. He and my mom were friends."

Tohru blinked in confusion and surprise. "Then why didn't you recognize him, that first time we talked to you?"

I felt my eyebrows furrow as I thought about it. That was right, I could faintly remember him being there, the first time I woke up. "I… I'm not sure, I guess. Probably because I was drugged and in pain, half asleep, and in an unfamiliar place… I was a bit disoriented, to say the least."

"It makes sense," Yuki said slowly.

"I might have to check in with him soon," I thought aloud. "I miss Hari."

Haru feigned shock. "You miss Hari?! Surely we must not be thinking of the same Hatori Sohma."

"Oh, shut up Haru," I laughed with a roll of my eyes. "He's not that bad. A bit creepy, sure, but nice enough."

There was a silence at these words, and I glanced up. All the Sohma cousins were just kind of staring at me, but Tohru smiled. "I agree, Hatori can be very nice!" She said brightly.

At this, Haru scoffed, but didn't say anything

"Fine," I huffed. "Dislike your own family. It's none of my business."

"It's not that we dislike him," Yuki put in quickly. "He's just a bit… cold. Hard to be close to."

"I understand that. I still think—" My words cut off and I glared as I spotted the three jerks from earlier among the crowd exiting the gym. They were snickering and pointing at me. I glared icily in their direction, which made them laugh harder.

Kyo followed my gaze, and his face seemed to turn to stone as soon as he spotted them. He made as though to lunge towards them, but I grabbed his arm just in time.

"Just leave them, Kyo," I insisted. "They're not worth it."

"Besides, we can just track them down later and take them out," Haru seemed pleased at the idea, cracking his knuckles absently.

I sighed and resisted the urge to throw my hands in the air, instead settling with smacking my forehead.

"Resistance is futile, you might as well just give in to the fact that you're one of us now, so any asshole that has the guts to mess with you is gonna have to deal with us." Haru pointed out.

I felt a happy swelling in my chest at his words. You're one of us now. I felt like screaming, but instead I just said, "You guys are impossible."

"They get that way," Yuki muttered with a shrug. Haru and Kyo just smirked smugly, and I rolled my eyes.

"Come on, let's get out of here." I suggested.

XXX … XXX

We all walked down the street, laughing. We'd all agreed that this night wasn't allowed to end yet, so we'd paid the limo driver and told him to go back to… wherever limo drivers go, we would walk home. I held my silver heels in one hand, letting them dangle over my shoulder. My other hand was encased inside Kyo's larger one. He'd casually taken it as soon as we'd left the school, and for once nobody gave him any crap about it.

We had to drop off Mai first, because her house was closer and we wouldn't have let her walk anywhere alone anyways. Once we reached her house, I gave her a hug, there was a group exchanging of phone numbers, and she was gone.

The next stop was the Sohma house, to drop off Momiji and Haru. I'd never seen the Sohma house before, and I was anxious to discover what it looked like. My temper flared slightly when I heard the boys murmuring about splitting up and just walking home separately, so that someone named Akito wouldn't see me. Momiji had been chattering idly, and I wondered if he'd been trying to distract me.

I quickly told them off, using my superior actress skills to feign hurt and accuse Kyo of being embarrassed of me. After that, they readily agreed to allow the risk of me walking by the estate.

I fought to keep from gaping at the huge wooden gates we stopped in front of. It's not like I'd never seen a rich person's house before, but I hadn't thought they'd be that rich. I could see the tops of the shingled roofs and many pine trees peering at me from above the monstrous brick wall running around the property. It stretched farther than I could see, which wasn't really saying much.

I blinked as Momiji hugged my arm as a goodbye, and Haru ruffled my hair. I crinkled my nose and immediately put my hands up to straighten it out at least a bit, but decided he'd done too much damage. I dramatically tore out the ponytail holding it up and shook my hair out. Haru laughed lightly and turned to follow Momiji through the gates. I tried to peer through them, but only managed to see a long stone walkway bordered by trees before the doors swung shut. I also thought I glimpsed a mysterious dark figure lingering in a rounded window, but I might have imagined that.

Yuki, Kyo, Tohru and I walked the rest of the way home mostly in silence. We were all too tired to attempt a conversation, but the silence was comfortable. I leaned my head against Kyo's shoulder as we walked, and he released my hand to wrap his arm around my shoulder. I found myself struggling to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and my eyes kept drooping against my will.

Several times he asked if I wanted to be carried, and each time I insisted that I could make it the rest of the way home. I did too, but I hardly managed to make it to mine and Tohru's room. I collapsed on the bed, but I didn't even manage to make it the whole way. My upper half was sprawled across the covers, and my legs dangled off the edge so that my feet barely brushed the floor.

I was aware of Tohru tugging on my shoulder, insisting that I needed to stay awake long enough to change out of my dress or it'd get all wrinkled. I moaned and slumped to the floor, pulling at the fabric. Tohru, seeing that I wasn't about to do things myself, grabbed a nightgown from my part of the closet and set it on my bed before helping me pull the dress off over my head. I let her, putting my arms up so she wouldn't have to struggle so much. She was a girl, she'd seen it all before. It's not like she'd be checking me out, and I was too tired to care about being exposed.

I got the nightgown on myself, tugging it over my head and halfheartedly wrestling my arms through the sleeve holes. Then I slumped back to the floor, not about to move myself again.

There was a slight pause, and then Tohru's light footsteps padded towards the door. It slid open, and I heard her calling lightly out into the hall, but I didn't bother listening. A moment later, another pair of footsteps entered, slightly heavier than hers. Warm, strong arms wrapped around me, pulling me upwards.

Kyo kept one arm around me and balanced my weight on one knee while he tugged back my covers and set me gently in my bed. The covers were pulled back over me and he kissed my forehead lightly. I sighed in contentment and fell into an easy sleep.

XXX … XXX

I didn't wake until late morning. I sat up, stretched, and yawned, rubbing at my bleary eyes. I still felt exhausted, but it wasn't a sleepy exhausted, if you get what I mean. The kind of exhausted where you don't want to sleep, but you don't want to move or do anything productive.

I forced myself to get up out of bed anyway, slide into some comfortable clothes that I wouldn't be caught dead wearing in public, and avoided looking in the mirror. I knew I would just see a mess of smeared makeup and tangled hair, and I didn't want to go through the effort of actually making myself look nice. I settled with pulling back my hair and quickly splashing my face with cool water before wandering downstairs.

The moment I reached the bottom of the steps, shouting erupted from the kitchen. I easily recognized Kyo's angry voice, and hurried to investigate. I turned the corner just in time to see Kyo smack Momiji upside the head.

"Waaaaaah! Kyo hit me!" Momiji wailed.

"Kyo!" I snapped, striding into the room. His head jerked in my direction, and I saw his eyes widen, then gaze down in shame. He obviously hadn't known I was there, and he knew he'd be in trouble now. I felt strangely like a mother, enforcing good behavior between two argumentative children.

"Why on earth would you hit Momiji? Poor thing. You ought to be asha—"

Poof.

I blinked through the cloud of yellow smoke. What had just happened? I'd gone to comfort the still wailing Momiji with a hug….

He he he…. I'm sure we all know what happens next! How will she take the news? Hopefully it won't be too long until I update again, thanks for being tolerant! I know It's been quiiiiite a while since my last chapter, and I'm sorry! I've been so busy with theatre, I haven't gotten home until nine at night the past week, so I hope that's a good enough excuse. Thanks for reading, reviews appreciated!