Cursed Hearts

In the next classroom, Tasuki started to take her toward the table he knew was open but suddenly stopped in his tracks. Kyoko followed his gaze, and everybody else’s in the classroom. Her eyes widened seeing the long silver hair of the guy she’d seen arguing with the secretary. As if sensing he was being watched, his head slowly turned and his liquid gold eyes captured hers and held her immobile.

“How many new people do we have starting today?” Tasuki asked no one in particular.

“Six,” Kyoko answered him remembering what the secretary had said.

“My seat is way up here,” Tasuki said broodingly as she slowly walked past him.

Kyoko felt a sense of déjà vu when she noticed one math book and that he had already slid it between the two seats as if waiting for her. She pushed the thought aside thinking maybe the teacher had asked him to share it with her before she’d come into the room. The closer she got to him, the more disturbed she felt. It was as if every hormone in her body had just stood up and taken notice.

When she sat down, he scooted his chair closer and she felt heat creep into her cheeks. Looking out across the room she noticed a couple of the girls were now frowning at her. Knowing this was going to be the longest class in history, Kyoko closed her eyes and rubbed her temple.

As soon as the math class started their assignment, Kyoko struggled to remember how to do the problems even though she’d learnt this the year before at the boarding school. Seeing Kyou’s hand nearly flying across the page, Kyoko sighed inwardly having become stuck on the second problem.

The teacher was walking the isles and noticed Kyou was almost finished with the page. “I see you have already learned how to do this Kyou. Would you do me the favor of helping explain it to Kyoko?” The teacher smiled sweetly but didn’t wait on an answer as she turned up the next row of students.

Kyoko was mortified. She stayed completely still as she watched him push his own papers away. When he leaned toward her to draw hers closer, a lock of his hair slid across her hand. Feeling the cool silkiness, Kyoko confirmed her worst fears… she was so going to fail math this year.

The corners of Kyou’s lips tilted in the barest hint of a smile as he heard her thoughts. Leaning down so he could look her directly in the eyes, he placed his hand over hers and whispered, “I won’t let you fail.”

By the end of class, Kyoko had remembered how to do the calculus problems. They’d even finished that night’s homework assignment before class was over. Déjà vu knocked again when he offered to keep the book for them. Seeing Tasuki waiting for her next to the door, she hurried.

“Do you really have home economics?” Kyoko asked him to keep herself from looking over her shoulder at Kyou.

“Sure. As a matter of fact, it’s mostly guys taking the class this year.” His eyes sparkled as he winked. “We men have to know how to cook for our sweethearts and keep them happy.” Tasuki smirked, “Besides, we get to cook almost every day so it’s kind of like getting a snack before lunch.”

“Ha! So the truth is finally out. I knew there was a reason I wanted to take this class.” Kyoko gave him a cheeky smile knowing she needed this class probably more than the others. Until last night, she’d never been allowed in a kitchen and wondered if she would even be able to fake it enough not to become the class clown. Now that she was cooking for herself… it was either pass the class or learn to love Cheerios.

This class was set up completely different from all the others. There were tables and chairs like in a lunchroom instead of desks.

“No assigned seating.” Tasuki wiggled his eyebrows and quickly led them to a table toward the back of the room. The whole right side of the room was made up of everything they needed to cook, including five stoves. Kyoko quickly looked around counting five tables and assumed each table would be cooking together.

Two other guys joined their table and Tasuki introduced her to Yohji, who looked like an all-around American jock. When he asked the name of the other guy, Kyoko realized he must be one of the new students. Again she felt like she was drawn to him by some invisible magnet that only worked on new students.

“Hi,” she whispered as he smiled and nodded. He was just as striking as the two other new guys she’d met this morning. His hair was awesome… it was dark and light at the same time, with amethyst highlights all over the place. It was shoulder-length but untamed, like he’d been in a windstorm and his eyes… they weren’t a color… they were every color, and she could swear they sparkled with unnatural light.

He seemed to be looking at her just as hard as she was looking at him. When their gaze met, Kamui smiled a smile that would have won the devil himself over.

“Would you two please get a room?” Yohji complained, causing Tasuki to growl and Kamui to laugh.

“Only if we can lock you in it,” Kamui smirked at Yohji when he stiffened. He tried not to laugh out loud when the thought struck him that the jock was claustrophobic. “I was just choosing the person I was cooking for. What’s wrong? Jealous? Do you want me to cook for you instead?”

Yohji shrugged deciding to go with it, “Only if it makes you happy sweetheart.”

Tasuki sat back in his chair watching the new boy watch Kyoko. They were wrong. It wasn’t Yohji that was feeling the needles of jealousy. Maybe it was time to get to know the competition. He glanced over at the happy smile on Kyoko’s face and decided he’d best come up with a plan.

“Today we will be making Halloween candy from scratch,” the teacher announced as she passed out the recipes.

“And now we get to eat the heads off of monsters!” Kamui added as if he had just won the lottery. When Kyoko started laughing with him, Kamui felt his blood heat up and he found himself fighting the need to reach for her. He silently wondered if his brothers were fighting that same craving.

Each one of them picked a different Halloween-shaped cookie cutter and made ten cookies each, placing them on an oversized pan. When they were done, it was Kamui who was there to take the pan out of the oven. Seeing Kyoko’s pumpkin shaped cookies were badly deformed, he whispered a quick word in some forgotten language as he drew the pan out of the oven.

“How did that happen?” Kyoko asked in awe as he brought the pan to the table. Her cookies were perfection and the guys cookies looked like five-year-olds had done them.

“And this is why mostly guys take the class,” Kamui smiled as he took a bite out of Kyoko’s cookie then blinked when he heard a faint growl come from Tasuki. Taking a better look at the guy that had appointed himself Kyoko’s bodyguard for the day, Kamui tilted his head at the sense of foreboding.

Chapter 4 “Bad Boys and Romeo”

Lunch was next and when Tasuki got in the cafeteria line, Kyoko glanced out the large glass windows and started toward the outside eating area. Seeing tables scattered everywhere on the concrete, she looked past them and notice a of couple picnic tables under beautiful shade trees.

Needing a few minutes of solace to calm down from all the morning's excitement, she picked the biggest tree and sat down at the base of it, facing away from the school.

Hyakuhei leaned against the tree beside Kyoko, though he knew it was a moot point to do so. His eyes were dark, without any emotion at all and his lips held no hint of his mood. He was already tired of being invisible to her but he knew he had to bide his time. How could he comfort someone that didn’t even know he was there?

Reaching into the backpack, Kyoko pulled out the small soft cooler that she’d stuffed full of grapes and relaxed against the smooth bark of the tree. Hearing a motorcycle close by, she glanced up. A guy wearing dark shades, dressed in black, with long layered hair slowly road by the curb. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she could tell he was looking directly at her.

She couldn’t decide if it was because she hadn’t been around the opposite sex, or if it was simply the fact that this school was full of guys that would graduate only to become super models. She could just picture the guy on the motorcycle on the cover of some movie about sexy bad boys. She ate a couple of her grapes and closed her eyes trying to block out the yummy site. Her hormones had already taken a licking today and she was starting to feel bent.

It wasn’t like any of this really shocked her because at the boarding school she had gotten away with one thing… reading. When the other girls would go to the public library, she would always give the one infatuated with rock stars a list of books to get for her. She would then take the cover of a Shakespeare book and wrap it around the book she was reading so no one would know her guilty pleasure… Romance books of all kinds.

She’d started out with historical romances where the Indian would kidnap the white girl and take her to his teepee, keeping her there until she fell in love with him. Then she had branched out to paranormal romance… vampires were also known to kidnap the girl and keep her until she fell in love with him. Those books leaned closer to erotica and she blamed them for her hormones being out of control now.

For the last year, she’d been reading every kind of paranormal romance she could get her hands on and the darker the better. Kyoko blew her bangs out of her eyes knowing her innocence was gone… if only mentally.

Hearing the school bell, she cringed, realizing she hadn’t even eaten more than three grapes. Stuffing the container back into her book bag, she was startled to find a hand reaching down to help her up.

Tasuki knelt down in front of her as he took her hand. “Are you ready?” he slowly smiled when he noticed she got the same look on her face for him as she did with the new guys. Maybe he hadn’t lost after all.

Kyoko returned his smile, “Lead me to Shakespeare.”

“How did you know?” Tasuki looked confused.

“Because I couldn’t get lucky enough to think the world literature class would allow us to read a vampire series.” She laughed when he cocked a dark eyebrow. When they entered the class, Tasuki pointed at the empty desk in the back, then went to see if the teacher had an extra copy of Romeo and Juliet.

Kyoko was already seated and getting out her notebook when the chair beside her scraped across the floor. She glanced up and her breath caught in her throat. The guy she’d seen watching her from the back of the motorcycle during lunch was throwing his leather coat across the back of the chair.

Tasuki turned from the teacher with the copy of Romeo and Juliet in his hand when he noticed Kyoko was no longer alone. “I just can’t win, can I?” he asked the air in front of him as his grip tightened on the defenseless book.

“Excuse me?” the teacher asked thinking Tasuki was talking to him.

Tasuki glanced over his shoulder, “I don’t guess you would happen to have two copies?” He motioned toward Kyoko’s desk.

“We did have extra copies, but it seems someone broke into the supply closet and raided the 12th grade books last night. Strange though… it’s hard to believe someone would want a bunch of math and science books.” The teacher shrugged as he turned around and started stacking the papers on his desk.

Tasuki took a step forward before realizing just what the teacher had said… Math, science, and the Romeo books were missing? Now that was odd. He looked at the guy beside Kyoko suspiciously. “What do you know about all these new guys that showed up today?” He quickly asked.

“Not much. Just that there are five of them… adopted into the same family and all in the same grade. They’ve been home schooled up until now.” He laid the papers back down on his desk and shrugged, “Just ask them to share.”

Tasuki’s shoulders slumped and he was suddenly feeling out numbered. As he closed the distance between them, he felt a little taller at the smile Kyoko gave him. Handing her the book he leaned down and whispered next to her ear, “There’s only one copy… sorry. But if there is homework then we can both use my copy and do it together.” He hid his smile when the guy next to her flashed a dark look in his direction.