Amy Blankenship - Cursed Hearts

Shinbe watched them leave with his eyes narrowed on the hand that was holding hers so possessively. “He thinks he knows what hell is, eh? I can show him the real thing.” Shinbe whispered jealously under his breath. He shrugged off the need to break the boy's fingers.

Closing his eyes for a moment, he let his powers fan throughout the school in a wave as he searched for any signs that demons were on the prowl. When the wave passed Kyoko and her friend, Shinbe frowned. It wasn’t that the boy was a demon… the aura was strangely familiar.

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.