A/N: Here we go! I'm so sorry for not updating but I promise this story isn't dead!

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"What was that?" Rio tried to fight the blush off her face as Kaito gawked at her, and seeing him stare down at her breathless and surprised, well it did something to her she'd rather ignore.

Anna was so dead.

Then again so was she.

She was still far too close to Kaito to feel even remotely ok; her hands still lightly grazing his neck and her lips still buzzing from the kiss. She felt dazed.

When he swallowed the movement finally snapped her into action. She untangled their hands, managing to pull them back like she had been burned.

Kaito's eyes narrowed as the silence on her part continued. "Rio."

He was obviously not a patient person. Then again she had never known him to be one.

Oh god this is horrible. "Well you see…" She flashed him a quick embarrassed smile before glaring over her shoulder at her friends.

They were seemingly still in shock, well at least two out of three; Anna was just watching her and Kaito with a gleam in her eye meanwhile Kotori and Cathy looked like their souls had left their mortal bodies. Figures.

"Well?" Kaito looked at her expectantly and Rio was well aware that explaining this to him was going to be hell.

"Well…" She laughed a little and took a step or two back to make space between them.

She didn't know why she felt so nervous; besides the obvious issue with kissing a friend of her brother's, but it wasn't like she planned to stick around. She was supposed to be home free after the kiss with a stranger.

Rio liked to think of herself as cool and collected, even in the face of a challenge or in this case slightly unfavorable situations but at the moment she couldn't collect her thoughts, let alone explain to anyone else why the kiss had occurred.

"It was a dare." She ended up blurting out in a panic when Kaito took a step closer to her.

There was nothing but silence for a handful of seconds, both of them just staring surprised at each other.

Then, finally-

"A dare?"

Kaito for his part looked like his brain had short circuited which she could kind of understand and was more than eager to be done with this conversation, have her hands clean of it, and not worry about it. Of course Kaito - her brother's somewhat friend- Tenjo had to be the one to walk out the elevator. Of course.

Rio stared up at him- his almost emotionless expression- and slowly felt the want for the floor to swallow her whole. They just stood there a few moments, neither seemingly having plans to continue the conversation but unable to move on.

Haruto ended up being her savior as he bounced around the corner of the elevator with an ice-cream in one hand and a bright orange colored bag in the other. The kid beamed when he saw his brother and it took him no time to make his way over to them. Rio couldn't stop her smile as the boy ran up to them.

"Big brother!" Haruto stopped right before he slammed into Kaito's leg.

The boy looked curiously between the two of them, probably trying to figure out why the both of them would ever be in the same space, before smiling brightly up at her. "Hi Rio."

"Hello Haruto." Rio said just as Kaito seemed to snap back into his regular thought of mind.

"Haruto, Where have you been?" Kaito's full attention immediately turned to his brother.

Rio let out a sigh of relief.

"Sorry!" Haruto began to relay how Yuma and he had been playing at the arcade like promised but had realized they were hungry too. The boy sounded absolutely pitiful explaining it and Rio had to hand it to him, he was good.

Suddenly a mischievous look crossed the boy's face as he glanced between the two of them again. "What were you doing?"

Kaito's eyes widened but otherwise he looked calm, something Rio was decidedly not at the moment. She shot him look as she took a few more steps back. "Nothing." They both answered at the same time, before looking at each other and away as quickly as possible.

Haruto's eyes narrowed. "Really?"

They both stared at him nodding their heads as he glanced from Kaito to Rio.

Yuma and her brother turned the corner just in time to save them from anymore of Haruto's scrutiny. Thank goodness.

"Hey! Kaito!" Yuma waved excitedly, a half eaten pretzel in one hand.

Ryoga looked over to his sister, eyebrow raised and the look of surprise clear on his face. "What are you doing here?"

Rio huffed at his tone and made sure to add extra effort when she stomped over to her brother. "Nice to see you too."

Ryoga raised his hands in surrender; Rio's pissed off mood clear.

"Whatever." Her brother muttered and strode past her, ever the caring brother as per usual.

Rio nodded her head and turned to follow him.

Yuma had already found the empty seat next to Kotori and sat down to dig into her mostly untouched noodles.

"Yuma!" There was a shout and the sound of Kotori's hand making contact with Yuma's. "Ow! What was that for?!"

Rio didn't even have to see to know the expression Yuma was making.

Rio sighed at the same time she heard her brother mutter something about Yuma's bottomless stomach. Haruto just laughed as he looked over to where the boy was rubbing his abused hand and pouting at Kotori.

"Yuma! Did you show her what we got?"

He skipped over to the table swinging the brightly colored bag in his hand. "It's from that one candy shop with the best taffy."

Kaito seemed immeasurably pissed about that seemingly innocent statement, if the sudden aura of anger from her right gave her anything to go by.

"What happened to you?" Ryoga's voice filled the silence and Rio turned to her brother, his words making her self-conscious and glance over herself, almost rub at her lips -He hadn't seen that had he? There's no way he saw anything- "What do you mean?"

She must have sounded panicked because Ryoga looked over at her curiously. "I was talking to Kaito."

Rio looked over to the boy and noticed what she had failed to previously, the guy looked…well frankly he looked exhausted, he looked like he had been dragged through something.

"Oh." She mumbled as Kaito glared.

"I hate candy shops."

With that little to none explanation he made his way over to the table as Yuma and Anna started getting into a heated discussion about, well she wasn't really sure but somehow the sentence, 'Trains will always crush a plane Yuma don't be stupid', made perfect sense.

"Not this again…" Ryoga didn't even try to hide his long suffering sigh as he headed toward their group.

Rio followed her brother back to the table where Ryoga essentially glared at Anna until she made room for him on the bench- which, rude-and then made room for her in-between the two of them since the Tenjo brothers and Yuma had stolen her previously unoccupied spot on the opposite side of the table.

And so they sat. All of them around the table, some far more comfortable than others.

Anna was staring not too subtly between Rio and Kaito when she got the chance, big grin on her face that promised no good, her brother gave suspicious looks her way when he caught Anna staring, and Cathy looked almost constipated when Yuma asked if she was going to finish the brownie that she had in front of her.

Their group.

Haruto was the only one even remotely comfortable as he told Kotori how he and Yuma had won the high score at the arcade.

Kaito meanwhile had his side turned to her as Haruto was explaining in full detail why it was so important for him and Yuma to leave the arcade. Candy didn't seem that exceptional to her but she kept her mouth shut as the boy spun a tale of the hardship of choosing the perfect sweet.

Rio told herself not to look at Kaito, she'd just incriminate herself if she did, but her eyes kept catching any movements he made.

By the time Yuma shot up from his seat in a panic, Akari's voice clear on the other side of his phone, Rio felt exhausted. The boy looked stricken and Rio was positive he had probably promised his sister he'd be home by dinner.

Kotori looked about as done as she did.

"Big brother can we go home now?" Haruto's voice interrupted the panicked sounds Yuma was making.

Kaito nodded his head and stood, grabbing his brother's bag from him, and letting the boy hold his free hand.

Rio fought back the urge to call it cute.

"I guess you'll get a ride?" Her brother asked as he too started to leave.

Rio snorted. "Well considering that you left me home in first place-"

Ryoga already walked off not paying attention to her anymore.

"Rude!" She called to her brother's back.

Yuma waved enthusiastically as he bounded off after Ryoga, Shouting- "Talk to you later!" To Kotori and managing to bother even more people around them.

Rio watched Kaito as he disappeared around the corner.

"That-" Anna began in an over exaggerated voice as soon as the boys were out of sight, "was insane."

Kotori nodded her head.

"So Rio, is Kaito any good-" Anna's smug words were cut off as Rio pushed her off the bench. The girl landed on the tile floor with a thump.

"Better than Vector." She muttered.

The other two girls blinked at her.

"HEY!"

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Haruto was acting odd. He kept glancing at Kaito when he thought he wouldn't notice and he wasn't chatting like he normally did. Kaito was one for quiet, but only when his brother wasn't involved. He was starting to think something had happened while Haruto was with Yuma. Before he could narrow in on that idea though Haruto was tugging on his hand to get his attention.

"Thank you for taking me big brother." Haruto lifted his other hand to show a wrapped piece of caramel from the candy store.

"I got your favorite." Haruto held up the candy for him.

Kaito felt a smile pull at his lips and ignored the candy in favor of ruffling his brother's hair, despite his protests. "You're welcome."

Haruto puffed his cheeks but said nothing, instead tucking the caramel into his pants pocket.

"So…"

"Rio is pretty cute huh?"

Kaito nearly choked as the words hit him. "What?"

Haruto smiled innocently up at him. Kaito would normally never associate the word scheming with his younger brother but the look in his eyes left a bad feeling in his gut.

"She's nice too."

Kaito had no idea what to say to that, so he remains silent. He just shakes his head and steers his brother toward their house. And if he happens to walk a little faster Haruto at least doesn't say anything about it.

The moment they were home Haruto charged through the house looking for their father.

Kaito just watched him leave with a sigh and made his way to his room all the energy in his body finally leaving and making him feel bone tired. It was a long day, already had been when he lost Haruto for that awfully lengthy time period, and adding in Rio and his conversation with his brother made for a nice headache.

Endless thoughts about Rio and their earlier encounter constantly whirled through his head.

They had kissed. More specifically Rio had kissed him. On a dare, his brain supplied and Kaito wasn't sure about the negative emotions he felt with that thought. There was some disappointment, which he wasn't sure what for, and some anger as well. He knew all her friends had seen it and it was an annoying thought how easily she caught him off guard, in front of others to add insult to injury. He felt used… he supposed. He briefly wondered how he would feel if it had been real and if Rio had actually kissed him for herself but stopped that line of thinking quickly.

It didn't really matter. He certainly had no plans to do anything like that with her, it had never even crossed his mind before and she didn't have feelings for him either. She had said it was a dare. It wasn't anything to concern himself over and he wouldn't lose sleep over it.

He'd just stop thinking about it. A kiss didn't change anything.

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Thank you to everyone who read this and reviewed! It's appreciated and I'm so glad you liked it.