It was the next day, and I still hadn't spoken a word to Kyo or Yuki, even when Tohru and me placed down the plates that contained leeks and veggies. Tohru who was completely oblivious to Kyo's disgusted look cheered, "Eat up everyone!"

"Are you crazy? I hate leeks!" Kyo cried angrily.

"You also hate onions and miso, am I leaving anything out?" Shigure listed off as he flicked through the newspaper.

"Hey, miso is okay as long as it's soup." Kyo corrected Shigure.

"If you didn't like certain food's why didn't you tell us this earlier? We aren't mind readers you know." I said annoyed.

No doubt tired of hearing Kyo complain, Yuki forcefully stuffed the leeks into the orange haired boys mouth while holding his nose, "Just eat."

We were all surprised by Yuki's behavior, surely it's no reason to force feed Kyo, he could have just made himself something instead, if he really didn't like it.

"Um, Yuki, Kyo's already pasted out." Shigure informed Yuki.

"Kyo must really hate leeks then." I said to myself.

Yuki let go of Kyo's nose, allowing the unconscious teen to fall to the ground with a thud. Sighing I picked up Kyo's chopsticks and picked out all the leeks, because you know we wouldn't want Kyo to chock or anything.

Sometimes these boys can be more trouble than they are worth… but then again I'll never have a dull moment in this family's company.

"WHAT?" Uo and Rin screamed in sync.

Well you see a few days after the leeks incident, Tohru and I decided that it was about time we told our friends where we were living… with Shigure permission of course, and lets say Uo and Rin aren't taking it so well.

"So not only were you living in a tent-"

"But now you two have moved into Prince Yuki's house, seriously?" Rin finished for Uo; seriously you'd think they share the same brain.

"Yes, we're sorry for not saying anything about it sooner, it was a lot that happened, but everything's fine now, and they are really nice people. So there's nothing to worry about." Tohru reassured them.

"This is definitely a bolt out of the blue, I wonder how will the prince Yuki fan club girls react when they hear the news."

I felt a shiver run up my spine, they will never find out if I have any say in it, " trust me they wont hear anything about Tohru and I living with Yuki, and if they do they'll have me to deal with first."

"And Amy why didn't I hear about this sooner?" Rin asked annoyed, "We're basically best friends."

"I didn't really have the time to properly explain everything." I told her, picking at my rice with my chopsticks.

"Like hell, we work together, are you seriously telling me you didn't have time?" Rin said looking slightly upset.

"And risk Ren overhearing? I'd never hear the end of it! And can you imagine how she'd react if she knew I was living with three boy's who had no blood relation to me?"

We both shivered at the thought.

(Amy and Rin's mind theater.)

The loudest shriek pierced the ears of the customers and workers; the culprit of said shriek was running around with her fingers clenched into her short honey brown locks.

"I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear it!" Ren stopped in her tracks and stared over at Rin and Amy, her eyes turning an unnatural shade of black, she suddenly threw herself at Amy, digging her fingers into the poor girl's shoulders unintentionally, shaking her back and forwards.

"Amy, please tell mommy it's not true!"

"Ehh."

"I want you stay away from those boy's! Mommy won't allow it! They will try and take away your virtue!"

"Wait a-"

"That's it! You're coming to live with mommy." Ren decided nodding her head.

"Just hold on one minute!" Amy tried cutting in, Ren however was completely oblivious to Amy's attempt to reason.

"Don't worry Mommy will protect you from those devilish boys! They aren't taking my baby's innocence."

"Somebody get me a chastity belt! No! A knife!" Ren suddenly looked lethal as a dark aura surrounded her body, "I'll kill them if they tried anything with my baby!"

Nobody noticed Rin lowly inching towards the door, when she was close enough she bolted out and slammed the door behind her securing it shut with a chair under the doorknob before running for her life.

"Traitor!"

(End)

"You'd totally leave me to fend off Ren all by myself wouldn't you, Rin." I said, looking at my best friend with an annoyed expression on my face.

"Of course I would," Rin admitted wholeheartedly, "Ren's a pain, and half the time it's because of you."

"That's not true!" I denied.

"Okay tell me one time Ren's ever went on a rant without you being involved."

"Well…the time that…" holy shit, I couldn't think of one time, crossing my arms I turned away not wanting to see the satisfying smirk on Rin face.

"See Ren is completely obsessed with your wellbeing."

"Whatever…"

"Perhaps we should have them invite us over." Hana said crunching her empty chips bag in her fist, "I'd like to see for myself whether or not this is a suitable environment to be living in."

"Huh?"

"Hey great idea." Uo agreed.

"Yeah, I agree, but we can't show up unexpectedly or we might not be served snacks." Rin said enthusiastically.

"Good point, get two for two, okay then we'll stay over tomorrow night." Uo decided, the trio got up and waved before leaving.

"Uh what just happened?" I asked unbelieving.

"Ehh."

We're totally screwed if the girls find out about the Sohma family's secret…

"High school girls, high school girls, one, two, three, four, five high school girls!" Was the first thing I heard when I walked in from doing my homework in the gardens, I watched as Shigure sang while he wiped down the dinning room table.

Shigure took the news surprisingly well; in fact it looks like he's taking it to well, deciding to take a page out of Yuki's book I slammed down my book bag to make it connect with the back of his head.

"Ouch! Amy why'd you do that for?" Shigure asked cradling his head in his hands. "What have you got in that bag of your? A brick?"

"No, I have my Math's and Physics textbooks in there." I replied.

"They are hard covered aren't they?"

"Yep." I pulled out my Mathematics textbook as evidence, it was thick, and roughly three hundred pages long and its bright orange hard cover had printed in bold letters 'Essentials Mathematics First Year Edition'.

"Ah I wonder what kind of girls these friends of Tohru and Amy are like." Shigure wondered happily.

"A Yankee, and a psychic." Shigures spirit seemed to deflate, "And the other girl works with Amy."

Shigures spirit seemed to do a complete one-eighty, " do you think you friend will come in her uniform?"

…

"Pervert!"

"Ouch!"

'Thump, thump.'

"Oh they're here!" Tohru chirped, rushing to the front door.

"Hi come in, I guess you found the house okay."

"No we got lost…"

"I'm thinking this is a bad idea." Kyo said, believing that the whole thing would go up in flames, metaphorically speaking of course.

"Everyone has just got to act natural and try to minimalize as much contact as possible." I told them.

"Amy's right, just don't do anything stupid." Yuki said directing the statement at Kyo.

"Grr, that goes double for you, you damn rat!"

"Hey stop it you too!" I shushed them, "Hana already think's you two have 'strange' electric signals, there's no point calling each other a rat or cat unless you want her to get more suspicious."

"Yes, all of us will do well to be careful while they're here, because I wonder if any one of those girls where to find out about the family curse what would happen, you think." Shigure looks uncharacteristically serious, " At the very least I suppose Amy and Tohru would no longer be able to stay in this house, well either way something's bound to turn out, que sera, sera, hahaha."

'Ehh…" Shigure sudden attitude change left me slightly dumbfounded, one minute he says something completely idiotic, then he does a one-eighty and sounds serious, and then goes back to being his idiotic carefree self.

And people say girls are confusing.

"You just like hearing yourself talk, don't you?" Yuki asked.

"There's a dog." Hana called from behind us.

We all went rigid. Beads of sweat formed around my hairline; my heartbeat was going wild and it felt like a rock was sitting on my stomach.

'How'd she…'

"Over there." Hana continued, sure enough, there was a dog barking excitedly, sitting on the porch.

'Kyo's right. This is a bad idea.'

Looking over, I could see Kyo clenching his shirt in his fist; no doubt his heartbeat was going as fast as mine. Yuki put one of his hands to his forehead and sighed.

"Oh yes! That's a dog!" Shigure laughed nervously, "Were are my manners! Please come in and have a seat!"

The seating arrangement reminded me of a chessboard, Shigure, Yuki and Kyo were the king, queen and knight sitting together on one side of the table while Tohru and I were the Pawns separating the Sohma's from our friends. The strategy was that the further away the boy's were away from our unaware friends the chances of the boy's turning into their respected animal was slim.

"So these are our friends, Arisa Uotani, Saki Hanajima, and Rin Sotome." I introduced.

"Hey." Uo greeted casually, giving a lazy wavy.

"Hi." Rin said, sizing up the boys across from her with a contemplative stare.

"A pleasure." Hana bowed formally.

"Yes, welcome, welcome, please make yourselves right at home, ehehe." Shigure smiled happily.

Uo looked at him for a while before speaking, "say, it's Shigure right? This is your place, so what do you do to pay the rent around hear?"

Shigure smiled. "Ha, oh me, I'm a writer, well a novelist actually"

"Did you say you're a novelist?" Tohru shot up excitedly. I eyed Shigure, disbelieving, "really? You a novelist?"

"Why the heck are you two so surprised?" Uo asked.

"This is the first they've heard of it." Hana answered.

Rin gave me a disapproving look; well it looks like the Sohma boy's haven't got her vote. I gave her an earnest look pleading that she gives the boy's a go. My best friend sighed impassive but nodded anyway.

"Right, I really had no idea." Tohru said blushing.

"What was it again?" Yuki asked sarcastically, "Fine literature, or something?"

"Uh-huh," Shigure said, "That's right. This sort of story." He held up a small book titled, 'Summer-Colored sigh'.

I looked at him appalled, 'it's porn.'

"How dare you show us that, you really are a pervert!" eyes ablaze with anger, I slapped Shigure in the back of the head. "Really! What kind of person shows that kind of shit around during casual conversation?"

"Ouch, Amy that hurts!" Shigure exclaimed rubbing the spot were I had hit him; I looked away my cheeks burning with both embarrassment and anger.

'How dare he! And in front of our friends!'

Shigure looked at the book in his hand. "Sorry kiddies." He held out another book. "This is my real work. This one here is just something I did for fun." Shigure said waving around the crude book.

"So that makes it okay to write that dime-store smut?" Uo cried.

"Can you stop waving it around? Have you got no shame?" Rin yelled revolted.

"You're a sicko, you know that?" Kyo yelled banging his fist on the table.

"What were you thinking?" Yuki asked, ashamed of his older cousin.

"Shigure, that's amazing!" I looked at my sister, stunned. "I mean to think we actually know someone as important as a novelist!"

"Careful, Miss Honda. You don't want to inflate his ego too much." Yuki told my naïve sister.

"Like his head could get any bigger than it already is." Kyo muttered.

"Tohru, promise me you'll never read any of Shigures books, Okay?" I asked my sweet childlike sister.

Shigure just laughed.

Well enough about me," Shigure said. "Why don't you tell us something about yourselves? You could start by telling us how you three met Tohru and Amy."

"What, serious?" Uo asked.

"I'm sure we'd all like to hear! Right, Yuki? Right, Kyo?"

They sighed indifferent.

"Uo saved me!" Tohru exclaimed happily. "Hey, pinhead! You better not step on those, you-"

Everyone looked at her.

"Wait, let me back up," Tohru said, "This one time in middle school, I dropped all my notes in the hall…"

"What have I done?" Shigure asked softly.

Uo laughed. "Yeah, I remember that, I guess I could get a little… rough back then."

"Back then?" Kyo and Yuki asked.

"Uo you were still a Yankee then, weren't you?" Tohru asked.

"Right I started running with them in the 5th grade." Uo said.

"Yeah, and you always used to wear those masks all the time." I said.

"And I had my eyebrows thinned and I wore those long skirts."

"You're forgetting that you do all of those things now Arisa." Hana said quietly while not taking her eyes off Shigures crude book.

"I guess you're right." Uo laughed.

"That's lovely, they're so-How shall I say it?" Shigure pondered, "By putting it into words, I'm afraid the nobility of it all would only be obscured."

"Of what?" Yuki asked.

"You know. They're so spunky!" Shigure cheered.

"You sick bastard." Kyo Said.

"How sad…" we turned to Hana, I was devastated to see she was still reading Shigure's book. "Love doomed from the start."

"You're really reading that?" I asked disbelief clear in my voice.

"That silly old thing?" Shigure asked, walking over to Hana. "Oh, I'm flattered! So what do you think?"

"You don't want to know what I think." Hana replied darkly, turning her head slightly to look over at Shigure.

"Oh…no?" Shigure squeaked a little frightened by her response.

"But when is volume 2 coming out?"

My jaw literally hit the table.

"Look. Can we just knock it off with the books? Okay?" Uo asked.

"What about you Miss Sotome, how'd you meet Miss Amy?" Yuki asked.

"Huh? Oh we met in middle school." Rin said.

"Yeah, and we didn't get along that well either." I told everyone.

"Huh?"

"Well you see…"

(Flash back)

It was ten minutes after the lunch bell and I had just finished my detention with Ms. Ngo, so I was rushing to the lunchroom. When I made it, I pulled out a plastic tray and filled it up with whatever was left, on my way to finding Tohru's table I noticed that there was only one plate left of dango. Quickly I picked it up and placed it on my tray.

"Hey! I was gonna have that!" I turned and saw a petite girl with chin length orange hair looking at me angrily.

"Sorry, gotta be quicker next time shorty." I laughed walking away to find Tohru, leaving the small girl fuming.

After lunch we had the annual endurance run, our whole year level was gathered outside of the school in our gym clothes, I was standing with a group of friends waiting for the test to start.

"I'm so not looking forward to this…" Mai moaned from my left.

"Why's that?" I asked zipping up my school track jacket.

"Because I can't run." Mai admitted embarrassed.

"What do you mean? You just run."

"I know that! But I can't run for long… I mean five minutes in and I'll be a huffing and puffing mess on the sidewalk."

"Ahah, are you serious?" I asked.

"Well, excuse me, not all of us can be on the track team like you." Mai puckered cutely.

"Just do your best, they cant expect anything more than that." I told her.

"Hey Amy, have you pissed anyone off lately?" Jun asked.

"Um I don't think so, why do you ask?"

"Because there's this girl glaring at you." She said pointing to a girl standing alone. It took me a minute to realize that she was the same girl from lunch.

"I'M GOING TO BEAT YOU!" The fuming schoolgirl exclaimed pointing a finger at me.

"Excuse me?" I asked slowly, confusion clear in my voice.

"I'm going to beat you at the endurance run!" She smirked, confident in her skills.

"Are you challenging me?" I asked amused.

"You bet!"

"Don't be to disappointed when I beat your sorry ass, shorty." I smirked, placing my hands on my hips.

"Shut up! I'm going to wipe the floor with you! And who are you calling small? You're like four inches taller than me!"

"Still taller!" I sung.

"WHY YOU-"

"Alright everyone! The race is about to begin, ladies please make your way to the starting line." The gym teacher called.

"Come on, Amy." Mai said pulling on my arm.

Looking over my shoulder I smirked at the girl, "I look forward to seeing if you can keep up."

Like every year the girls lined up in a single file, Mai and Jun stood a little bit away from me to give me some space.

"On your marks! Get set!" he pulled the trigger on the gun, signaling the start of the race. I sprang off the balls of my feet leaving my classmates behind, within the first ten minutes of the run I had made it past the bridge and was making my way into town.

The sounds of feet hitting concrete made me look back, behind me was the girl from before, and I was surprised to see that she was quickly catching up to me.

We ran neck and neck throughout the town. People were rushing to get out of our way lest we hit them, when we turned around a corner I had just managed to dodge a group of males walking; the other girl wasn't so lucky she bumped into one of the men, making him spill his drink onto his jacket.

"Hey! You punk! Get back here!" he called to our fading figures.

We were closing into the school grounds where out teacher was waiting; I could see the girl hastily wiping away sweat from her brow, I begin to pick up my pace, forcing myself to go faster, to get in front of the girl, I had just lugged ahead of her when I sprinted across the finish line.

I had my hands on my knees while I was gasping in air; I looked over to the girl and saw that she was also hunched over breathing heavily.

"You…Sure…Gave…Me… a… run… for… my… money." I rasped breathlessly.

"You… Too, I didn't… expect you to be that fast." She huffed wiping at her forehead.

"Miss Honda you got twenty-five minutes and ninety- seven seconds. And Miss Sotome twenty-six minutes and two seconds." Our Gym teacher called from the school gate.

"Huh I guess I won." I smirked at her. "What were you saying before? "I'm going to wipe the floor with you?""

"Shut up Honda! You beat me by like five seconds!" Sotome shouted.

"I still won!" I sang happily.

xXx

The sun was beginning to set, and if I didn't hurry I wouldn't make it home before dark, I heard an uproar coming from an alleyway down the street, against my better judgment I went to check it out. What I saw shocked me, there stood the group of males from earlier today and at there feet was Sotome; curled up on the ground, blood oozing out of her noise and her left eye was swollen shut.

"What makes you think you can get away with what you did earlier huh?" one of the men kicked her, making her grunt in pain.

"That's enough! Let her go!" I demanded.

"Who the hell does this chick think she is?" a tall brunette called.

"What gives you the right to do this to her? Four against one, that doesn't seem fair." I shouted furiously.

"She needed to learn her lesson." One of them called.

"You tell her Bakin!" a brute cheered.

Taking a large step towards Bakin, I punched him in the Jaw.

"Bastard!"

"Get the bitch!" the brute came running at me, I sidestepped him, allowing him to run into the brick wall behind me.

I took a step back, reading myself for my next opponent; he was fairly short; he was only a few inches taller than me, he had long red hair tided up in a loose ponytail, a few strands framed his face.

He came running at me, raising his fist to strike me in the head. I ducked and rammed my fist into his stomach, winding him; I swiftly punched him in the head, knocking him out.

'Three down, one to go.'

I look around the dark alleyway, the sun had long since set; I could barely make out the outline of the person before he attacked me. The side of my head stung, ignoring the pain I quickly landed a palm-heel strike to his nose and then hit him again in the throat.

The men who had attacked Sotome were down for the count, some of them moaned in pain while others where knocked out cold.

"Sotome!" I shouted, rushing to her side, slowly I lifted her up so she could sit up.

"H…Honda?"

"Can you stand?"

"I think so."

Slowly I helped her onto her feet, she was really unsteady and needed to lean on me or else she'd fall over. Still holding onto her I turned around so my back was facing her.

"Get on." I told her, sluggishly she climbed onto my back, her arms were limp across my shoulders and her head nested in between where my shoulder met my neck, I hooked my hands under her legs and began walking.

"Why didn't you run? I know you could've out run them." I asked after a moments of silence.

"I thought I could take them." She said simply.

"If you're ever in a situation like that again I want you to run." I told her crossly. "I don't ever want to see you like this again."

"Why do you care, you're not even my friend."

"Whether we're friends or not, it doesn't matter, you needed help and I wasn't about to turn away from that, I'd never be able to live with myself if I did." I told her.

"Thank you…"

"Don't mention it, you know I never got your name." I told her, trying to ignore the way that her breath tickles my neck.

"It's Rin."

"Amy."

xXx

"…So that's how we met." I told them; the boy's sat in silence processing what they just heard.

"Oh!" Tohru called suddenly jumping up, "I know! I just thought of something fun we could do! Wait here, I'll be right back."

"So then… Saki you never did tell us how you and the girls became friends." Shigure asked.

"Are you sure you're ready to hear?" Hana asked, unintentionally giving off a dark aura.

"Oh…Ah…that's okay, as long as you're friends now!" Shigure whimpered looking a little pale. "That's what's important."

"We were in middle school, and I was transferred into their class."

"A-ha, is that so?"

"Yes." she said. "You see, at my previous school, I had caused something of a disturbance."

The Sohma's looked at her, their fear was clear to see, Hana didn't seem to notice however, she was to absorbed into the book.

Yuck.

"Well, that is a wonderful story, isn't it? But I just remembered that I have some work to do. So if you kids would excuse me." He said, running off down the hall to who knows were.

"He ran off." Yuki muttered.

"Ran the hell away." Kyo mumbled.

"I guess Hana does take a little getting used to but it was a bit much for him to run off like that." I thought to myself.

"I gotta say…" we looked at Uo. " I didn't know what to make of all of this when they told us, but I guess they are fitting right in here. I'm happy for you guys, Amy, really. I guess I can understand why you didn't want to say anything at first. But still… we made a promise; the five of us swore over Kyoko's grave that when the time came we'd be there to help each other, no matter what! That probably sound a bit over dramatic… but it wasn't. for us, after all Tohru and Amy were our first real friends! Amy-you, Tohru and Kyoko were there for me when I needed it most. You guys gave me the strength I needed to climb out of all the crap I'd fallen into, helped me believe in myself, that I could change. Because of you I discovered that I wanted to change, I wanted to be someone you guys would be proud to call a friend. Just like how I'm proud to call you mine… so with everything that has happened, the fact that I wasn't there to help them…that bothers me. I mean that they'd even think that they'd have to go through all that trouble by themselves… Maybe they don't think they could count on us. Or maybe we're just not that good as friends."

'Uo…' I thought sadly. 'I had no idea you felt like that.'

Everything was silent.

Nah," Kyo said. "I just don't think Amy and Tohru are the kind of girls that worry about stuff like that."

"They're… they're the kind of people who put others' well-being before their own." Yuki said.

"Do… Do you guys truly feel like that?" I asked melancholy. "I'm so sorry if we made you guy's feel like that. We just… didn't want to worry you guys."

Hana, Rin and Uo looked at us, surprised. Slowly one by one, small smiles appeared on their faces.

"Sorry it took so long." Tohru said, opening the sliding door. " I hope you're all ready to play! Rich Man, Poor Man!" she said holding up the deck of cards.

"Ah, that's a fine idea Tohru." Hana said smiling.

"Okay, how about we pick it up where we left off," Uo said grinning, "I don't think I got to finish making a fool out of Orange-top here!"

"Yeah, talk it up!" Kyo yelled. "But this time when I win, you have to dye you hair black!"

"Oh?" Uo asked sarcastically. " Well, when you lose, you have to bleach all the dye outta your hair and leave it white."

"It's naturally this colour!"

"Is that right?" Hana asked blankly.

"That's right!" Kyo yelled.

"Yuki, would you like to shuffle the cards?" Tohru asked, handing the cards to Yuki.

"Uh, I…" He brushed his hair out of his face and smiled at Tohru. "Sure."

I smiled at them, 'this could be fun.'

"Get ready to bleach your hair Yankee!"

"Don't count on it Carrot top!"

"Can you two just stop fighting? You're giving me a headache!"

On other hand… this could be a disaster in the making.

hey guys! long time no update... it's been what 2 months? eheh- sorry about the wait but between school, doctor's appointments and plain ol' writers block i just haven't had the motivation or time to write, so hope you enjoyed the chapter and hopefully the next one will be finished soon!