Kami Cursed (Dragon and Phoenix) (6 page)

I had known about
Ryuu and Fumio’s plan for our little experiment, but school had been really
busy, and there were a ton of tests so it had taken me a while to get to it. 
Well, that and I’d been putting it off- hoping it would all just go away.  By now
the focus on school had passed and we could get down to it. 
Yay.

“So where did
you find that thing?”  I watched Fumio set it down on a small rock near the
edge of one of the flowerbeds.

The monk looked
down at the coin.  “We found it in an antique store.  Ryuu found it really, I
just bargained with the clerk.”

Ryuu grinned. 
“The place was going out of business, and the owner was so stressed out and
pre-occupied that he was glad to get rid of it.”  He shrugged.  “Even though he
griped about us ripping him off with the price, we’ve done him a huge favor.  I
wouldn’t be surprised if business picked up without this thing around to suck the
life out of the place.”

I studied the
little coin, still muttering to itself as it lay on the stone.  “This little
thing caused all that trouble?” 

Ryuu came to
stand at my side.  Fumio, less brave or more practical, backed away and took
shelter under the big maple tree. 

“Whelp,” I
sighed, raising the bat over my head.  “Here goes.”

I brought the
bat down like I meant it.  It hit the stone with a loud crack that reverberated
up my arms, numbing them from the fingertips to the shoulders.  There was a
sort of
force
that shoved at me, and I stumbled backward and fell on my
butt. 

The bat
clattered from my numb hands and I massaged my arms, trying to get some feeling
back in them.  I felt light headed.  Ryuu paced over to the stone. 

“So?”  My voice
was a bit snippy. 
Jeeze
that hurt.  It hadn’t hurt before.

Ryuu shook his
head and glanced at Fumio, is dark eyebrows drawn together.  “It’s still
there.”

  I pushed
myself to my feet.  “What do you mean it’s still there?”

He shrugged as
Fumio stooped and picked up the coin. 

“You’ve got to
be kidding me!”  I said.  I marched over to glare at the little coin as it
babbled away, even louder than before.

Ryuu sighed.  “I
think…”  His eyes met mine apologetically.  “I think you just made it worse.”

“
W
hat really
happened to you- I mean when you were gone?”  Wyatt’s voice was soft and
hesitant, lacking its usual cool.

I sighed.  How
do you explain kami spirits and cursed objects to the uninitiated?  “I had a
seizure,” I said, staring at my math book.  “They don’t know what caused it. 
Afterwards I was… well I was crazy.”  I looked up at him defiantly, waiting for
the mocking to start.

Instead, he just
frowned, as if thinking that over.  “So you just… lost it?”

I nodded. 
“Yep.  Completely batty.  I was at Birch Hill all that time getting things
ironed out.  I don’t remember any of it.  They say it was because my mom left when
I was little.”  I knew I was being blunt, but I had reached the point where I
just didn’t care anymore.

He used his
thumb to ruffle the corner of my notebook.  “You don’t seem crazy now.”

I snorted. 
“Relatively speaking.”

He laughed. 
“Well, sure, you’re not like the other girls in our class.  But there’s nothing
wrong
with that.”

I frowned at the
equation in front of me, biting my pencil.  Wyatt tapped his fingers on the
table, impatient with my speed.  I shifted my glare to him and the tapping
stopped.  He looked sheepish as he tucked his hand under the table.

I worried my
bottom lip with my teeth as I worked it out in my head.  Then, very carefully,
wrote out the answer.  I waited for Wyatt to erase it and tell me to start
over, but he didn’t. 

“You know,
you’re really cute when you make that face.”  He smiled at me.

I stared at him,
not knowing what to say.  “Uh, so is it right?”  I tapped the paper with my
pencil.

He blinked at
me, then glanced at the answer.  “Yep.”

I grinned.  “I
think I’ve got it now!”

He grinned back
and reached out to ruffle my hair.  “Good job.”

I froze.  It was
the exact same thing Ryuu would have done.  But for some reason, it felt all wrong
coming from Wyatt.  I tucked my hair behind my ear and started putting my stuff
away without looking at him.  “You’re going to be late for practice.”

I finally glanced
up, afraid he was offended.  He was watching me with an odd look on his face. 
“Hey, do you like me?”  His voice was calm, like he was asking my favorite
color, or what I like on my pizza.

And I’d thought
I was the blunt one.  I stared at him.  Did I
like
him?  “Uh…”I said
intelligently.  I gaped at the green-eyed captain of the basketball team.  He
was looking back at me as if I was an especially hard math equation.  “Well,
you’re really nice, for a jock.”  I bit my lip.  What the heck was I supposed
to say?

He laughed.  “So
I’m just tolerable?”

I put my bag
over my shoulder, poised to run.  “I don’t know what you want me to say,” I
admitted, totally at a loss.  “I’m not even sure if you’re saying what I think
you’re saying.”  My face was hot and I wanted to crawl under the desk and hide.

He put his head
on his arms and laughed.  I waited.  And waited.  Finally, he sat up again. 
“You’ve never had a boyfriend, have you?”

The few other
people in the library were beginning to shoot curious glances our way,
obviously wondering what was so funny- probably wondering what kind of joke Wyatt
was playing on the crazy girl.  I was beginning to wonder that myself.  

“No,” I finally
croaked out.

He let out a
sigh.  “So it’s not true, those rumors about you and that junior high kid?”

I gaped at him. 
“Ryuu? What about him?”

He leaned back
and gave me a look.  “Well, you’re with him all the time.  I saw you holding
his hand on the way home from school one day.  People say you’re going out.”

I shook my head
vehemently.  “No way.  He’s been my friend since forever.  We’re neighbors. 
And besides, he’s way too young for me.”  I pushed away a sudden memory of his
dark, perceptive eyes.

Wyatt seemed
relieved.  “I thought it was kind of weird.  I mean, in a year or so it’d
technically be illegal, right?”  He rocked his chair onto its back legs, still
laughing.  “Anyway, since you’re not dating anyone, will you go to the movies
with me next Saturday?”

It felt like
time stood still.  I could have sworn everyone in there was looking at me.  My
heartbeat was thundering in my ears, and it seemed hard to get my voice out
over the noise it was making.  

I just wanted it
to end so I could get out of there.  “Sure, why not.”

He laughed.  Time
seemed to resume its normal speed.  “Okay, why not.  I’ll call you and we can
decide what to see.”

“Sure.”  I
walked away feeling completely confused.  Did I like Wyatt?  He was certainly cute. 
And all the popular girls liked him, probably because he was a heck of a lot
nicer than the other jocks.  But did I
like
him like him?

I rolled my
eyes.  We were just going to the movies.  He was my friend.  It wasn’t like it
was a date or something.  Although he’d said I was cute.  Oh crap, was this a
date?  Did I just agree to go on a date?

*****

The next day, I
tried to avoid Wyatt, and thus avoid thinking about Saturday.  It worked pretty
well, until Andrea and I came around a corner and walked right into him.  We
all laughed, and he didn’t- thank God- seem to want to walk with us.  But
Andrea was like a bloodhound when it came to sniffing out a piece of gossip,
and she latched onto my hot cheeks and awkward silence immediately.

The minute Wyatt
was out of sight she put her arm through mine and pulled me close to whisper in
my ear.  “Kit!  Do you like Wyatt?”

I closed my eyes
for a second and tried to corral my jumbled up thoughts.  “Yes.  I mean no.”  I
groaned.  “I don’t know.  But he asked me out to the movies.”

She let out a
little gasp and squeezed my arm tighter.  I could practically feel the bruise
forming.  “Of course you said yes.”  It wasn’t really a question.

I shrugged.  “I
did, but I think I should tell him I changed my mind.  I don’t know what I was
thinking.”

Andrea’s pretty
round face was scandalized.  “Kit!  How could you turn him down?  God, he’s so
cute!”

I turned my head
and actually looked at her.  She was blushing harder than I was.  What in the world
was wrong with her?  I thought she was an expert at these things.

At that moment,
Ryuu popped up from somewhere, making me jump as he just silently appeared at
my side.  “What’s going on?”  His voice sounded distant, and I knew he wasn’t
really participating in the conversation.  He was more absorbed in the book he
was attempting to read while he walked.

I tugged my arm
free of Andrea’s grasp.  “Nothing.”

Andrea nudged me
and grinned.  “Kit just got asked out by one of the guys in my class,” she said
with a superior air at having been the first to know this little bit of
information.

Ryuu closed the
book he was carrying and I felt his dark eyes on me.  I refused to look at
him.  “Someone asked you out?”  Now he was interested.

I shrugged.  “It’s
no big deal.”

Ryuu didn’t seem
to share Andrea’s excitement.  “Of course you said no.”  It wasn’t a question.

I frowned at
him.  “No.  I said I’d go.  But I think I should tell him I changed my mind.”

Andrea snorted. 
“Oh no you won’t.  Uh…der!”  She smacked my forehead lightly.  “He’s the captain
of the basketball team.  Your freak status is about to become a thing of the
past.”

Ryuu stopped
walking with us.  He just stood there in the middle of the hall for a second,
then did an about face and walked off in the opposite direction without a word.

Andrea stared
after him, surprised.  “That kid is weird,” she observed.

*****

After school,
Ryuu was waiting for me at my locker.  He even more quiet than usual, and he hadn’t
bothered to bring a book along for the walk home.  It felt like someone should
talk, so I vented about the math test I’d just bombed.  The subject took us
almost all the way home.

“…and I can’t
believe he put those equations in there in the first place.  We barely even
looked at that chapter in class.  Does he think we’re in college or
something?” 

I shook my head,
still fuming.  I was trying so hard, and I still failed.  “And I studied
everything Wyatt told me to.  Wait until I get a hold of him.  I’ll show him
right where he can stick his study guide.  I mean-“

“Are you going
out with that guy?”

It was the first
time Ryuu had spoken since we left school.  I heaved a sigh, realizing that he
hadn’t heard a word of my fifteen minute rant about math equations and the
unfairness of balding, middle-aged high school math teachers with chronic
halitosis.

“I don’t know,”
I said tiredly.

His dark eyes
were incredulous.  “What do you mean you don’t know?  Either you’re going out
with someone or you’re not.  Do you like him?”

I was taken
aback at his short, clipped words.  “Well…I mean…we’re going to go see a movie
on Saturday, that’s all.”  I muttered under my breath, “It’s not like we’re
engaged or something.”  I didn’t really see what all the fuss was about.

I shrugged and
looked at the ground, scuffing my feet as we walked.  “I don’t know how this
stuff is supposed to work, you know?  He’s cute.  And he’s nice to me.”

Ryuu looked
furious.  “You shouldn’t go out with him.”

I just stared at
him.  “What in the world are you so mad about?”  I was really at a loss.

He stopped and
stared at me with eyes the color of obsidian, black and sparking with
irritation.  “You’re going to regret this,” he said firmly.  “You might look
seventeen, but inside you’re just a little kid.”

I gaped at him. 
That stung.  “What would you know about it?”  My voice was rising.  What made
him think he had any right to throw
that
in my face?

His cat-like
eyes narrowed.  “Don’t do this Kit.”  There was a pleading note in his voice,
but I was still stinging from his earlier comment, and I didn’t care. 

“You’re the
little kid!  It’s just a date.  What?”  I said in a baby voice.  “Is the little
baby afraid I won’t be there to read to him?”  I flung my hair over my shoulder
and strode away, pissed. 

I’d told Andrea
I was thinking of calling the whole thing off.  But now I was determined to go
to that movie if it killed me.

*****

I went to the
temple alone the next day.  For some reason, the more I thought about the way
Ryuu had acted yesterday, the more angry I got.  Of course he didn’t want me to
do anything normal.  He was just jealous because I was doing normal things like
actually talking to people at school, and going on dates.  He’d be more happy
if I did nothing but play make believe with him and his baby monk.

Said monk met me
at the door.  He didn’t comment on my foul mood, which had to be obvious to him
from the get-go.  Of course, everyone in the temple was grumpy too, thanks to
the coin and the little energy boost I’d given it last time. 

“Are you sure
you want to try this without Ryuu?”  Fumio’s voice was light and curious, but
it ticked me off.

“I don’t need
him,” I snapped.  “He can’t do anything about it.  All he does is
sense
things and
feel
things.  I’m the one who actually had to
do
something about it.”

Fumio raised his
eyebrows, but was smart enough not to comment.  He led me to the back of the
temple and into a small office.  It was a nice little space, tucked away behind
the shrine area.  It was wood paneled and what wall space it had was covered
with rows and rows of books of all ages, languages, and conditions.  There were
even a few honest to God paper scrolls, rolled up and given a place of honor in
a glass case.  The whole place screamed Fumio, and I wondered if any of the
other inhabitants of the temple ever spent any time here.

“Well, let’s see
what we can do,” he said, closing the door. 

I dropped my book
bag on the floor with a thud and took out the baseball bat.  “Are you sure you
want to try this in here?”  It was such a cramped space, and filled with
precious objects- that I would probably end up destroying.

Fumio shrugged. 
“Better to do it away from prying eyes, I think.”

I nodded.  He
set the coin on the floor and we stood staring down at it.  I tuned out the
whispers that rose from it.  “Walloping it didn’t seem to work last time.  But
that’s what I did to the book and it worked just fine.”

Fumio took a
deep breath and frowned, thinking.  “What were you thinking when you picked up
the bat and hit the book?”

I shrugged.  “I
don’t know.  Nothing really.  I just saw the book and heard that noise it was
making and my body moved all on its own.”

He studied me
for a moment.  “Maybe you need to have intent for it to work.”