- First Love -

"Good morning sleepy head." I slowly opened my eyes and smiled at Jiro.

"Morning." I mumbled.

It was a Sunday. Amanda had this tradition for the whole family to have breakfast together.

"Come on, it's a feast down there. Mom went all out this morning too." Jiro left and I stretched while yawning. It was a sunny day already. My room was so bright. I stood up and then it hit me. The kiss. I froze in my place. I didn't know how to act around Kei that morning. I didn't think I could face him.

I took a few deep breaths and ventured outside my room. Looking right and left to make sure no one was in the hallway.

I washed up in the bathroom and headed down stairs. The smell was amazing. On the table there was sausage, blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs, hash browns, French toast. I felt like I was in a breakfast wonderland.

Fortunately, Kei wasn't there. But it only took him two minutes to show up. After all, it was a family breakfast so everyone had to be there. My breath stopped at the sight of him.

"Morning." He said to everyone before he took his seat opposite of me. I studied him. His bed hair, his green eyes, pajamas. Sexy Kei Ichihara was sitting in front of me. He didn't look at me or even notice that I was staring.

We all started digging in. Or at least I wanted to, but my appetite was gone the minute I saw Kei. 'Is he going to pretend that I don't even exist?'

I felt a ball in my throat. Why would he kiss me to ignore me the next day.

"Sam, you're not eating darling. Are you ok?" Amanda was really sweet. Everyone's eyes moved to me. I felt really awkward and I couldn't look up. I didn't want to ruin the family breakfast either.

"I don't know where to start." I tried to joke. Thankfully no one noticed my shaky voice. They laughed and I took a bunch of food into my plate and forced myself to swallow it.

It was the longest forty five minutes of my life. Sitting in front of the guy I had loved for years. The only guy I had ever loved. I felt my heart break every second I sat there.

I was thankful to go shopping with Amanda, after breakfast. It was so much fun going out with her. I totally forgot about what had happened with Kei and his friends, and most importantly, the kiss.

We spent all day out, we also stopped to pick up my school uniform. I had been so excited about my green and blue uniform, but I didn't feel anything when I tried it on then.

When we went back home, Kei was out with his friends, so I got to have a peaceful dinner.

The next morning was my first day in high school, in Japan. I was very thankful that Jiro went to the same school. We took the train together and walked to school. He even walked me to my classroom. Yoko was there which made me really happy. At least I wasn't going to be all alone. Then, the other creepy girl from Saturday walked in, Minako, followed by Kei.

He looked at me for a second and then looked away. My heart tightened. I just wanted to run out of that room.

We barely talked for the whole week. Then, on Friday, I got a weird text message from him asking me to go see him during lunch break in the back of the school, next to the baseball team locker room. He said he wanted to talk to me.

At the break, I was so nervous my hands were sweating so much. I stopped at the bathroom just to make sure my hair wasn't a mess. After that, I walked to the baseball locker room and started looking for Kei.

As I looked around for him, I started hearing some sounds. Moans and some rustling. I felt the hair on my back stand. When I turned around the corner, I found Kei with a girl. All I saw was his back, the girl's legs were wrapped around his waist. They were kissing. My eyes were wide and fixated on them. I didn't blink. Maybe it was because I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Or maybe because my eyes wanted to torture me and burn the image in my mind.

All of a sudden the girl looked at me and my heart clenched violently. It was Minako, aka the evil bitch. She gasped, surprised. That was when Kei turned to me. His eyes were dark.

I felt the stinging in the back of my eyes where tears were on the verge of letting loose.

"I'm sorry to interrupt." I heard myself whisper and I walked away.

At first I walked really fast, then I found myself running. I ran out of the school. I didn't know where I was going until I found myself in front of the train station.

I stood there as train after train came and left. Warm tears were streaming on my face. I didn't understand why he wanted to hurt me like that. Getting out of his way to make me watch that scene. It was just cruel.

"You know we still have classes." Kei's voice surprised me. He sounded out of breath. I couldn't look at him. "I brought your bag." He added cautiously handing it to me. I took my bag and hugged it feeling the need for something to protect me. Kei stood in front of me for a few minutes. I could feel his gaze on me but I never moved my eyes. I was looking straight and wiping the occasional rebellious tears.

"I'm sorry you had to see that." He finally broke the silence.

"Are you?" I blurted out laying eyes on him.

"What do you mean?" A sparkle of anger lit up inside my chest.

"What do I mean? Well let's see, You almost killed someone just a few days ago, because of me. Then, you kissed me in your room but the next day you forgot I even existed. And now, you go out of your way to send me a message so that I can see you with another girl."

Kei opened his mouth to say something, but he decided not to. We stared at each other's eyes for a long time. I was hoping that he would say something, anything, but he didn't. 'So he's not even going to try to comfort me... I see.' My head went down because I felt defeated. I looked to the ground for a long time while Kei stood silently by me.

"Do you enjoy hurting me?" I whispered.

"What?"

"Do you even know why I came to Japan?" My tears were unstoppable now. Kei didn't say anything. "Are my feelings for you such a burden that you want to break my heart to push me away?" I felt his cold hand on my arm and I jolted taking a step back.

"Let's go home, Sam. This is our train."

"You go ahead, I need to be alone a little bit. I'll take the next train."

He stood there hesitant, but he ended up taking the train. I sat on a bench and stayed there for hours. Coming to terms with the rejection of my feelings; the sad truth. I cried a lot. Some people were looking at me like I was a crazy person. It didn't stop me from howling at some point. After I calmed down, I took the train home. Kei was waiting for me at the station. He just walked by my side without a word. When we got home I went straight to my room, locked it, and lied down in bed.

I couldn't sleep and I had to send Jiro away when he came to check on me. I cried for half of the time and cursed myself for the other half.

At around two in the morning, still no sign of sleeping, I was starving. I couldn't take it anymore, I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast.

I walked downstairs toward the kitchen. The lights were off, but the street lights helped my eyes make the shape of the furniture.

"Can't sleep?" A voice shot from the dark sent me flying back to the wall behind me and hitting my elbow with the corner of it.

"Ouch." I let out a sound of pain. The shock made my ears ring and my heart beat beyond normal speed. I held my elbow for a moment.

"Are you ok?" The voice was closer now. Too close. I looked up and Kei was hovering over me.

"I'm ok." I scooted slowly in the direction of the kitchen, but Kei's hand slammed on the wall next to me.

"We need to talk." He announced. I really didn't feel like talking to him especially not at two a.m.

"Can we talk tomorrow. I'm really exhausted." He eyed me for a while trying to figure out what I was thinking. I didn't look up.

"Fine." He let his hand slide from the wall. "We'll talk tomorrow." He walked away disappearing into the darkness he came from.

I wobbled to the kitchen and made myself a grilled cheese sandwich that I couldn't finish. I felt a little nauseous every time I thought about tomorrow's talk.

I went back to bed and tossed for a good hour and a half before falling asleep.

In the morning, I fought the light sneaking into my room. But it was too bright. I opened my eyes and found Kei sitting at my desk.

"What the hell?" I almost yelled. "What are you doing here." I almost had a heart attack.

"You said we'd talk today." He gave me a matter-of-fact look. "I'll wait for you downstairs. We're going out." He pushed to his feet and walked toward the door. "Don't take too long." He said before leaving.

I sat on my bed for a couple of minutes trying to understand what had just happened. Then, without any resistance, I got up and started getting ready.

I went downstairs and he was standing by the entrance with his brown cane.

"Mom, we're going out, now." Kei yelled.

"Ok." Amanda's voice came from upstairs.

We left the house and I followed him as he led the way. We got to the station, he bought me a ticket and I followed him to the platform.

I looked up at his broad back in front of me and then noticed that there were quite a few people around.

The train was already crowded when it got to the station. Kei took my arm and kept me close to him as we made our way to the corner of the wagon.

I had my back to the window and Kei was all in my space. My nose almost touched his chest. I inhaled and closed my eyes savoring his scent. Then I shot them open realizing that Kei was right there. I looked up and fortunately he hadn't seen me. I felt my face turn red and was aware of every single move Kei's body made.

He moved his hand holding onto the top bar. He swallowed and his Adam's apple moved up and down. My hand twitched wanting to caress his neck but I controlled it. My body was so hot I didn't understand what was going on. All I knew was that I wanted to touch Kei.

I felt like my prayers were answered when the train's brakes were slammed and I went into a full body contact with Kei. We were basically hugging for a moment. My head on his chest, my right hand on his left bicep, my chest pressed against his body. Part of me wanted to stay there forever.

"Are you ok?" Kei asked with a low voice. I immediately pulled back.

"Yes... sorry." I felt my face heat up again and I avoided looking at any of Kei's body for the rest of the journey.

"This is our stop." His voice was lower than I was used to. It sounded really sexy.

We left the train and I saw that we were in Yokohama.

"What are we doing here?" I finally ventured to ask.

"We're going to the aquarium." I looked at him, puzzled. "But before that, we need some breakfast." Kei was acting weird.

We walked to a café in front of the station and we sat down outside. I ordered some tea and croissants while Kei took coffee and toast.

"How is your elbow?" He asked me out of the blue.

"It doesn't hurt anymore." I almost whispered. I was surprised he caught that.

"Well that's good." He said as the waiter put our breakfast on the table.

"Why did you bring me here, Kei?" I asked doing my best not to look away from him.

"I didn't want to talk at home. Plus I have been wanting to come here for a while now. I heard they changed a bunch of things and I wanted to see the new aquarium."

"Why did you bring me with you? You could have come with..." I caught myself from saying 'girlfriend'. I felt the bitterness of the word even without saying it.

"You don't want to be here with me, is that it?" Kei's eyes were wide and serious.

"If you have finished, let's go." I stood up and followed Kei again. I felt so helpless not knowing what to expect. It was nerve wrecking.

We entered the aquarium and found ourselves in front of a beautiful sea world. Everything was blue and magical. Like a little kid, I hurried to the glass and looked at the huge rays and sharks.

"Look at that huge one, Gosh." I pointed at a fish sitting in the corner.

"That is one ugly fish." Kei's voice came from right behind me. We both laughed.

We slowly walked around the aquarium. We stopped to watch the dolphins jumping. It was amazing. Then, we reached a place where we could touch little sharks and rays.

At first I was scared, but Kei took my hand and we both caressed the back of a tiger ray. I felt a rush going through my body.

"Oh my God, it's so soft." I almost jumped from the sensation.

"Did you like that?" Kei asked me letting go of my hand. I gave him a wide smile and nodded.

"I want to touch every single one of them." Kei let out a chuckle.

We went around touching all kinds of fish before we walked to an amusement park. Kei stopped and bought some cotton candy for both of us.

"Let's check out the ferris wheel" He looked at me with a smile.

"Ok." I was so excited. The morning had been really fun and the cotton candy was the best addition ever.

We boarded the ferris wheel cabin and sat across from each other. It started elevating and the park took shape under us. I was still working on my cotton candy. When Kei cleared his throat.

"So, how much do you like me?" He asked with a smirk. His question made me freeze. His face said that this was his plan from the very start; getting me to this confined space to tease me about my feelings.

He had an amused look on his face, a disgusting confidence. I hated him at that moment.

Suddenly, Kei stood and came to sit next to me. My eyes followed him with caution. He leaned closer to me and I froze.

"Do you think I didn't notice you smelling me in the train, you little pervert?" He whispered in my ear making the embarrassment dig even deeper into my chest.

My face was hot and scarlet. This was the worse. I had nowhere to escape. I felt trapped. His teasing was getting a little too much for me.

I mustered all the courage I had to look at him straight in the eyes. He wasn't wearing contacts today. His green was so clear in the sun light. The triumphant look on his face was irritating the the crap out of me.

I opened my mouth to curse at him, but in a millisecond, my body moved surprising both Kei and me. I suddenly found my hands cupping his face and my lips on his.