The Xen

A/N: Now that this story is starting to become mature (and I’ve reached the age of 18) I’ve decided to post this story on AFF.N. Try not to be too put off by the less than stellar writing of the first two chapters. They are a bit old. I might eventually go back and rewrite them a bit. Anyways, enjoy! ^_^

Chapter One: A Rare Beauty

Beep…beep…beep…

I slowly opened my eyes to the sound of my alarm clock. I reached over and turned off the alarm. Today is the first day of my senior year in high school. I rose from my bed to change into my school uniform. I attended a private high school named Phillip’s Private High School for the Gifted. I guess you could say I’m “gifted.” I master in martial arts and swordsmanship. After I put on my clothes, I stared into my bathroom mirror to comb my black hair. I decided to leave to leave it today. It didn’t really matter to me too much; I took no interest on how other people think of me, especially in my school. It’s far too time consuming.

I examined myself in my full-sized mirror to make sure I was presentable according to school rules. Apparently, they had something against large amount of wrinkles. The students are required to wear a white collared shirt with the school’s logo “P” on the left shoulder. The girls had to wear dark green skirts and the guys had to wear dark green pants. It’s not a horrible uniform, however, green and white are not really my colors.

Silently, I cracked open the door to my younger brother’s room. His name is Chan; he’s three years younger than me, making him 14 years old. His school starts a bit later, so he gets to sleep longer. I closed back the door to his room. I walked into the kitchen of our large apartment to grab two breakfast bars from the fridge. I journeyed over to the door and picked up my backpack, which I had left for myself the night before. Pulling down the zipper, I peered in to make sure everything I needed was present. Satisfied, I walked out of my apartment and traveled to my car.

My car wasn’t fancy, or a buckle of bolts. It was painted the simple color of red. As I began to drive my car to my next stop, I started to reminisce about my summer vacation. It seemed to have gone by so quickly and I spent all of it with Chan and Amari Brown.

Amari Brown was the only other man in my life. My parents had died a few years back and I was technically in the custody of my Aunt Mandy (even though she only comes over to check on me from time to time.) Amari and I weren’t dating, but we had something deeper than normal friends. I guess you could say we were the best of friends, at least that’s what I called until I could find a better explanation. I considered the two of us very unique individuals; we didn’t quite fit into society. We were both cynical (I was more than he was) and we both thought out of the box. Amari was much more optimistic than I ever was. However, Amari is too timid and to submissive at times for his own good. He calls himself a pacifist. I’d call it compassion and sensitivity.

I finally arrived at my next destination, Amari’s house. He was only a year younger than me, but his parents believed he was too young to drive and it would corrupt him. Since he couldn’t drive until drive until he was 18, I volunteered to take him to places he couldn’t walk too, which were usually the places I needed to go as well. I honked the horn once and waited for him to emerge from his home. There were times last year when if we couldn’t make it to the gym we would walk to school instead of driving.

Amari suddenly came rushing out of his house. He had grown substantially from last year. We used to be the same height, now he was 3 inches taller than me. He had also gained more muscle, but he still retained a slender figure. His face had matured, yet he kept his smooth features. I gave him a small grin as he got in the car. He responded by giving me a large dopey grin. Some things never change, like his large blue-green eyes and his red cap he always wore to school.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Chotei,” Amari apologized. I responded by giving him one of the breakfast bars.

“Here,” I said simply.

“Thanks, perfect timing. I accidentally slept in too long and had to skip breakfast,” he explained. I chuckled a bit. Typical, Amari always tended to sleep the day away, like some sort of feline.

We fell into silence, but I could feel his eyes upon me. I concentrated on the road, trying to push the slight uneasiness away. For a long time, I’ve known Amari’s true feelings for me. And he had been waiting for me to return those feelings. I felt I couldn’t give him what he wants until I could figure out our true relationship now. Although, I couldn’t help to be attracted to him, he was a very beautiful man.

We arrived at the school building ten minutes later. It was a medium sized, indoor school. I parked my car and we walked to the entrance bags in hand. I noticed a few familiar faces as well as new ones. The people around us gave us one glance and went about their business. We located our lockers, which were coincidentally next to each other.

As we got ourselves organized, two large figures approached Amari and me. I turned around to see who it was. To my dismay, it was two muscle head jocks named Brad and Tom. Even with Amari’s growth spurt, they were at least an inch or two over Amari’s head. By the look on their faces, I could tell they were going to cause trouble. Amari seemed to be their primary target for bullying last year. Skipping 2nd grade had always made him younger than everyone else. Until now, he had always visibly looked younger. The older boys picked on him because of that. It seemed this year wouldn’t be any different.

“Well, if it isn’t little Amari. I could barely tell it was you, you’re not as shrimpy as last year,” Brad exclaimed. Tom chuckled. Amari ignored them and continued his business. They didn’t take this lightly.

“Hey! We’re talking to you!” Tom yelled as pushed Amari’s shoulder forcefully. Unfazed, Amari continued to ignore them. A moment of silence passed, and they unfortunately moved on to me.

“Hey Chotei, how’ve you been?” Brad asked in a fake tone.

“Just peachy,” I replied coldly.

“Stop with the attitude. You know…you’re becoming a real babe. How about dumping the shrimp and becoming my girl?” Brad “kindly” offered. A halfhearted laugh escaped my lips.

“I’d rather date a diseased ridden leech,” I replied coyly. That said, I turned around and continued what I was doing. He grabbed a hold of my wrist and pulled it back.

“Why you-” Wrong move. Before he could finished the sentence, Amari had already removed his hand from my wrist and pulled his arm to his back, while keeping the other arm steady with his other hand.

“Don’t touch her,” Amari commanded in a low voice. He let go of Brad’s arms, giving him a look of warning with narrowed, dark eyes. I noticed we had created a big scene. Other students have stopped to see what was happening. Brad and Tom, completely speechless, shrugged it off muttering something like “not worth the trouble.”

The first bell rang and the students began to travel to their first period classes. Our first class is English, taught by a new teacher named Mr. Jones. We walked into the classroom and found seats together. I spotted Mr. Jones in the front of the classroom. He was a tall man, probably around 6’3”. He had light brown hair and looked to be in his early forties. The final bell rang and everyone was seated.

“Hello, young adults, and welcome to EnglishIV,” He suddenly stopped his speech. “Excuse me, young man, what is your name?” He pointed to Amari. I raised my eyebrows.

“Um, Amari Brown, sir,” Amari answered timidly.

“Well, Mr. Brown, I’ll have to ask you to remove your hat,” Mr. Jones demanded. I could see Amari shift uneasily and I raised my hand.

“Yes, Miss…”

“My name is Chotei Hikara, sir. I wanted to say that there is no rule forbidding hats,” I explained. He gave me a dirty look.

“That may be true, but in my classroom there will be no hats. Now, Mr. Brown, your hat?” Mr. Jones retorted. I was already starting to dislike him.

Amari sighed deeply and hesitantly slid off his hat, letting his beautiful chestnut hair float down his shoulders to halfway down his back. Gasps of shock spread through the classroom. A red blush emerged upon Amari’s cheeks and I felt embarrassed for him. However, within a few moments, class resumed. And when class ended, I could already feel the dread settling in my stomach for what was to come.

Upon entering the hallway, I heard someone yell, “Hey Rapunzel!” Amari had just finished putting his hair back in his hat. I never full understood why he kept his hair so long. I think it had something to do with wanting to look like his biological father. Amari had been adopted at the age of four, after both his parents died. I turned my head to look at him. His eyes were averted towards the ground, his face locked within a frown. I placed a hand on his shoulder and asked if he was alright.

“I’m okay,” Amari replied in a small voice, his pained face unchanged. I stared at him for a few moments, waiting for him to tell the truth. “I guess…I’m just kinda disappointed that the school has something new to tease me with.” I squeezed his shoulder.

“You’re a rare beauty,” I told him. The corners of his lips pulled into a smile as we traveled to our next class.


Lunchtime finally came and I couldn’t be more ready. My stomach grumbled every so often as Amari and I strolled into the cafeteria. With our homemade lunches in hand, we found a small deserted table towards the back of the room. As we began to eat, a pretty blonde girl holding a tray came up to our table.

“Would you mind if I sat with you guys?” She asked in a high pitched voice. Amari and I looked at each other and shrugged. I personally didn’t see a problem with it, so we welcomed her to our table.

“Thank you,” She replied and sat down.

“Not to be rude or anything, but there are many tables with more ‘normal’ people you could associate yourself with,” I stated dryly.

“The truth is…well you see that man over there?” The girl pointed to Mr. Jones, who was sitting with other teachers across the cafeteria. I nodded and she continued. “That man is my father and I want to be as far away from him as possible.”

“Why is that?” Amari piped up.

“I hate him. He’s a cruel man. I saw what he did to you today. He’ll find your weakness and then pray on it,” the girl explained passionately, her eyes seemed to darken.

“Are you sure you’re not exaggerating?” Amari said skeptically. “I didn’t like what he did to me, but, rules are rules.”

“I know my own father! Ugh, let’s just drop it. What are your names?” she replied, frustrated.

“I’m Chotei and this is my best friend Amari,” I told her. Amari gave me a look. I ignored him and asked for the girl’s name.

“My name is Amelia Jones.”

By the end of the school day we had minimal homework, so Amari decided to accompany me on a few errands. My first stop was at the vet’s office to pick my German Shepard wolf hybrid. He had infection in one of his eternal organs and needed to overnight for treatment. Bo was big, strong, and four years old. The top of his body was black. His large, wolf-like muzzle was colored dark grey, along with his paws. His belly, chest and a portion of his legs were light grey. When I arrived to take him home, his amber eyes sparkled at the sight of me. The vet handed me a leash and I connected it to Bo’s dark blue collar. Bo became even more exited when he saw Amari sitting the car waiting. I walked up to the car and opened the back door of the car. Bo jumped in the back and began to lick Amari’s ears.

“Hey! Stop that, Bo!” Amari yelled between giggled. I chuckled lightly and sat down in the driver’s seat. I started the engine and we began to make our way to my apartment.

I opened the door to my apartment and let Bo off his leash. Amari followed me in as I dropped my backpack on the floor. I spotted a yellow note on the coffee table, left by my brother. The note read he would be late today because of an unexpected soccer practice.

“My brother will be out for awhile, what do you want to do,” I asked him.

“I want to talk,” Amari replied in a voice lower than I would have liked. The two of us traveled to my room. I gazed into Amari’s eyes.

“What is it you want to talk about?” I asked him, feeling a small amount of dread in the pit of my stomach.

“I want us to be more than just ‘best friends’,”Amari proclaimed sternly.

“We already are,” I said simply. His eyes pierced into mine.

“Then why –”

“It’s hard to explain. It’s easier to say ‘best friends’,” I tried to explain. He advanced towards me until he stood right before me.

“Don’t you love me?” He whispered. I nodded slowly. I wasn’t going to lie to him. He smiled, tilting his head to the side. He leaned in and I felt his lips on mine. His arms snaked around my body to pull me closer. The heat of his body made me feel warm and safe. It is a feeling only Amari can bring out of me. After a moment, I pulled away before he received the wrong impression. He sighed and waited for me to speak.

“I’ll take you home. Your parents will become worried soon,” I told him softly.

“Sure,” he replied quietly. With that, we exited my apartment and climbed into my car to take him home.

A/N: Hope you liked it. Please review! ^_^