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ok this post is kinda huge >< but you seem to demand a lot so thats good right? ninja

“Mom! Kan's here! I'm leaving!” Tanya shouted.

Without waiting for a reply, Tanya left the house and met Kan as he came up the walk.

Kan looked up almost eagerly as Tanya trotted down the walk. He escorted her to his car and even held the door open for her.

“Thank you, Kan,” she told him.

Kan just nodded.

Kan seemed to have a lot on his mind, so Tanya let him think. When they got to the theater, and he still hadn't said anything, Tanya felt obliged to ask.

“Kan? Anything the matter?” she inquired.

Kan was jerked out of his reverie.

“Hmm? No, just thinking,” he told her.

“What about? And don't say “This and that, everything and nothing,” she warned.

Kan smiled. “You know, this is the first time I've ever asked a girl out,” he said.

Tanya was astonished. “Really?”

Kan nodded. “Really.”

“Have any girls ever asked you?” Tanya wanted to know.

“Quite a few, actually. I turned them all down.”

“Why?”

“They didn't pique my curiosity. I didn't have a burning desire to know more about them,” Kan told her.

“And you want to know more about me,” Tanya said.

“I do,” Kan said. “Let's go in.”

“Two tickets, please,” Kan requested at the ticket counter.

“I'm buying the popcorn,” Tanya told him.

“All right, then,” Kan replied, handing her a ticket.

“One large popcorn,” Tanya told the guy behind the snacks counter.

“$4.73,” he said.

Tanya handed him a five-dollar bill and got her change back, also receiving the popcorn.

They walked into the theater and got their ticket stubs from the attendant.

“Thank you,” they told him.

“So what exactly are you curious about?” Tanya asked Kan when they had
taken seats.

“I don’t really know,” Kan lied. “You’re just different from the other students, somehow.”

“Different, eh?” Tanya said.

“That's not an insult, coming from me,” Kan told her.

“Really? What is an insult?” Tanya inquired.

Kan thought. “If I call you a lemming, or say you're like everyone else,” he decided.

“Lemming?”

Kan shrugged. “Following the crowd, I guess?”

Tanya shook her head.

“Crazy person.”



Lemming? Lemming! Kan, you idiot! Kan beat himself up inwardly. Idiot! Stupid, stupid, stupid!

The movie came on and Kan watched, interested, for a while.

Humans find this amusing? He wondered, as a person was blown into a wall by
a random grenade.


Did Kan know what this movie was about before he came? Tanya wondered. Kan's face was twisted into an amusing, though not amused, expression.

Guess not.

She leaned over the armrest and touched his arm.

“Do you want to leave?” she whispered.

He turned to face her. “Do you?”

Tanya smiled, his almost perfectly white skin had a slightly unhealthy hue. “You paid for the tickets.”

Kan thought. “Sure,” he whispered.

Quietly, so they wouldn't disturb anyone, they left their seats and exited the
theater. They found the lobby deserted.

“Sorry,” Kan apologized, “That was kind of a bad choice for a first date.”

“Don't worry about it, I might have done the same thing,” Tanya consoled.

Kan opened the door to his car for Tanya and shut it after she got in.

“Where to now?” he asked, getting into the driver’s seat.

“Slushies? I'll buy,” Tanya asked.

“All right.” Kan started the engine and pulled out of the lot, aiming for the ice
cream shop that was a popular after-school hangout.

As they sat in their booth, Kan was silent, thinking.

What would happen if I tried to turn her? He wondered. What effects would the
dragon and unicorn in her aura have? Would they affect her, or me?

Tanya noticed the crease forming in his forehead.

“Kan? You sure you're all right?” she asked. “You seen preoccupied.”

Once again, Kan jerked out of his reverie. “Sorry, I guess I am, a little,” he
admitted.

“What about?” Tanya inquired.

Kan studied his cherry slushie, debating what to tell her. “Well, I guess I'm just hoping I don't slip up too bad,” he admitted.

Tanya smiled and leaned over the table. “Don't dwell on it,” she told him.

Kan watched her take a drink of her blue raspberry slushie.

When was the last time I had food? Kan wondered. He looked at his slushie. A
long time ago. He decided.

Cautiously, he took a drink of his slushie. I can almost taste it, he thought
sadly, careful not to let it show on his face. He studied the people in the shop, watching the mothers try to juggle ice cream cones and children, and older people sitting and reading the papers. How long ago was I turned? He wondered. Also a long time ago. He decided


Tanya studied Kan and sighed inwardly. What am I doing wrong? She
wondered.

Kan caught her mood. “C'mon,” he said suddenly.

“Hmm? Where to?” Tanya asked.

“Do you enjoy life in the fast lane?” Kan asked her.

“Sometimes,” Tanya said warily.

Kan smiled. “C'mon.”

Tanya followed him out to his car.

“Where are we going?” she asked again.

“Out for a drive in the country,” Kan told her.

Tanya buckled her seat belt and wondered what Kan was up to. Kan pulled onto
the highway and drove toward the country.

“Wait, Kan?”

“Yes?”

“You're not going to drive cross-country in this, are you?” she asked, eyeing the interior of the small sports car.

Kan laughed. “No, of course not.” He looked at her. “What’s the fastest you’ve ever driven?”

“Not much over 60,” Tanya squeaked. “What are you planning?”

Kan just smiled as he pulled onto a road in the country.

“Are you sure this is smart, Kan?” Tanya asked him.

“Why not? We need to do something to make our first date memorable.”

“It is memorable,” Tanya insisted. “Everyone remembers their first date.”

Meaning all humans, Kan thought, somewhat bitterly. A race to which I don't
belong.

“Well, there's still something I want to show you,” Kan said mulishly.

“Ok, then, lead on,” Tanya said.

You're dating Tanya to learn all of this stuff. Kan told himself. You don't know it yet, you're learning.

Kan drove to a small cemetery and pulled through the open gates, parking a little ways inside.

“Now we walk,” he said.

Tanya got out and walked beside Kan, slightly confused.

“Couldn't we drive down the main roads?” she asked.

“It's a little disrespectful to those who are resting,” he explained.

Tanya thought about the reply she was given.

“Still not confusing you?” Kan asked.

Tanya smiled. “Nope.”

Kan shook his head in wonderment. How could this human understand things that many immortals could not?

No, not human, merely mortal.

Kan reached an old oak tree in the middle of the cemetery and stopped.

“This it?” Tanya asked.

“Yeah.” Kan looked up into the tree's branches. “They say that every year, a
child is kidnapped and brought here to be killed, that vampires are taking revenge for when a band of humans took the only child to be born among them and killed her hundreds of years ago,” Kan told her. The legend was true enough, one child was kidnapped every year, the child was taken here as revenge, but it wasn't killed, quite a different ritual took place.

Tanya shivered.

“Scared?” he asked.

“No, I just got this really creepy feeling.” Tanya looked around. “Should we be here?” she asked.

Kan felt it too. “We have all the right in the world to be here,” he said loudly,
“There's nothing that says we can't be here.”

The feeling of the Shrine vampires receded, but didn't go away.

“I should get you home,” Kan said.

Tanya happily followed him back to his car. She looked at her watch.

“I don't have to be home for a few hours,” she told Kan, “We could do something else, if you want.”

Kan thought. “Hows about we just go the park and sit and talk,” he proposed.

Tanya accepted.

Kan drove to the park and parked the car. “So, what do you want to know about me?”

Tanya thought. “Why do you live with Mr. Mandala?” she asked.

Kan's face closed briefly. “I was...orphaned. Mr. Mandala found me lying in the street, bleeding from a wound I had taken.” Kan bit his lip and looked away, wishing he could say more.

“Oh,” Tanya whispered. “Sorry, if...you know...you don't-”

“No, no, it's fine, it's...it's nice that I can talk to someone about this.” Kan took a deep breath. “I've only ever been able to tell Jaya, and, well...you know him.”

Tanya made a face. She could imagine what Jaya would do if someone tried to talk to him about something serious.

“So, Mr. Mandala found me, saw that the wound wasn't too bad, and took me to the police station. I was put in a foster home until Mr. Mandala could file the adoption forms,” Kan finished. “It's kind of the short version.”

Tanya sat quietly for a bit, then she said, “So, you don't remember much of your childhood?”

Kan shook his head. “Not really,” he lied. In fact, he remembered everything. Every event, every sound, every smell.

Tanya decided to poke Kan, trying to lighten the mood. “So,” she asked, “What were you curious about?”

Kan smiled. “Hmm...well...Why so many of your best friends are seniors, for starters.”

Tanya made a face. “Easy, other kids in my grade are idiots,” she told him.

“Your favorite food?”

Tanya smiled. “Sugary stuff.”

“Favorite color?”

“Purple.”

“Flower?”

“White rose.”

“Animal?”

“Hmm...cats.”

“Any specific breed?”

“Umm...no, not really, wild or house, I guess.”

Kan nodded. “What sort of childhood dreams did you have?”

“I wanted to be a ballerina when I was little, I still enjoy dance, but I don't want to make a career out of it.”

“What are some hobbies you have now?”

“Piano and chorus, biking, reading, just typical teenager type stuff,” Tanya told
him.

Kan disagreed. Many teenagers did not enjoy doing those things, they would rather go to movies and chase after pointless dreams. Was Tanya so enveloped in her own world that she failed to see how different and unique she was?

“It's about time I got you home, I think,” Kan said.

Tanya looked at her watch. Sure enough, it said it was 10:30, a half an hour until her curfew.

“We have some time,” she told Kan.

“Yeah,” Kan smiled, “But I want to give your parents a good opinion of me.”

Tanya smiled back. “Ok, then.”

Kan and Tanya were silent on the drive back to Tanya's house.

“I had fun tonight,” Tanya said as he pulled into her driveway.

Kan smiled. “See you Monday?” he asked.

“Yeah, see you.” Tanya stepped out of the car and walked up to her house, looking back once before entering.