--Eli--

As soon as I had come down the stairs, I was immediately tackled by three little kids that clung to my legs like Velcro. Two girls and a boy; half my siblings. And I couldn't be happier.

"Cheska, that's enough." I warned her, ruffling her pigtails, "Keito, Mari, you're going to rip my pant legs!"

This was a normal day in my life; me being Elias Kevin Greene. I'm sixteen years old and the middle child in my family of seven, and today I was getting ready for my job at the library. I'd been working there for about a month now, but somehow my three-year old twin siblings Keito and Mari couldn't quite understand why I kept leaving every other day at two in the afternoon.

"Eli, where you going?" Keito asked, a giant grin on his face.

"To work." I answered, gently prying the little tank of a toddler and his sister off of my leg.

"Where's work?" Mari asked, cocking her little brunette head.

"It's just across the street." I replied quickly.

Cheska began to whine, "Eli, I don't want you to go! You're my favorite brother! Plus, when Saph babysits she locks us in our rooms while she talks to her boyfriend."

I raised an eyebrow, "You mean Oliver?"

"Yeah!" Cheska affirmed with her typical attitude, nuzzling into my leg even though she was too old for it, "Please? If you go, it'll be torture!"

I pried her off as well and kneeled down so I stood at her height, "Ches, you're twelve. By mom's rule you've got to listen to Saph. I'll be back by six."

Cheska huffed and crossed her arms, "How can that stuck-up girly girl be your twin sister, anyways?"
I laughed and kissed her forehead, "I don't know, but I'll see you soon."

I stood up and walked into the kitchen where my sister, Sapphire, was touching up her makeup and my brothers Hunter and Nathan were throwing a football back and forth over her head. I walked up and tapped Saph on the shoulder, causing her to look behind her with a raised eyebrow and the ever-so judgemental look she was known for.

"What do you want?" She sneered, flipping her jet black hair over her shoulder; her name-worthy eyes filled with annoyance.

"Love you too, Saph." I muttered under my breath, "Anyways, um, I..." I scratched my head and swallowed the lump that was starting to form in my throat, "I wanted to...you'd consider yourself an expert on girls, right?"

Suddenly, everything in the house came screeching to a halt. Nathan held his football at a weird angle and Hunter stopped whooping at the top of his lungs. Saph's eyes widened in surprise and she dropped the tube of red lipstick that she'd been using. Even Cheska and the younger twins shut up completely.

"What," Saph asked, looking me up and down like I was a five headed monster that had just crawled out of the Black Lagoon, "Did you just ask?"

"Did you seriously just ask about girls?" Hunter asked, more confused than usual.

Nathan smirked and leaned on the counter, wiggling his blonde eyebrows and smirking, "I guess we all know what this means!"

Cheska jumped up and down, "Ooh! Eli's got a girlfriend! Eli's got a girlfriend!" She sing songed happily.

I shook my head, "Whoa, whoa, no! Just...no! You people have the wrong idea all together! I don't have a girlfriend!" I defended, waving my hands, "At least not yet." I added under my breath, "There's just...someone that I need help with, okay?"

Saph stood up from her chair and got so close to my face that her nose touched mine. It was a good minute before she asked, "Eli, now I want you to tell me the truth and nothing but the truth, am I clear?"

I nodded and tried averting her gaze, "Yeah, sure, Saph. Whatever."

She narrowed her eyes, the violet eyeshadow she had put on making her blue irises pop, "I will have none of that sass from you, little brother." She backed away a bit and grabbed me by the collar, pulling me in so that our noses touched again, "Why are you asking me if I'm an expert on girls, Elias?"

I felt my face flush red out of embarrassment, "Well, you see, there was a bet--"

Everyone in the room groaned--save for Keito and Mari, who had found interest in a couple of wooden blocks that were lying around.

I shrugged my shoulders and threw up my hands, "What? What did I do?"

Hunter sighed, "Man, can't you ever just say 'no' to a bet?"

I felt my face deepen to a shade of crimson, "Hey! It's not my fault! Dylan said I couldn't ask out this girl that I've liked for a while now and--" I stopped talking after I realized what I had just said.

Nathan smirked again, walking up to me and gently elbowing me in the hip as he winked, "Oh, so it is about a girl! Can I get an 'I was right'?"

I groaned, "Okay, Nathan, you were right. I have a...crush." I nearly choked and threw up at the same time as I said the word. It never felt quite right in my mouth. "There. I admitted it. Now can you tell me how this works? Do I use some sort of pick up line or something?"

Nathan nodded next to me with a snicker, "Oh, yeah. Girls love it when you use pick up lines!"

Hunter snorted obnoxiously, "Especially when you do this." He walked up to Nathan and held him at a forty five degree angle and staring deeply into his eyes. This was the weirdest sight I had seen in this family--which is saying something--to see my nineteen year old beast of a brother holding my seventeen year old twig of a brother like a princess. It left me on that fine line of wanting to burst out laughing or hurl out the window.
Hunter took a deep breath and cleared his face of any and all expression as he talked in a husky voice, "Baby, is your daddy a baker? Because you sure got a nice set of buns!" The two boys then collapsed onto the floor, guffawing like the complete and total idiots that they could be at times. Not knowing what to do, I just raised an eyebrow.

Saph, however, did not take it as lightly. She let go of me and stomped over angrily to our brothers, backhanding both of them across the face and then picking them up by their ears. You could practically see the veins bulging in her forehead, "YOU TWO ARE COMPLETE AND UTTER DISGRACES TO THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE! DO I EVEN HAVE TO EXPLAIN TO YOU BOYS AGAIN WHY THIS IS THE REASON THAT THE BOTH OF YOU ARE SINGLE?!" She ranted with unbridled rage.

Hunter raised his hand like a little schoolboy, "Actually, there's a girl that--"

"Shut. UP!" Saph yelled, causing her older brother of three years to whimper.

Now, you would it think that someone as big and strong as Hunter would be scared of a sixteen year old fashionista like Saph, but you've never seen my sister when she gets truly angry. That girl can do anything from break bones to pop someone's eardrums--with her fists may I point out--in a fit of rage. Her threats were never to be take lightly. The last guy that did had to be admitted to the Emergency Room for two black eyes, internal bleeding, ten staples stuck in both his arms and severe blood loss from various cuts. Bottom line: Saph was not to be messed with.

She then looked at me and smiled with false sweetness once the point had been gotten across to Hunter and Nathan. Saph walked up to me and put her hand on my shoulder, "Eli, as for advice on girls, I have close to none."

I raised an eyebrow at her this time, "Really? That's it?"

She giggled in a complete mood swing from the monster she had been only moments before, "Oh, Eli, you're so innocent. I can't tell you how to win over one specific girl. If you want advice about the female gender in general, I have only one piece of advice: be true to who you are. That'll earn her respect."

I huffed, "Again, really. Who I am is a boy with a part time job at a library because he actually likes to read; more specifically about the medical field because he aspires to be a doctor. Not only that, but I play card and board games in my spare time and I can't say 'no' to a bet. I have 'geek' written all over me."

"Hey," Saph chided gently, "Some girls, whether you'd believe it or not--actually find that attractive and look for that in a guy." She picked a strand of hair off my shoulder, "Now, go get 'em, tiger; otherwise you'll be late for work."

I looked at the clock. It read 1:55. I quickly darted for the door and said a quick 'bye' to everyone; giving Keito, Mari and Cheska quick kisses on the forehead. I sped out of the house and across the street towards the place where I worked: The Raiman Library.

Now when you think of a library, you may think of a big and fancy building with a bunch of books, right? Well, our library was two out of three. It was basically a hulking mass with a sulking roof; held together with little more than duct tape and willpower. At first glance, one might think this more of a condemned building than a library. I'd been working here for about a month and a half to start saving up for college. The pay was less than perfect, but it was at least a start.

As I walked through the once-grand doors of the building, I was met by the ever-so annoying sound of Dylan chortling. That idiot.

Dylan Salem was my childhood best friend whom I had literally known since the both of us were in diapers. Dylan's a bit shorter than normal height with piercing blue eyes and mousy brown hair. Not really anything to look at, but he got a lot of attention for his weird, emo-style haircut. I didn't even see how girls liked it. It was just plain buckets of stupid.

"Hey, man." He greeted me with a fist bump and a cocky smile, "What took you so long, Eli?"

I walked to my place behind the information desk, "Well, if you absolutely have to know, Dylan, Saph wouldn't stop going on and on about her new boyfriend."

Dylan crossed his arms and snickered, "As in you asked her for advice because you have no idea how to talk to girls."

I groaned and sat in my chair behind the desk, "How'd you know? That was a perfectly plausible excuse!" I complained, slouching in the chair.

Dylan scoffed, "As if! You're a terrible liar. Plus you've got this thing where both your eyebrows raise and your nose twitches."

I laughed, "Okay, it's more than likely that I do raise my eyebrows, but you're lying about the whole nose twitching thing. There's no way I do that."

Dylan shrugged and walked over to me, resting his elbow on my desk, "You know what, if you want to be in denial, that's fine by me."

He looked like he was going to say more, but then a long white cane smacked in between the two of us. We followed it up with our eyes to see that the owner was none other than our boss, Mr. Chestnut. We couldn't tell how he was feeling or what he was thinking--mostly due to the fact that he was wearing black sunglasses over his already milky white, expressionless eyes. He smiled and waved his cane around, "Evening, boys!" He waved his cane in my direction, "You're cutting it awfully close, aren't you, Elias?"

I laughed and scratched my cheek out of anxiety, "My apologies, sir." I looked at him and laughed nervously, "You do realize that you can just call me Eli, right?"

Mr. Chestnut snorted and slapped his knee, "Hah! That's cute, Elias! I know that I could call you by your shortened name, but it's much more amusing to call you by your full name on account of how embarrassed you get."

I sighed and then rested my chin on my fist with a frown, "Gee, thanks, Mr. Chestnut."

He chuckled, "Anytime, Elias." He stopped himself and placed a finger on his chin, "Was that sarcasm again?"

Dylan nodded, then remembering that he was blind, spoke up, "Yes it was, sir."

We heard the door swing open with the clanky ding of the rusted bell that Mr. Chestnut had put up to help him tell when people came into the library. He leaned on his cane and said, "Duty calls, boys!" Before leaving, he leaned towards me and whispered, "It's that girl you've taken a fancy to, Elias. Now, I'm all one for fun and games, but you'll never know if you don't try."

I felt my jaw drop, but Mr. Chestnut promptly closed it and sauntered off without a care in the world. How could he of all people know? I wasn't that obvious, was I?

"Excuse me?"

I looked in front of me to see her. I didn't exactly know her name, but I did know that whenever her aqua blue eyes met mine, my brain turned to mush. I didn't quite get how she had white hair or anything, but I thought that she was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. And as a bonus, she'd been at the library every day since I'd started working there.

I looked around for Dylan, but he--like Mr. Chestnut--was hiding behind a bookshelf watching my progress. This meant she was actually talking to me. Without knowing what to do, I managed to say,"Uh...yes?" I put my elbow on the counter, and accidentally knocked over a stack of papers onto the floor. I cursed silently and walked over to the front of the desk, trying to collect all the individual sheets in my arms, but ended up dropping them all.

The girl looked at me worriedly, trying to stifle her laughter, "Do you need any help there?"

I scoffed as I tried picking up another stack of papers, but they fell out of my hands in the process, "Psh...no! This happens all the time!" I blushed as I realized what I had just said, "I mean, not all the time all the time, but enough. It's not like I'm that clumsy or anything--"

She laughed, "Dude, why don't I just help you?"

I was probably as red as a tomato by now, "That's...that's not really--"

It was too late. She was already on her knees and helping by handing me a stack of papers with a small giggle. I sighed and grabbed them, trying not to freak out as her hand brushed mine. She was so...warm. Then again, it was probably because she was wearing a hoodie in the middle of July.

As she handed me the next stack, I heard a snicker behind me. I looked at the bookshelf that Dylan was hiding behind to see him smirking idiotically, mouthing, 'I told you that you couldn't do it' between laughs. That infuriated me. I wasn't going to be mocked by my best friend; especially not in front of the girl I liked.

I took the next stack of papers and a deep breath, establishing eye contact with her and trying to remain calm. I set the papers up on the desk and held out my hand, "Hi, I'm--"

"Elias Greene." She cut me off, smiling.

I raised an eyebrow, "Yeah, but how in the world did you know that?"

She giggled and pointed at my chest, "Um...I don't know why I should be telling you this, but you're wearing a name tag."

Looking down at my shirt, I mentally facepalmed. Of course I was wearing a name tag; it was part of my job's uniform! I coughed and ran my other hand through my hair, "Oh, right. I knew that. I was checking to see if...you knew that."

She laughed, a clear pure sound that was almost every bit as much as beautiful as she was, "You're one funny guy." She then took my hand and shook it firmly, "I'm Seira. Seira Stardale."

So that was her name; Seira. A lovely name for a lovely girl...not that I meant anything by it. Man, was I sappy. At least I wasn't saying these things aloud.

There was a bit of silence after we let go, until Seira spoke up, "So, Elias,"

"Please," I said, taking the last stack and putting on the desk amongst the others, "Call me Eli."

"Okay, Eli," Seira corrected herself, twirling a lock of hair and taking something out of her pocket, "Can you do me a favor?"

I swallowed the lump that was forming in my throat, "Yeah, sure. Anything."

She leaned in until her lips were only an inch away from my ear, causing my heart to beat at about seven thousand miles per hour. She whispered to me softly, "Stay very still."

Initially confused by what she said, I looked at her quizzically as if to ask her what she meant without actually doing so. I never did get an answer, though. All I got was a needle jabbed into my neck and the entire world going fuzzy. Seira leaned in once more, uttering a single word.

"Sorry."

*                                           *                                               *

It felt like I had only blinked, but when my eyes opened, I was in a completely different room. Everything was blurry, and I felt like complete and utter crap. As my vision came into focus, I saw two figures arguing. One of them was Seira, and the other looked maybe a year or two younger than her with her orange hair tied into pigtails. I focused on them and was able to just make out what they were saying.

"I had to, Mia." Seira said, something flattening against her head and so sing else swishing behind her, "I couldn't take another chance. It was bad enough that Blake almost didn't join us. I couldn't risk the team being incomplete!"

"But it's against his rights, Seira!" I assumed this was Mia talking.

I heard giggling and a hushed conversation, but somehow I was able to listen to every word clearly.

"Hehe, looks like he's just gotten out of a dirt crash." A younger voice taunted.

Another huskies voice replied, "Aren't you a little too young to know that is?"

I blinked a few times and my vision immediately cleared and snapped into full focus. Not only was I able to see Seira and Mia, but I counted in total three other kids in the room. There was even one hanging from the ceiling by...a tail?!

I rubbed my eyes and blinked a few times to make sure I wasn't dreaming. Nope. This was real. A girl with purple hair, grey, fluffy ears and a matching tail looked at me. She raised an eyebrow and sighed, "Oh, look. The newbie's awake."

I warily sat up and looked back at her, "Who are you and where the heck am I?"

The boy that was hanging from the ceiling dropped down in front of me, jumping up and down and waving his hand crazily, "Ooh! I'm Seth; the girl over there with the frowny face over there is Ravenna; Blake's the big guy over there with the red hair; The girl with pigtails is Mia; and that's--"

"Seira." I muttered softly.

Seth's eyes widened, "Wow! Do you have esp or something?"

Mia sighed and crossed her arms, "Seth, it's ESP, not esp."

"I don't care! Do you have it?" He pressed.

I didn't answer him. Instead, I stood up and looked straight at Seira, "What was that thing you stabbed in my neck?" I asked, "I am a Syntorian citizen and I have the right to know!"

The Blake guy handed me a mirror and said, "Don't burst a vein."

I looked at my reflection and was met by a stranger with pale yellow hair, golden eyes and a pair of black, canine ears. Instantly, I smashed the mirror against the arm of the couch, sending glass everywhere. I growled--what the? "You are going to turn me back to normal and then I'm going to go back home! If you refuse to comply, I will gladly get the authorities involved, and--"

"If you join, Seira will kiss you." Ravenna said, resting her chin on her fist smugly--or at least I thought so. It was really hard to tell when she was that unemotional.

"What?!" Seira exclaimed, her face turning pink.

Mia nodded, "Well, you did sort of kidnap him like you did to Seth."

Seira stomped her foot angrily and pointed at Seth, "But I didn't have to kiss him!"

He looked at me with a smirk, "Because girls are icky!"

Seira looked around and everyone and sighed exasperatedly; gritting her teeth as she asked, "If I kiss you, will you join?"

I crossed my arms and laughed, "Really? Nice try. I'm not that much of a sellout. Besides, even if I do want you to kiss me, how will I know--"

I was cut off by her swiftly brushing her lips against my cheek. My knees turned to jelly and I fell unto the couch, "On second thought, maybe I could join you guys."