"Chill. You're going to scare the kid off, and it's not even her first day, Fumi," Melanie chided

"Kid!" Aaliyah sputtered indignantly. "I'm twenty!"

"Yeah, and you tell perfect strangers your name, destination and place of work. Just be careful that you don't fall off the turnip truck while you're at it," Fumi snapped.

"I..." she began, heatedly.

"Don't worry about him," came a deep voice from in front of her. "He's just mad because he's not wearing Gucci."

Fumi growled at the interloper.

Aaliyah looked up...and up to find the face of the guy who introduced himself as Jake, Melanie's boyfriend.

"You are so lame," Melanie teased as she removed the bag from the chair beside her. Sitting down, he quickly kissed her on the lips.

He leaned across Melanie to shake Aaliyah's hand. "It's nice to meet you. Any friend of Mel's is a friend of mine. I swear to you, this woman could strike up a lasting friendship in an elevator going two floors, so you can imagine that I have a ton of Twitter followers."

Aaliyah laughed at his silliness, feeling a bit less like an extra in The Hobbit as he put her at ease.

"Guchi is actually a pretty nice guy when he gets some sleep, but that just hasn't been the case for the past few days. They seated him beside a crying baby on the international flight.

Aaliyah winced, suddenly feeling empathetic towards the surly man.

"Then they gave him a roommate who snores," he continued.

Aaliyah grimaced. She felt his pain. Living with her last roommate had convinced her to invest in a large supply of earplugs.

"On top of that, they expect for us to be fresh and alert, and to work our tails off nonstop. It's a wonder that his name isn't plastered all over the newspapers. I can see the headline now. Fumi Kawaguchi chokes snoring roommate to death by stuffing dirty socks in his mouth."

"Don't tempt me," the other man returned, less heatedly this time. "I don't know which one made me suffer the most: The sleep apnea, the foot fungus or both."

"I don't know. I think you're being a little bit sensitive. After all, it didn't disturb me at all," Jake responded, his eyes twinkling maddeningly.

Aaliyah laughed along with the rest of them until what he'd said sunk in. "Fumi Kawaguchi?

"Yeah. What of it?" he asked, stiffening.

"This is going to sound lame, but did you ever live in South Carolina?"

"Yeah," he answered, removing his shades to peer at her quizzically. "I'm from this small town you probably never heard of."

"Winnsboro?" she asked, smiling.

He looked at her intently. "How did you know that?" he demanded.

"I knew you then," she explained. "We were friends. I even bugged you until you gave me a Japanese name. You were Fumi, and so I became..."

"Yumi!" he exclaimed, his face breaking into a broad smile as he dragged her into a standing position so that he could hug her fully.

Drawing back, he spanned her small waist in his hands, drawing her baggy sweats closer into her body to outline her surprisingly lush figure. "You grew up nice," he deliberately drawled."

"Well, I'm not the only one. You grew like a weed, Hayseed," she teased.

Sitting down, they shut out the world and started exchanging information on their mutual acquaintances.

Peering into the screen of Aaliyah's phone, Fumi laughed. "Unbelievable! That guy was the biggest bully in the sixth grade."

"And that would be about the time he stopped growing, as well," Aaliyah told him, nodding in agreement at his assessment of David Messenburger's personality back then. "What can I say? Karma's a beast."

Fumi laughed, mussing the curly pony tail she wore on the top of her head.

Melanie cleared her throat. "I hate to break up the happy reunion and all, but they've just called our flight. We have to go."

Fumi reached down and grabbed Aaliyah's carry on, as well as his own, and took her hand as they boarded the plane. Whatever serendipity that had brought them together in the first place continued, as they were soon seated side-by-side in the first class section.

Aaliyah tingled with excitement. This incredibly fine specimen of man was her old friend, Fumi, and from the way that his eyes continued to admire her figure, he seemed to find her attractive. It didn't seem likely, but she reasoned that the least she would get out of this was a renewed friendship. As for anything more, well, with three hours ahead of them and nothing better to do than to become re-acquainted, anything was possible.

"Now this," thought Aaliyah, is how you start the summer off right!"

___________________________________________________________________________

I hope that you are enjoying the story so far. If you want to know whether Aaliyah continues to grow up nice, then please be sure to read her story in Amended Hearts on the Amazon website.

http://www.amazon.com/Amended-Hearts-Chiming-Noelle-Vonham-ebook/dp/B00J1AO7UO/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395128962&sr=1-1&keywords=amended+hearts