God, this is good stuff.  Comments and the like follow:

     His eyes, focused for so long on the distant horizon, took a
few seconds to center on the young woman standing before him.  Her
pink-lipped smile offset pale cheeks that disappeared around her
eyes.  Kenji felt thirsty looking at them; he imagined he could
drink deep at their edges if he had the confidence to ask.

Renaissance (Hereafter, Renny) certainly seems like a sensuous woman.  I like how your descriptions of her are slow and delibrate, underscoring how dream-like this is for him.

As he

took her image in, he felt something more, an energy.  As if she
was more a muse than Caravan had seemed.

This sentance strikes me as a little awkward, somehow.  I think it's the 'had seemed' - if he's comparing the two muses, it doesn't seem necessary.

     "Caravan," he absently murmured.  "And Miko."
     "I know them," the muse nodded.

So, is Miko real?  Interesting.

     He could see her neck warming as she read the words.  She
glimpsed across the classroom, and met Masao's gaze.  From the
other end of the classroom, the boy grinned, but not at anything
in particular.  And then Kenji realized his fatal mistake.  In his
rush to get to school, he had forgotten to sign the note.

D'OOOOOOOOOOH!

     "Bwaaaahahahaha!"
     "Thanks, Ichiro."
     "Nonono, thank you."  Ichiro wiped a tear from his left eye
with a flourish.  "I was having a boring day until now."

I like Ichiro.  He strikes me as a point of sanity in what's going on.  He's also the Standard Good Friend in the Magical Girlfriend genre, but more normal than most.

     "This can't go on," Ichiro muttered under his breath.  He
looked at Kenji, weeping, sitting like a gargoyle, prepared to
pounce, but never doing so.  Shaking his head in disappointment,
Ichiro turned toward the pair, and started walking.
     Three steps past the tree, he tripped, landing with purpose
exactly between the couple.

And this is why I like him.  He's really willing to stick his neck out for his friend.

     "Middlemost intellectual?"  Masao pondered the words.  As
realization dawned, bitter anger welled up from defeat.

I'm not getting the joke here.  ???

     "You need to work those cliches out of your system before you
get published," the lump chided.  "Or you'll be roasted by the
critics."
     "Oh.  Hi, Caravan."

No one quite says hello like Caravan.

     "Oh yeah.  I'm really mad at you right now."  The words
seemed less intimidating through a bite oatmeal cookie.

a bite OF oatmeal cookie.

     She looked at the bed.  "Can I have another cookie?"

Caravan is eeeevil.

     "Sure.  One last question, though."
     Caravan paused, standing in mid-stretch.  "Yeah?"
     Sunlight from the west-facing window burst through what must
have been an afternoon cloud; it filtered easily through the thin
white cloth draped over the girl's form.  Kenji's eyes dilated
slightly.  The golden ambiance blurred her; her inner details
faded, leaving only lean shadow blocking the retreating rays.
     As another unseen cloud smothered the sun, Caravan's body
returned to its normal shape, finding thin shade behind his shirt.
The gentle curves once shown in gold-soaked outline became
distant, subtle shadows barely rendered on plain white cotton.
     "Uh..." Kenji scratched his nose self-consciously.  "Nothing.
Shall we be off?"
     "You forgot, didn't you?"
     "No, it just wasn't important."
     "Do you know how long you've been staring?"
     Kenji turned to look for nothing in particular.  "I was
thinking."
     "Yeah, I know what you were thinking about."  The girl
glanced behind her at the window.  The sun was once again peering
tentatively from behind a particularly silver cloud.  "I thought
you were a one-woman man."
     "Huh?"  Even as he feigned ignorance, the blood coursing to
his face betrayed him.  As he warmed in a flush, Caravan's grin
grew, at once sympathetic and malicious.  She returned to a normal
standing position, lingering on the subtle poses between.  Her
arms remained extended, her weak fists wrapped around the ends of
the long sleeves.
     Kenji opened his mouth to defend himself, but the white-
shirted girl cut him off.
     "C'mon, playboy."  She brushed her bangs from her eyes.
"Let's get going."
     Kenji offered no objections.

Caravan's evil.  She may be a muse, but she's still quite human.

Of course, they have to be in a magical girlfriend story.  OMG almost fails on Belldandy's etherialness at times in the anime, but has Urd and Skuld to prop things up a bit. (IMHO)

     Kenji laughed nervously.  "We were just shopping for a couple
of new outfits for my cousin.  She's from the country, y'see, a
bit of a yokel, so she doesn't get much of an opportunity to shop.
Isn't that right?"
     Caravan nodded, her forced smile laced with a snarl.  "Yep,
that's damn straight.  Ain't never seen Tokyo like this 'fore."

Kenji will die.  Slowly.  Painfully.

     "I see."  A question begged, and was eventually asked.  "Was
it good?  The poem, I mean."
     Tanako shrugged.  "It was okay, I guess.  Nothing really
great.  But I'm not much for his type of poetry.  Too many weird
images."  She smiled.  "You could probably write a lot better than
him.
     Kenji forced a smile.

Oh, look, Kenji gets some free pain already.  Karma's a bitch. :)

Alltogether, truely fun to read and a treat.  Please, keep up the stories!

The Gentleman Caller
Pandering to Humanity's Lowest Common Denominator since 1999!
gcaller@hotmail.com

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