A/N: This idea just struck me one night, so give it a chance if you wish; I'm not expecting much. Warning: Hiei might be a little OOC, depending on your personal opinion of him.
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho, or any of the names, characters, places, etc. therein. I don't own "teen help line" either. I probably own most of the callers… that would explain why they are calling in the first place. Other than that, I OWN NOTHING!
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SOMEBODY HELP THE HELPLINE!
Hiei quickly exited the door to Yuusuke's apartment. He still couldn't believe he'd let Kurama convince him to go over with everyone for the evening. Five minutes with the idiot, Kuwabara was bad enough, but how the fox had expected him to stay for two hours was quite beyond the fire demon's comprehension. "Hn," Hiei mused out loud but to himself. "At least the kitsune had enough sense not to follow me this time." With a last glance behind him to make sure this was correct, Hiei headed off down the street, bored enough to walk through town.
He had not been walking long when he heard a set of footsteps coming up behind him. Guess I spoke too soon… he thought, expecting to be caught by Kurama after all. However, he turned and was greeted by the sight of a teenage ningen boy, looking politely at him. Hiei blinked at the boy, who had not spoken yet due to catching his breath, and just waited there, amused, for the teen to speak.
After another moment, the boy finally did catch his breath and powers of speech. "Hey, I'm Joe, I volunteer for the Teen Help Line we run at the school here," he began, pointing behind him towards the high school, "and we're short a couple of phone runners tonight, so I'm gathering anyone from the community who'd like to help out and take some calls for a few hours." After finishing his seemingly well-practiced spiel, Joe took a deep breath and looked pleadingly at Hiei.
The fire demon blinked again, not exactly sure of what the ningen just said. Phone… oh, that talking machine the fox is always on… that doesn't seem hard, he thought. Hiei smirked to himself, figuring he was bored and could take the time to mess with a few ningens at least. "Hn… fine," he responded, nodding apathetically.
"Great!" the teen exclaimed, grabbing a startled Hiei's arm, and dragging him off towards the building behind him. Hiei was thankfully too surprised and amused to retaliate against the assault. He was lead through the double doors, and down a hallway, around a corner, and to a smallish room inside the building, in which were set up several tables and chairs. Also, of course, on the tables were set five phones, with notepads and snacks. As Joe led them both inside, three teens that were already inside and seated in chair talking to each other stood up quickly.
"Great!" one exclaimed while gathering her belongings and heading for the exit.
"Good work, Joe!" said another, following the girl towards the doorway and giving Joe and Hiei a big grin and a thumbs-up sign.
The third teen ran for the door, promptly glomping Joe and shaking Hiei's hand, crying, "Thanks man, I've been here for HOURS, and these kids are driving me NUTS!" He thus immediately dashed out into the hallway, yelling something like, "I'm FREE!!"
Hn, ningens, Hiei thought to himself with a certain disdain. Before he knew it, the room was empty besides Hiei and Joe, and Joe was looking around making sure everything was set.
"Ok, well, I have to be on my way," Joe began, picking up the last bag left on the table. "So… I'm going to go now, so have fun, answer the phone, if you have trouble call that number!" Joe said all in about two seconds' time as he ran out the door so fast he nearly tripped over his own two feet. The number he pointed to was half worn off the corkboard hanging on the wall.
Hiei took a seat in one of the chairs, putting his feet up on the tabletop, resting his hands behind his head. "Hn." He closed his eyes a bit, thinking to himself that, with no baka ningens around, sitting in the room wasn't all that bad. In fact, it was a bit relaxing.
Then, the phone rang.
Silently cursing Kurama for dragging him out of his tree, Hiei picked up the phone's receiver. What was it he said? Oh, "Moshi-moshi," Hiei said into the microphone. He waited a few seconds, hearing no response, and wondered if he'd done it wrong. He repeated the phrase, again waiting, until he heard someone breathing. He whirled around in his chair to see to whom the breath belonged; searching the entire room before realizing the sound had come from the phone receiver's speaker in his hand. But before he could inquire as to the caller's respiratory issues, Hiei suddenly became aware that his chair seat moved without him doing much to the wheels. To test his growing curiosity, Hiei turned his upper body in the chair, now ignoring the apparent prank callers, and was surprised to find that the top half of the chair did indeed move on its own. Since Hiei has never sat in a swivel chair before, he found this most interesting. So interesting that, without bothering to hang up the receiver or even put it down, he pushed on the table's edge, and spun around, and around… A smirk grew on his face as he was coming as close to fun as he truly ever gets while not killing something. That is until he realized the fatal flaw to his perfect little game.
He was still holding the phone.
Now tied up with the stretched-to-its-limits phone cord, Hiei carefully swung around the other way on the chair to free himself. This done, he listened to the speaker for a few more seconds before giving up and hanging the receiver back up. "I KNOW it's supposed to talk BACK," he said out loud to the empty room. No sooner had he hung up the phone, however, than it rang again. "Hn," was all he had to say this time, as he picked up the receiver and put it to his ear.
"…Hn?" responded the voice on the other end. "Is that all? Is this the help line?" The person sounded not only upset, but also frustrated. And female.
Intrigued by this fact, Hiei decided to play along. "Hai." He didn't even bother to hide the amusement in his voice as he spoke. Maybe this night WILL prove interesting, he thought, putting his feet back on the tabletop.
"Ok, good…" the girl started, then, began... to… cry… "My name's Jena… and my boyfriend's a BAKA!" with that last line, she started crying in earnest, exaggerated sighs and wails and everything.
Hiei fell out of his comfy swivel chair in classic anime style. Even while he was on the floor, he could hear the loud sobs and whining of the girl caller, even though the phone was dropped over the side of the table and dangling. Getting himself together and sitting back on the chair, he held the phone a few inches from his ear so as not to go deaf. After trying to calmly quiet the girl several times, Hiei finally just shouted, "SHUT UP!!" into the phone.
There was a sudden silence on the line. Then a sniff. After a moment or two more, in which Hiei seethed with annoyance, Jena finally spoke up again. "Wh-What did you say?" she asked in a very small voice.
Hiei growled to himself then said evenly, "I said to shut up, onna, I couldn't stand your whining. Quit crying and go kill the boy if he bothers you so much."
There was again a silence. "Are you serious?" Jena asked.
"Hn, I never joke, onna," was all Hiei deigned respond before hanging up the phone, not even waiting for Jena to say anything more. He shook his head, rubbing his temples a bit as the call had given him a bit of a headache, even short as it had been.
While waiting for the next call to come through, he decided to do some training and exercises with his katana since no one was around anyway. Not long after starting, however, the phone rang once again, causing the fire demon to growl slightly in annoyance then smirk deviously as he now had another chance to bother an unsuspecting ningen. He picked up the phone.
"Hey, is anyone there?" said a slow spoken voice on the other end of the line.
"Hn," Hiei replied, again taking a wait-and-see strategy.
The person on the line sighed deeply. "I'm so damn bored, man!" he said with a whine. "I just need something to talk about, dude… got any ideas?"
Hiei thought about this seriously for a minute. Then, with a trademark smirk, and his feet rested back on the tabletop once again, he began a long conversation about the proper methods for tormenting and torturing young children… after they have been stealthily kidnapped from their protective custodies, of course. When that finally played itself out, the boy having asked many questions for clarification, they began discussing fighting methods involving swords. Hiei was actually impressed by the kid's knowledge in the area, and enjoyed the talk up until his newfound phone-buddy had to go to bed and stop chatting.
"Hey, night dude, been fun. Nobody else around talks like this; definitely calling THIS line again tomorrow night," said the teen as he hung up the phone.
Hiei snickered as he hung up his phone as well. "Hn… that was certainly amusing," he said, again to the empty room. Briefly, he considered coming back on another night before quickly dismissing the thought. He had better things to do than sit around helping ningens with their problems. Even thought that's exactly what he HAD been doing for the past hour and a half.
While waiting for another call to come through, the curious fire demon decided to experiment some more with this chair that rolls. He spun around a few times then pushed off the table's edge once more, which propelled him and the chair across the floor of the room. Not expecting the kind of easy movement those chairs have, Hiei soon found himself dumped onto the floor instead of rolling smoothly across it… which his new toy still was. He growled slightly, creatively cursing the chair's inability to keep a hold of him while moving. Getting up again, he walked over to the chair and grabbed a hold of it, stopping it and yanking it over to him. "Hn…" He sat down on the seat once again, swiveling it so that he faced the wall, then pushed off hard with his feet, rolling and spinning across the floor until he hit the other wall. He continued this for the next half hour or so, amazingly entertained.
So amused was the little fire demon, he almost didn't hear the phone ring again, showing that another teen was on the line. He sighed slightly, not entirely ready to give up his new game. But he rolled on over to the table anyway, and picked up the receiver once more. "What," was all the greeting THIS caller received.
"…He-hello?" came a sniffley, tentative reply. "I-is anyone there?"
Hiei growled. Another crying ningen; when would it end?! "Yes, fool, I'm here. What do you want?" he sneered into the microphone. He was still a bit annoyed to have been taken from the fun of playing with the chair.
There came a heavy sigh from the caller. "My name's Kaia, and… I just don't see the point in living anymore!" Kaia sniffed again, then blew her nose loudly.
Hiei held the phone away from his ear as the girl produced a sound that would rival a foghorn. "Hn… you what?"
"I said I want to kill myself," Kaia answered, seemingly annoyed and hurt that he had to ask her again. "Have you got anything to say to me?"
He thought for a moment, in which Kaia sniffed again several times, eagerly awaiting some pearls of wisdom from the counselor she supposedly called. "Nope," he said, and hung up the phone. Though he couldn't see her directly, he imagines the distraught girl just sitting by her phone, staring at it in shock. He snickered aloud. He picked the receiver up again, as it rang again right away. He looked at the clock; it was probably the last call he'd have to take. "Hn?"
"Hn," said a voice on the other end.
"Hn?" Hiei said again, perfectly understanding what the boy had said.
"Yeah, I mean it. I'm so damn mad I just want to KILL someone, chikuso!" the angry boy replied. "So," he continued with a sigh, "I suppose now you'll tell me that I need to take care of my anger, that killing is wrong, or some bull like that, right?"
"Of course not, baka," Hiei snapped. He then launched into a near seminar over the phone of thousands of methods to kill people; who the easiest targets are; what kinds of tools would be needed, and exactly how to not get caught. By the end of the conversation, the boy, who never gave his name, had quite an arsenal of knowledge, and seemed quite prepared to do just as Hiei had instructed.
"That's great… with that plan, I can't lose." And with that, the last caller hung up the phone, and presumably headed off to plan his perfect murder. All because of Hiei.
Hanging up his phone for the last time, Hiei rolled around in his special chair a few more times before leaving the building out the window, and heading back to his comfortable tree in the forest.
"Where did you go off to tonight?" asked a soft voice from beside the base of the tree. A moment later Kurama stepped into view.
Hiei leaned his back against the trunk of the tree. "Hn, nowhere," he replied. He closed his eyes, smirking to himself as the fox shook his head and walked away. Perhaps I'll do that again sometime… he thought as he allowed himself to fall asleep peacefully.
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A/N: So there you have it…. Sheesh, what havoc that little bishie can wreak, ne? Hope you enjoyed it. Please review! This, as I said, was written as a one-shot, but I have a second part in mind if enough people ask for it. So………. Go review!
-Draith
