My Unexpected Valentine
Written by fallen-sylph
~ Valentine's Day is on its way! And it's going to be a very special event for lovey-dovey couples around the world and in---Spirit World? Yes, you heard it right and why in Spirit World because our all-time favorite, perky grim reaper got an unexpected Valentino. And of all people, who have expected it was going to be him and not the other one.
"I'm glad to show you what those new priorities could make me do, if you care to try."
-Kurama (Episode 47)
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Out of his boredom, he flung himself into a wicker wooden chair. After a rummage look around him, he let out a grunt like a sleepy bear that has been prodded by a stick.
"How the hell, do you stand living in a place like this, huh?" Yusuke ruefully asked, glaring at the innocent-looking demon, sitting on the floor with the other ones.
It was a full house in Genkai's place. Yusuke and the others paid a visit to her on that specific weekend. As what the old-hag demanded, it will be nice of them if they come over once in a while, at her temple. Since she always reasons out that in no time she'll get going---often the most formidable aphorisms of mortals in their declining years so after Yusuke came back from the Demon World, the gang was used lending a time to go at Genkai's place every once in a week.
"For almost two years, you stayed here together with an exotic grandma in a temple built in a place, nowhere to be seen in the map," Yusuke commented acidly. "It's even worse than being stuck in Makai. And to live with Genkai's the last thing on earth, I'm going to wish---"
"Hey kiddo," Genkai's voice suddenly roused in the room. "I hear you spitting out your sweet string of epithets on me."
"How the devil---"he stopped and bit his lips. "I thought she was in the other room, making tea."
"No doubt, she heard you," Kuwabara said. He was beside Yukina, coaching her as she plays cards with the other girls---probably he was just making his 'lover-boy' moves to the naïve, turquoise-haired demon.
Too bad, the little three-eyed demon wasn't there, Yusuke thought. It will be a total mayhem if he sees a 'first-class fool' as what he referred to Kuwabara, trifling with his beloved young sister. With a shame, he sighed.
Hiei never showed up in these reunions even once though the fox boy was assured that he was telling the little demon about their little gatherings in Genkai's place, every time he drops by to Makai. Yusuke gazed at the red-haired, half-youkai, leaning at the wooden wall, holding a book in his hand---he was reading the damned thing since they were in the station. And Yusuke was getting irritated with it; Kurama was one of the few people in the world who could be content in life by just reading books. What kind of amusement could a collection of printed sheets (referring to the book) can give you, was the thing Yusuke couldn't understand. For his standards, a book is just a scrap. (No wonder, he didn't finish high school *sighs*)
Away from the half-youkai, he turned his eyes to the group of people sitting on the floor. Along with his goofy-friend, Kuwabara and the ice apparition, Yukina, there were still two girls' playing cards with them. Beside Yukina was a girl with brown locks and oculars. Yusuke should admit it's the first time she stupidly recognized Keiko's long hair. It was her scowls and threatening of killing him if he goes back to the Demon World, were the things he was paying attention to since he got back. In the Demon World, nobody dares to do that. It was stupid, but he did miss her scowls.
Anyway, next to Keiko was another girl. This time, it was a blue-head girl with amethyst eyes. She was Botan, Koenma's bubbly assistant, who also happens to be the grim-reaper which really doesn't fit the characteristics of the famous "death" or "angel of death".
There were seven of them in the temple including his master, Genkai. Apart from them Hiei, who wasn't always there, Shizuru and Koenma partly never showed up after their first visit on Genkai's temple and that was when he came back from the Demon World. Kuwabara mentioned, Shizuru was busy on her new-found job and the buffoon doesn't even know what it is. About the little toddler, if anyone's curious about him. He's back stamping his files happily together with his faithful blue ogre and the rest was probably sucking up his absurd blue pacifier. Botan said that the Great King Enma was already preparing Koenma in taking over his place, someday. And that means having a lot of hard works---and more papers to stamp on. Oh man, one day the Spirit World will be ruled by a baby! How devastating.
"Oh man," Yusuke moaned. "I cannot do something exciting like kicking demon's butts and tails!" Rising from his chair, he did a mock karate kick and a couple of punches in the air---knocking down the chair in the same process. "This is pathetic…"
"Oh, Yusuke, shut up!" Keiko turned to him, grimacing. "It just been an hour since we came and you're already bored. How pathetic is that? Why don't you find something good to do, instead?"
"Yes, right," he said cynically. "What? Play stupid cards with you or stick my nose under a book," he rolled his eyes to the crimson-head near him then looked back to Keiko with an eyebrow arched. "Huh? I'll just waste my precious time on those things."
The devious remark on him pulled Kurama out of his serene reverie he had with his book. He clutched the volume near his chest and slyly shot back, "Naturally. But at least what I'm doing is something ethical, right?"
Yusuke made a growling noise. How he hated it, when Kurama starts blurting those simple but terribly irksome speech. Past experience had taught Yusuke that it was best to ignore Kurama's shrewdness. Just what could he expect from a 1000-years old kitsoune but a bunch of foxiness---which always helps the lad to get past on anyone's defense. But every now and then, the approval of others to this fox, didn't improve his temper.
"Yeah, Kurama, what you're doing is something worthy unlike some person here whose brain is only filled with fighting and kicking monsters." Keiko said, addressing the phrase to Kurama but staring at Yusuke, with mere consternation.
"Quite right," Kuwabara added in, nodding his head with patronizing air.
"Bingo! Bingo! Bingo!" Botan jested, chuckling.
Yusuke couldn't help but to groan and avert his brown oculars to the one who's responsible for this indignity. The red-head returned his attention back to his book with a mischievous smirk plastered on his face, trying to hide it by blocking it with his high-valued tome, Yusuke was eager to pitch into a blazing fire.
"Okay! Okay! Just stop it!" he demanded, annoyed. "I hate being tag-team."
Acknowledging his defeat, he picked up his chair and plopped down into it. "Tomorrow, I swear I'll lock myself up in my apartment and sleep all day. That is what I called a time well spe---"
SPAK!!! A card out of nowhere smacked right into his face, flat. "OW!" he yelped out. The pain was so intense, he almost blacked out. And he just knew it; he knew who has the only guts to do such occurrence on him, the so-called 'boogey-man' of the youkais.
"Owww~~~ Crap! That damned card hit my face…" he cried. Trying to gain back his composure, he glared to the alleged culprit. Looking fiercely to his brown-haired sweetheart, he then whined, "What's that for?!!"
"Yusuke Urameshi! You are an idiot!!!" Keiko shouted in exasperation. "I just knew you would forget what tomorrow is!"
"Huh?"
Yusuke's dumbfounded response only made Keiko angrier. Color strained her cheeks, "You jerk! Ever since you came back from the Demon World, you have forgotten the things to be remembered here---"
"To be precise," Kurama wedged in, looking up from his book. "It's February 14, tomorrow."
"So what's the big deal, eh?"
"He's hopeless," Keiko groaned silently and was about to answer Yusuke and give him a blow-by-blow account of baste when Botan suddenly spoke out for her.
"Valentine's day, if I'm not mistaken," Botan said, placing the point of her index finger to her chin.
At last, after a couple of hints, it finally clicked on Yusuke's tumid head as well as Kuwabara's. He whirled around and faced his lady-love as he holds her hand, firmly. And with his ludicrous dazzling eyes, he met the rose-red eyes of the ice apparition.
"Oh, Yukina," he said with a feathery voice. "Would you go out with me in a date?"
"Date?" she inquired.
"Please…please…please…"
And with her usual sweet smile, she nodded. And the harlequin was all splendid and sparkling, basking with his new found glory.
Too bad for Yukina, she was too trusting, well-off, soft-headed and extremely unworldly that she agreed going out on a date with Kuwabara. Little she knows that she was going out with a complete jock.
"Really Yukina?" Kuwabara queried with a grotesque-puckered face.
"Sure, why not?" She declared, grinning.
That's what it is, Yusuke thought. Of course, that's what Keiko wants, how could he have been so neglectful? He gazed at Keiko and smugly said, "Jeez, Keiko, if you just want to go out with me, you could just say it to me---"
SPAK!!! (You know, another card flew into his face.)
"Jerk," Keiko moaned. She then turned his look at the sky-blue haired beside her, who seems to be enjoying the fuss of the sappy couple close to them, "By the way, Botan."
"Uhmm…" Botan turned to her.
"How did you know, we have an event here such as Valentine's?" She inquired with a curious look. "Is there an event like it too in Spirit World?"
"Nope, I just know it." Botan then added, biting off the words, "and someone told me about it."
"He's a boy, right?" Keiko hastily queried with a fond smile on her face. It was very obvious in Botan's remarks that she was seeing someone who had admire her affection. It was a simple female instinct as others would call it. "Did he ask you out?"
The deity made a face and was a quiet for a moment. Then she lowered her eyes and murmured, "Er…kind of."
Yusuke suddenly hooted, and caught the attention of others. "Whoa! Somebody really asked you out? Is this for real?" he chuckled, teasing Botan with his suggestive glances.
"So Botan," Keiko continued, ignoring Yusuke. "Who's the lucky guy and---"
An odd sound from one of the guys interrupted her. It came from a couple of steps away from her probably from Yusuke or Kurama. But her lover-jock was barely teasing Botan's topic. While Kurama's attention was fully in sympathy with his book and his lips were so tightly compressed they formed a single narrow line. It was hard to guess which of them made the strange sound so she chose to disregard it and gaped back to Botan but she was sure, it came from either one of those guys.
"Who's the guy?" Keiko repeated her question.
Botan stiffened. "Xie Xie Wakamaru," she admitted, tight-lipped.
"Xie Xie Waka---what?!!" Yusuke horned in.
"Xie Xie Wakamaru," Botan corrected.
"Xie Xie Wakamaru…hmm…sounds familiar," Kuwabara proclaimed. He prided himself on his memory, and then he remembered. "Xie Xie Wakamaru…oh my!!! That's Topsui Wakamaru, the good-looking punk from Suzuki's team."
"You mean the arrogant jerk who wants to be in the limelight," Yusuke gasped. "He really asked you out, Botan?"
"Yeah, he was the klutz who has a lot of freaking, annoying demon girl fans, and the one who also called this face of mine as inferior. Could you even believe he said that to me?" Kuwabara snorted in a sickening cocky voice.
Yusuke then bolted, "Kinda agree with that."
"What did you say?!!" Kuwabara retorted, indignantly.
Keiko sighed, "You guys knock it off! Were not blabbering about both of you." She scowled at the two buffoons, and then turned to Botan, "Now, Botan is it okay if you tell me who's this Xie Xie guy is?"
Botan nodded, lowering her head, "You see Xie Xie is the guy that Genkai defeated in the Dark Tournament. After it, he also joined in the Makai Tournament together with the other guys from the said Dark Tournament particularly with our two shin obis, Jin and Touya. And he made really good friends with them that he often visits the Spirit World to meet them after the tournament finished. So there are frequent times we usually see each other."
"But I thought he was interested in the younger Genkai," Kuwabara thought and blurted.
"I don't think so," Keiko shook her head. "He continues to usually go to the Spirit world saying he's there to visit his friends but he usually meets Botan there. It's too clear to know that if his interested on someone, its Botan."
"Oh?!! And what made you say such thing? Are you a fortune-teller now to tell what Xie Xie's mind thinks of," Yusuke said, sardonically.
"Simple, let me explain it to you, Yusuke Urameshi. It's because a demon like him didn't forget to ask his special girl out not like somebody here, not like you," she replied, sharply, adding a deadpan. "Makes me think demons are better than humans."
And that conceivably shut Yusuke's mouth. But his brows drew together in a scowl, following it with a grumble indicating his react.
"He's sweet and he likes you, Botan." Keiko smiled at Botan and took her hands gently in hers, "The remaining question here is will you go out with him?"
Everyone threw back their attention to the blue-haired deity. And there she was, holding her head down, twitching her lips and kept shifting her purple-pink eyes anxiously on something that was inside the same room in a particularly suspicious manner.
Botan shrugged, hesitating to answer. "Honestly, I'm not sure…uh…but…uh---"
At that moment, the half-youkai who was hushed in a corner suddenly excused his self out. He stood straight, leaning away from the wooden wall, he then opened the sliding oriental wall board and was about to stalk out when Yusuke called him.
"Where you going?" he implied.
"Helping Genkai," was Kurama's thoughtful answer.
Yusuke growled.
"Gee, helping her?" Yusuke shuddered. "If you're still angry with my comment about your habit just tell me. You don't have to make such meek excuse."
"No, I'm not. It's just that Genkai seems taking a long time making us a snack. Thought, she needed some help," he responded and then the merest smirk crossed his face. Kurama turned away and left, closing the divider behind him.
Yusuke whined, "Wish, he stop making that smile, it brings me the creeps---"
"…I don't know if I should go out with Xie Xie because I already like someone else," Botan softly murmured, pointing her eyes down---and completely disregarding the impression her remark made to her friends. "…but it seems that he doesn't care even a bit…"
"Good Heavens!" Keiko gasped, her eyes bugged out. "Don't tell me---"
……………………
He slid the clapboard open.
"Why this deviation from habit?" was the old woman opening statement to the young fellow in front of her.
The old woman has a dull pink hair and golden eyes but appears like ordinary dark pairs, Genkai, by the name. The world-renowned psychic known for creating a special, powerful technique called the Spirit Wave. The same technique she had passed down to her most preferred apprentice, an egotistical jock named Yusuke Urameshi. Of all people?
She placed down at the table, the tray which contains teacups and serving plates with different varieties of pastries. "Why are you here?" she now inquired, studying the red-head from head to toe with contemptuous amusement.
"I thought you needed some help," was the answer as he closed the wallboard behind him.
"Oh, I thought it was you who needed a certain help."
"Whatever, could you be talking about?" The red-head arched his brows and gazed at her with wide-eyed innocence.
"Don't try to change the topic, sneaky-fox." Genkai's eyes grew into narrow-slits, and then she sarcastically uttered, "You know perfectly well what I'm talking about."
"He-he, guess you can read minds too." He chuckled then got very serious, "Well, there is nothing I can do with it, right?"
"Actually there is. If you can just stop yourself from shutting you're damned mouth and tell her everything. Is that so hard to do?"
He drew a deep breath. No doubt, she was right. It would be much better if he tried to get his feelings out into the open and go along with Genkai's opinion but being a taciturn was an old-beaten path that was impossible for him to surmount. And to do such thing is much of a risk. There's no way of forcing or predicting what could happen next if he goes on with Genkai's suggestion. He can end up losing what he already have and it's too precious to risk.
He shook his head.
"Don't give me that damned as an answer. If you chose to just close your mouth then I'm telling you that you are making a fool out of yourself, letting go of something that you are capable of having---Hey, don't turn you back on me!"
"Genkai, do you know in why some people tend to keep certain things to them, because they want the special persons in their life to be happy." He snapped his head and a rueful lopsided grin appeared on his face. Then he mumbled the words, "…she deserves to be happy…"
He turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.
After the young tad was out of sight, Genkai drew her breath. "Well, another tough-headed guy we have here…"
………………………………
Wanting some alone with himself, he strode toward the front gate and went out. After a scouring look around him, he sank down on the stairs. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Tell it to her," those words echoed back to his mind.
"No, he mustn't!" the rigid thought was shouting in his mind but yes, he could. Heaven knows, how he been dying to tell those words out. But how? He couldn't, he just couldn't---he slouch his head in his hand. Is sealing his lips the very best thing he can do in order for him not to lose her companionship, her care---not to lose her in his side. Yet he knows that even if he controlled himself, he will still lose something---the chance of being loved by her. This despicably pathetic! He's pathetic!
"Kurama…" a voice broke his confounded reverie.
He spun his head around, and then he saw her. A young lady wearing a pink puffed sleeve shirt with lace collar, chocolate-colored vest and jeans. She jogged her way to him and sat beside him.
"What are you doing here, huh?" she inquired, her tinge of purple-pink orbs was rounded with pure innocence.
"Just thinking," he answered back. Fixing his gaze back at to the horizon, fearing his own face could betray himself if he look directly at her.
"Thinking again, I see," she remarked with a smile. "About what?"
"Nothing special."
He wasn't sure if he have declare his answer in an oddly sound or what but those two plain words without any sort of emphasis or drift did a remarkable effect on his companion's response. The smile on her face dissolved into a deep chuckle that got his complete attention.
Then when he turned his face to her, she surprisingly brought her face close to his and directly gazed at his eyes---their face was so near to each other that their noses were almost touching. Just one false move from either one of them would make his lips touch hers, so he did his best no to move as he gathered his wits to keep a straight face. Though he was sure he didn't show any slight remarks of anxiousness in his face (except by rolling his eyes repeatedly to avoid a look into one another's eyes) the girl gave him a calculating look then threw her head back and broke into hideous laughter.
"I just knew you would answer me in that way." She wiped the side of her eyes with a dainty finger and sobered. "Soft-spoken always."
The rays of the setting sun did remarkable things to her sky-blue hair and blushed, laughing face. A flower that had sprung up in the middle of an Alsatian den, as he describes her. Whatever situation there is or however dull a place can be, a single smile on her face could live it all up---a ray of ineffable light in a dark cellar. How wonderful she was made, he thought. If only he could---Stop! No more of that, the thought roared in his head. And tried to draw his attention back to her.
"Some things do never changed," she remarked as she turned her gaze to him and then shook her finger under his nose. "Like you, answering in a habit with only a word or two every time I asked you."
She drew up a deep breath and averted from him. Sticking out her legs on the stairs, crossed at the ankles then she giggled. "You never changed, even a bit. Kinda made me think that since we've met three years ago, we never had a chance to talk too much. Invariably terse, perhaps if not to others then to me for I am such a blabber-mouth. If I start a conversation I will never stop until my captive audience of one fall asleep. Remember, the time I blew the word 'hot' in the four house of dimension with Kaito which I paid with my soul. Then when I almost say to Kuwabara the connection between Yukina and Hiei and the---Woopsie! Sorry for that," she guffawed and rubbed the back of her head. "I'm starting again."
There was no reply from him. After a moment she mumbled, "That's why some people don't like me…"
That was weird, he thought as he glanced at her. What do she meant by that, it was very odd of her to mumble words like those. Is something bothering her, if there is then what is it. A loud voice then interrupted his thoughts. It was Keiko calling Botan.
"Botan!!!" Keiko shouted. "Were going to the seashore, won't you come with us?"
"Oops! I forgot," she held her lips. "Be there in a minute!" She shouted back, flexing her arms up to the sky then jumped off her feet. When she was about to stalk, her regard turned to the red-head, "Aren't you coming?"
"No," he answered and got off his feet. "I intended to stay here."
"Is that so," she smiled. "Well, I'd better go or they'll leave me behind."
Watching her slowly stride away from him, he couldn't help but feel a little sorry for himself especially when the girl's phrase knocked in his mind, "Invariably terse, if not to the others then to me." He was conscious of a ludicrous sense of annoyance inside him. He hadn't meant to upset her if only she knows how it would hurt so much when he himself had been caught unaware---he clenched his hands with a robust force that rattled his teeth.
She was about half-way from him when something in him urges his lips to move and utter, "Botan!"
The girl stopped and spun around, "Yes?"
"You are really a good companion and a great talker," he tried to grin. "And I would gladly want to talk to you again in some other time."
"Sure!" she smiled effervescently. "I'd love to."
After it, she went off in a trot. A feeling of undesirably confounded nuisance seems to wrap him like a dark black cloud. He lowered his head and bit his lips, still clenching his hands---his fingers was starting to turn pale and the tendons stood out like cords. Whispering to the air the words,
'…Somebody loves you, far more than you know. With a love that keeps growing as days comes and go. And he needs you to make like worthwhile…if only you know…"
………………………………
"That itzy-bitzy imp!" Botan was swearing again, walking briskly along the way. "He did allow me to go but that despicable little runt still gave me a bunch of work," she said, ogling at the notes she was carrying.
She just came from Koenma's office, with the aim of telling him about her schedule for that specific day (Valentine's Day) to be astounded that the baby already knew it. He did permit her to go, vouching that it wasn't really his decision but someone just wheedle him over to conclude such thing. Though the little brat did let her do anything she had on her mind for that day still he gave her a peal of duties.
Still staring at the notes, she began to wonder what Koenma told her that it was somebody else had assert him to consent her on going out. Well, that someone may be really an eminent individual to influence someone as hard-headed as Koenma in his decision. "Then who that person may be?" she inquired to herself.
Turning into a corner, there she beheld a familiar form. It was the height of a young man attired in a long-sleeve, Chinese-design shirt and dark pants. But it was the eccentric tint of his hair scarlet it is that completely notes her attention.
"Kurama-kun," she heaves to a stop and smiled at him.
Seeing her, the young lad came to a stop and turned to her. "Botan, nice to see you here. "Have you seen Koenma?" he abruptly inquired, apparently averting his eyes away from her.
"Sir Koenma in his office but his kind of busy, but we can---" she answered and was about to say something else when all of a sudden the crimson-head guy turned his back on her and left her without further reply. Trifle solicitous, is that what it is. No, Botan thought. Then why did he coldly left just like that. She wants to say something to him but he left all in a sudden.
"Kurama-kun…what's wrong…?" she mumbled.
………………………………
'…Although he needs your warm touch and the joy of your smile…He still wants you to be happy even though it means letting you go…So remember that always, somebody loves you and needs you---" he murmured, clenching his teeth. Praying he wouldn't turn his head and run back to her. "I do, Botan…"
…………………………………
Hunched over his desk, Koenma stopped when the egress of his office opened and a tad came in. Seeing him, particularly didn't surprise him, the tad have been habitually going back and forth in the Three Worlds reporting and knowing things that has been occurring there. Since, he wasn't really an average fellow he had the rights to do such thing especially that a part of him wasn't verily human but a youkai, a demon. The thousand-year old 'Legendary Bandit' Youko Kurama, to be precise with it.
Aware that this guy wasn't really there for his usual affair, Koenma started to talk. "After persuading me to let her go on some stupid date. Don't tell me, you're here to wallow me in your regrets and sentiments," he said, arching an eyebrow.
Lounging against the wall, he's hands in his pockets, the guy answered back, "Presumptuously, but no, I do not have nor a single compunction for what I have done."
"Well, well. There is only one thing I failed to understand. I do not understand why you chose to let her go with some guy rather than---"
"No, Koenma. It is hard to understand but it's what I like to do. I want her to be happy even if it means---"
"Being lonely yourself," Koenma sighed.
"Kind of," Kurama frowned. "I just hope, I won't run into her gain or else I may not be able to control myself anymore."
"Anyway," he broke off. "Genkai is here, she told me that she's looking for you."
"Here in Spirit World, but why?"
"I don't but she told me it was important."
"Then where is she?"
"Probably outside."
……………………………..
Walking along the façade, he still wonder why Genkai was looking for her and the most peculiar thing is how on earth did she knew he was going to the Spirit World. Does she really want to discuss something important or is it about the confounded subject he have settled with her yesterday.
He had no intention of telling it to her, it is final. He still wasn't a hopeless romantic or a fool to completely fall in love with a girl who doesn't love him, and he knows Youko was conclusively in favor with this verity. He wouldn't admit his feelings unless if she miraculously show some token of returning them. And veraciously, so far he doesn't seem to be making such progress, utmost gratitude for his laconic outlook.
Anyhow, if Genkai was wants to hanker him on doing it, she's already late and hopeless with it because Botan is probably with Xie Xie Wakamaru at this moment.
Something dropped onto the path in front of him with a soft plop---velvety-petaled, bright-red flower. Perturb out of his thought, he stepped back not because of the tiny flower but he saw a form just a couple of steps away from him. It was a dark-blue shadow, standing beside a tree. The sunlit was a big help too for him to make an outline of the form, it was of a lass. No not Genkai, it wasn't her.
A gust of a wind stirred the leaves of the trees and the sun rays shifted across her form, the flowing lines of her pink kimono was admirable. Her cerulean locks swaying to the breeze of the wind, she was there. It was Botan, her back to him but he was sure of that. He can't be wrong with it.
But she was all alone, where's that condemned Xie Xie? He must already there but where the hell is he? 'Was he just letting Botan wait for nothing?' The half-youkai thought and felt a tinge of ire. He could feel his eyebrows arched a bit and a force grasping his hands.
"Kurama-kun, is that you?" her tender voice rang in his head.
"Botan," he walked closer to her. "Where's Xie Xie?" That was a dumb thing to say but he couldn't help to ask it. "I thought you and him are---"
She shook her head. "He's way too late. I think he wouldn't come."
That little denounce of a demon! How could he? Truthfully, he wasn't accustomed blaspheming nor using cold fist to entities whom he believe wasn't with his level but if he saw even the shadow of that sanctimonious, egocentric, mendacious moron, he wouldn't have any second thoughts on using it. When it comes to his priorities, he wouldn't mind doing anything he could even the impossible ones.
'Come on! Why are you just standing stupidly there?!! Go and ask her out, what are you waiting for?' a soft voice but full of tense pulled him back to reality. He wasn't aware if it was coming from somebody else but he couldn't feel any strange aura around. Maybe he was losing what was left on his mind, he thought.
Botan heave a sigh, "Too bad, I'm already off to work. Guess, I'll just---"
"Do you want to go out?" he paused to let that sink in. "That is if you have nothing else important to do." He looked at her and could feel a tingly thing in his stomach which was kind of funny.
"Really?" she queried, looking directly at his eyes.
And he couldn't help rolling his eyes again, "Yes, if you er—like."
"Of course," she smiled. "I'd love to."
…………………………………
A pair of mahogany oculars peered out through the tangle of brambles. Seeing that everything went like they expected to be, Yusuke sat up and rubbed his neck. The group of bushes wasn't really a nice hiding place, its broken twigs and the thickness of the brambles gave him a couple of adhesive itches. But it was the perfect place to cautiously see what's happening between the red-head fox boy and the blue-head deity.
"Way to go, fox boy!" he chanted.
"Shhh!!!" scolded the dry voice behind him. "I've been wasting a lot of energy to put up this barrier to manipulate and hide our energy so would you mind shutting your mouth or else they could easily tumble where we are."
It was Genkai grunting him with steely eyes. Next to her was another guy, a demon but he wasn't allowed to speak, he's mouth was covered with a tape. To mention it, he wasn't allowed to do anything at all. Ropes bound his ankles and hands, lying on the cold ground. And he was making a lot of annoying muffled grumbles.
"If I were you, give up your hopes, dude." Yusuke sheepishly smiled at the demon and ruffled his robin's egg-blue hair. "Even if you're a good looking one, your no match for our lover fox-boy---"
"By the why, Genkai how you knew Kurama likes Botan?" he turned to Genkai. "For someone like him who keeps so many things to himself, that was a pretty swell premonition."
"Kind of, but it was obvious in his moves as well as Botan's," she answered. "If only you saw the look on his face when he knew Botan was going out with this punk, you would know it too."
"Oh, I see." Yusuke nodded.
"Come on, kiddo, are you coming or not?" Genkai stood up and made her way out of the bushes.
"Wait," Yusuke gave his last glance to the demon. "Bye Bye. I've got an appointment to run into, Keiko would probably eat me alive if I'd be late," he turned his back and run away from the pitiful demon.
Alone, morose and pathetic, Xie Xie swears in his thoughts. He must have known it, that the old witch and the ignorant fool named Yusuke would do something to him. He shouldn't have gone with them, how stupid he is. Now what would he do?
He forced himself for a final pathetic shout, "Ahrmmm!!!!"
……………………………..
"Have you heard that?" the blue-head girl beside him asked.
"Huh? Must be the birds," he innocently answered with a grin.
Whatever has happened this particular day, he thinks he should still give thanks to the two persons behind the bushes for their help. He meant three of them, especially to the runt who has possibly walk himself into their trap on his own. Just thinking of it, couldn't help him to put a little smile on his face. Maybe, they were right that it wasn't very wise to act like some fool of Byronic hero. It was much better if he'll try to open up his feelings more often merely than his thoughts.
"Thinking of something?" Botan queried.
"Yeah," he nodded. "Just wonder what happened to Xie Xie?"
"Don't care 'bout him," she snorted out. "Even if he came, I won't go with him."
"And why?"
"Because I really want to go out with somebody else not him." She blushed, rolling her eyes on him.
"Oh really?"
She nodded.
"Where do you want to go now?" He smiled at her and took her hands gently on his.
"Anywhere you want to go!" She smiled bubbly back to him. "As long as it is you I'm with, my Valentine."
…………………………………
The End…