Shuichi smirked to himself as he started off for school. Four days, and he had already gotten under the newcomer's skin. That had to be record time for him. He walked almost jovially to school, not a care in the world.
Hiei sat, dozing in the tree he had tucked himself into the night before. He never really slept, the chance of attackers was just too great. He was wanted dead by just under half the demon world for some reason or another, after all.
He woke up when the sun came through the leaves of the trees to shine on his face. He blinked up at it, cursing slightly under his breath. He hated to be woken up like that, which was why he slept on the hard ground of a cave floor occasionally.
He stretched and jumped down from the tree. He also hated the long wait before he had to go back to Little Red's house, mostly because he had absolutely nothing to do during the day. He couldn't go back to Makai and "play," that would take too much time, and he would get his ear chewed off (not to mention a thorough beating) courtesy of Mukuro when she found out…because she found out everything. He was supposed to "stay on task," and all that junk. He hated that woman. He paused, then decided he was a very hateful person.
Today, however, was different. Instead of having nothing to do but think up new ways to terrify the kid, he had something else to ponder—the concept of loneliness. He didn't have anyone but himself, but he wasn't entirely alone, not to his perspective, at least.
He walked the streets aimlessly, growling loudly at people who happened to bump into him. It was one of Koenma's stupid rules, enforced by Mukuro. "Don't kill or harm the humans." Hiei growled at just the thought of not being able to wipe the whole pathetic race out. Gods, how he hated everything!
He had to keep his energy burning low during the day as well, lest he attracted unwanted demons to attack him and his charges. Just because his energy was hidden, didn't mean he couldn't still sense others' energy, however. He looked to his right, and immediately saw Shuichi walking, ignorant of Hiei's presence. Hiei watched him turn down the next street, towards a building where other ningen children were gathering.
Hiei grinned a wicked little grin and leaped onto the roof of a building stealthily. He noiselessly followed Shuichi to this building with "Middle School" on a sign above the entrance.
The fire demon sat lazily in the tree outside the window to Shuichi's classroom (which happened to be pre-algebra at the time), wondering why in hell anyone would care to learn about numbers. The only numbers he cared about were… well, he could think about that particular mission later; right now he had one in progress. 'This… was a complete waste of time,' he thought. 'Damn it! I've got to try and learn something about this brat so I can figure out how to scare him and be done with this whole stupid thing! This didn't even give me a good lead!' Hiei sat up, and watched the children file out of the room to go to their next class. He followed Shuichi's energy with his Jagan lazily, wondering whether he'd get out of the situation anytime soon. He sighed heavily, and was going to go back to wandering the streets when something caught his attention.
He sat up interestedly at the new development. A bully was teasing one of the smaller girls in the class Shuichi was currently in. It was mostly verbal, something about her being a freak for believing in aliens and ghosts and demons and such. Hiei chuckled, deciding not to go into the classroom and prove the child wrong, although it gave a rather amusing mental image. He watched on as Shuichi walked boldly up to the bully and started to tell him off for teasing the girl, whose name was Maya. Hiei chuckled again, seeing that Shuichi seemed to actually care for the girl. He could use that…