Disclaimer: If No. 6 were mine, my head would explode. Seeing as I still have my brains intact(though some would argue), we can all come to the conclusion that, sadly, I am not the owner of No. 6. That is your lesson in basic deduction for the day. Class dismissed.

Chapter 9

"Hey, Shion, something wrong?"

Shion jumped as an arm was slung around his shoulder and a face wearing a smiled twisted with worry appeared at the corner of his vision. "N-no… Not really…" Shion sighed. "Nothing, I guess…" He instantly knew that he had yet to convince his co-worker, Jean, with his pathetic acting.

"Idiot," Jean huffed, proving that Shion was correct. "Obviously something is bothering you. Even a blind person could see that."

Shion shrugged his way out from underneath the weight of Jean's arm. "Well, you're wrong."

Jean frowned, his usually sunny face dimming. "I know that we haven't known each other for very long, but I already consider you a friend," he said, a solemn gleam in his caramel eyes. "So you can tell me what's bugging you, and then I can cheer you up!" He tucked a lock of his chocolate brown hair behind his ear as he grinned.

Shion gave him a small smile and, surprisingly, only about eighty-five percent of it was forced. "Thanks, Jean. I think of you as a friend, too." Maybe it was best to tell someone. He might feel better if he told Jean about the sticky situation he was in with Nezumi at the moment. Maybe Jean could even give him some advice. "If you're okay with it…" He hesitated.

Jean's head bobbed eagerly, his eyes lighting up. "Yeah, what?"

"Then… maybe could we… talk later?"

Jean beamed. "Yeah! Totally! Of course!" His gaze was drawn to the front of the store as a young woman slipped out from the stream of people in the street and headed towards the food stand he and Shion were working.

"I'll handle the customer," Jean said as he stepped away from Shion. "You finish stacking these crates, yeah?"

Shion nodded. "Got it."

While he finished up organizing the indicated crates, Shion glanced at Jean from time to time. With his shoulder-length dark hair, half of it being pulled into a ponytail-that gave him a carefree sort of look-his constant, somewhat lazy, smile, his shining eyes, and the fact that he was pretty tall, several inches taller than Shion anyways, Jean looked like almost like he could be anyone's big brother. He acted the part, too. He made his customers laugh and made them feel at ease. Well, he made pretty much everyone and anyone feel at ease. Shion knew that Jean was serious when it was necessary, and that only made him even more dependable.

Jean's eyes flickered towards Shion on one of the intervals that Shion was looking at him. Jean kept gazing at Shion, whose eyes widened, as he leaned in towards the young lady. He whispered in her ear for a second and she nodded and whispered something back. Then he raised his voice.

"Hey," Jean stage-whispered loud enough for Shion to hear, "I think my friend over there is admiring your beauty."

A faint blush dusted Shion's cheeks. "Stop that, Jean!"

The girl giggled as Jean jumped up, hands in the air in surrender. "Right, right, sorry… Should've known you'd want to tell her yourself." He winked.

Shion picked up the closest fruit, an apple, and chucked it at Jean. Jean caught in neatly in one hand and, in one sweeping motion, held it out to his now-smiling customer. "There is your apple," he said, grinning. "Told ya I could get it for you without taking a single step."

The girl giggled again as she handed Jean some money. "Guess you were right! Thank you so much!" With that, she slipped back into the crowd.

Normally, Shion would've gotten mad at Jean and scolded him for messing around and for using Shion like that. But this time, he didn't. All he could think about was how that was something that Nezumi probably would have done, perhaps not for the entertainment of a customer or even for anyone else, but for his and Shion's personal amusement. He would have smirked his smirk and Shion would have complained, but he would have been trying not to show his own smile.

That is, that was something Nezumi would have done if they hadn't both been lying to each other.

"Hey. Hey, Shion, I'm sorry."

Shion was brought out of his thoughts by a frowning Jean.

"I was just kidding, yeah? I didn't mean to offend you or make fun of you."

Shion shook his head. "You didn't offend me. Really."

Jean's shoulders slumped with relief. "Oh, good. You got this weird look on your face, so I thought that I had somehow made you hate me."

"No, that's not…" Shion trailed off, suddenly unsure of what he was about to say. His mind had been wandering all day, and it didn't look like it was about to stop now. He just couldn't keep his mind off of Nezumi.

Jean put a hand on Shion's shoulder. "Hey, c'mon, our shift is almost over. Then we can walk and talk, yeah? Let some of your thoughts out, lighten your heart, blah blah blah… Sound good?"

Shion smiled. "Sounds good."


"Huh." Jean rubbed the back of his head. "That does sound like a bit of a predicament." He kicked at a large pebble and sent it skidding across the gravel.

Shion sighed. "Yeah…"

He had summed up the event of the past several days for Jean, though he had opted to leave a few things out. Such as the fact that he and Nezumi had ended up sleeping together, or the fact that he had had to help Nezumi strip. Shion didn't really think that those facts were something that Jean had to know.

Jean looked up at the gray sky in thought. "I can't quite say that something like this has ever happened to me, but… isn't it best just to tell him the truth?"

"I already know that," Shion sighed tiredly. "Obviously. But… how? I mean, won't he hate me? And how do I even bring that up without offending him? I can't just go up to him and say, 'Oh, hey, Nezumi, I've been lying to you for the past week or so just like you have! Merry Christmas!'"

Jean chuckled. "Maybe you shouldn't say it as cheerfully as that…" He stopped walking and looked Shion over from head to toe, his gaze raking over every inch of Shion's exposed skin, making Shion shift uncomfortably.

"Jean?" Shion had stopped walking when Jean had and was now trying not to squirm under the taller boy's intense stare. For a second, Jean's ordinarily cheerful eyes were narrowed, and the corners of his lips were turned down in a frown. "Wh-what is it?"

"Turn around."

Shion's skin prickled at the hard edge in Jean's voice. "What?"

"I said turn around."

Shion faltered, startled by the sudden change in Jean's entire being. But, slowly, he did as he was told: he turned until he completely had his back towards Jean. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end as Jean's cold gaze slid down Shion's back, and then back up to his neck and stuck there, almost like an insect sucking his blood. No, it was more like a block of ice was burrowing itself into Shion's neck in an attempt to hollow out his neck.

Shion spun around to face Jean, not being able to take that strange look any longer. "Jean, what-"

"Ahaha," Jean laughed heartily and slung an arm around Shion's shoulders, starting to walk once again. "It was nothing. Guess I'm just kinda tired, yeah?"

"Oh… okay…" Shion's skin was still crawling, but looking at Jean's smiling face, it was hard to believe that he had ever spoken so harshly or glared at Shion like… like that, whatever 'that' was. Shion shook his head. Maybe I'm just imagining things…

"Now," Jean announced jauntily, "I seem to have come up with an idea to help you with your little relationship issues with… Nezumi, was it?"

Shion nodded eagerly. He didn't notice the flicker in Jean's eyes as he said Nezumi's name. "You do?" Shion asked with wide, shining eyes.

"Sure!" Jean's arm draped across Shion's shoulders gave him a little squeeze. "I'll help you out, Shion. But," he held up one finger, "you have to come hang out with me for a few hours, yeah?"

Shion hesitated and looked at the darkening sky. "It's getting kind of late…" He knew that Nezumi would worry about him if he stayed out too late. He smiled softly as he brought up a mental image of Nezumi casually holding a book in one hand while lounging on the couch like he always did when Shion was late, trying to look as if he had been reading like that for hours even though it was quite plain that he was still on the first page.

Jean glanced at Shion's face, mainly focusing on that small smile of his. "You know," Jean said thoughtfully, bringing Shion out of his thoughts of Nezumi, "a little worry might just do Nezumi some good. So don't worry so much about him worrying about you, got it?"

Shion jumped. His face flushed as Jean read his thoughts aloud for him. "How did you know?"

Jean chuckled. "Believe me, Shion, it's written all over your face." His grin wavered for the briefest of moments. "Pretty much anything you think about Nezumi is written all over your face."

Shion turned his face away from Jean to try to hide his deepening blush. "Oh… Is… is that so…?"

Their steps slowed down for a few seconds, but then Jean let his arm drop from around Shion's shoulders and grabbed Shion's hand. "C'mon!"

"Whoa! Wa-wait!" Shion yelped as he was suddenly being dragged through the streets of the Lower District at an incredibly fast pace. He was forced to run along behind Jean or else be dragged along behind him. "Slow down!"

Jean laughed. "I'll slow down when we're done hanging out for the day, and then you can go back to Nezumi." He looked over his shoulder and flashed an impish grin at Shion. "But for the next few hours, you're mine!"


So... What do you all think of Jean so far? Like? Dislike? Love? Hate? Want to see him drown in a pool of orange juice(someone actually said something like that about another OC I made in a diff fanfic. XD)? Because hey, at this point, anything could happen. :)

Now it's time for 'Crazy Chronicle with Canagg Containing the Composing of this Fanfic Time!' (say that five times fast...)

As some of you may or may not know, I general write these chapters down in an actual notebook, usually at school or out in public when I am bored or don't care about what's going around me and would like to use my time to write for you guys. So I had 9/10 of this fanfic down in my notebook, then got too lazy to finish writing it down and decided to just finish writing it as I typed it up, ya know? So I was looking around for my bag(which I take practically everywhere) which had my notebook in it(again, I take it practically anywhere) but I can't find it! So then I start running around the house and yell at my sister to help me find it! BUT I STILL CAN'T FRIKKIN FIND MY FRIKKIN BAG!

I get so agitated over the thought of losing my precious notebook with my yaoi fanfic in it(seriously, all that's in it at this point is this yaoi fanfiction, and a few recipes for breadsticks and frosting and the phone numbers of my bosses) and then I'm like, 'oh my gosh, what if I left it at the library and someone picks up my bag, opens it, and read my yaoi fanfic?! OH MY GAWD, I HAVE SOME OF MY FRIKKIN SMEXY SCENES IN IT! OH MY GAWD, NO!'

And so then I am about a breath away from running around the house screaming, 'WHERE THE HECK IS MY FRIKKIN NOTEBOOK WITH MY FRIKKIN YAOI FANFIC IN IT?! WHERE THE SALAD IS IT?!' which would not have gone well, considering my mom was in the house at the time, but I was about to start doing that anyways. Then my sis comes down from downstairs and is like,

'oh, here's yo bag, it was by yo bed.'

me: 'OH MY GAWD, YESH! *hugs bag tightly*'

It was then when I was opening my bag that I realized that I also had like forty bucks in my bag at that time, and so if I had lost my bag with my yaoi notebook in it(that's what I'm calling it now. XD), I also would have lost like forty bucks, which is a lot for me. But all I could think of was my yaoi notebook.

LOLZZZZ. XDXDXDXD

Also, this chapter is dedicated to my dad. Without his flash drive, I would not have been able to take this document off of my computer to bring to the library.

Yes, I do realize that it is very, very, VERY weird to dedicate a chapter of a yaoi fanfiction to one's own father, who does not even know what yaoi is, or that I frikkin love yaoi. But hey, what he doesn't know won't hurt him, right...? :)

If you read that little Canagg's Crazy Conundrum Chronicle, good for you! Hope you enjoyed seeing a little bit of what it's like for me to write this story! XDXDXDXDXD

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, because I enjoyed writing it! Personally, I kinda like Jean, yeah? XDXDXD

PLEASE READ AND REVIEW! IF YOU WRITE FANFICS YOSELF, YOU KNOW HOW MUCH WE WRITERS ACTUALLY APPRECIATE REVIEWS, NO MATTER HOW TINY OR STUPID THEY MAY BE! :D

I HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A WONDERFUL SUMMAH! I HOPE TO FINISH THIS STORY BEFORE CHRISTMAS COMES AROUND AGAIN AND I GET ANOTHER URGE TO WRITE ANOTHER CHRISTMAS-THEMED FANFIC!

BAIIIII!