You see, life is a crazy thing…

There'll be good times

And there'll be bad times

And everything in between…

—"Please Don't Stop the Rain" by James Morrison

By the time February rolled around, life was calmer – at least for Anna. She still had trouble waking up every day without having one thought about her problem cross her busy mind, but at least her head wasn't pounding every time they did anymore.

"You know what? On my birthday, I want you to wear pink!"

That was the statement that coaxed her to return her attention to the conversation taking place around her. She looked up to see Pirika, with her elbows on the table and her hands underneath her chin, grinning angelically at the two girls present.

She raised an eyebrow in slight amusement when she realized that the words she had heard belonged to her.

"I mean it!" she defended upon seeing her expression. "Something bright and colorful!" She paused, and rolled her eyes. "Okay, it can be red. But really, girls, you need to step it up!"

They were at a small café across the road from the school, enjoying a couple of hot drinks on such a freezing day, and the blue-haired Ainu would simply not stop talking about the birthday party she was organizing for herself; she had taken a liking to celebrating her birthday with style, which was not surprising to Anna, due to her rather eccentric personality, and now she usually started to plan it in her head months before.

"I'm leaving now, I have a million things to solve," she announced. "But keep in mind what I said, alright?"

No one seemed to bother to acknowledge her piece of advice, least of all the blonde, so the table fell silent after she took her leave. That, until a frustrated, strangled sound came from one of the men present, making her raise her head from the screen of her phone. Haru and Daichi, who seemed to have been forced to join them earlier on, were playing a game, and apparently, the latter had lost – something he did not take very well.

"Who bought you smart-phones?" the blonde muttered under her breath, shaking her head.

Almost in response, she heard Yoh snort from beside her. Glancing in his direction, she saw that he had his earphones in – but another change she had observed in him over the weeks that passed was the fact that he no longer seemed to ever be unaware of the world around him. No matter what he did, he was listening – he was watching, he was drawing conclusions. She wanted to think it was because he was aware of the responsibility placed upon his shoulders, because he had acquired more knowledge, because handling the Great Spirit was no easy task and because watching over an entire world was not something that he took lightly. But, sometimes, she wondered if it had to do with something else.

Nevertheless, she was grateful for the change. He was different, yet in so many ways, he was the same. He was still carefree and still rather foolish at times; his famous grin was there, as well. But he was more responsible. He had matured. The sensation that manifested inside of her was the same as when he walked out of the Yomi cave – only increased tenfold.

"You know, I was thinking…" Daichi, with his light-brown hair and green eyes, started after abandoning his phone on the table.

Anna drew in a deep breath and copied the action, before reaching for her still warm coffee.

Haru, on his part, laughed.

Daichi turned to look at him, irritated. "What?" he demanded.

"Every time you say that, she reaches for her drink," he said, causing him to turn his narrowed eyes in her direction.

"The fact that my brain compels me to do this, even if I do or do not have alcohol in my glass, should say a lot about how I feel about you thinking," she offered, bluntly, as means of an explanation.

Daichi glared. "Anyway," he stressed, "Kaede will be there, right? So, I was thinking that maybe we should call her like, an hour before the party, while she's still washing her hair or painting her face or whatever it is that you girls do, and tell her Pirika's had an accident or the building's blown up and the party's been called off."

Haru grinned. "Now you don't feel the need to reach for your drink, do you?"

Anna sighed. "I feel the need to reach for my phone," she deadpanned.

"Why are you all being so mean to her?" Yoh asked, frowning in amusement.

"First of all, Yoh, we are talking about Kaede," the blonde explained, throwing him a look. "You remember Kaede. She began throwing herself at you the moment you enrolled in high-school."

"Did she?" he asked, genuinely confused. "I remember her, but –"

Haru blinked, brown eyes wide while his friend was nearly choking with laughter beside him. "How can you not see when a girl is hitting on you?"

Yoh frowned. "I don't –"

"The question is," Jun interfered, "Why would he need to see? Why would he make the effort?"

They shared a glance, and then promptly ohh'ed in understanding.

Anna rolled her eyes, taking that as her cue to leave. Slipping her coat on, she grabbed her phone from the table and her bag from the seat beside her, before she stood.

Yoh looked up at her with a confused expression on her face. "You leaving?" he asked. She took the time to pull her long hair out of her black coat and flip it over her shoulder, humming her affirmative answer at the same time that he stifled his yawn. "I'm coming with you," he declared, stretching lazily in his seat.

She placed her hands over her hips, staring him down. "You're taking the chair with you?" she asked sarcastically, making him laugh.

"Nah," he answered. Standing up, he shrugged his coat on while Daichi waved at Anna in a beauty queen fashion.

"I will be counting down the days till I see you again," he declared, causing another laugh to tumble past the brunet's lips.

The blonde, however, seemed to be used to his stupidity, because all she did was sigh, turn around, and leave. Yoh followed her out of the building, still grinning, conveniently bumping into her and placing his hands on her hips as she turned around to speak with him. She rolled her eyes at his actions, annoyed, yet not quite.

"Give me the keys," she commanded, exasperated.

Yoh had to release her to search in his pockets. "You want to drive?" he asked.

Anna gave him a flat look. "No, I want the keys because –"

He laughed, and she stopped as she was handed what she had asked for. With one last roll of her eyes, she turned around and started towards the place where he had last parked his car.

Anna's driving style, he had learned, was like her personality – impulsive and aggressive. That being said, it wasn't exactly a surprise when he found himself gripping the door-handle nearly all the way to the suburbs.

"Why don't you let people pull out when they want to pull out?" he asked at some point in their journey, half-terrified, half-amused, after she had zoomed past a car whose driver had already been signaling for enough time for her to have seen him.

"Because they pull out and then they slow down," she answered. For a moment, he had the feeling that she was taking him seriously. "See the man behind me – the man who let him pull out? See how sad he is?"

Yoh threw her a bland look. "Do you even have a license?"

Like so many other times since he came back, he thought she would turn to him and punch him six ways to Sunday, but once again, he ended up stupefied.

"No." Her answer was simple, blunt, and honest.

His eyes widened. "You don't have a license?"

"Make up your mind," she said, rolling her eyes, as she changed gears. "Do I or do I not deserve to have a license?"

"I thought you'd smiled at the instructor, but that at least you'd gone through school!" he exclaimed.

"Says who?" she countered. "The guy who most likely slept through the lessons?" Yoh opened his mouth to speak, but she stopped him before he could. "Keep the answer to yourself," she said. "And be careful, I can smash your head through the window – you don't learn that in driving school."

For a moment, he was silent. Then he burst into laughter, causing yet another roll of her eyes in her.

Yoh had clung to her at the beginning of classes and had not once let her go since. To be perfectly honest, Anna didn't mind; she could even go as far as saying that she enjoyed his presence. He was gone, sometimes – most of the time. He wasn't home a lot, and when he was, between so many people in the house that all seemed to demand his attention, they didn't have the opportunity to spend much time in each other's company. On the rare occasions that they did, though, something always happened.

Had she been the same person of months prior, she would have declared his phone her number one enemy. It had even rung in the middle of the night once. More surprising had been Yoh's reaction. He had woken up, answered, and left. He was back by the time she awakened, but that didn't make the incident any less disturbing.

Anna wasn't blind. That she chose to be – that was a different story altogether.

Pirika shone on her birthday, dressed in a sequined apparel of a light beige color. She was smiling, glowing, and the happiness could be read clearly in her eyes.

Her brother, on the other hand, did nothing but grumble under his breath the entire time, claiming, once again, that the skirt was too short. He seemed to be displeased with everything that was happening that particular night, but the closest people to him knew that he was actually simply having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that his little sister had grown so much in his absence. The essence of Pirika's effervescent personality hadn't changed over the years, but she had certainly gained the necessary independence to do everything her protective elder brother had tried so hard to shield her from. To cap it all, she didn't seem to care as much as she used to about what he thought or what he commanded her to do.

So, that night, he was sullen.

It was just the icing on his surly cake when the blonde of the group made her appearance. Of course, no one had expected her to actually listen to Pirika. So, obviously, the most Anna thing to do was show up in a bright-red dress to make everyone's jaw drop. The garment was short, exposing most of her thighs, and sleeveless.

But that was not his problem. His problem appeared when Yoh made a beeline for her, stopped, bent his head to hers – and promptly kissed her.

It was then when he snapped.

"Since when can he kiss her without getting slapped?!"

Having her in his arms seemed to melt days and days of tension from his body. That was not a surprise; her presence had always reassured him in a manner that only it could. But sometimes, he had the feeling that he was never quite grateful enough for that.

Breaking the kiss, he grinned as he straightened to his full height, gazing down into her eyes – which seemed even more beautiful, if that was even possible, with the dark make-up surrounding them. Much as she tried to contain herself, the blonde was unable not to answer with a small smile of her own.

"Where have you been?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes. "You don't want to know," was her vague answer, and he could only laugh at the traces of annoyance clearly heard in her voice.

Opening his mouth, he was about to answer, when a voice was heard behind him, and he was forced to move to her side, rather than in front of her.

"Anna, I feel so glad that you decided to grace us with your presence."

At first, he frowned, not quite able to recognize the person standing in front of him as he curled an arm around his fiancée's waist. The figure was vaguely familiar – the green eyes, the long, dark hair – and he knew he should be able to remember, but he was at a complete loss.

Anna, on the other hand, seemed to have no problem of that sort.

"Kaede," she greeted, and all the pieces seemed to finally fall into place. "My, am I happy to see you."

The sarcasm in her words was obvious, but she was smirking. She was definitely calmer than he had expected her to be, considering her history with the woman he could now name; the two had never liked each other, and although the blonde had always managed to keep her violent tendencies in check, the strain that put on her would usually be more visible. Now, however, she resumed at gently moving a lock of hair away from her face, raising her eyebrows in mock interest. Even as she did this, she seemed more amused than mad, and it was interesting for Yoh to see this side of her. Anna had been possessive in her younger years, and perhaps she still was, but it was clear that she didn't see Kaede as a threat.

That could not be said about the other woman, though. As the dim lights of the restaurant glinted against the precious stones set in her ring, the piece of jewelry caught her eye; her mouth almost dropping open, she turned to him.

"You actually gave her a ring?" she demanded.

Yoh nearly took a step back as the spotlight suddenly fell on him. Hesitating, unsure of how to answer, he frowned. "Well, I –"

"What do you see in her?" she gasped out, interrupting him.

The brunet blinked.

Pirika laughed as she joined in on their conversation. "Stop picking on Anna just because you wish you were in her place," she advised, grinning.

Kaede seemed scandalized. "I do not –"

"I agree," Anna interrupted her. "You don't wish you were in my place. You wish you were me, period. And you know what?" she asked, cocking her head to the side.

"What?" she bit out, hands on her hips.

Anna smirked, triumphant. "I don't blame you."

"Yes!" a more entertained Horo-Horo yelled. "Catfight!"

"No," she denied, shaking her head. "What would that solve? When even with a scratch on my face, I'd still look better than her." Shrugging innocently, she smirked as the entire table cheered.

As the raven-haired girl stalked off with a huff of annoyance, Yoh thought he had never seen his fiancée look so satisfied with something that she had done.

"Good job, princess," Daichi, already buzzed, stated. Haru was still laughing beside him, thoroughly entertained. "That's why I kept you a bottle of vodka."

"Thank you," she replied dryly, rolling her eyes, as she took a seat at the table.

Yoh followed blindly, still in shock. As he began to laugh incredulously, she turned to face him, an eyebrow raised.

"What?" she demanded.

"That was the meanest thing I have ever heard come out of your mouth," he said. "And that is saying something."

"I hate her," was her simple answer, following by a shrug which only made him laugh harder.

But the blonde was not looking to amuse him. Although what she felt towards Kaede could not be classified as 'hate' – not in the real sense of the word, at least – she couldn't stand her, and that was that. In her opinion, the girl was even worse than her grandfather – not because she was spoiled, but because she was allowing herself to be manipulated so easily.

She had never attempted anything with Yoh; all she had ever tried to do was show him how unsuited she was for him. Kaede didn't want him. But she didn't want Anna with him, either. And that had a name – her grandfather's. In reality, she had no reason to hate her. Of course, the blonde was not one to stand back and take her insults – insults that were, most of the times, classy and well-hidden, she'd give her that – without fighting back. Hence the situation they now found themselves in.

Smirking, she located her, and tried to tap into her mind to feel her annoyance. All she had to do was focus on her and on what she wanted to hear, but for some reason or another, this time, what she encountered with was silence. Where there was supposed to be her thoughts, there was nothing but a blank void.

She frowned, and tried again, this time even closing her eyes, but the result was the same. How could that be? It was exactly what had happened with Yoh the other day, in the car; that she couldn't read the Shaman King's mind – that was understandable. But Kaede's? She had never had a problem with that before.

Out of nowhere, a warm, familiar hand landed softly on her back, making her turn her head to the side to look at her fiancé.

"Are you alright?" he asked, surprised that her mood had dissipated so quickly. Anna usually liked to bask in such achievements, however subtle she might be in doing so.

She nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine." Running a hand through her hair, she adjusted her body so that she was fully facing him, in time to catch sight of the wallpaper on his phone before the screen darkened. She raised an eyebrow.

Yoh understood her reasoning, and grinned. "Do you want to know his story?" he asked, as easygoing as he had always been.

"Would that make you any less of an idiot?" she retorted.

His grin grew wider. "It might."

"Go ahead," she said.

"Well, we found him in Patch Village. And you know how cold it can get there at night. So, we took turns receiving him into our beds!"

As opposed to his cheerful attitude – and the obvious pride he took in what he had done – the blonde seemed completely disgusted.

He laughed. "One of my friends took him home," he supplied. "The one who got hurt."

"Oh," she said, her mood sobering visibly as she sat straighter in her seat. "He's… better?"

"Yeah, he's fine," he answered nonchalantly, as though he had always known that would be the outcome.

For a moment, she was silent. Then, when she spoke again, she surprised him by actually showing what could be called an interest in his social life outside of her and their group of friends. "You sound like… like you get along well with him." On top of that, her words were packed with a carefulness and a hesitance that nearly made him frown.

But he pushed it aside in favor of answering her underlying question. "I do," he said. "I already told you." Then he smiled, somewhat adoringly, at her. "You never even asked for his name."

Anna rolled her eyes and leaned back into her seat, lying smoothly, "I don't care to know the names of your stupid friends, Yoh."

"But you care enough to ensure they're alright," he pressed, and she turned her gaze back to him, annoyed.

"Only because I know you're enough of an idiot to blame yourself for everything," she retorted.

He laughed, grinned his signature – and, secretly, her favorite – grin, and bent his head down, planting his lips sweetly on hers. Ignoring the audience, she responded immediately to the kiss, leaning in, one of her hands tangling in his brown locks.

Across the table, a happier Horo-Horo cheered, Pirika aww'ed, and she vaguely heard Jun comment in a good-natured manner.

But Anna couldn't care less about any of them. When he kissed her, nothing else mattered. And when she was with him, the entire world disappeared.

The rest of the night passed in similar fashion. Jun joined them after an hour, accompanied by a friend from college, who seemed to be particularly familiarized with Pirika – something that her brother certainly did not like – and as fond of his fiancée as people nowadays usually were.

The Tao mistress complained about missing the confrontation between the two women, pouted, childishly demanded that the blonde waited for her the next time – which earned her an arch of her eyebrow from Anna and a roll of his eyes from Ren – and then settled to enjoy the party.

Their group was almost complete then, with only a few persons missing; he remembered, once again, how much he had actually missed the times when it was over the years he had spent away.

Anna kept by his side most of the evening, and watching her, Yoh felt that he was now prepared to answer Kaede's question. What did he see in her? Everything. She was gorgeous. She was amazing. She was everything he could have ever unconsciously wished for. And he was simply fascinated by this side of her that he had never quite seen before. Her life had gone on without him while he had been in the Shaman Tournament, as had his own, so now that he had returned, he was taken by every change he saw in her.

He was proud – immensely so – that she had opened up, that she had made her own friends, that she had given people the chance to see how much of a stunning person she was, on the inside as much as on the outside. Everybody was inexplicably drawn to her – had always been that – and he loved it when she actually gave them reasons for that.

So, of course, watching her argue with Haru and keep the last bottle of vodka out of Daichi's clutches was, to say the least, entertaining. But the favorite moments of the night were the ones she spent with him – the two of them, together. It might seem late, but it was that night that Yoh realized that Anna had never truly rejected his affections. She may have slapped him once or twice when he crossed the lines she had so carefully drawn, but they had been mere children back then.

Ever since he came back, she had never once pulled away from him when he wanted to kiss her or when he wanted to hug her. Sure enough, he too, understood that she was not the type of girl that would be frequently seen making out in public, but the point remained: she never once rejected him. It was almost as though she had missed his presence in her life on more than one level, as though she now wanted to make the most of the moments she had with him. And he loved her for that – exactly as he loved her for everything else.

It was when he was holding her against him, cradled in the crook of his arm, her head on his shoulder and their fingers intertwined as they watched, with varying amusement, the party dying down, that the magic of the night was broken by the incessant vibration of his phone in his pocket. In the past, Yoh would have ignored it without discussion; he would have ignored it without even glancing at the screen. And honestly speaking, he missed those times – the times when he was able to do that.

Heaving a sigh, he pulled the device out of his pocket and held it to his ear. Anna paid him little attention other than acknowledging his movements, and shifted now that the warmth of his hand over hers was gone. His heart dropped when he heard the person on the other line. For a long moment, he could hardly breathe. Then he abruptly straightened in his seat, ignoring the look of alarm his fiancée was sending him as she was forced to do the same. The questions that would – and should – have been flowing out of his mouth would have given her at least a clue as to what was happening, but the problem was, he already had all the answers.

"I have to go," he announced, ending the call with one hand, settling the other over her back in an unconsciously reassuring gesture as he stood.

"What?" she demanded, looking up at him, but she was more worried than angered. "Why?"

"We'll talk later," he dismissed her. "I need to go."

Had he ever glanced back, he would have seen her exchange a worried look with Ren from across the table. He would have seen the panic in her eyes, the confusion on her features. He would have seen all that. But he didn't, and there was no time for him to regret that.

Sleep never came for the blonde that night.

After Yoh took his leave with Ren storming after him, the party had died down. It would have ended for her, either way, but Pirika seemed to be particularly saddened by the departure of her newest 'obsession'. The only reason why she had stayed until the very end was because she had come to complain to her, and Anna was reluctant to let her know, once again, that something was wrong. She had figured it out on her own a couple of weeks prior, and she would not give her another opportunity to do that; enough slips had been made – she would not stand for more.

It was late into the night, or rather, early into the morning when they arrived home. People scattered around the house to their rooms and slipped into their beds. Anna followed their example, but she was never able to close an eye.

This was not the fist time she had seen Yoh serious or scared or panicked. No, her fiancé was lazy and carefree, but when the circumstances changed, he knew how he should and could act. What worried her was the fact that he happened to have a special gift – the gift of knowing for sure when everything would be alright. He had the solution before he even knew what the situation was, and it was simple and logical and left people wondering why in the world they hadn't thought of it first. So for him to look as panicked as he had… The situation had to be serious. Which in itself was not a novelty, so Anna only had herself to blame for being so worried.

At some point, when everything became too much, she flung the covers to the other side of the bed and stood, making her way out of her room and down the stairs in search for a glass of cold water to drink. She knew it would be useless in terms of lulling her into sleep, but at least it gave her something to do since she had long since given up on the idea of rest until Yoh came home.

She had barely taken a sip of the refreshing liquid when the front door opened – and then slammed.

A furrow between her brows, she placed her glass on the counter and moved out of the kitchen, ready to give an earful to whoever thought that slamming a door in the middle of the night simply to announce his presence was a good idea. But she ended up freezing completely when she saw exactly who that person was.

"Yoh?" she breathed out, her frown deepening. The brunet stopped on his way to the staircase upon hearing her voice, but surprisingly enough, refused to turn around to face her. "Are you alright?"

"Yes." When he answered, his voice was tight, as if he was holding something back. "Why are you up?"

"I couldn't sleep. I was thirsty." He was tense and coiled, and she was surprised by how disconcerting it was to see him like that. Yoh hardly ever got angry, but when he did, he was worse, much worse than her. He practically made her fumble with her words! Had she not known he was incapable of hurting her, he would have probably been the only person in the world she would fear.

"Well, I'm going to bed," he announced, but before he could take another step, Anna reached out and, against her better judgment, grasped his arm, stopping him.

"Yoh, you're not alright." She shook her head, and he slowly turned to face her. "What happened?"

Seeing as his body posed no resistance to her insistence, she would have never expected the words that came out of his mouth to be so tightly controlled. "When I tell you I'm alright, it's because I'm alright. Which means that nothing's happened."

For a moment, all she could do was stare at him in pure, unadulterated surprise. Then her temper flared, and she reacted. "Don't talk to me like that! What is wrong with you, I – Is that blood?!" she nearly shrieked as the faint moonlight coming in through the window suddenly fell on his shirt when he shifted. "What the hell are you doing?!"

"Keep your voice down, and don't cause a scene," he hissed, closing in on her. He was so close, she could feel his breath fanning against her face, and she swallowed hard. The height difference was glaringly obvious now, and had she not been so angry and so worried, she would have felt intimidated.

"Cause a scene?" she seethed. "I'm trying to find out what's wrong with you because I care about you!"

"When I tell you I'm alright, I'm not lying," he spoke through his teeth, his jaw clenched.

Anna stuck her chin up defiantly and stubbornly held her ground. "Yes, you are."

Yoh's eyes narrowed at her insistence. "If I am, if I ever was, that would be my problem, don't you think?"

Her shock was probably the only thing keeping her mouth from dropping open at his rash statement. It was like a slap to her face. She had expected everything and anything – she always did – but it had never even crossed her mind that something like that could come out of her fiancé's mouth.

"Oh, right," she said, stepping back. Her voice was soft, a mixture of shock, pain, anger and confusion. "You're absolutely right. I don't know what I was thinking, really. You storm out of a room, looking like death warmed over when you hardly ever care if danger is staring at you right in the face – and I'm supposed not to worry? I'm to supposed to let it go, to leave you be? Well, excuse me for showing that I care from time to time. It's obvious I'm better off as an Ice Queen. And since that annoys you, too, it seems, I guess we're not meant to be, now are we?"

Slipping her ring from her finger, she held it up for a moment, before loosening her hold and allowing it to fall between them. Yoh reached quickly, catching it, and it was in those few seconds that he spent gazing down at the twinkling stones in his palm that he came to and realized exactly what he had done.

Unfortunately, by the time that happened, the blonde had already brushed past him and made her way upstairs.

"Anna!" he called, but she refused to answer him, and as he raised his head, he caught a glimpse of her as she reached the top of the stairs and turned away. "Anna, no…" Clenching his fist around the ring, he stormed upstairs to catch up to her, but she ignored his protests and closed the door behind her.

The sound of the key twisting in the lock resounded through the hallway despite his hurried footsteps and agitated thoughts.

"Anna!" he called again, rapping his knuckles on the wooden surface. "Anna, open up!"

"No!" came the response from inside. He winced at the anger in her voice. "Leave!"

"I'm not leaving," he stated as calmly as he could. "We need to talk."

"You know what? I don't care."

Yoh gritted his teeth. "Don't make me knock this down."

"You dare to do that and I swear you'll never see me again. And only partially because you'll be dead."

"Dead or not, this door would still be coming down," he snapped, his patience wearing thin. It had been too much of a long day for him to be dealing with this on top of everything. "I want to talk to you. Do you honestly want the entire house to hear?"

There was a moment of silence from the other side before the lock clicked and the door was slung open violently. The blonde put as much distance between them as possible while he stepped inside the familiar bedroom and closed the door behind him. When she finally turned to face him, her eyes were hard and her arms were crossed over her chest.

"What do you want?" she demanded.

Yoh sighed. "I'm sorry, okay? I just…"

She raised her eyebrows in slight challenge. "You're sorry?"

The irritation returned increased tenfold as he realized she was not about to be sympathetic at all. In that moment, he wondered why he had ever even thought she would be. "I am."

"Well, great!" she clasped her hands together and faked a smile that was gone almost as soon as it came. "But do I look like I care about that?"

His eyes hardened in an instant. "No. I just thought you should know," he countered through gritted teeth.

Her desire to play with him dissipated along with the sarcasm in her eyes as she took a step closer and her voice adopted a threatening tone. "Do not treat me like that."

"How am I supposed to treat you, then?" he snapped. "It's like I'm walking on goddamn eggshells with you! I never know how to treat you because I never know how you'll react! You're so unpredictable that even the smallest thing done with the best intentions can piss you off!"

"Well, if that annoys you so damn much, then why the hell didn't you end this a long time ago?" she shouted, and soon enough, he found himself screaming right back at her.

"Because I love you!"

"When you love somebody, you love every part of them – no matter how annoying it is. When you love somebody, you don't treat them like this."

He barked an unamused laugh. "You're very used to being treated like a princess, aren't you? And you like it."

"You know what I think? I think that gun is yours," she confirmed resolutely, spilling every suspicion, every question, and every answer she had found by herself that had been mounting inside of her for so long. "I think you've been lying to me all along. I don't know why you're using it, because you won't tell me. And, newsflash! When you love somebody, you don't keep secrets from them."

Yoh scoffed. "Well, you got that one right. Think you can apply it to yourself? But then again, you never did say you loved me, so I don't know why I'm here, trying to work this out. I don't even know what the hell has kept you by my side for so long. Convenience? Was that it?"

He never saw it coming. One moment, he was yelling at her, completely conscious of what he was saying, completely aware of the impact his words would have on her, and wanting – wanting her to hear them, wanting to knock some sense into her despite knowing that this was a situation that not only had she not caused, but also didn't even understand. It made sense to him at the time. But then his cheek was suddenly stinging and his head was turned to the side and he was forced to take a step back.

As his eyes slowly shifted back to her figure, the tension in the room had dissipated. There was silence, and it was only then that it registered into his mind that they had been screaming at each other. At that point, he didn't know what hurt more – the sting in his cheek, or the disarmed look in her eyes she was trying so hard to conceal.

"Convenience?" she repeated slowly. Her blue eyes seemed to shine in the dim light. "Either you leave this room, or I will. The choice is yours."

She waited for a whole tense second. When he showed no signs of moving, she tried to walk past him, only to have him take a step back and raise his hands in the air in a gesture of silent surrender. She crossed her arms over her chest and averted her gaze to the side as his presence slowly left the room.

The door closed. Then there was nothing.

A/N: Once again, I apologize for the long wait! This chapter was supposed to be out sometimes in… well, believe it or not, June. But two scenes gave me headaches for so long that I started to avoid them. One of them is the one above; you have no idea how hard it was to keep both Yoh and Anna in character and still send the message I wanted to send.

The other one you will read in the next chapter. Because I noticed a certain unbalance in terms of word count – and happenings, really – I decided it would be best to split the events. Too bad I only realized that when I was completely done with them, haha! The good news? The next chapter will come out faster, no doubt about that. (To tell you the truth, I'm aiming for late August.)

Outfits on Flickr, as usual.

Please review! I always love to read your opinions!