Hey, if you're reading this around the time it was posted, you might've noticed I didn't take a month to update this time! . . . Once again, nothing better to say so here's chapter 11.

Chapter 11 Embarrassment 11: Stuck in Purgatory

Ren Maaka sat in his hotel room complimenting himself about the discovery he had recently made. He had been on his way to the Brownlick mansion when he discovered a strip of land that no vampire had laid claims on!

Ren figured that since there were so little vampires strewn across the globe that of course there was going to be unclaimed land. However, as Ren sat there pondering over what his next move was, he became slightly depressed.

Contrary to Ren's usual thoughts, his pondering is best told in verse:

Alas, I'm trapped in Purgatory by none other than myself, with two paths I can venture.
Which way is heaven and which way is hell I may never know.

Ren's actual thoughts were much simpler but still conveyed the same basic idea. As he continued to sit there thinking, he became more and more depressed over the fact that he would have to chose to go somewhere eventually.

Anju was sitting on the steps of the Marker mansion trying all of Ren's various cell-phone numbers. Ren had dated so many women at the same time and all the possessive ones had given him a cell-phone to act as a leash. Due to this, Ren had a plethora of cell-phones each with its own number, not to mention the cell-phone that he had acquired in more honest ways.

All Anju could do was sit there and call each and every number until she came across the one that was in his possession currently, if he decided to even answer it.

After about half an hour of calling, waiting, leaving a message, and trying another number she was becoming more and more discouraged. She finally decided that Ren wasn't going to answer her.

"Maybe I really should just give up."

"Maybe you should Anju."

Startled, Anju spun around to see none other than her parents, Henry and Calerra Marker. Henry had his arms folded in front of his chest and Calerra was just looking at Anju with her usual disappointed look (that she usually had reserved for Karin) across her face.

"Anju, we need to have a talk with you, now," Henry said, looking Anju in the eyes.

A feeling of dread formed in Anju's stomach as she followed her parents into the "family" room. She sat across from them after she found a comfortable chair.

Then, Henry began his lecture.

"Anju, do you know why we erased your sister's memory?"

Anju was about to give a smart remark, but thought it best to simply sit still and listen to the rest of the lecture.

"We erased her memory because we love her and want her to be happy."

Anju couldn't resist retorting to that remark.

"If you love Karin so much, than you should at least use her name."

"Don't smart off to your father like that!"

"I wouldn't have had to if he hadn't decided to get rid of onee-chan," Anju said, calmly in her stoic tone.

Knowing that the conversation would only become worse, Anju got up and left.

Henry and Calerra yelled for her to come back. When she didn't they began arguing amongst themselves.

When Anju made it into her room, she closed the door. Taking note of her surroundings, she could hear her parents yelling at each other and Boogie's muffled screams from under the bed.

She decided the most constructive thing she could do right now was keep watch over Karin.

Before she began, a strange but possible thought crossed her mind.

Am I next to go insane, because of this?

Karin was wiping a table with a damp rag, breakfast was no longer being served now and the pace had slowed down a bit. Karin breathed a sigh of relief as she took a quick break to get some water from the employee lounge. Her head still throbbed, but slightly improved as she greedily drank the clear liquid.

After finishing her drink, she resumed work feeling better than she did before. Things went by normally for a while after that. She decided that she felt well enough to talk to Winner about his and Maki's problems after work. She would just have to call Kenta and tell him that she would be home later than she had told him so.

However, her pregnancy was beginning to affect her performance at work. She took more water and bathroom breaks and her feet were beginning to bother her; the manager was used to paying more attention to Karin because of her previous health issues so he noticed something was different quite easily.

"I thought you were over your health problems, Karin. Is something wrong?"

"Um, no. I just had a rough morning. That's all."

"Speaking of that, how's your relationship with Usui-kun going."

Karin's hormones were beginning to mess with her way of thinking; not that she had a great way of thinking before.

She gave an answer that she hoped would appease the manager's endless hunger for gossip at work.

"Well, things are going pretty good right now."

Karin hoped that the manager would get the idea that she didn't want to delve into her relationship with Kenta; after all, she hadn't even told anyone there that she was pregnant yet. She decided to deal with that when she started showing and Kenta would have to be with her. Unfortunately, the nosy manager didn't pick up on her subtlety or simply wanted to continue for as long as he could.

"Are you sure everything's okay?"

At this point, Karin was growing annoyed by the manager's nosiness.

"Like I said, everything's A-okay," she said, her voice still sounded cheery. But it was that kind of cheery where you can tell the person's getting mad.

"Well, if anything happens, just tell me," the manager said cheerily, as he walked off.

Why, so you can trade it for other gossip? Karin thought angrily. Why does he have to be so nosy!

Then her hormones took a drastic turn and Karin began to feel bad about her angry ramblings.

Maybe I was a little hard on him, from what I know he's not married or anything; for all I know he may die tomorrow! Poor manager! Wait a minute; why does he have to gossip about me so much? Doesn't he have someone else to bother; why was I feeling bad about just thinking bad things about him, it's not like I actually said them. He should just leave me and Kenta alone. If he starts gossiping about me when he finds out I'm pregnant, I don't know what I'll do to that little midget! Wait a second, that was really mean. Maybe I should apologize to him. Wait, he didn't hear me because I'm talking to myself; why the hell am I talking to myself? It's all his fault . . . or maybe it's my fault?

Scrambled, hormone-driven thought processes like this one happened a lot that day out of topics as strange and insignificant as that one. Luckily for Karin, she managed to keep them all to herself.

When she was finally done working for the day, she was thankful to get out of that tight uniform, leave the building, and breathe in some fresh air. Then she remembered that she was going to talk to Winner after work. She called her apartment's phone number. Kenta still didn't have a cell-phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey Kenta, it's Karin. I just called to let you know that I'll be coming home a bit later than I said I would, okay?"

"Sure, what do you need to do?"

"Just going somewhere real quick, no big deal," Karin said. She wouldn't dare tell Kenta that she was going to see Winner by herself; after all the commotion he had caused over her, Kenta would probably never trust Winner around Karin.

"Okay Karin. Oh, before I forget, I won't be home when you get back. I'm going to go talk to my mom and see how she's doing."

"Oh, sure. Bye."

"Bye."

As she hung up, Karin realized she didn't know where Winner lived or his cell-phone number; if he even had one.

It took her a while to come up with a solution.

"That's it, I'll just call Maki," Karin said, pounding her closed fist into her open hand in excitement. That got her some strange looks from by passers that she was quickly embarrassed by. Walking a good distance away from the location of her embarrassment, she dialed Maki's cell-phone number and held the receiver to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Hey Maki it's Karin."

"Oh, hey Karin. What's going on?"

"Well, I thought I'd go talk to Winner and try to get him to see that he should forgive you," Karin said, choosing her words carefully to take Maki's side so she wouldn't upset her best friend.

"Really! Thanks Karin, I guess I owe you one, I mean two now."

"So do you know where he lives?"

"Well, from what I learned from dating him, he doesn't really live in a set place. He spends the days in the city and most of the night "patrolling". He normally just lives in hotels. I don't know which one he's in right now, but I know his cell-phone number."

"Hold on. Let me get something to right it down on," Karin said scrambling through her purse; Karin didn't have the best memory when it came to numbers, or really much of anything, asides from cooking.

When she found a pen and some paper, she asked Maki to continue.

"Okay, his number is ###-####." (can't risk getting sued or something)

"Okay, I've got it down," Karin said, jotting down the number.

"Okay, thanks again Karin."

"Bye."

"Bye."

When Maki hung up, Karin dialed Winner's number and listened to some strange song she couldn't understand for a ring tone.

"Hallo!"

Karin almost dropped her phone from the shock of such a loud noise.

"H-h-hello?"

"Oh, hello Karin-san!"

"H-hey, Winner. Um, what are you up to?"

"Nothing much, I take it you've already heard about what happened between me and Maki," Winner said, in a now annoyed-sounding tone.

"Uh, yeah. Um, I just thought I'd come and visit. You know, see how you're doing and all that," Karin said, attempting to sound nonchalant.

"Sure," Winner said excitedly, seemingly forgetting about Maki.

Karin almost dropped her phone again and decided to hold the phone about an inch from her ear to save herself from anymore of Winner's shouts of excitement.

After Winner told Karin his current address, she put her phone back in her purse and headed off into the direction of Winner's abode; then her headache started to bother her again.

After a few minutes, she realized that she was going in the opposite direction and turned around; then, she headed off in the true direction of Winner's abode.

Ren turned uncomfortably in his sleep, waking himself up. He had decided to take a nap in an attempt to relieve himself of the stress he was feeling over the decisions he would have to make one way or the other.

Having no idea how long he had been asleep, he took out his cell-phone to check the time. He looked at the screen and realized that he had a message from Anju. Sighing, he decided to read it.

Onii-san, please come home. Without you, the house is in turmoil. Mama and Papa are always fighting and I miss you. If you left because you feel guilty about sister, then come back home and we can give her memory back to her. You're the only one who can help me with this onii-san. Please help me put sister back in our family.

Anju had purposefully tried to guilt-trip Ren. As Ren sat there contemplating going back to his house, he had to take into account which would be worse: a moody, pregnant Bridget or an already heavily emotional, pregnant Karin. Sighing because he knew which one he would chose and which one he would avoid for as long as time allowed, he grabbed the meager possessions he had brought and headed out of the hotel with one thought in mind:

Well, looks like I'm going to heaven,
Then again, it might be hell.

Eleventh Embarrassment End