Disclaimer: *Check pockets* Nope, still don't have the rights. *Check again* Nope, still not making money off of it.

Author's Note: Still plugging away at this. I doknow where this is supposed to go, but it's writing my way there that is the problem…

Ch. 12

"BWAHAHAHAHA! BWAHAHAHA! THIS IS GREAT!"

"What is going on? Why is Little Brother laughing like that at the television?"

"Haven't you seen the news?"

"What? Oh. Don't tell me…"

"I may have let slip the location of the keys to that evidence lockup for guns and explosives we made that dirty cop give us."

"…why would you do that?"

"Remember our conversation? And see where all the incidents this past week have been?"

"Don't talk to me like I'm an idiot. Besides, isn't this overkill?"

"Aw, don't ruin his fun. Little Brother hasn't looked this happy in ages."

The next day, when Mai returned to their house after classes, Chichiri was gone, but Meian was there all smiles and sunshine and happy happy happiness. And humming. Mai was sonot in the mood after spending the night on their neighbor's couch and ending up with a severe crick in her neck as a result but she plastered a grin on her face before dragging herself up to her room to collapse on the blessed bed.

Meian and Chichiri then proceeded to do this thing where they, uh, explored their new level of intimacy and started stealing kisses and engaging in closet time and then stammering increasingly unbelievable excuses all over the place. Their housemates were treated to gasps, fading giggles and sights of sand-blonde and blue hair vanishing around the corner just as they entered the room. At first it was kinda cute since they had a ball teasing the couple and finding out how deep the blushes could go, but then it got socute it was really annoying.

Finally, when Mai and Tasuki walked in on Meian and Chichiri in the kitchen (Mai was grabbing a textbook that Tasuki wanted to borrow). Meian was sitting on the sink and was very firmly attached at the lips to her boyfriend. After watching for a few minutes, Tasuki cleared his throat and waited while Chichiri caught Meian before she fell into the soapy suds the dishes she had forgotten about washing were in. Then he crossed his arms and stared at them both as they stammered incoherently before looking at Mai.

"I still think that she looks more carmine than tomato. It's kinda pinkish, see? Chichiri is the tomato."

Mai blinked, and squinted at her housemate. "Huh, I guess you're right—but what the hell, carmine? You ingest a crayon box or something? And nah, Chichiri's more like a claret—"

"What, you get on me for 'carmine' and you trot out a claret?What would you know about clarets?"

"Taiitsukun, dumbass. She's got a wine cellar, you know."

"What? You never told me that!"

"Don't give me that betrayed look! What makes you think that she'd ever let you down there? She don't let anybody down there."

"Er…" Chichiri said as the other pair got characteristically sidetracked.

Tasuki sighed. "We don't really care if we walk in on you sucking face, you know."

Mai whacked him on the arm.

"Ow! What the fuck?"

"Be a less of the fucking stereotype, would you? Show a little sensitivity." Mai looked at Meian. "The two of you are so fucking cute, I am getting cavities. But stop freaking out and making excuses whenever we see you making out, ok? It's exhausting. You're not doing anything wrong and its not like it's a big damn secret you are together, right?"

Silence.

Tasuki huffed and rubbed his arm. "And how was that any better? She's turning even more carmine."

"Hmm no da." Chichiri's eyes slid sideways to his indeed very carmine girlfriend speculatively. " I think she's even cuter when she's carmine no da."

Mai blinked. "What?"

Meian blinked. "Wha—mmmm?"

Mai and Tasuki watched as Chichiri, taking their words to heart, resumed where he and Meian had left off when Mai and Tasuki walked in. It didn't take long for Meian to join back in.

"Cavities," Mai said in disgust.

"Say what?"


A week later, Tasuki been taking out the trash—well, okay, fine, he hadn't been taking out the trash, he had been dismembering it because that bastard Tamahome had hidden his tessen again for no good reason at all (photoshopping Nakago's head onto Miaka's body in a picture of the eternal boyfriend and girlfriend being nauseatingly lovey-dovey last summer and taping a poster of it above his housemate's bed did not count) and the only place the redhead hadn't looked yet was the garbage on the curb.

He'd just up-ended the second can when Meian was on her way back from campus. She'd smiled a greeting, walked on, paused in mid-step and swiveled around again to give him a puzzled frown before inquiring what he was doing. Tasuki was tempted to snap "Pawing through the goddamn trash, what does it looklike" but Meian was nice, if kind of, you know, annoyingly shy sometimes. And she was Chichiri's girl now, which meant if he freaked her out the blue-haired man was going to righteously smite his ass. And then Mai would come by and try to kick his balls out his ears.

Which would be painful.

So he explained what Bakahome did and Meian surprised him by setting her books aside and getting down on her hands and knees in that pretty jean skirt to help him look. Women may be annoying sometimes, but damned if he was going to let a girl do thatand tried to make her get up. But then Meian found his beloved tessen stuffed in an empty pizza box and he felt doubly bad for wanting to snap at her earlier. So he thanked her and asked her if she wanted come in and wash her hands and drink any, uh, water.

Okay, yeah, that was lame, but it wasn't as if he could ask her if she wanted a beer,right?

So as Meian washed her hands in the sink with that cucumber melon smelling stuff Nuriko bought, they made awkward small talk until Meian asked him if he'd noticed Mai acting strangely over the past few days.

To which Tasuki had said, "Say what?"

Meian dried her hands on a towel. "Sort of…touchy."

Tasuki raised an eyebrow. "And that is different from her usual good humor how?"

Meian blushed. "Okay, that wasn't the right word. Um…touchy as usual but really prickly about more specific things? New interests?"

"Like being suddenly completely news obsessed?" added Tasuki dryly. God.Why can't women just say what they mean right off?

Mai had started the week in a pissed off mood. Which was perfectly normal, it being Monday and it being Mai. Tasuki wasn't too enthused about Mondays either. But then she was carting around stacks of newspapers, spending her lunch hour reading CNN feeds online, and demanding they watch the world news whenever she got control of the remote. As far as Tasuki could figure, it had started Monday night when they had been studying over pizza and coke. The TV had been more for background noise than anything else. He hadn't even know what channel they were on until he'd asked Mai if he could compare answers in a problem set and realized that she wasn't even paying attention to chemistry.

"Er, yes," Meian said. "News obsessed. Do you have any idea why?"

Tasuki ran a hand through his hair. "No. I just remember that it started with that big explosion last week…"

He couldn't remember exactly what the news bulletin had been about, but flashes of an explosion in some inner poor district of Hong Kong, a British voice explaining just how useless the rescue teams efforts were, and how no one knew had many people had been trapped in the rubble came to mind. No one knew what causedthe explosion either, but a gas main leak was being tossed around. The local hospital, as usual, was overstaffed and when the camera tried to get an interview with one of the victims they'd managed to drag out, Mai had stiffened. The piece ended with the reassuring little tidbit that this had not been the only significant event in the last week—there had been a fire a few streets over the day before, and a random shooting in a convenience store the day before that.

Meian frowned. "Hong Kong? Do you remember what district exactly?"

"What?" Tasuki blinked. "No. Why?"

"Well…Mai did grow up in Hong Kong. Do you think that she saw anyone that she knew?"

"Uh…" Tasuki paused again. "Well, I wasn't really paying attention." But he thought again about Mai's reaction to the attempted hospital interview. "Maybe? Why?"

"Umm…n-nothing," Meian stammered. Tasuki fought the urge to sigh. Mai wasn't exactly the greatest of liars either, but her housemate took the cake. "T-thank you for the water."

He shrugged. "Sure. Thanks for helping me find this," he said, waving his tessen. "Now if you excuse me, I've gotta go hide that bast—I mean, dumbhead Tamahome's money and pretend I burned it."

Meian blinked. "Okay…"


They didn't really think anymore about it until a week later when Tasuki screamed and nearly concussed himself in the bathroom.

Meian was over at their house preparing for her last exams. Chichiri was making her a snack. The rest of their housemates were still at school, either taking midterms of their own or at the library. Meian assumed that Mai was doing the same until Tasuki let out a blood-curdling scream and a loud thumping came from the downstairs bathroom.

Meian and Chichiri looked at each other and ran over.

"Tasuki no da? Are you okay?"

He was answered by virulent cursing.

Chichiri cautiously opened the door and nearly cursed himself.

Taiitsukun's fearsome visage was floating in the bathroom mirror. Tasuki had been washing his hands when she appeared in the mirror; the thumping occurred after he thrust himself away in terror and collided so violently with the door that he bounced off, slipped on the floor tile and sat down hard.

"WHAT THE FUCK?" the redhead screamed.

Taiitsukun looked at him, unmoved. "Where is she?"

"Where is who,you crazy bit—"

"Taiitsukun, who are you looking for?" Chichiri asked quickly.

"Mai, who do you think?"

"Isn't she in class?" Meian asked. "I saw her this morning and she said that she had an last midterm this afternoon—"

"Her last midterm is tomorrow afternoon," Taiitsukun said. "That idiot…"

"Look," said Tasuki on the floor. "If she's just cutting class, that's her deal. Get your damn NyanNyans to look for her!"

"They are," Taiisukun snapped, "and don't sense her anywhere on campus."

'What?" the three of them said, shocked.

"What do you mean?" asked Meian, feeling her stomach sinking. "Where is she?"

Taiitsukun looked even grimmer than she usually did. "I was hoping you knew. I was hoping that it was really someone that looked coincidently like her that just bought a one-way ticket to Hong Kong using one of my credit cards at the airport."