Before I continue with the story, I want to wish emodinosaur (I won't say her real name here... Unless she lets me. xD) good luck on her exams! :D

CHAPTER 20

Mei ruffled a towel through her wet tangles that clung to her figure that was otherwise bare apart from the towel that clung to her bust, falling to her mid-thigh. She glanced out of the window, the sky now a dark azure blue, slowly staining tones of ebony as darkness began to fall about the city, a sprinkling of shimmering stars already visible. Mei searched the sky for a silver slipper of a moon, but it was stolen from sight and she knew this only confirmed her suspicions; Oniyuro was definitely not in one of his better moods as of present.

"Mei, food is here!" Michiko's voice called to her from the ground floor following the rhythmic chime of the doorbell.

She sighed before dressing herself in a black tank top with a scarlet bat printed on the left breast and a pair of ebony jean shorts with frayed edges, clearly exposing that she had cut them herself from a pair of old skinny jeans. She ran a brush quickly through her hair and ruffled her fingers through her slanted bangs before exiting her room, not bothering to bring a pair of shoes as she had done earlier, now aware that they would simply end up filled with sand.

She halted at the door that led to the bedroom Oniyuro had claimed as his own before curling her hand into a fist and rapping it over the wooden door. He peeled it open only enough for him to eye her from head to toe whilst using his tall figure to block any chance of hers to peak into his room.

"You have been in your room for hours," She stated with a frown. "And the food has just got here. I was going to eat it down the beach because I do not want to sit around the dinner table with those love-struck couples. Do you want to escape with me?"

"Sorry, Mei, but I can't. This work is really important." He said sadly, his golden eyes glancing at her apologetically.

"Are you sure you do not want to take a break? I am giving you your only lifeline here, I am not coming back until they have retired back to their rooms and cannot annoy me." Once again, Oniyuro declined before Mei shrugged and bid him farewell, disappearing down the stairs into the open-plan room below.

Jiro and Michiko sat snuggled into one another's figures on one of the loveseats, bowls filled with take-out set on the table before them whilst Semu and Reiko sat out on the balcony, basking in the darkening sunset, their features illuminated by candlelight. Mei rolled her eyes at the romantic atmosphere as she snatched the plastic bag filled with her order off of the kitchen island before heading for the door that led to the beach.

"Where are you going?" Michiko blurted, the sound of the door ripping free from its frame breaking her trance of affection.

"Down the beach for some peace and quiet," She replied before glancing over her shoulder at her comrade and smirking teasingly. "After all I do not want to interrupt anything."

Jiro barked with laughter before nuzzling into Michiko's neck, biting her playfully with his canines.

"That is true," He admitted as he nibbled gently, a pair of sapphire wolf ears flopping out of his mop of hair. "We will need things to be private."

With a roll of her dark eyes, Mei swept out of the house, tugging the door shut behind her and descending down the winding wooden stairs that led to the barren beach against which the waves rolled softly, filling the air with the gentle aroma of fresh salt. Mei almost felt bad for leaving her comrades despite the fact that it was meant to be a group holiday, but she was definitely not in the mood to play the third wheel. Being around so many happy couples–even Hiyo and Kurou–made her bitterly aware of how alone she was. Reiko and Michiko were the only girls she considered friends and they were in couples and although Oniyuro was not in any relationship, he was not in the mood to be around anyone currently.

I guess I am just lonely. She thought before widening her eyes and quickly shaking her head, making the thought vanish immediately.

It was not something she wanted to think about, she was used to being lonely in the Xiantha clan, it was almost a comfort to feel isolated to an introvert such as herself and she did not need a relationship to be happy even if others were in them. Mei found a spot to sit near the edge of the ocean, settling her bag of food down before searching for things on which to rest a fire. She quickly gathered a large amount of dead matter–with the aid of her earth manipulation–and dropped it in a pile before her meal, spawning a vibrant flame onto the mount and sitting down beside it, warming her fair figure.

As she sat, twirling her chopsticks around the noodle dish she had ordered and feeding herself in a well-mannered fashion, she grew curious as to why Oniyuro had secluded himself into his room, even though he had promised to return to the beach after he had changed into more suitable clothes earlier that day. Michiko excused it as him being moody as per usual, however Mei could not help but wonder what had made him so moody in the few minutes he had departed from the beach where he had been in a good mood–at least for Oniyuro–albeit slightly irritated by the appearance of Jiro's friends. Mei knew their intrusions could not be the source as he usually regarded them as beneath him and thus not worthy of such a drastic change in mood.

Suddenly a disturbance in the earth broke Mei from her thoughts and the sound of footsteps flooded over her, causing her to stop threading noodles into her mouth in confusion. She did not need to look over her shoulder to know who was joining her as her other comrades would not visit her without their respective partners.

"Are you some kind of mind reader, Oniyuro?" She asked as she nibbled on a vegetarian pastry.

"Well, I can safely assume that you are not one." Haine smirked as he took a seat beside her wide-eyed expression of bewilderment.

His tall, athletic figure was compressed into a pair of tight-fitting, dark jeans and an ebony unbuttoned shirt that exposed his chiselled chest as well as the dark strings slung around his neck with a single gothic cross hanging from one of them. His chocolate brown, grey-hued hair fell about his collarbone in a layered mop, framing his handsome face as his similarly coloured eyes glanced at Mei with a mischievous twinkle.

"What are you doing here?" She snapped once she had overcome her shock, her pallid features now twisting with fury. "Did you follow me here? Do you just thrive off of irritating me to the brink of murdering you on the spot?"

Haine simply chuckled at Mei, only serving to increase her anger as he glanced out over the sea, almost disregarding her questions. Before she could shout at him and prod further for answers, he sighed in defeat and complied.

"I was actually invited here." He stated calmly.

"Who in their right mind would invite you anywhere?"

"My Hiyo, of course," He replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "She thought I might enjoy spending the summer at the beach with her and her friends, especially considering those Tamaki girls are looking for a big, strong crow to fawn over."

"How wonderful for them," Mei muttered sarcastically before a frown tugged at her lips in aggravation. "You can go spend your evening with those imbeciles and leave me alone then. And I will have to give Hiyo a slap around the face to knock some sense into that thick head of hers."

"You are so very pleasant to others," He mumbled, stretching his legs out across the sand, relaxing as if he were welcomed there. "No wonder you have so many friends."

"Firstly, I do not want to be friends with those absolute morons you spend your time with despite the fact that you are in university and should try making some friends your own age," She snapped angrily, baring her teeth at him animally. "And secondly, I did not ask nor want your opinion on anything and I never will."

"The more you protest, the more obvious it is that you want me." Mei scoffed audibly at his claim, rolling her eyes in irritation.

"I only want you dead." She hissed before shifting away from him as the fire blazed more violently under her increased fury.

Suddenly in the blink of an eye, Mei felt her body press into the soft, golden brown sand, her eyes once again wide with confusion as they stared up into Haine's seductively narrowed ones. He leant on his forearms as they pressed into the sand, bent at the elbows in order to hold himself up whilst his knees were bent on either side of her legs, adding extra support to his athletic figure that was mere centimetres from her curvaceous one.

Mei felt her breath catch in her throat, her figure suddenly paralyzed by the close proximity of their two bodies, the closest she had come to a male in her entire seventeen years of life. Stray strands of his hair tickled over her forehead tantalisingly as he laced his fingers through her charcoal black locks gently, admiring her features affectionately. She began to feel naked under his gaze, desiring nothing more than for a hole to open up in the ground and swallow her up, escaping the bizarreness of this entire situation.

"Are you sure you do not want this?" He murmured alluringly, his breath brushing over her gently.

"No." Mei choked out a single syllable, unable to collect her raging thoughts together for long enough to shout at Haine for the closeness of their bodies.

"So you are not sure and you do want this..." He smirked further, his hand dropping to caress her jaw.

His conceited tone sent a bolt of electric fury through Mei, finally allowing her to fixate her thoughts on his advancements and snap out of her astonished paralysis.

"As in no so get the hell off of me before I set you alight." She barked angrily, her limp arms now darting up, pressing her hands against Haine's chest, preparing to thrust him off of her.

Feeling her tensing movements, he quickly cupped her jaw before pressing his lips to hers gently, silencing her mutterings of death threats and obscene language. His hand entangled through her hair hastily dropped to her waist, snaking an arm securely around it as Mei squeezed her eyes shut, about to send a blast of blinding flames through her fingertips, forcing the crow demon off of her.

Mei hesitated as she felt the ground crumble beneath her, her body solely supported by the arm clasped around her waist as the support of the sand vanished. She anxiously tore her eyes open to find the pair hovering in the midnight sky, guided by Haine's gargantuan ashen wings. She hastily manipulated the air beneath her feet, suspending herself under her control, not trusting the crow demon to keep hold of her so high in the air.

"Why can you not trust me for a single second?" He muttered with a hint of hurt in his tone.

"Why can you not leave me alone for a single second?" She retorted, struggling to tear free from his strong grasp whilst maintaining her control of the air about her figure. "Now let go of me."

"I will leave you alone if you just trust me," He bargained, tightening his hold on her the more she struggled. "Just for a single second."

"Put me down!" She shouted lividly, curling her hands into fists threateningly.

"Just trust me," He whispered, curling his free arm around her waist to support her. "Please."

Groaning in defeat, Mei slid her eyes shut, reluctantly releasing her control of the air about the pair, feeling her body suddenly regain weight and begin to slump downwards. Instinctively she tensed her body nervously and grabbed fistfuls of Haine's shirt, anticipating her figure to begin to tumble to the ground. But no such fall happened; instead Haine supported her weight completely, his arms holding her tight to his chiselled body. She peeled her eyes open cautiously to find his handsome face mere centimetres from hers, his forehead skimming over her own whilst his hot breath smothered her gently.

"See," He hummed through the silence between them, noticing Mei's expression of disbelief that Haine had not taken the opportunity to drop her and irritate her further. "I am not all that bad."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here," She mumbled in response before tilting her head up, glancing at his broad, impressive wings. "I take it you are not a full monster."

Haine's arms tensed about her waist, his expression hardening at the topic of the purity of his monster status. He cleared his throat, quickly looking away from Mei with a frown now spreading across his lips.

"Touched a nerve, have I?" She sneered, causing him to turn his glare on her.

"I will tell you what I am, I am one of the most powerful crows, if not the most," He growled defensively, almost hurting Mei with his tightening grip on her. "So my heritage is completely irrelevant."

"I guess that means it is only a small impurity, you come from a pure crow family," She prodded further. "Except one of your parents is human, making you half human and half crow demon, thus accounting for the colour of your wings."

"So what?" He snapped furiously, losing his temper completely. "No insult you can throw my way about my wings will be different from anything I have heard already, so just drop it."

Mei glanced up at him, meeting his gaze before smirking at him, speaking in an ambiguous tone that left him unsure as to if her compliment was genuine or a source of mockery.

"I like the colour grey."

Mei sighed to herself, sitting up in her bed, still unable to sleep as she felt overwhelmed with embarrassment over her evening with Haine which she had promptly cut short following their conversation regarding his heritage. She had had enough of his mind games. She smoothed out her oversized night shirt about her figure, wondering why she finding it so impossible to lie comfortably, well-aware that it was not because of her pyjamas or the foreign bed; it was because she was anxious.

As if reading her mind as one would expect of a best friend, there was a muffled knock on the door before the beholder pushed it open, gazing into Mei's darkened room curiously. Michiko's developed figure was compressed into a silken, ebony camisole and a pair of pyjama shorts, her violet locks pulled back out of her features in a bundle of curls as she crept towards the bed. She climbed onto it silently, taking a seat cross-legged beside Mei who remained silent until her friend had settled.

"I guess you are the mind reader," She muttered as Michiko raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Nothing, it was just something I was thinking earlier."

Michiko half-smiled before bobbing her head into a nod, trying to search through her mind for a route through which to kick start the conversation both were anticipating. After a moment of deliberation, she clicked her fingers, spreading her lips into a grin of triumph as she discovered the sentence she sought.

"I'm sorry for making you feel like a third wheel," She said in a genuine tone. "And for Jiro mentioning the beach to his friends, I don't even think he thought they would join us here, but still. I'm sorry."

"It is okay." Mei replied curtly, drawing her knees to her body beneath the duvet, folding her arms over one another before perching her chin upon them and resting them on her knees.

"What did you do all night? You pretty much left for twenty minutes or so then ran up to your room and did not come out for the rest of the evening," She explained before laughing gently. "I was starting to worry that Oni is rubbing off on you."

"No, it's not that. In fact I have no idea what is putting him in such a mood, especially because he seemed all right this morning," Mei stated with a shrug of her shoulders that Michiko repeated. "I just needed to have a think and some time to myself."

"I thought going down the beach was having time to yourself."

"Unfortunately, I was only alone for about a minute before my one man party was crashed." She muttered sourly, still unsure of how to feel about the events of the evening.

"Oh really?" Michiko's raven rabbit ears perked up with interest as a sly smirk spread across her lips, her dark amethyst eyes narrowing at Mei through the darkness. "Do tell."

"Well, you see, I think Hiyo may be trying to make me kill myself," Mei mumbled, pausing to roll her eyes at the image of Hiyo Osora before continuing. "And in her infinite wisdom, she invited Haine to spend the summer here with her and, by association, with us."

"Haine spent the evening with you?" Michiko gawked in confusion before returning to her cunning expression, teasing her friend playfully. "Alone with you, out on the beach under the romantic starlight... Sounds like a fun night."

"Okay, you can leave now." She seethed defensively at Michiko who glared at her stubbornly before sighing in defeat.

"I will stay, but I will leave the Haine topic well enough alone," Michiko surrendered. "For now at least."

"Good," Mei snapped briskly before curling her frown into a small, supportive smile. "How are you enjoying the holiday so far?"

"Today has been a lot of fun. It's nice to have Jiro away from his friends, to a degree at least."

"And how are the pair of you doing?" Mei asked awkwardly.

"You mean our relationship?" She cringed at Michiko's response, swallowing her discomfort before replying.

"Well I was trying to put it more delicately than that," She explained before her supportive smile returned to her pallid lips. "But either way, I am your friend and I am here for you to talk to."

"You are my best friend," Michiko corrected in a matter-of-fact tone before grinning widely. "And I'm glad you are willing to listen to me about all of this. Luckily for you though, Jiro and I are doing well, no obstacles yet. Although I do have an urge to push Komugi off of a cliff over the summer and claim it to be a mysterious disappearance of a measly human,"

"But aside from his aggravating ex-girlfriend and not to forget the delusional and equally as irritating Ayaki, I think this is going to be an amazing summer. And I am about to tell you something that I know will make you cringe a lot, and please forgive me for it," After Mei nodded in silent agreement to offer forgiveness for what Michiko was about to announce as she leaned closer, lowering her voice to a girlish whisper. "I always thought there was a possibility I felt this strong about him, but now I know. I know that I love Ginjirou Kouya."