"Either I will find a way, or I will make one." -Philip Sidney

Gravity

Chapter Twenty-five

Needless to say, Hiei was not amused by our predicament. It was mid morning by the time that the rain cleared off enough for us to be able to leave without being soaked to the bone. When I had finally found him stowed away in his room he hadn't been in a bad mood, until I told him that he had to go into town with Tetsuya and I. So after having to plead with him for about an hour to get him to agree to come, he grudgingly gave in when Yokuto had said that it would be fine for just Tetsuya and I to go. The twinkle in his eye told me that he had planned for Hiei to give in when he said that.

So now I was sitting next to a brooding Hiei and across from a bubbly Tetsuya on the twenty minute train ride into Misawa and was only armed with only the money Yokuto had given me, and the money I had brought with me in my bag. Between the glares that Hiei was giving Tetsuya and the way Tetsuya was ignoring those glares with his chatter made me think that I should have brought my bo.

"Have you ever been to Misawa, Daelyn?" he asked excitedly.

"Nope," I said shaking my head and smiling at his excitement.

"I haven't really been to.." he paused to glance around us to see if anyone was sitting close enough to hear us talk. "Human World. I'm really excited to see it."

I heard Hiei scoff next to me and I shot him a look through the corner of my eyes. "Well, we can look around all you want," I said softening my look to smile at the gray haired demon in front of me. Hiei's irritation washed over me when I said that, battling at the front of my mind with Tetsuya's utter excitement. I had a feeling that today was going to be a very, very long day.

Once the train had come to a stop and we got off, Tetsuya was almost bouncing in his excitement, which drew a lot of attention to our little group. Two other worldly looking men, one of which was rushing back and forth between signs and small souvenir shops, the other with a dark glare and set jaw with his arms crossed, the glare being directed at the excited man, and me who stood next to the dark and brooding one with my head hanging in one of my hands.

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea," I muttered. Hiei grunted. With a heavy sigh I followed after the excited demon with Hiei following a few paces behind me. I needed to rein Tetsuya in before he drew anymore attention to us. It was almost adorable, really. He was like a child visiting the zoo for the first time and was excited to see all of the animals. But in this case, it was a fully grown, twenty-something looking, gray headed man rushing back and forth to see all of the human world wonders and attractions while chattering fast enough that his words were morphing together in one jumbled stream.

When we were finally able to track him down, he had stopped in front of a map of Japan that was hung on one of the walls of the startion, staring at it with wide and curious eyes. His gaze broke away long enough to glance at us before turning back to the map.

"Where are we at on here?" Tetsuya asked when I came to stand next to him with Hiei a few feet back, whom I was certain was glaring at the back of Tetsuya's head. I looked up to the map and pointed at the top of Japan's main island. He studied where my finger pointed closely. "And where is the city you and David live in?" I pointed at Tokyo much further down the map.

"Tokyo," I said. "We live on the outskirts of Tokyo." I turned my head to watch him as he studied the map closely, his coal eyes twinkling with interest and excitement. He leaned forward, almost pressing his nose to the map to read the small kanji written on the different towns and cities. A small smile crossed over my face. He was so full of energy and life. Even though it seemed like his energy could be a handful today while we were in town, I found myself realizing that his energy is what attracted me to him in the first place.

Irritation rolled off of Hiei immediately after I thought about that. My teeth clicked together as I glanced over my shoulder. His glare was dark and glistening with anger and it was fixed directly at Tetsuya. His darkened gaze slid over to me, losing some of it's intensity, but I could still feel both his lighter and darker energy twisting in anger.

"Come on," I said, after breaking my gaze away from Hiei and tugging at Tetsuya's shirt. "Let's go get some lunch. I'm starving."

"Okay!" he said brightly matched with a huge smile.

"Are you hungry?" I asked Hiei. He scoffed at me and ignored my question. I felt my face fall a little. I was going to have to do some serious damage control now. With that I lead Tetsuya away from the train station with my grip still tight on his sleeve so he didn't wander off. Hiei stayed a few paces behind us as I searched through the small crowd for somewhere to eat, but due to the fact that somehow I managed to be shorter than the general populace, I couldn't see over the top of the crowd. With an irritated sigh, I came to a stop and looked up at Tetsuya then over to Hiei. "I can't see over the crowd," I admitted with a small blush. "Do either of you see anything?"

Hiei ignored my question, his energies still raging at the front of my mind. I could see his bandaged hand was clenching tightly as he tried to hide it with crossing his arms. I pursed my lips. Had I made the dragon angry? I had promised to try to not make it angry anymore, but to be honest, I wasn't exactly sure what I had been doing to make it angry. I let my mind focus on the darker energy, letting his lighter energy fade to the background. It roared at the front of my mind, twisting and curling around in it's anger. I sifted through the anger to see if I could possibly figure out what was causing it to be angry. My mind only came across one small glimmer of emotion behind the rage.

...It's..jealous?

I pulled my hand away from Tetsuya's sleeve like it was made of acid. Tetsuya paid no mind, but Hiei's ruby eyes glanced over at the lack of contact, and I felt his energies ease just a little. His eyes lifted to mine and I blushed, looking down at my feet. He was jealous of Tetsuya. If I hadn't felt it myself, I would have laughed at the idea of Hiei being jealous of anything.

"Over here!" Tetsuya chirped, reaching out to grab my hand and lacing his fingers with mine. My eyes nearly popped out of my head, the blush growing brighter on my face when Hiei's energies started burning brighter once again. I was fairly certain I had heard him growl as Tetsuya pulled me through the crowd. I shot a look of apology over my shoulder but his glare wasn't faltering from the back of Tetsuya's head. I was beginning to wonder how long it was going to take for Tetsuya to burst into flames from the heat coming from Hiei's glare.

Tetsuya pulled me into a small restaurant, completely unaware of the fiery glare that was being directed at him. Hiei followed a few paces behind, grudgingly following us inside. Tetsuya still held firmly onto my hand, chattering excitedly while we were seated. Once he let go of my hand I slid into the booth, trying to keep my blush at bay, but it was still coming full force as Tetsuya sat next to me. The anger from Hiei bubbled further into the front of my mind as he sat across from me, though he made a point to not look at either of us, and fixed his glare to outside of the window.

Part of me was actually surprised that he had come inside with us, but the other part of me was too busy trying to figure out how I was going to deal with this. The last thing I had expected from Hiei is that he would be jealous, even though I didn't think it was directly him that was jealous. Maybe he could feel the emotions that the dragon was feeling. Or maybe.. I thought, looking him through my eyelashes as I tried to busy myself with the menu in front of me. The dragon feels what he does.

I pursed my lips. That would mean it was Hiei that was jealous, not just the dragon. But, why was he jealous of Tetsuya? Did he know that Tetsuya had feelings for me? Probably. He also probably knew that I kind of had a crush on the not-so-shadow demon. But then he should also know that I was trying to figure out whatever the hell I was feeling for him before I figured anything out with Tetsuya. There was nothing to be jealous about.

Unless.. My eyes tore away from him and stared wide and unseeingly at the laminated menu in my hands. Unless the kiss had meant more to him than what I thought. He had acted as if the kiss wasn't anything to be worried about, and he didn't seem at all concerned about it. But Hiei was the stoic type. It wasn't as if he was just going to spill his heart out to me. I would probably be more concerned about if he had hit his head or not if he started talking to me about his feelings.

I chewed the inside of my lip as my mind spun around, trying to figure out what to do. I needed to talk to Hiei about what had happened. But the hard part was finding time to do so. Between my training, Tetsuya always seeking conversation and company, and trying to get enough sleep at night, my free time was little and far between. Perhaps if we got home in enough time today and I could sneak away from the other two men in the temple I could track down Hiei and get him to talk to me. But as Tetsuya chattered away next to me I was beginning to doubt we would get home before dark.

Why did Yokuto do this to me..?

Yokuto stood at the top of the steps of the porch, one arm crossed over his chest and the other hand lifting up to his lips so he could hold the pipe lightly in between his teeth. The rain had cleared off for the moment, but the clouds looked ready to release another down pour at any moment. The temple was quiet without his student and her shadow demon friend.

It had been a long time since he had taken a student under his wing. Twenty years, at least. No student that had come to him had truly perked his interest. But when Koenma had come to him personally to ask for him to take Daelyn in for his training he knew that his curiosity wouldn't be sated until he had met the girl. The girl had been born and raised human, killed, then brought back to life to be slowly transforming into one of the most notoriously strong breeds of demon. It made him curious as to why an energy demon would go through so much effort for a simple human girl who had no previously known spiritual awareness. He had agreed to train the girl without much hesitation.

Now that he had met her and come to know her, he was beginning to see why. Daelyn had a fire in her, even if she herself didn't see that. Though she got frustrated easily, and at times said she was going to give up, she never did. He had come to admire her drive to better herself. He hadn't had many students before her that would take his training in strides like she did. Even if she did complain about it.

To further his entertainment of his new student, Hiei and Tetsuya had made things even more interesting. He had seen the first night Daelyn came to the temple that something was going on between her and the fire demon. Then Tetsuya came to stay in the temple, stirring things up even further. Some would consider it cruel, but he found the entire situation rather amusing.

The shadow demon had developed an obvious crush on his student. Hiei and Daelyn had at least kissed that night on the beach when he had interrupted. Hiei hated Tetsuya, and Tetsuya was completely oblivious to that. An amused smirk came to Yokuto's face as a trail of smoke rose from his lips. The opportunity had presented itself for him to push things even further. He had sent Daelyn, with the two other demons in the temple into town. He was looking forward to see what would come of it.

A loud mewl came from his feet. He glanced down to see Mi staring up at him with questioning eyes.

"Hungry?" he asked the dragon tailed cat. He was answered with another loud mew and an eruption of purrs. He turned to head back into the temple as the rain started to come down in a drizzle. Mi followed at his side, her belled collar jingling with her every step. He glanced down to the furry creature. "She's going to be rather upset with me, isn't she?"

She gave a mew of agreement.

I was going to kill Yokuto.

I was going to snatch him up and hang him to a tree by that pretty hair of his and beat him with my bo like a live pinata until he begged for forgiveness and then maybe, just maybe, I would forgive him for putting me through this.

After Tetsuya and I ate lunch and Hiei pointedly ignoring the both of us and opting to not eat, Tetsuya dragged me around the entire city of Misawa with Hiei grudgingly following along, with his two energies roaring up a storm of rage the further we walked. He would stand outside whatever store that Tetsuya dragged me into while I was asked to explain everything in the little shops.

We were currently in a medium sized clothing store and Tetsuya was combing through the racks, asking about certain fashions that didn't make sense to him. Like the floral crop top he was holding up after beginning his searching through the women's section.

"It's a crop top," I said, resisting the urge to sigh.

"But..why would you expose your stomach to attack like this?" he asked, his coal eyes glittering with curiosity. "It's missing half of it."

I glanced around to make sure there weren't any wandering ears before I answered. "Some girls just like them," I said. "Humans have had stranger fashion trends. It's just what's in right now," I continued, shrugging. "Like shoulder pads in t-shirts in the nineties. Or the beehive hair in the sixties. And corsets paired with white lead paint on women's faces to make them paler in the renaissance."

He pursed his lips as his eyes narrowed, further studying the shirt on the hanger. After a few moments he nodded and put it back on the rack (in which is after I had to get onto him multiple times to do so because I didn't want to anger the workers). Once the shirt was safely back on the racks, his eyes searched around us once again. I was on the verge of grabbing him by the arm and dragging him out of the store. The rain that had cleared off when we left had come back while we were eating lunch. There was another break in the down pour, and maybe if we hurried we could make it to the grocery store-

I was suddenly dragged off further into the store. We came to a stop in front of a rack on the wall. It was filled with dresses of a multitude of different colors. He was searching through a rack of blue dresses, his eyes looking me over as he pulled a few dresses off the rack. I narrowed my gaze at him in suspicion. He gave a bright smile as he pulled two of them off of the rack and held them out to me.

"You should try these on!" he chirped happily.

"..What?" I asked, my voice dropping in tone.

"Please?" he asked, batting his eyelashes at me, and flashing me a pleading smile. "For me?"

"Why?" I asked, suspicion dripping heavily from my voice. What was he up to?

"If you try it on I won't drag you into any other stores, and we can go grocery shopping and go home," he said, his smile growing even further. "I promise."

I took a long moment to consider his offer. Either refuse to try on the dresses and be dragged from store to store for another undisclosed amount of hours with an aggravated Hiei in tow, or give in, try on the dresses, finish grocery shopping quickly and go home within the next two hours. I let out a heavy sigh.

"Fine," I grumbled. I took the two dresses from him and dragged my feet to the dressing rooms in the back of the store with Tetsuya bouncing along happily behind me. Most of them were empty, so I chose one close to the entrance of the dressing room so I could show Tetsuya quickly and get out. The two dresses were the same dress, just different sizes. I undressed quickly, and pulled the one in my size off of the hanger and slipped it over my head. I would have to give him props later at being able to choose the right size without asking, and then tell him that he should never ask a woman what size she wore so to just use his instinct about guessing.

I took a moment to look at myself in the floor length mirror in the dressing room. The dress was actually very pretty. It had thin straps on the shoulders, and hugged to my upper body enough to give me a little bit of shape, but not enough to constrict me. At the lower waist it flared out into a flowy skirt that brushed against the tops of my knees. It was a blue that was the same color of the pictures that you see of the ocean when places are trying to convince you to come to their resort on vacation. A white braided rope belt came with the dress to sit on the seam of the dress to give it some seperation.

After taking a moment to look myself over, I ran my fingers through my bangs and opened the door to go and show Tetsuya. He was waiting patiently outside, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet as his eyes darted around the store. When I came to stand in the doorway his eyes fell on me. He blinked once. Then twice. A soft smile came over his face. He then closed the distance between us with three large strides, his eyes trailing over the dress. I stared up at him with a blush coming over my face. His face was void of his hyper happiness, instead replaced by a soft look on his features.

"It suits you," he said softly. "You look beautiful."

"U-um, I..U-uh well.." I stammered out, my ears growing hot. What the hell was I supposed to say to that? He had called me beautiful before, but he didn't say it right out like this. My back stiffened into a rod when he reached for my hand and brought it to his lips, pressing them softly to the back of my hand. He let my hand drop back to my side and smiled at me brightly once again.

"Well, if you're ready to get home we should get grocery shopping done soon!" he said happily.

I gave a weak nod and spun on my heels to dart back to the dressing room that I changed in. Once behind the safety of the dressing room door, I pressed my forehead against the coolness of the heavy door, desperately trying to ease the blush on my face. Oh god, I groaned to myself. What have I gotten myself into?

When we exited the clothing store to find a non existent Hiei. I could sense his energy somewhere near by, though I wasn't exactly sure where. I paled as they came over me. They were both on a new level of anger that I hadn't experienced from him before. Had he seen what had happened? Did he see Tetsuya kiss my hand? Or did he read our minds and see what had happened?

"He must have gotten bored waiting for us," Tetsuya said, slowly drawing my attention to him. "Oh well," he smiled. "Let's go finish shopping and get home."

I gave a silent nod and headed for the direction of the store with Tetsuya following closely behind. What had I done? This whole situation was so stupid. All of it. From the very beginning. I should have talked to Hiei that first night when I had kissed him instead of trying to push it off. I should have asked him what the kiss meant to him. How could I have been so stupid to try and push off the conversation that we needed to have? Now Tetsuya had made a move and Hiei was angry. What could I have done about it though? Tetsuya wasn't someone who could be easily controlled. His actions were sporadic and completely his own.

Maybe I should have told Tetsuya that I had kissed Hiei. Then he wouldn't have kissed my hand, right? I grit my teeth. Honestly, I doubt it would have mattered. Tetsuya seemed to be the type to act first, ask questions later. Hiei and I weren't an item. Were we? I honestly didn't know. And since I didn't know, I wouldn't have known what to tell Tetsuya so it probably wouldn't have effected his idea to kiss my hand.

What am I supposed to do now?

The train ride home was much more subdued than it was before. After spending only an hour in the store, we were headed home. Tetsuya had asked a load of questions as we passed things but he didn't run off like he had earlier that day. Now he was sitting next to me on the train with his eyes closed and his head leaned back on the seat. I knew he wasn't asleep, but I was sure that his pent up energy had been spent today.

I didn't see Hiei for the rest of the time we were in town. I felt him near by, but the strong and whirling emotions coming off of him made it hard for me to pin point exactly where he was. He didn't board the train with us. I felt horrible about it, but at the same time, I felt like it wasn't my fault. I couldn't control what Tetsuya did. I didn't even know how Hiei really felt about me. What did he expect me to do when Tetsuya kissed my hand? Slap him? Tell him to screw off? I couldn't do that to him. He was too sweet. I couldn't break his heart like that.

But now I had to deal with damage control. I needed to find time to track Hiei down and make him talk to me. Possibly tonight if Yokuto didn't have anything plotted for me when we got back to the temple. The question was, would he talk to me even if I tried to make him? The anger coming from him told me probably not, and even if he did, it would probably be kind of scary. I had never personally dealt with an angry Hiei, but something told me that it wasn't something I wanted to be at the end of.

Once the train had come to a stop, Tetsuya carried all of the bags of food that we had gotten from the store and we exited out of the station. He handled the steps up to the temple with ease, even loaded down with heavy bags. I still struggled with them quite a bit but, unlike Hiei, Tetsuya didn't throw insults at me. Instead he slowed his pace so I could keep up with him. I grit my teeth as he chattered about different things he had seen through the day. The scars on my chest hadn't hurt in some time thanks to that green paste that Kurama had given me. Yet there was something about the damned steps that made them ache all over again.

Hiei's energy had long since disappeared somewhere by the time we made it to the top of the stairs. I guess once he decided we were close enough to the temple he didn't want to follow us anymore. Tetsuya didn't make any comment about it as I followed him into the temple to put away the groceries. Yokuto greeted us in the hallway, stepping out of the living room area.

"I didn't expect it to be a whole days trip," he said, his eyes twinkling. Mi rushed passed him and jumped into my arms, mewling in greeting as she rubbed her face against mine. I shot him a bland look as I scratched her behind the ears with one of my hands. I was going to give him a piece of my mind later. "How did you like Misawa?" he asked with a knowing smile.

"It was great!" Tetsuya spoke up with a grin. "Human world cities are so interesting!" He and Yokuto disappeared into the dinning room, Tetsuya chattering about today the entire time. I took my first quiet moment of the day to lean tiredly against the wall with a heavy sigh. Mi tucked her head under my chin, purring deeply into my skin.

Today was exhausting on a physical and mental level. Physically exhausting because I was fairly certain that Tetsuya had dragged us around Misawa at least three times. Mentally exhausting because I was now dealing with an angry and jealous dragon and it's owner that I had no idea how to deal with. Who ever thought that love triangles were a romantic thing needed to get their head checked out because this shit it stressful.

After taking a few moments to myself, I went to the kitchen to help the two men putting away the groceries.

"You're distracted," Shizuru's voice came, breaking David out of his deep thought.

"Ah, yes," he said sheepishly with an apologetic smile. "Forgive me. I'm not being a very interesting date tonight, am I?"

"Not really," she said smoothly. A small smile graced her face after she spoke, telling him that she wasn't angry that he was distracted. "What's on your mind?"

David let out a quiet sigh and sat back in his seat. His eyes traced along the restaurant. Although it wasn't anything over the top fancy, it was nicer than most places he frequented. He had called Shizuru earlier to ask if she'd like to go to dinner and was pleasantly surprised that she agreed on such short notice. He was thankful that she understood that it wasn't the best idea for him to make plans a few days in advance. He'd had to cancel more times than he could count on with things he had planned with Daelyn because he would be called into work.

"It's Daelyn," he said after a moment. "I'm worried about her."

"She's with Hiei," Shizuru said, running her fingers through her long pale brunette hair. "She's safe. Unless," her eyes narrowed slightly. "That's the reason you're worried."

"Yes," he said, smiling at her guess. She had already told him of her spiritual awareness, and her uncanny ability to foresee things. It ran in the Kuwabara family. "Her letter this morning has me worried about those two. When everything first started happening," he began, making sure to use loose terms so any listening ears wouldn't think anything of what he was saying. "I made her promise to talk to me should she be thinking about making any serious moves in a relationship with someone. I think she was possibly trying to tell me that in her letter."

"You feel responsible for her," Shizuru observed. "I'm the same way with Kazuma. Our parents are pretty much no shows, you know? I've taken care of him our entire lives. You're trying to be her father, mother, and brother all at the same time. Trying to get her to talk to you about it like she would your mother, protect her from the big bad boyfriend like your father, but at the same time you want to just be her brother and want to step back and let her do what she wants to do and be there to help pick up the pieces should something happen and then go kick the big bad boyfriends ass for hurting your little sister. How close am I to being right?" she asked, with a smile.

"Scarily correct," he sighed and then returned the smile. "If I would have let her date in school I feel like this wouldn't be such a big deal now."

"It wouldn't be," she said honestly. That was one thing he liked so much about Shizuru. She didn't beat around the bush. "But you can't change that now. You just need to step back and let her learn from her own decisions. She can't be sheltered her entire life. I hope that she does talk to you about anything she's confused about, but you can't be angry if she doesn't. You're her older brother. Just be there for her when she needs you."

David didn't answer right away, taking a moment to let her words sink in. Maybe he was expecting too much from Daelyn. When it came down to it at the end of the day he wasn't anything more than her older brother. He never would be anything else. He reached across the table and took one of Shizuru's hands in his.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"You're welcome," she answered with a light blush.

We had spent so much time in town that by the time we had put everything up, it was time to begin cooking dinner. Tetsuya left Yokuto and I alone in the kitchen to work while he went off and did whatever he did when he was alone.

"So tell me," Yokuto said glancing up at me from the fish he was cleaning. "How was it in Misawa today?"

"You already asked that," I grumbled, forcefully chopping the vegetables in front of me. It was still in the back of my mind to string him to a tree by his hair and beat him with my bo.

"And you weren't the one that answered," he chuckled. "To Tetsuya it might have been great, but for you it may have been different. And you know how I feel about you lying," he said in a non threatening way, but I knew better than that.

"It was exhausting," I said quietly. "I think I know Misawa like the back of my hand now with how Tetsuya dragged me through it so many times. I'm probably just going to go to bed after dinner." It wasn't exactly a lie. I just didn't tell him everything that had happened.

"I see," he said. "Perhaps your training has been too easy if you tire yourself out so easily. You need better stamina. We'll work on that."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. He probably knew that I wasn't telling him everything and this was his way at getting back at me about it. But I wasn't going to give in and spill my guts to him. I could feel Mi's eyes burning into me. I glanced at her through the corner of my eyes. Her ears twitched back and forth and I knew that she knew more than I was willing to tell Yokuto. I pursed my lips and pointed a finger at her to tell her to keep silent. She simply swished her tail back and forth.

We finished cooking dinner in silence and set the table. Only Tetsuya joined us. I could barely feel Hiei's energies somewhere outside. I decided while I dished out some fish for Mi that I would go and track down Hiei after I ate and force him to talk to me. I couldn't deal with this anymore.

I ate mostly in silence, trying to figure out what I was going to say to him. Tetsuya tried to pull me into conversation a few times, but then gave up after a while and pretty much left me alone. After we finished eating he helped me clean up, drying the dishes as I washed them. We knocked those out quickly and I put Hiei's plate that I had saved into the fridge incase he got hungry later and headed to my room to grab a jacket.

Mi made herself comfortable on one of the pillows and quickly fell asleep as I pulled the jacket on. I shook my head at her with a small laugh. Life must be so easy to be a cat. Once outside, I pulled the jacket closer to me, getting a slight chill from the air. It had stopped raining, but the clouds had yet to clear off, making the night so much darker than it should have been. Luckily, my telekinesis helped with that. In the dark I could see energy glowing off of everything which helped me see everything.

I set off into the forest towards the direction that Hiei's energies were the strongest. I trekked through the forest, careful of where my feet were stepping. I could hear things moving in the brush and I really didn't want to find out if it was some kind of poisonous snake that didn't appreciate me stepping on it. The forest, surprisingly, wasn't very thick. Don't get me wrong, there were still a bang load of trees and wild over grown ferns, but there wasn't a lot for me to trip over even though I still managed to do it a few times.

As I got closer to where Hiei was, the hotter his energy grew, threatening to burn everything around me. I pursed my lips as I came to stand where it was the strongest I had felt it. He was somewhere near by.

"Hiei?" I called out softly. I knew he would be able to hear me. With his demon ears and the quiet rustle in the forest, I didn't need to shout to get his attention. Almost immediately, his burning energies cooled and almost completely disappeared around me. I pursed my lips. Did he just run from me? I heard movement behind me and I spun around to see a pair of ruby eyes glaring at me in the darkness. He must have been trying to mask his energy. Even though I could see the energy of everything around me, his own was subdued to almost a nonexistent glimmer. The courage I had before started to melt away as he crossed his arms and leaned his shoulder against the tree he was standing next to, his glare unwavering as he looked at me. "I-I..I need to talk to you," I said quietly and averting my gaze to the ground.

"Clearly," he scoffed harshly.

I resisted the urge to flinch at his voice. I swallowed the nervous lump in my throat and looked up at him through my bangs. "When I kissed you," I started, my voice a lot quieter than I wanted it to be. "It..meant something to me. When you pulled me out of my meditation, the color of emotion I was experiencing was..lust. But it meant more to me than that. But that wasn't the only reason, I think..." I trailed off, and lifted my head to fully look at him. His gaze had narrowed even further with his body rigid at my words. "Did..it mean anything to you?"

He looked at me for a long moment. My mouth dried out in my nervousness for his answer. The silence around us was deafening, bringing a ringing to my ears as I strained to hear whatever it was he was going to say. I shivered against a cool breeze that broke through the trees, rustling the leaves above us, causing them to rain down the rain water that had collected on their leaves and branches. I watched him closely. He really had gone rigid. He wasn't moving at all, not even a rise and fall of his chest signaling his breathing. His jaw was clenched tightly with his brow drawn above his narrowed glare. My heart would have skipped a beat if it was actually beating when I saw him open his mouth to answer.

"Don't be foolish, woman," he snapped. "It meant nothing."

I felt my heart sink into the pit of my stomach. Tears pricked at the corner of my eyes, but I refused to let them blur my vision. "Okay," I whispered. "Sorry to bother you." I went to move passed him to head back to the temple before my tears could call. I made sure to leave a few feet between us as I walked by him. "I saved you some dinner. It's in the fridge if you get hungry," I said, forcing my voice to a normal level and keep it from wavering.

Once I was far enough away from him, I picked up my pace and ran back to the temple. My heart was still in the pit of my stomach and it felt like it was being stabbed over and over again. I slowed down once I got to the stairs that lead up to the porch and paused for a second to rub my sleeves over my eyes to dry any tears that threatened to fall. I didn't want to run into Yokuto or Tetsuya while on the verge of tears. I didn't want them asking questions.

I kept my head down as I made my way to my room, thankfully not running to either of the two men in the temple. When I closed my door behind me, I flicked the light off, undressed from my jeans and jacket and crawled into bed. Mi gave a quiet mew and came to snuggle with me. She tucked her head under my chin and kneaded comfort into my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around her and buried my face into the fur on the top of her head.

The tears wanted to fall, but I refused to let them. If it meant nothing to him, I wasn't going to let it mean anything to me.

HIEI. HOW DARE YOU BREAK OUR LITTLE DAE-DAE'S HEART. YOU JERK.

This is definitely not as big as I wanted it to be, but I do like where I ended it. And it's definitely bigger than last chapter, so at least there's that.

Thank you for the patience with me while I had to wait out for the weather! Everything is fine here. We missed the brunt of the tornadoes by a couple of miles and mostly just got some crazy flooding. I'm talking about eight to ten inches of rain in less than an hour and a half. We got some water damage, but other than that everything is okay. We've got some more rain coming in Wednesday that no one here is excited for though. They aren't talking about it being too severe though, but you never know with Oklahoma and this time of year.

KK1372: Texas has been getting hit pretty hard with the same weather, so I hope you and your family is okay as well! Thank you for the prayers. We're doing fine, now we're mostly just trying to figure out a way to keep flood waters from getting inside again haha. My cats weren't a fan of that water.

Guest: Thank you! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Heve-chan: I love the bandaging scene! I'm very proud of it haha. I'm sure it did make the dragon very happy! David is just worried, you know? Shizuru is definitely trying to set him straight about it. She understands he means well, but from her own experience she knows that sometimes its better to just step back and let the younger siblings make their own mistakes. So hopefully he'll back off now. But there's no telling. These characters have minds of their own, I'm telling you. They write themselves haha. Tornadoes are really just a way of life where I live, especially in the spring and summer. Oklahoma will generally get hit with anywhere between 20 to over a hundred tornadoes a year, depending on how the jet stream hits us that year. They can be pretty scary though, especially if you don't experience them often! Floods are something that we aren't used to though. No one was expecting to have knee deep water just sitting on the ground while trying to get to their shelters. A lot of shelters even came up out of the ground because of all the rain. But, we're resilient and wouldn't have Oklahoma any other way. And I love this story too much to fully give up on it. Come hell or high water, I will complete this story and the Kurama story I have planned after this one!

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