Again, Normal Life... Ish.

"You'll get over the excitement in a few days," Kurama assures her on the following Monday.

She had awakened in her bed to find Hiei gone, but almost her entire body was wrapped in layers of gauze and bandages. She spent all weekend recuperating (mostly just walking around with nothing but the bandages and a pair of boxers), and now she can walk without screaming in pain. She figured out for the most part how to fix the bones and wounds she could see, but never all at once. She has no intention of staying at school all day, either, but she's going to have to do what she can.

"I have over a hundred new scars all over me," she whines. "That's not even counting what I couldn't heal! And they look like bullet wounds. Swimming class is going to suck, and I'm still sore."

He looks at her concernedly. "Most times, I would not advocate it, but I suggest you skip any classes that would involve letting anyone see any remaining wounds or scars. I would give you an excuse, but I don't think 'for health reasons' would work when you have no legal parents with you here. I will talk to your physical education teacher, however."

"Yeah, I had a feeling. I healed what I could, but the ones on my back and on the backs of my limbs, and upper chest had to be stitched up or butterflied."

"You also have a scar in your face. The bullet went in through your mouth and out through your cheek, yes?"

"Oh, yeah, thanks for reminding me," she spits, narrowing her eyes at him. "That was a monster to heal; I'm not used to working in a mirror, left a god-awful scar."

"I rather like them," he says with a strangely lustful look on his face. She nearly falls down for the shock.

"You!?" she as good as squawks after she recovers her feet. Then she gets over the shock, and she laughs. "The world harbors strange things, doesn't it?"

He smiles a little wider, and bashfully. "I suppose it is my demon nature shining, but I have a deep appreciation for battle scars. It adds depth to the way one comes across."

"Doesn't bother you that they might like to fight and that's why they're all marked up?"

"I can hold my own in combat."

"I have yet to see anything but your pretty plant tricks, and I haven't seen you in a real fight, yet. I bet I could beat you hand to hand," she says with a grin, playfully and gently punching his shoulder.

He smiles and shakes his head. "I won't let you test this."

"Why not? Afraid to lose?" she challenges playfully.

"You're already injured, I would hate to add more," he answers with a meek tone.

"Wuss."

"You're probably right--I would probably lose," he admits after a second of thought. "Tactics like mine don't go well against anyone that trusts pure instinct alone. Even Yuusuke plans out a little ahead, but I have yet to see you even move the same way twice in battle. Also, your attacks are almost purely physical, and you are inconsistent at best."

"Mm. I gotta go."

She starts running for class.

She's finally sat down when she realizes that she dated her paper October twenty-fifth.

"Wow. Not even a week before Halloween. And nearly four months since I talked to anyone in-"

"ERUFIB!"

She jumps nearly half a foot in the air, then bows a little and starts working on her test.


This makes her the topic of the lunch conversation again. She's hiding in a tree with her lunch in her lap, trying to eat when she hears a few of the girls call up to her.

"Erufib-kuuuun!"

"No!" she answers quickly, looking down at the girl looking for her and smiling to let her know she's not being malicious.

"Come ooooooon, come talk to uuuuus!" a second one whines, bouncing up and down at the base of the tree.

"I'm going to EAT!" Me'ran answers quickly. "Leave me alone."

"But we wanna know why Ifukube-sensei yelled at you!"

"Baka fa ooh-aahgohoh!"(1) she answers before she swallows the bite of her rice ball. Then she downs her whole juice box, and she drops it onto their heads.

"Where'd that scar come from?" one of the two boys that got dragged out here by their girlfriends asks. Me'ran looks down at him, and her mouth twitches to respond, but no convincing lie comes to mind, and the truth would... work, really, but she doesn't want to tell them a story.

"Scar? What scar?" one of the girls asks.

"That scar on her jaw," a couple more explain, gesturing at their own faces. Me'ran sighs a little, then flees higher into the tree, jumps onto the school wall, then runs down it until she gets to a pipe going up the side of the building and scrambles all the way to the roof, dragging herself over the fence.

A few other students are eating up here, but Kurama's in his usual spot, in the shade, by himself, with a book. He starts when she lands next to him.

"Me'ran. I wasn't expecting you."

"No, I guess not," she agrees.

"What's wrong?" he asks her, now, closing his book and folding it to one side.

"People being people," she murmurs. "And I'm still tired. I hurt just climbing the wall--I'm really out of shape."

"Go on home. I can explain to Sawada-sensei, and he'll excuse you."

"You're telling me to skip school? Great, now the world's gonna end," she cries in a childlike voice, rolling her head back and opening her arms a little to let them flop to her sides.

He smiles at her despite the behavior, then decides to offer a little scolding voice. "Not so loudly. I think having over one hundred bullet wounds is a decent excuse for absence from school. Even I have to skip to recover from injuries, sometimes. Or, at least, I did before you showed up."

To this, Me'ran grins proudly. "Wow, I wouldn't believe it if I didn't hear it with my own ears," she hums. "I guess I'll see you later."


Back at the apartment complex, Me'ran gets in, shuts the door, kicks her shoes off, then starts to go to her typewriter before she decides to hop out the window and go back to the abandoned building she likes to perch on.


(1)She said "Boku wa uwagoto" which means, roughly, "I was mumbling."