CHAPTER THREE
Decisions
"So do you remember any of us?" Shadow asked.
"Yes..." Shuuichi muttered. He looked around at them all with a completely clueless look on his face. "Why does it hurt?" he asked, jabbing at the cut across his stomach.
"Why?! Uh..." Shadow looked thoughtful. "Because you had an accident, and you were injured."
"Accident?"
"Yeah. You, uh... Fell. Or something," Shadow answered.
"Shadow..." Hiei hissed under his breath.
"I remember your names... But I don't know anything else. Where am I?" Shuuichi asked.
"You need to rest. Your wound won't heal if you don't rest," Shadow said, hoping to stop his questions.
"Wound?"
"Yeah. The gash on your stomach... The hurt?" Shadow said, explaining it like you would to a little child and pointing to the bandages wrapped around his body. Shuuichi realized what she meant and nodded.
"But I don't remember anything. I don't know anything. All I know is that that my name is Shuuichi. And guys know more than I do. I want to know!" Shuuichi said.
"Well, rest, and we'll talk when you're better," Shadow said. She led the rest of them out of the room and closed the door, leaving Shuuichi alone.
"Well. Now we know," Hiei said.
"He doesn't know ANYTHING!" Shadow said. "We're going to have to teach him everything and he'll never ever be the same person that we're so used to. This is BAD!!"
"Calm down Shadow. He's just like a little kid," Youko said. Shadow glared at him.
"I despise small children," she hissed.
"Of course... He's never going to be the same. That's true. Even if somebody ~does~ figure out how to recombine me and him, I refuse. I'm enjoying my freedom," Youko said, smiling down at Shadow with a... er... ~suggestive~ look in his eyes. All at once, Shadow remembered Youko's little sin.
"Youko Kurama, you had better not be planning to come sleep with me every night until I get rid of you. Cuz if you are, I'll have to start posting a guard," she snapped, pointing at Hiei, "outside my door!"
"Oh, there'll be no need for that... I'm hoping to get you to be more... oh... I don't know... more ~agreeable~ when it comes to that," Youko said, the suggestive look in his eyes again. Shadow looked outraged. The next thing anyone knew, Youko was lying on the floor with Shadow standing next to him holding a crowbar. Hiei, Kuwabara, and Yusuke simultaneously sweatdropped.
"I WILL NOT!" Shadow screamed. Youko rubbed his head and looked up at Shadow with one eye squeezed closed from pain.
"Well... we'll see..." Youko said with a smile. Shadow hit him again.
"Sex-crazed pervert," she muttered, stepping over him to get to the stairs. Hiei looked at Youko nervously. The kitsune sat up, rubbing his head, and let out one little whimper under his breath. Shadow was still muttering as she made her way upstairs.
"Just because I'm the first girl he sees, I have to be the one he harasses... Honestly... You'd think after a thousand years he'd know not to mess with girls like that..."
Youko's ears twitched as he listened to the insults. Then he smiled, despite the oversized bump on his head. Hiei sighed and rolled his eyes at the kitsune's persistence. He also pitied Shadow.
"Youko, do you ~have~ to be like that?" Hiei asked quietly, helping the fox to his feet.
"Well of course. If you'd gone sixteen years without sex, wouldn't you?" Youko asked. Hiei rolled his eyes. "Yes, well I suppose ~you~ wouldn't, Hiei..."
"What's ~that~ supposed to mean!?" Hiei asked. "Besides, the Forbidden Child is not allowed to love."
"Who says it has to be out of love?"
Kuwabara, who had been listening to the whole conversation, got rather annoyed at this point.
"How could you say something like that?! It's not right just you use women however you want! That's sexist!" Kuwabara snapped. Hiei was surprised the human had found the guts to stand up to Youko.
"Baka ningen. I use people how I please, and ~you~ aren't going to stop me. But if you'd like to try... Feel free," the fox challenged.
Kuwabara was rather... intimidated... by the tone of Youko's voice. "It's just not right to use people, though! And you should know that. You've been around for how long?"
"Pah. That's exactly the point. I'm over one thousand years old. I'm not about to change my ways so some baka ningen will be happy. I'd rather kill you and be over with it."
"What!? That's not necessary... I mean... I was just saying..."
"Well don't."
Hiei smiled as Kuwabara slunk back to sit on the floor in the corner.
"So... What are we going to do about Shuuichi?" Yusuke finally asked.
"I exclude myself from this conversation," Youko said dryly, walking up the stairs. Hiei, in the process of letting his mind drift, caught one of Youko's thoughts:
'Now, where did Shadow get off to?'
"Eeehg..." Hiei muttered.
"What's wrong, Hiei?" Yusuke asked.
"Youko is what's wrong..." Hiei muttered, darting up the stairs after the kitsune. Yusuke watched him with a dumb look on his face before turning to Kuwabara.
"I have a feeling we're going to be taking care of him alone for a while," Yusuke said.
"Not like it's a bad thing, is it? I mean, he ~was~ our friend before he got all messed up. It's only fair to be kind," Kuwabara said. "I mean, how would you feel if you woke up and couldn't remember anything?"
"I wouldn't feel much, 'cause I wouldn't know what I'd forgotten."
Kuwabara muttered something under his breath.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Less than an hour later, the doorbell rang.
"Youko, go answer that," Shadow ordered.
"What if it's a human?" Youko asked.
"Then it'll be a pretty freaked out human. Go answer the door. AND DON'T MAKE EXCUSES!!!" Shadow snapped before Youko had even said anything. He closed his mouth and narrowed his eyes. "You're pathetic. Hiei will. Hiei, go answer the door."
"Make the fox do it," Hiei said dryly, pointing in Youko's general direction. The fire demon had his eyes closed and was lying stretched out on the couch with a book on his chest that he'd been reading a few minutes earlier.
Shadow glared at them.
"You are USELESS!!!" she snapped, standing up. By then, the doorbell was getting to the more annoying and threatening rings, so she had to run to the door before it started cussing and screaming.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" Shadow snapped, jerking open the door. She came face to face with teenage Koenma.
"Is Youko giving you problems, Shadow?" Koenma asked calmly, correctly assuming the reason she answered the door so angrily. He looked past Shadow into the living room to try to spot the fox.
"You could say that..." Shadow muttered, standing aside to let Koenma in. "But I can handle him. Anyway, Shuuichi woke up. I'm supposing that's why you're here?"
"Yes..."
"He's asleep again now. But he's completely clueless. He doesn't know who anyone is... He can still talk, which is a good thing... but he has no clue about anything. He's like a 2-year-old, I guess... He doesn't know anyone, he didn't understand why he was in pain... You know, because of the injury he got in the fight that separated them..." Shadow explained while leading Koenma into the living room. She stood behind the couch and looked around for a second.
"Do either of you know where Yusuke is?" she asked.
"No," Youko answered.
Hiei opened one eye and looked up at her. "He's in the basement."
"Thank you Hiei. You're a lot more useful than that stupid fox," Shadow said.
She'd been taking every opportunity she could to insult Youko and rub it in his face that she liked Hiei more than she liked him. Youko, of course, couldn't care less that she liked Hiei better, and he also didn't care that she kept calling him stupid, because he knew that she knew that wasn't true.
Shadow led Koenma down to the basement. Yusuke looked up from the game of pool he had been winning against Kuwabara, missing Kuwabara's cheat as he put two balls in the pockets without hitting them. Nobody pointed it out, either.
"Hey, pacifier breath! What's up?" Yusuke said. He looked at the pool table. "Kuwabara, why have two balls suddenly gone missing without the cue ball moving?"
"I dunno."
"Put them back."
"Darn it." Kuwabara put the balls back.
"Where they were, Kuwabara."
"Darn it again." He moved them.
"Thanks! Now, what was it you wanted Koenma?"
"Yes... I wanted to talk to you. We have to figure out what to do with Shuuichi. We can't let him go home, because he won't be anything like what his mother knows him as. He can't go to school, because he wouldn't be anything like what everybody there knows him as, not to mention that he wouldn't have a clue what to do if what Shadow said is true. One of you three has to take care of him," Koenma said. Instantly, Yusuke and Kuwabara pointed at Shadow.
"Why me!?"
"For the same reason you're keeping Youko. Shuuichi has nowhere else to go, and besides, hopefully it'll only be for a little while. Until Koenma figures out how to put Youko back into Shuuichi's human body," Yusuke said.
"I'm ~keeping~ Youko? Like he's my pet or something?" Shadow said.
"Well, he ~is~ a fox..." Kuwabara said thoughtfully. Shadow rolled her eyes.
"And besides, if I brought some clueless 16-year-old back to my house, my mother would want to know what the heck I wanted him there for and stuff, and who he was and all that," Yusuke said, shrugging.
"And I couldn't take him to my house, because Shizuru would remember him, and I would have to explain ~everything~ to her," Kuwabara said.
"You haven't got any parents to nag at you, no older sister to nag at you, and you're far enough away from the city that he couldn't just go wandering outside and get hit by a car," Yusuke said cheerfully.
Shadow rolled her eyes. "Great."
"Well, it's true, Shadow," Koenma said. "Everybody here understands the situation already, and you ~are~ far away from the city and any busy roads, more or less..."
"Fine. That's all I need. A perverted kitsune youkai and a clueless, 2-year- old/16-year-old human... Perfect. Just ~perfect~..." Shadow said dryly, stomping up the stairs.
"What's her problem?" Koenma asked.
"Youko is being an anal bastard," Yusuke said cheerfully, aiming his pool stick and hitting three balls into the pockets in one shot. "Your turn, Kuwabara."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Shortly after Koenma left, Shadow went up to her room and locker herself in.
Shortly after Shadow locked herself in her room, Youko went upstairs. Coming to her door, he turned the knob. It was locked. Since it was still light outside, he was guessing Shadow was still awake. He knocked on the door.
"What!?" Shadow snapped.
"Can I come in, Shadow?" Youko asked, as politely as he could. Shadow glared at the closed door.
"No," she snapped.
Youko thought for a second. "I want to apologize," he said, trying as best as he could to sound sad and sorry.
"Do it through the door. I don't want you in my room."
"Could you at least open the door? I'd rather say it to your face."
"I think one of those pictures on the door has me in it. Say it to the picture. I'll hear it, and you'll be seeing my face as you say it."
Youko slammed the side of his fist into the wall, not hard enough to do damage, but hard enough to be heard quite loudly in Shadow's room.
"Must you?!" he snapped.
"Must I what?" Shadow asked innocently. Maybe if she annoyed him enough, he'd go away.
"Have a stupid comeback for everything!"
"Yes, actually, I must. Got a problem with it? Leave, then," Shadow answered cheerfully.
Outside the door, Youko rolled his eyes. His little plan wasn't working. Typical. 'After living with Hiei for as long as she has, she's naturally going to be suspicious of everything anyone says,' he thought.
"Yes, of course it's my fault," Hiei said dryly, walking past the fox.
"Would you stay out of my mind and keep that stupid eye to yourself?!" Youko snapped. "I might have to poke it out!"
Hiei flinched. "Shadow's not gonna let you in her room, and let me tell you, you better not go and pick the lock again."
"Peh. Since when did I take ~your~ advice?"
"Never. But you should when it comes to this, because I know her a LOT better than you do."
"How much better?"
"Oh, shut up! Just, leave her alone."
The door to Shadow's room opened and Shadow came flying out, tackling Hiei with a hug. He fell over and ended up with Shadow on top of him with her arms wrapped around his neck.
"GOD, WHAT THE *&%# IS THAT FOR, GIRL?!" Hiei yelled.
"Thank you for trying to keep Youko away!"
"Well, you just blew it, Shadow."
Shadow turned around and looked back in her room. Youko was sitting on her bed. She screamed and jumped up, ran back into her room and tackled Youko, knocking him off her bed. He laughed.
"DON'T LAUGH AT ME, BAKA!" she screamed. She stood up and walked to her door.
"OUT!" she screamed, pointing out the door. Hiei had gotten himself to his feet and was standing in the hall smiling.
"You're not going to get him out like that, you know," he informed her. She glared at him and walked back to where Youko was sitting on the floor. She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him into a standing position. Being as he was 8 billion times stronger than her, that didn't work. She glared at him.
"Would you please get up and leave my room?" she asked, attempting to sound polite. She did an even worse job at that than Youko had. The kitsune laughed. Shadow kicked him in the leg.
"Ow!"
"LEAVE!"
"No."
"I'm not sleeping with you in here. Out."
Hiei was rather enjoying this little show. He thought it was funny. Shadow heard him laughing and glared at him. He tried to stop, but all he could do was laugh harder.
She threw a CD case at him. Youko burst out laughing. Shadow clenched her teeth and closed her eyes, trying to keep from exploding. It didn't work too well. Letting out a low growl, she grabbed her pillow and a blanket off her bed and stomped down the hall. Hiei and Youko watched her go down the stairs. The two exchanged glances before Youko stepped out of her room and started toward the stairs. Hiei grabbed his tail.
"Where do you think you're going?" he asked.
"To the kitchen. I'm hungry," the kitsune answered innocently. Hiei rolled his eyes.
"Likely story... Leave Shadow alone."
"Right. Let go of my tail before I rip off your arm."
Hiei let go rather quickly and watched Youko walk quietly down the stairs.
"Well, if she kills him, it's not my fault," Hiei muttered, heading upstairs to his own room.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Shuuichi slept peacefully in the small infirmary bed, completely clueless about anything going on outside the room. Kuwabara and Yusuke were playing another game of pool just down the hall. None of them had any idea what was going on between Shadow and Youko.
Shadow had locked herself in one of the rarely used rooms on the first floor. Youko had the mind to stay away for a while until he was sure she was asleep, which wouldn't be for a while. He knew where she was, so he wouldn't have to waste time at night looking for her if he wanted to go ahead and break the rules again. He wasn't sure that he wanted to. It wouldn't be much good to finally be free and get severely maimed and not be able to enjoy it. He decided to leave her alone that night. Maybe if he went about it in a more... polite... way then she'd not get so mad.
With this decided, Youko happily went up to his own room to sleep.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Thank you 8 billion times over to KoorimeHiei for reviewing and correcting my mistake. This chapter was edited and fixed up the best I could so that it'd still be okay. Okay?
Decisions
"So do you remember any of us?" Shadow asked.
"Yes..." Shuuichi muttered. He looked around at them all with a completely clueless look on his face. "Why does it hurt?" he asked, jabbing at the cut across his stomach.
"Why?! Uh..." Shadow looked thoughtful. "Because you had an accident, and you were injured."
"Accident?"
"Yeah. You, uh... Fell. Or something," Shadow answered.
"Shadow..." Hiei hissed under his breath.
"I remember your names... But I don't know anything else. Where am I?" Shuuichi asked.
"You need to rest. Your wound won't heal if you don't rest," Shadow said, hoping to stop his questions.
"Wound?"
"Yeah. The gash on your stomach... The hurt?" Shadow said, explaining it like you would to a little child and pointing to the bandages wrapped around his body. Shuuichi realized what she meant and nodded.
"But I don't remember anything. I don't know anything. All I know is that that my name is Shuuichi. And guys know more than I do. I want to know!" Shuuichi said.
"Well, rest, and we'll talk when you're better," Shadow said. She led the rest of them out of the room and closed the door, leaving Shuuichi alone.
"Well. Now we know," Hiei said.
"He doesn't know ANYTHING!" Shadow said. "We're going to have to teach him everything and he'll never ever be the same person that we're so used to. This is BAD!!"
"Calm down Shadow. He's just like a little kid," Youko said. Shadow glared at him.
"I despise small children," she hissed.
"Of course... He's never going to be the same. That's true. Even if somebody ~does~ figure out how to recombine me and him, I refuse. I'm enjoying my freedom," Youko said, smiling down at Shadow with a... er... ~suggestive~ look in his eyes. All at once, Shadow remembered Youko's little sin.
"Youko Kurama, you had better not be planning to come sleep with me every night until I get rid of you. Cuz if you are, I'll have to start posting a guard," she snapped, pointing at Hiei, "outside my door!"
"Oh, there'll be no need for that... I'm hoping to get you to be more... oh... I don't know... more ~agreeable~ when it comes to that," Youko said, the suggestive look in his eyes again. Shadow looked outraged. The next thing anyone knew, Youko was lying on the floor with Shadow standing next to him holding a crowbar. Hiei, Kuwabara, and Yusuke simultaneously sweatdropped.
"I WILL NOT!" Shadow screamed. Youko rubbed his head and looked up at Shadow with one eye squeezed closed from pain.
"Well... we'll see..." Youko said with a smile. Shadow hit him again.
"Sex-crazed pervert," she muttered, stepping over him to get to the stairs. Hiei looked at Youko nervously. The kitsune sat up, rubbing his head, and let out one little whimper under his breath. Shadow was still muttering as she made her way upstairs.
"Just because I'm the first girl he sees, I have to be the one he harasses... Honestly... You'd think after a thousand years he'd know not to mess with girls like that..."
Youko's ears twitched as he listened to the insults. Then he smiled, despite the oversized bump on his head. Hiei sighed and rolled his eyes at the kitsune's persistence. He also pitied Shadow.
"Youko, do you ~have~ to be like that?" Hiei asked quietly, helping the fox to his feet.
"Well of course. If you'd gone sixteen years without sex, wouldn't you?" Youko asked. Hiei rolled his eyes. "Yes, well I suppose ~you~ wouldn't, Hiei..."
"What's ~that~ supposed to mean!?" Hiei asked. "Besides, the Forbidden Child is not allowed to love."
"Who says it has to be out of love?"
Kuwabara, who had been listening to the whole conversation, got rather annoyed at this point.
"How could you say something like that?! It's not right just you use women however you want! That's sexist!" Kuwabara snapped. Hiei was surprised the human had found the guts to stand up to Youko.
"Baka ningen. I use people how I please, and ~you~ aren't going to stop me. But if you'd like to try... Feel free," the fox challenged.
Kuwabara was rather... intimidated... by the tone of Youko's voice. "It's just not right to use people, though! And you should know that. You've been around for how long?"
"Pah. That's exactly the point. I'm over one thousand years old. I'm not about to change my ways so some baka ningen will be happy. I'd rather kill you and be over with it."
"What!? That's not necessary... I mean... I was just saying..."
"Well don't."
Hiei smiled as Kuwabara slunk back to sit on the floor in the corner.
"So... What are we going to do about Shuuichi?" Yusuke finally asked.
"I exclude myself from this conversation," Youko said dryly, walking up the stairs. Hiei, in the process of letting his mind drift, caught one of Youko's thoughts:
'Now, where did Shadow get off to?'
"Eeehg..." Hiei muttered.
"What's wrong, Hiei?" Yusuke asked.
"Youko is what's wrong..." Hiei muttered, darting up the stairs after the kitsune. Yusuke watched him with a dumb look on his face before turning to Kuwabara.
"I have a feeling we're going to be taking care of him alone for a while," Yusuke said.
"Not like it's a bad thing, is it? I mean, he ~was~ our friend before he got all messed up. It's only fair to be kind," Kuwabara said. "I mean, how would you feel if you woke up and couldn't remember anything?"
"I wouldn't feel much, 'cause I wouldn't know what I'd forgotten."
Kuwabara muttered something under his breath.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Less than an hour later, the doorbell rang.
"Youko, go answer that," Shadow ordered.
"What if it's a human?" Youko asked.
"Then it'll be a pretty freaked out human. Go answer the door. AND DON'T MAKE EXCUSES!!!" Shadow snapped before Youko had even said anything. He closed his mouth and narrowed his eyes. "You're pathetic. Hiei will. Hiei, go answer the door."
"Make the fox do it," Hiei said dryly, pointing in Youko's general direction. The fire demon had his eyes closed and was lying stretched out on the couch with a book on his chest that he'd been reading a few minutes earlier.
Shadow glared at them.
"You are USELESS!!!" she snapped, standing up. By then, the doorbell was getting to the more annoying and threatening rings, so she had to run to the door before it started cussing and screaming.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" Shadow snapped, jerking open the door. She came face to face with teenage Koenma.
"Is Youko giving you problems, Shadow?" Koenma asked calmly, correctly assuming the reason she answered the door so angrily. He looked past Shadow into the living room to try to spot the fox.
"You could say that..." Shadow muttered, standing aside to let Koenma in. "But I can handle him. Anyway, Shuuichi woke up. I'm supposing that's why you're here?"
"Yes..."
"He's asleep again now. But he's completely clueless. He doesn't know who anyone is... He can still talk, which is a good thing... but he has no clue about anything. He's like a 2-year-old, I guess... He doesn't know anyone, he didn't understand why he was in pain... You know, because of the injury he got in the fight that separated them..." Shadow explained while leading Koenma into the living room. She stood behind the couch and looked around for a second.
"Do either of you know where Yusuke is?" she asked.
"No," Youko answered.
Hiei opened one eye and looked up at her. "He's in the basement."
"Thank you Hiei. You're a lot more useful than that stupid fox," Shadow said.
She'd been taking every opportunity she could to insult Youko and rub it in his face that she liked Hiei more than she liked him. Youko, of course, couldn't care less that she liked Hiei better, and he also didn't care that she kept calling him stupid, because he knew that she knew that wasn't true.
Shadow led Koenma down to the basement. Yusuke looked up from the game of pool he had been winning against Kuwabara, missing Kuwabara's cheat as he put two balls in the pockets without hitting them. Nobody pointed it out, either.
"Hey, pacifier breath! What's up?" Yusuke said. He looked at the pool table. "Kuwabara, why have two balls suddenly gone missing without the cue ball moving?"
"I dunno."
"Put them back."
"Darn it." Kuwabara put the balls back.
"Where they were, Kuwabara."
"Darn it again." He moved them.
"Thanks! Now, what was it you wanted Koenma?"
"Yes... I wanted to talk to you. We have to figure out what to do with Shuuichi. We can't let him go home, because he won't be anything like what his mother knows him as. He can't go to school, because he wouldn't be anything like what everybody there knows him as, not to mention that he wouldn't have a clue what to do if what Shadow said is true. One of you three has to take care of him," Koenma said. Instantly, Yusuke and Kuwabara pointed at Shadow.
"Why me!?"
"For the same reason you're keeping Youko. Shuuichi has nowhere else to go, and besides, hopefully it'll only be for a little while. Until Koenma figures out how to put Youko back into Shuuichi's human body," Yusuke said.
"I'm ~keeping~ Youko? Like he's my pet or something?" Shadow said.
"Well, he ~is~ a fox..." Kuwabara said thoughtfully. Shadow rolled her eyes.
"And besides, if I brought some clueless 16-year-old back to my house, my mother would want to know what the heck I wanted him there for and stuff, and who he was and all that," Yusuke said, shrugging.
"And I couldn't take him to my house, because Shizuru would remember him, and I would have to explain ~everything~ to her," Kuwabara said.
"You haven't got any parents to nag at you, no older sister to nag at you, and you're far enough away from the city that he couldn't just go wandering outside and get hit by a car," Yusuke said cheerfully.
Shadow rolled her eyes. "Great."
"Well, it's true, Shadow," Koenma said. "Everybody here understands the situation already, and you ~are~ far away from the city and any busy roads, more or less..."
"Fine. That's all I need. A perverted kitsune youkai and a clueless, 2-year- old/16-year-old human... Perfect. Just ~perfect~..." Shadow said dryly, stomping up the stairs.
"What's her problem?" Koenma asked.
"Youko is being an anal bastard," Yusuke said cheerfully, aiming his pool stick and hitting three balls into the pockets in one shot. "Your turn, Kuwabara."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Shortly after Koenma left, Shadow went up to her room and locker herself in.
Shortly after Shadow locked herself in her room, Youko went upstairs. Coming to her door, he turned the knob. It was locked. Since it was still light outside, he was guessing Shadow was still awake. He knocked on the door.
"What!?" Shadow snapped.
"Can I come in, Shadow?" Youko asked, as politely as he could. Shadow glared at the closed door.
"No," she snapped.
Youko thought for a second. "I want to apologize," he said, trying as best as he could to sound sad and sorry.
"Do it through the door. I don't want you in my room."
"Could you at least open the door? I'd rather say it to your face."
"I think one of those pictures on the door has me in it. Say it to the picture. I'll hear it, and you'll be seeing my face as you say it."
Youko slammed the side of his fist into the wall, not hard enough to do damage, but hard enough to be heard quite loudly in Shadow's room.
"Must you?!" he snapped.
"Must I what?" Shadow asked innocently. Maybe if she annoyed him enough, he'd go away.
"Have a stupid comeback for everything!"
"Yes, actually, I must. Got a problem with it? Leave, then," Shadow answered cheerfully.
Outside the door, Youko rolled his eyes. His little plan wasn't working. Typical. 'After living with Hiei for as long as she has, she's naturally going to be suspicious of everything anyone says,' he thought.
"Yes, of course it's my fault," Hiei said dryly, walking past the fox.
"Would you stay out of my mind and keep that stupid eye to yourself?!" Youko snapped. "I might have to poke it out!"
Hiei flinched. "Shadow's not gonna let you in her room, and let me tell you, you better not go and pick the lock again."
"Peh. Since when did I take ~your~ advice?"
"Never. But you should when it comes to this, because I know her a LOT better than you do."
"How much better?"
"Oh, shut up! Just, leave her alone."
The door to Shadow's room opened and Shadow came flying out, tackling Hiei with a hug. He fell over and ended up with Shadow on top of him with her arms wrapped around his neck.
"GOD, WHAT THE *&%# IS THAT FOR, GIRL?!" Hiei yelled.
"Thank you for trying to keep Youko away!"
"Well, you just blew it, Shadow."
Shadow turned around and looked back in her room. Youko was sitting on her bed. She screamed and jumped up, ran back into her room and tackled Youko, knocking him off her bed. He laughed.
"DON'T LAUGH AT ME, BAKA!" she screamed. She stood up and walked to her door.
"OUT!" she screamed, pointing out the door. Hiei had gotten himself to his feet and was standing in the hall smiling.
"You're not going to get him out like that, you know," he informed her. She glared at him and walked back to where Youko was sitting on the floor. She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him into a standing position. Being as he was 8 billion times stronger than her, that didn't work. She glared at him.
"Would you please get up and leave my room?" she asked, attempting to sound polite. She did an even worse job at that than Youko had. The kitsune laughed. Shadow kicked him in the leg.
"Ow!"
"LEAVE!"
"No."
"I'm not sleeping with you in here. Out."
Hiei was rather enjoying this little show. He thought it was funny. Shadow heard him laughing and glared at him. He tried to stop, but all he could do was laugh harder.
She threw a CD case at him. Youko burst out laughing. Shadow clenched her teeth and closed her eyes, trying to keep from exploding. It didn't work too well. Letting out a low growl, she grabbed her pillow and a blanket off her bed and stomped down the hall. Hiei and Youko watched her go down the stairs. The two exchanged glances before Youko stepped out of her room and started toward the stairs. Hiei grabbed his tail.
"Where do you think you're going?" he asked.
"To the kitchen. I'm hungry," the kitsune answered innocently. Hiei rolled his eyes.
"Likely story... Leave Shadow alone."
"Right. Let go of my tail before I rip off your arm."
Hiei let go rather quickly and watched Youko walk quietly down the stairs.
"Well, if she kills him, it's not my fault," Hiei muttered, heading upstairs to his own room.
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Shuuichi slept peacefully in the small infirmary bed, completely clueless about anything going on outside the room. Kuwabara and Yusuke were playing another game of pool just down the hall. None of them had any idea what was going on between Shadow and Youko.
Shadow had locked herself in one of the rarely used rooms on the first floor. Youko had the mind to stay away for a while until he was sure she was asleep, which wouldn't be for a while. He knew where she was, so he wouldn't have to waste time at night looking for her if he wanted to go ahead and break the rules again. He wasn't sure that he wanted to. It wouldn't be much good to finally be free and get severely maimed and not be able to enjoy it. He decided to leave her alone that night. Maybe if he went about it in a more... polite... way then she'd not get so mad.
With this decided, Youko happily went up to his own room to sleep.
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Thank you 8 billion times over to KoorimeHiei for reviewing and correcting my mistake. This chapter was edited and fixed up the best I could so that it'd still be okay. Okay?