THE AUTHORESS SAYS:
"HEAR ME SPEAK. OR READ ME TYPE. WHATEVER'S EASIER."
Reviews for Chapter Eight, Food
Okami Youkai- Poker is common in my stories... I personally never play poker... I actually never play cards at all, really... But they're always playing poker at Shadow's house...
Draikitha- Damn, you figured me out! I'm kidding. I'm a fourteen-year-old girl and I'm wearing jeans and a t-shirt even though its like 80 degrees and I don't have air conditioning. :) I have brown hair, you got that right... But nothing else. Heh. And... I'm not cruel enough to have Shadow strip in front of eight guys...
kiinu- Duct tape your joints... That's interesting... It's spelled Chihuahua... My sister thought it was pronounced "Chi-who-uh-who-uh" when she first saw it written... And I still say it that way most of the time. Heh heh.
Wild Roses- Hai... Kissing Kuwabara would make anyone run around making lobster noises... But if Youko were to bet for Shadow to kiss anyone, he'd want her to kiss him... Right? And... um... I'll take your word for it about the bleach... ::backs away slowly::
C.C.C.- They sell containers of marshmallow fluff... At least they used to... I dunno if they do now... I haven't been to any grocery stores in ages...
Saeble- Um... Chipmunk army, eh? I used to have an army of crutons... But I think the Smiley Face of Doom ate them on a salad...
chocogurl- ::screams and hides:: If I ever commit a crime, do NOT go to the police or their person examination criminal sketch artist thing! About all you got wrong is that I have brown hair, not black... Maybe you're the one who's been stalking me! STAY AWAY, DEMON! ::makes a cross with her fingers::
Chibi- Yes, Mormons are scary people... I was walking home at like 9:00 at night once and they wanted to talk to me about Jesus, and as soon as I got out of sight, I ran up the street... And there's this one place where the sidewalk sticks up like 3 inches and there's a tree branch right at the level where I could hit my head off it, and luckily I managed to run past there without tripping or cracking open my skull... But those Mormons coulda KILLED ME!
Black Cat- Well 'Hi' to all them people... I beat Ninja Gaiden! I'd killed Alma for the second time when I wrote that on the last chapter... I love that game. I beat it, but that was with occasional help from my sister's boyfriend, who owns the game... If he keeps bringing back the X-Box, I'm gonna try to play it through without his help. So on my second time through, I just beat those red Fiends and the tentacle thingy and haven't had help once yet... Yay! I think I'm gonna ask my dad to get me an X-Box for Christmas or something... Heh. Oh, what was the gross thing you said they told you to write?
Shessha's Crazy- Ummmmmm... Sure...
Starfox- I've had a million requests for people to be in my stories... Someday I'm just gonna go back through and read all my reviews, write down all the requests, and write a big ol' story with them people there... I just thought of doing that just now, so it's nothing I've been planning or anything...
xkuroxshinobix- Of course I'm gonna write more "oda stories." I'm assuming that's "other" in an odd, shortened, slang sorta way...
Celebrindae- Erm... 5:22 is really early... Is it normal for you to stay up that late? Okay, I had a bit more Shadow-hating-Youko kinda stuff in this chapter... Lol... I like Tsume's clothes. But yeah, the constriction might be screwing with his mind... And YOU had better not go to the police with chocogurl if I ever commit a crime... Because then they'd catch me... Except I don't live in NY. And I don't remember ever saying I did... But I don't remember much...
kaida13- Don't worry. The weasels only eat door-to-door salesmen, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, other door-to-door religious people, and other people Shadow dislikes. And I'm sure you're not as unoriginal as you say you are.
Name1- Erm... You do know that I'm not the only person in the world who can read these reviews, right...? And no, I didn't really need to know that.
phycotic person- Heh heh... Um... If you say so... I... er... have no idea what you said... Really...
CHAPTER NINE
Lots of Bold Type
"I'm not a coward..." Shadow was muttering as Youko led her back into the house. "Coward... What makes me a coward? Just because I lost a bet and ran into the forest and hid in a groundhog den for three hours? Coward... I'll show you a coward..."
"Shadow, there's no use in muttering about it now," Youko said, sitting her down in a chair at the dining room table. "Now, drink up."
"I'm underage. I'll pass out. I'll throw up before I pass out and then nobody will be around to clean it up. Who knows what I'll do..."
"You'll probably be normal, stupid..."
"But... I'm underage... What'll you guys do without me when I'm unconscious on the floor?"
"Party!" Yusuke said, having been filled in on the bet. He and Kuwabara had joined Youko and the wolves to watch. "Rid of you, we can do whatever we want to your house and you won't know until you wake up again. By then you might have been dumped in the ocean and nobody would be any the wiser."
"What the hell would you do to my house if I were unconscious on the ground, hmm?"
"Who knows... We'd find something..." Yusuke said airily.
"Shadow... You said you'd have to be drunk, so..." Youko said, pausing for dramatic effect, then exploded: "STOP PROCRASTINATING!"
"Who?"
Youko pushed a glass and a bottle towards Shadow.
"But... It'll give me brain damage..."
The entire mob burst out laughing.
"What brain is it you were thinking it would damage?" Tsume asked.
"Mine!"
"Hate to break it to you, Shadow, but..." Hige said.
"You haven't got a brain," Youko finished for him.
"Damn. Who told you?"
"Drink up," Youko persisted.
Shadow sighed and grabbed the bottle. "Why'd I agree to this?"
An hour or so later, having woken up and found Shadow missing from her usual chair in front of her TV, Hiei headed downstairs to investigate the noise that had woke him up in the first place.
He got down the stairs and smelled beer. Lots of it. Avoiding breathing through his nose, he walked into the living room to find Kuwabara passed out, drooling on the floor, and Shadow lying against Youko's chest on the couch, clawing tiredly at the bottle of alcohol he held just out of her reach, muttering and drooling slightly.
"Oh. 'Ello, 'Iei..." she slurred, squinting at Hiei.
"Youko, what did you do to her?" Hiei asked. "You should know not to give her alcohol."
"She agreed to the bet. And besides, it wasn't--"
"Wait... Bet?! What bet?!"
"Poker."
"Oh my God, Youko, you idiot!!! You made a bet to get her drunk?"
"Well I didn't say for her to get drunk... It didn't take much to fuddle her mind a bit, though. Really--"
"What mind?!" Hiei said in a kind of whiney voice. "Youko... What were you planning on doing with her once you got her drunk, huh?"
"Nothing like that. I told you, I hadn't even planned on her getting drunk. That..."
"Yeah, well... Never mind... You do know we've got guests. This isn't the best time to try any of your stupid tricks..."
"Yes, well your guests are having themselves some alcohol too," Youko said, gently placing Shadow's bottle-seeking hand on the couch. Hiei stared at him for a minute in horror, then went into the dining room to see what he meant.
He found Yusuke passed out with his head on the table, drooling slightly, and a big brown wolf lying on the floor. Kiba, still looking quite human, was sitting across from Yusuke with a glass in his hand, his eyelids drooping slightly. Tsume was sitting in a corner with his back against the wall, a bottle of beer in his hand and a couple empty bottles lying on the floor around him. Eclipse was leaning against him, also holding a half-empty bottle. She was apparently unconscious.
"WOLVES AREN'T SUPPOSED TO HAVE ALCOHOL, YOU STUPIDS! WHO KNOWS WHAT THAT SHIT WILL DO TO YOU!!!" Hiei yelled. "I didn't even know we had this much in the entire house..."
Toboe was sitting on the floor next to Tsume, most of his concern directed at the white-haired man. When Hiei yelled, the kid looked up at him.
"I tried to stop them..." he whimpered.
"Yeah, yeah..." Hiei said. He kicked the bottom of Tsume's shoe. The wolf hiccupped and slumped sideways onto Toboe, who jumped slightly and stared at him. Eclipse ended up using Tsume's leg as a pillow.
"YOUKO, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, YOU KNOW!" Hiei hollered back into the living room, looking down at the unconscious man.
"No it's not," Youko said, suddenly behind Hiei, making him jump. "I didn't ask them to get drunk."
"What'd you do with Shadow?" Hiei asked.
"I gave her the beer. She's fine now."
Hiei dropped to the floor, defeated. "Aw, hell... Gimme a beer."
Youko chuckled.
So, as you can imagine, when Koenma showed up the next day and found Hiei and Youko so drunk they could barely stand (and therefore weren't) and nearly everybody else unconscious, he wasn't very pleased.
"WHAT IN THE SEVEN HELLS IS GOING ON HERE?"
"God, don' yell..." Youko whined, his voice slurred. He and Hiei were sitting back to back on the floor, completely drunk, oblivious that Shadow was lying on her stomach next to them licking up the beer as it dripped out of the bottles held loosely in their hands.
Koenma shook in fury for a minute before walking forward and snatching the bottles from Youko and Hiei and setting them on the table next to a very drunk and unconscious Kiba.
"How could you do this? You got all of them drunk! They're wolves! Do you know what alcohol can do to them?!"
Hiei slumped to one side and collapsed onto Shadow, who grunted and coughed a bit. Without Hiei to lean on, Youko fell backwards on top of the little demon.
"Everyone nee's tuh git drunk once in a whi', K'enma..." the fox slurred.
"I came here to tell you that the portal is complete and that we can send the wolves back to their own time, but they're so drunk, who knows what the hell it'd do to them to send them through something based on microwaves for power! You guys had better sober up real soon!" Koenma snapped. Then he left again.
There was a groan from under Hiei.
"Off!" Shadow groaned, sounding sick. "Off! Off!"
Youko and Hiei managed to move enough that she could squeeze out from under them and scurry out of the room on her hands and knees, headed in the direction of the bathroom.
Toboe, the only one who hadn't had anything to drink, was still sitting with Tsume leaning against his shoulder.
Well, that was fun. They all got drunk. So anyway, I've never been around unconscious drunk people, so I'm not really educated on that topic...
So when they all woke up, they were feeling pretty crappy, and Toboe was the only one who hadn't drank, so he was the one who kept pacing around checking on everyone.
"Shadow, you never did complete the bet..." Youko said, smirking.
"Shut up, Fox, before I kill you. Want me to throw up all over you?"
"Oh, come on. It's not that bad."
"Didn't I tell you I'd have to be drunk to do it?"
"Yes."
"I got drunk, and I didn't do it. So obviously it's bed enough that even if I'm drunk I won't do it."
"It's 'bed' enough?"
"Apparently," Shadow muttered. "Wait, what?"
"You said it's 'bed' enough."
"Shut up, Youko."
"Maybe it was subconscious."
"Shut up, Youko."
"I'm just saying..."
"Shut up, Youko!!!"
"But..."
"I don't care about your butt!"
"Yeah I bet you don't," Youko muttered, giving Shadow a sideways glance. She glared.
"I don't."
"Yeah, sure, whatever... If you say so."
"I say so and you'd better believe it because if I cared about your butt I'd have told you before now!"
"Sure you would've... What happened to me being sexy?"
"You're not."
"There's a lot of people who'd kill you for saying that."
"I'd like to see them try."
"Well they'd probably succeed."
"Yeah, right, in your dreams." She paused. "You don't dream about me, do you? Cuz that'd be scary."
"Maybe I do, maybe I don't."
"How about you don't."
"I can't control my dreams, Shadow..."
"You're hundreds of years old and you haven't learned to control your subconscious yet?"
"You can't control the subconscious, Shadow. It's subconscious. You don't realize it's there."
"Yeah, whatever. Don't go soundin' smart on me. I'll kick your ass."
"That could be subconscious, Shadow. Talking about my ass."
"Talking about kicking it!"
"It's still--"
"Shut up!"
"You're in denial."
"Shut up! No I'm not!"
"See?!"
"Shut up!" Shadow put her fingers in her ears. "La la la!!!"
"You know you love me!"
"LA LA LA."
"See, you just gave up on denying it because you don't like to lie!"
"LA LA--YEAH RIGHT!!" She took her fingers out of her ears. "Youko, I am the biggest liar I bet you've ever met, aside from yourself, so don't go saying I don't like to lie, stupid fox!"
"You know, you're constantly contradicting yourself."
"Didn't I tell you not to use big words around me?"
"No, you told me not to sound smart."
"It's the same damn thing!"
"So what is your honest opinion of me, then, Shadow?"
"You're a psychotic bastard with a one-track mind and I hate you."
"Least you're not afraid of me anymore."
"Fear is a pain in the butt. It's better to kick your ass and be over with it."
"There you go talking about my ass again."
"YOUKO KURAMA!" Shadow warned. "If you don't watch it I'll tear your furry-tailed ass off your body and hand it to you on a PLATE!"
"That'd be interesting to see..." Tsume said, suddenly in the doorway with Hiei.
"What, you'd like to see my ass?" Youko asked.
"Youko!" Shadow snapped. She looked at Tsume, who had suddenly gone very slightly green. "What do you people want?"
"We just came to check up on you two lovebirds. You've been yelling at each other for the past ten minutes, you know," Hiei said.
"LOVEBIRDS MY SHOE!!!" Shadow screamed.
"Really, we haven't been yelling at each other," Youko said. "Shadow's been the only one yelling. I was just calmly talking."
"Well could you stop?" Tsume said. "Nobody is feeling too well, and you're not helping a thing."
"Sorry sir," Shadow said. She walked out of the room.
"How many pain killers did she take?" Hiei asked Youko.
"About half a bottle."
"At once?!"
"Yeah."
"My God... That girl's gonna die."
"No she isn't. She's invulnerable to drugs," Youko said. "Except alcohol, apparently..."
"Great..." Hiei muttered. "Well, I'm off."
"Off what?"
"What?"
"Huh?"
"Youko--"
"Off who? Who's off?"
"I'm leaving, stupid!"
"Kuwabara's still out cold," Youko said randomly.
"Good," Hiei snapped, walking away.
"First to pass out, last to wake up," Tsume said, following. "Maybe he's dead."
"That's even better!" Hiei said happily.
Koenma came by later that day and looked at everybody, sitting around tiredly with bottles of painkiller scattered on every flat surface in the place.
"MY REIKAI TANTEI ARE TURNING INTO ALCOHOLIC DRUG ADDICTS!!!" he screamed. Everybody flinched.
"Koenma, you really are too loud."
"I DON'T CARE! THAT'S IT! WHERE'S KURAMA?"
"You mean Youko," Shadow said. "He's lying around somewhere acting depressed because I don't want to see his ass..."
"What?" Koenma asked, startled.
"He's lying around, that much is right," Hiei said. "And he's been taunting Shadow about some bet they made which was the reason we all got drunk in the first place, but I'm sure that's not why you wanted to see him..."
"Well, that wasn't the original reason..." Koenma said coldly. "Where's he at?"
"In the living room," Hiei said.
Koenma stalked in there and exploded all over the place.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING MAKING BETS THAT GET MY TANTEI DRUNK? YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER THAN THAT, YOU BAKA! YOU'RE PART OF THE TANTEI, AREN'T YOU? AND NOT TO MENTION THE WOLVES! WOLVES ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE ALCOHOL! WHAT IF THEY GET SOME HORRIBLE DISEASE AND THEY DIE! IT'LL BE YOUR FAULT, WON'T IT! NOW YOU'D BETTER MAKE SOME MAGICAL HEALING POTION TO FIX ALL THIS, YOU DAMN STUPID FOX!"
Youko lay on the floor with swirly eyes, his ears ringing in his head from the screaming. Koenma stood there catching his breath until Youko recovered.
"Yeah, Koenma... I'll get right on it... Magical cure for hangovers and alcohol-related organ damage for wolves... Sure, whatever..."
"DON'T 'SURE WHATEVER' ME, SMART-ASS! I'LL PUT YOU IN PRISON!"
"What for? Smart-mouthing a pacifier-sucker?"
"YOUKO KURAMA!!!"
"Ri-i-i-i-ight..."
"STOP USING THAT TONE WITH ME!"
"Yes sir..."
"YO--"
"Give it up already, Koenma!" Hiei said. "God, you're just giving all us pill-poppers horrible headaches."
"And you'd better do something about them, too, Youko. The pill-poppers."
"The wolves popped pills too," Youko informed.
"THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT, STUPID! YOU'RE RESPONSIBLE, SO TAKE THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR IT AND GET TO WORK!"
"OKAY, DAMMIT!"
Youko messed around with various plants and small creatures and alcohol and pills and things in the infirmary in Shadow's basement for the rest of the day.
"I want to send them back as soon as possible. The portal is ready."
.......................................................................
I would've had this chapter up yesterday, but first, my power went out, then when it came back around nine something, fanfiction wouldn't let me log in. It said there were no servers that could handle the request or something... 503 Error... Or something. Then my sister kicked me off the computer.
And see how my wonderful author skills worked out again this time? I just didn't say exactly what the bet was. Because I couldn't think of anything that I'd let myself write.
Oh, and if you want to know what I look like: 5' 8" with brown hair, pale skin (I never go out in the sun), and my eyes are like... four different colors, but green is dominant. They have a gold line in them, too, which is awesome but I never noticed until 7th grade when somebody told me...
I want to put either blue, white, or silver streaks in my hair, and I want red contacts...
There are two possibilities now. Do you want the story to end soon or not? Just tell me that, cuz I could probably drag it on another two or three chapters... Cuz I have an idea... Oh, and have you noticed how you people have started writing longer and longer reviews, telling me about just about anything you think of?