Next to the Bishounen Abduction, this story has the most reviews! Thank you everyone! 75 reviews, currently, and the Bishie has 102. My first story with 100 reviews. ^_^ Maybe this'll be my second. I'm so happy I'm finally worthy of triple digits of reviews. ^_^

Mari Youma- 'Yay' my updating. You know, I could name all my chapters the same thing, they'd probably all be something like "Insane" or something… But "How odd" describes them pretty well too.

kaida13- No, it's not a real word. A Mary Sue in the fanfic world is like… A girl who is perfect, the characters all fall in love with her, she saves all their lives multiple times because she's a 15-year-old master of every martial arts and can fight with ever weapon that exists even if she's never seen it before (or something like that), and then she usually dies at the end of the story. Of course, Shadow will never die (Well, not for good).

Kitsune- Actually it didn't, really. I don't get mad easily. I don't remember who it was who said that, though I'm sure I still have the review somewhere, being as I've never deleted any of them…

nutari- I'm actually planning on being an author when I get older, and I'll probably use a pseudonym, like Shadow something-or-other or something. ^_^

Huyana Jaganshi- Yeah! I updated again! Woohoo!

Crimson Colored Cloaked Figure- Thanks. Weird is my specialty.

Tetsumaru- Like I said to nutari, I'm planning on being an author for a living… Maybe I could do comics, too, though, cuz they'd be easy… ^_^

Yayo- Lots of people seemed to like the monk. I wonder why.

Draikitha- You mean you knew it was a story? That's okay, just don't tell… them. Shhh!

chocogurl- ^_^ "How Odd" was such a fitting name. Actually, this chapter could be called that too, but this one is more evils than odds. Don't worry, I don't hate you.

Pheonixblade- Hopefully your mom didn't catch you… Yeah, my mom was lecturing me for getting a 75 on a Geometry test (which, with their grading… rubric or whatever… a 85 to 100 is an A, 75 to 84 is a B. So it was an incredibly low B that brought my overall grade down to an 82). Anyway, no, that monk wasn't Miroku, it was just some monk in a monastery/shrine thing…

ONWARD, TOWARDS THE SUNSET, TOWARDS THE… Story. Yeah. It's down there. VVV

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Evils of a Work Day

Right. Well in the last chapter we went completely off topic to the point of Shadow and Hiei discussing how short the chapter was... But that was at 1:43 in the morning... weeks ago. This chapter we'll get back to Shadow being... a phone operator, right? Yeah. And Yusuke being a door-to-door salesman. And Eclipse... what was she now? Ah. That's where we can start.

Eclipse trailed after Hiei and Shadow into the prison, up to Akamatsu's office. Hiei walked in, leaving the two girls standing outside the door while he talked to his boss about Eclipse's new job assignment.

"Hey, girl. You came back!" one prisoner said.

"And you brought a friend!"

There were cheers from some guys and they talked loudly. Shadow knew better than to flip them off.

"So, you ditch Jaganshi yet?"

"Were you two even together in the first place?"

"Yeah!"

More cheers. Shadow stood with her eyes closed, arms crossed, tapping her foot. Eclipse looked at her curiously.

"Shadow?"

"Just ignore them... They're idiots," Shadow said airily, flashing a smirk at Eclipse as several guys burst into loud protests.

"Hey, we're not idiots!"

"Yeah, give us a chance!"

"Come on, baby, really! You got something against criminals?"

"Oh, no, nothing at all," Shadow said. "I just have something against idiots."

"But we're not idiots!"

"Yeah, what he said!"

"Ha! Obviously you're idiots, you can't even think of any other comebacks," Shadow replied.

"Shadow, what happened to ignoring them? You're gonna tick them off, royally," Eclipse warned.

"The idiots are behind bars! They can't hurt me," Shadow said. She was promptly bombarded with anything the prisoners could get their hands on (so long as it wasn't really disgusting).

"Mm-hm..." Eclipse said, watching her friend. Finally, the bombardment stopped. "And what about when they get out of prison? Who's to say they'll be reformed? Maybe they'll stalk you and ra--"

Shadow smacked her hand over Eclipse's mouth. "Please, don't give them any more ideas."

Hiei walked out of Akamatsu's office just then and grabbed Eclipse's arm.

"Come on. He's pissed. You guys better not get fired again. He's tempted to add several more hours to Yusuke's and your sentences. Kurama and baka are okay, because they've still got the same job... Though I think Kuwabara's about to lose his..."

"Why?"

"Don't you remember him running up the street like a lunatic when we were coming down here?"

"Oh yeah. That was funny. Especially when I tripped him," Shadow said, smiling and staring off into space, probably reliving the moment inside her empty head.

"Okay," Hiei said once they were back in that room again. That evil room where punishments are assigned. "Here's your choices again. Pick one other than the job you just quit."

"Ahm..." Eclipse said, looking at the list, which, incidentally, consisted of... stuff... Which I'm not gonna list because I already forget them all.

"Well?" Hiei prompted after about a minute.

"Well what?"

"Which job did you pick?"

"What do you mean?"

"Eclipse, you're supposed to be picking a job, you baka!"

"Oh, right!" Eclipse said, looking back at her list. She said the first on she saw. "Concussion stand!"

"Concession stand, you numbskull!" Shadow said, hanging over her shoulder.

"Okay, concession stands it is..."

And that's how Eclipse ended up standing behind a counter surrounded by food at a junior high soccer game.

"Hey, girl, gimme a Mountain Dew, pronto!"

Eclipse looked up at some punk idiot teenage boy.

"Anything else?" she asked, holding back her anger.

"Yeah. Gimme some nachos and cheese. Snap to it now!"

"And would you like a booger with your cheese?" Eclipse asked sweetly.

"What?! Don't get an attitude with me, concession girl! You're here to give me what I ask for! Gimme my food!"

"Would you like some genetically-engineered spuds as well, sir?"

"JUST GIVE ME MY NACHOS!"

"Yes, your royal stupidness," Eclipse said, setting a bottle of Mt. Dew and some Nachos and cheese on the counter.

"I don't think I should pay for this, because you gave me bad service! Ever heard of service with a smile, bitch?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I have."

Just then, a baka orange-haired teenager tore past screaming for no apparent reason. A second later a little mouse scurried after him. Eclipse smirked.

"Now, give me the money or you get no food."

"Bitch."

"I know. That's my fourth middle name," Eclipse said, smiling innocently. "Now pay up, you ass."

Eventually the guy paid up when there was a line of about four people behind him. Eclipse served all them very sweetly with a nice smile and everything, because they were nice to her. She completely ignored the next time Kuwabara tore by and ran across the soccer field, only to be hit in the head with a ball and have the mouse catch up to him and use his hair as a bathroom.

"Hello, young man."

"Hello. Can I help you?" Kurama asked the tall guy in front of him.

"Yeah." The man produced a gun from inside his jacket pocket. "Empty the cash register."

Kurama quirked an eyebrow. Of all the places in Tokyo to rob, who the hell would rob a flower shop? At any rate, Karasu hadn't shown up yet, and his guard was outside (the worthless bum), so Kurama was all by his lonesome.

"I'm afraid I can't do that," he said. The barrel of the gun was pressed against his forehead.

"Do it, or I'll blow off your head."

"No, it's not that I won't, it's that I can't."

"Why not?!"

"Well, you see, this is a one hundred percent computerized cash register. You enter the money in the slot, and the computer calculates the correct change and puts it out, and only my boss has the code to open the thing," Kurama lied.

"Well the where the hell's your boss?!"

"I've never met him, myself. I think he's nocturnal."

"YOU'D BETTER FIND HIM!"

"Oh, I know where he is... It's just that if I wake him up without reason, I think he might tear out my throat." Kurama said this all in a calm, casual voice, like talking about nocturnal men tearing out people's throats is a perfectly normal thing that every civilized human family has a conversation about over a nice spaghetti dinner...

"Yeah right. I don't believe you. Now GET ME MY MONEY!" the robber shouted. Kurama, being a thief, felt pity for this sad excuse for a criminal, who came in during the bright of day, normal business hours, making no attempt to hide his face, and put a gun on the cashier's forehead (that'd be Kurama), demanding money.

"Right," Kurama said as the gun was pressed against his forehead. "He's just through there." He pointed to the door that led to the greenhouse. "I'll go get him. No tricks, I swear. Believe me, I've been robbed before, I know what not to do."

'Yeah,' Kurama thought. 'What not to do is to let him live, but I can't kill him in the bright of day, so on to plan B. Either way he gets no money.'

Kurama stepped into the greenhouse and was surprised to see Karasu snoozing amongst the flower pots. Stupid raven.

'I didn't feel his spirit energy... Maybe he's dead. No matter.'

Kurama manipulated some plants and they wrapped around Karasu's mouth, instantly waking him.

"Be quiet," Kurama whispered. "Make a noise and I'll probably get shot."

Karasu's eyebrows raised and he looked at Kurama curiously. Kurama transformed into Youko, put on a hat at an odd angle to hide his ears, threw on a trench coat to hide his tail, and realized it probably would have been a lot easier to send Karasu out and said he was his boss. No, wait, never mind; then Karasu would have expected something in return. Another thought struck him and he took off the hat and trench coat, manipulated a few viney plants (this is an actual type of plant, but I don't know what it's really called, so I call it a viney plant, cuz that's what it is) until they were draped around his neck and arms, then he walked out into the shop. The robber had his gun aimed at the door.

"Young Shuichi has informed me that you wanted to talk to me?" Youko said coldly, ignoring the gun and walking back behind the counter.

The robber, upon seeing a tall, silver-haired man with fox ears and tail, got a little bit shaky.

"Open the cash register."

"... I can't do that."

"Yes you can! That kid said you could!"

"That kid was lying. It turns out he's the only one who knows the combination."

"Well then where is he?"

"I killed him for waking me."

The man was shaking rather obviously now, and if he had tried to shoot Youko, he probably would have missed due to his hand shaking.

"P-prove it," the man stuttered.

"I can't."

"Why the hell not?!"

"I fed him to the death plant."

"The what?!"

Youko made the vines around his arms move and twist like a snake. They rose up slightly off his arms and moved out towards the robber, who stumbled backwards.

"What the hell kind of place is this?!"

"Not a very nice one for people who mess with me."

The robber turned tail and ran out of the shop, tripping over a vine that Youko had manipulated into place. Watching the man run past the glass shop windows, Youko couldn't help but laugh. Then he saw his guard get up and quickly removed all the vines he'd sent all over the shop and ran back into the greenhouse area, where Karasu was still sitting, bound and gagged.

"That was good," Youko said, transforming back and putting all the plants back to their normal state.

"What was that?" Karasu asked.

"There was a robber. I scared him away rather good. Well it was more Youko, but... It was still funny," Kurama said. Karasu quirked an eyebrow.

"Whatever you say."

"What the hell were you doing sleeping in the greenhouse, anyway?!" Kurama asked suspiciously.

"I fell asleep here yesterday and when you left and the shop got locked up, I had no way to get out without destroying something, so I just slept here. Lucky it was a workday today, or I would've had to eat your plants."

"You do know there's a door to the outside right over there," Kurama said, pointing. "I didn't lock it."

"I didn't know that."

"Right, then," the redhead said, walking back into the shop with Karasu trailing behind him.

Yusuke was walking up the sidewalk rather lazily, not really making an attempt to sell anything (he hadn't sold a single dollar's worth of merchandise since he got the job), when he came to a slightly promising looking house. Don't ask me why he thought it looked promising, because to me it looked like every other house on the block. He walked up to the door and rang the bell. After a second, the door opened a crack.

"Hello! It's a nice day for a deal, don't you think?" Yusuke greeted. The door opened a little farther to reveal a shirtless man (...?), about Kurama's height. He looked rather normal, but all the lights were off and the blinds and curtains pulled shut through the entire house, as far as Yusuke could tell.

"Would you like to come in?" the man asked.

"Sure, I guess," Yusuke said, walking inside with his little dolly with the boxes of samples piled on it. The second he got inside and the door was closed behind him, the man pressed him against the wall.

"You're a very attractive young man."

Yusuke first thought was full of profanity which I will express as this: '#$^%$&!#%#&@$^!@^%%^**&%~@#$!$^%$!%##@$!!!' Following that thought was something a bit more like a sentence: 'Child molester!' However, Yusuke said nothing, because the man continued before he could say anything.

"I would like you to stay with me. Would you like to stay with me, sexy?"

"Um, the offer's tempting and everything, but I really prefer to go home to my girlfriend, not some GAY CHILD MOLESTER!"

... And Yusuke promptly shot out the door, completely forgetting his boxes. The man instantly started going through his loot.

Meanwhile, about 20 miles down the street, Yusuke finally stopped running and stood there, gasping for breath, outside the flower shop Kurama worked in. Kuwabara ran by on the opposite side of the street screaming, again, for no apparent reason. He seemed to have adopted the role of Tokyo's local idiot instead of post officer, and lots of people weren't getting their mail.

{A/N: Holy crap, I just realized I've written a rather long chapter in an hour. I thought I had writer's block! 2,095 words not counting the AN or chapter # and title!}

So, deciding he did not yet want to go back to his boss and tell him he'd lost his samples due to a gay child molester, Yusuke went into the flower shop to talk to Kurama.

"Hello, Kurama," he said, walking up to the counter.

"Yusuke! Hey, what's up?" Kurama said.

"No much."

"Aren't you working?"

"Yeah, well I just lost all my sample boxes to some gay child molester, so I guess I should actually go to my boss, but I decided I like my head attached to my body, so I came in here," Yusuke said.

"Oh. Well I just got an attempted robbery a little bit ago, but I handled it fine. Then I found out Karasu had been sleeping in the greenhouse."

"... Ooookay..."

"Hello," Karasu said, waving from the corner.

"I'm surprised you're not shaking with fear, Kurama," Yusuke said. "Isn't that how you usually get when you're around Karasu?"

Kurama glared, but answered, "Well he hasn't really been hitting on me much, so I'm all right. He's just been sitting in the corner, mostly..."

"Ah. Okay. You're not gonna be friends with him later on, are you?"

And Yusuke was sent flying through the open door just as Eclipse walked in.

"What is this, the congregation place?"

Kuwabara ran by on the same side of the street as the shop, screaming, once again, for no apparent reason. They couldn't see the ferret speed by behind him.

"Operator."

"Could you connect me to Mouken's Pet Shop?"

"Rightio. You know all the hermit crabs they sell there are trained in kung fu and were hired by the IAFCW to assassinate as many humans as they can, right? Well, bye, then."

"What was that, Shadow? What's IAFCW?" Hiei asked.

"International Association For Crabbie Warfare."

"And did you just now make that up?"

"Nope. I didn't make it up! It really exists! Remember Snuffles? He told me about it!"

"Shadow, Snuffles was a hermit crab," Hiei said dryly. "And to my knowledge, hermit crabs do not talk."

"To your knowledge. Well your knowledge isn't very great. I'm telling you, Snuffles the hermit crab talked to me about IAFCW," Shadow retorted.

"I have never seen a talking crab."

"Have you ever seen a talking hermit crab?"

"I just said I haven't..."

"Just because you've never seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist!"

"That made no sense, Shadow."

"I mean, seriously--"

"Really, it didn't. You're supposed to say something like 'Have you ever seen a million dollars' when you use that argument."

"--And then he told me that his great-great-grandfather, Spiffy the crab, was the spokesperson...er... spokescrab for the department of Hermit crab justice."

"Shadow?"

"And... let me think..."

There was a buzz and Shadow picked up the phone. "Operator."

"Can you connect me with--"

"Only if you answer a question correctly. Can hermit crabs talk?"

"... No..."

"AHT! Yes they can. Sorry, no knowledge no service!"

Click.

"SHADOW WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?! YOU'RE SO CLOSE TO GETTING FIRED IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY! SERIOUSLY! IF YOU DON'T WATCH IT SOMEBODY LIKE AKAMATSU MIGHT DECIDE TO RUN A SPOT CHECK AND CALL IN! THEN YOU'D BE TOAST!"

"I like toast. Especially slightly burnt toast, with lots of butter on it."

Hiei groaned and sank into a chair nearby with his face in his hands.

"You're doomed."

"I like doom, too. Doom is cool."

Hiei groaned miserably.

"Actually, you know what else is really cool? Torture chambers. As long as you aren't the victim, those things are awesome. Like the medieval ones, what with the racks and chains and the guillotines and fun stuff like that."

Hiei melted into a puddle and soaked into the chair.

*****************************************************************************

Hey, all. I finally got a new chapter up to all of the stories which actually still have story going on in them. I'm planning on writing some bloopers or something for the bishie story still (as of 4-24-04 I'm still planning on it), but these four stories (this one, Youko Jaganshi, the 'Sun, Sand, Surf' one, and Violent Debate) come first, and I'm sure you all agree with that… If you don't, you should. Oh, and I apologize for any dumb typos, but I didn't personally proofread this. I left it to my computer, so you know how you sometimes make typos that are other words where they shouldn't be, well I apologize for any of those. ^_^