I STILL EXIST! THEREFORE...
You have permission to bludgeon me.

nutari- Yes, read my stories! The more you read, the better control-- er... I mean, the more you read, the more you, uh... laugh? ::hides and holds up a sign that says "I don't write subliminal messages"::
Natsumi-sama- You've got issues... What, and I don't? Yes, I do, but you've got some too.
chocogurl- You understood most of what was going on? Maybe that's a bad thing.
C.C.C.- You think the number of "please"s you wrote is about equal to how many times you're gonna hit me for not updating soon?
Dark Dragon34- Are you gonna rip off my hair and choke the beavers with it, or are you just gonna choke beavers after ripping off my hair? I wanna know what you're gonna do with my hair when you tear it off for not updating for three months or something...
Mari Youma- He almost got molested in the last chapter, and Karasu was behaving... ::Twilight Zone music plays:: (Don't own, have no affiliation with...)
kaida13- Chocolate is good. Have you ever just taken those packets of sugar they have on tables at restaurants, opened it, and ate all the sugar plain? I love doing that. :)
wolf- Kinda insane? How dare you insult my writings with kinda? TAKE BACK THE KINDA AND LEAVE THE 'INSANE' THERE! (No offense...)
Mikoshoujo- Well I plan on becoming an author, and you people have to help me to become a bestselling author... I SHALL HAVE YOUR MONEY ONE WAY OR ANOTHER!!! MUWAHA! ::cough hack cough cough::
Bar-Ohki- Well in this chapter, you'll see what happens when Karasu is left alone for five minutes in the shop.
insane miko- Yes, well... Ah, I see you reviewed on July 1st... Well, today's July 19th... So really I did kinda update soon as far as you know, except that I haven't updated this story since April 24th... Heh heh... Nearly three full months since my last update!

FEEL FREE TO BLUDGEON ME.
This seems to be the story I put on hold most often... Cuz between posting chapter five and chapter six it was from 2-21-04 to 3-31-04 and this time it was from 4-24-04 to 7-19-04...
Can I just say... Oops.

CHAPTER NINE
Difficulties With Our Work

"So how many more hours do we have of this?" Shadow asked one day. It seemed nobody wanted to call anybody today, or maybe word had spread about the poor service of the phone operator, because she hadn't gotten a single buzz all day.

"Of what?" Hiei asked absently, folding his 50th flying paper crane from the stack of fluorescent colored paper he'd found.

"Community service!" Shadow said, snatching the paper bird away.

"Hey!"

"Answer the question or birdy bites the dust!" Shadow threatened, holding the crane like she was about to tear it up.

"Around..." Hiei did some quick mental math. "Uh..." Okay, so it really wasn't all that quick. "How many did you have to start with?"

Shadow did some quick thinking that took five minutes. "Three hundred."

"Then I'd say you've got around one hundred fifty or something left. Something like that."

"I should already be done! Cuz I've been working forty-hour weeks--"

"For like... one week!"

"Screw you!"

"You want to?"

"Y-- NO!"

"Oh my God, Shadow, you almost said yes!"

"No I didn't."

"Yes you did."

"... Hn."

"Hey, hey, now you're stealing my word!"

"Shut up, Hiei!"

"You wanna try to make me?"

"I won't have to try, I will succeed."

"HA, HA, HA!"

Shadow paused. "I didn't mean it."

"Mean what?" Hiei asked.

"I purposely almost said yes."

"Sure you did..."

"Why are you so stuck on it, Jaganshi? Why don't you just drop it?" Shadow snapped. Then she added slyly, "Unless, of course, you actually want to screw me..."

"Yeah right!"

"THEN WHY DO YOU NOT GIVE UP?"

Hiei shrugged. "Because it annoys you."

Shadow nearly tore out his throat, and would have, but she got a buzz. The first time that day.

"Operator," she said in her normal phone-answering-bored voice.

"Hello," said the other person. Shadow waited for him to continue. He didn't.

"Hello? Can I help you with something?" she asked.

"Mmm... Perhaps."

"Well..." Shadow was cut off.

"Hello?"

"Who are you, dude?"

"My name is Hugh Jass."

Shadow stared at the phone receiver like it was a foreign object.

"What is it?" Hiei asked.

"Some dude just said his name is Hugh Jass," she said with the receiver covered. Hiei snorted. Shadow went back to the phone.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"I need you to do something for me."

"If it involves a phone and some wires, I will."

"Can you stay on the line and three-way me to somebody?"

"I don't know if I'm allowed to do that."

"Connect me to 555-6451. Stay on the line, mind you, we need a witness."

"A what?"

"Just don't let the other guy know you're on the phone."

"Why?"

"Just connect us, stay on the phone, and be silent!"

"Rightio, dude."

And Shadow did. The other guy answered.

"Hello?"

"Mister Mike Rotch?"

"Speaking."

"Very good. This is Hugh Jass. I'd like to speak to you about our deal?"

"Very well, but I suggest the operator hangs up unless she wants to be hunted down and raped."

Shadow hung up very, very fast.

"What was that?" Hiei asked.

"Misters Hugh Jass and Mike Rotch were having a peachy conversation consisting of 'Hello, the operator better get off the phone or she'll be raped'."

"Raped? What, through the phone?"

"That'd be interesting. No, he meant he'd hunt me down and rape me. The Jass dude, whose name is hopefully not really Hugh Jass, told me to stay on the line while he talking to this other dude, but when the Mike Rotch dude threatened to hunt me down and rape me, I got off real quick. I don't want that."

"Ah."

And they sat for hours and hours without another buzz.

[AN: In case you're wondering, yes, I got those prank names from Bart Simpson's prank calls on the Simpsons. Disclaimer: Don't own, have no affiliation with.]

Kuwabara's day was as usual. Get chased by dogs, attacked by small critters dwelling in mailboxes, and lectured by superiors when he gets back to the post office around nine at night.

Kurama's day was fairly normal.

Other than some customer speaking in a foreign language to her, Eclipse's day continued without incident.

However, Yusuke's boss had ordered him to go back to that horrid house and retrieve his merchandise.

He took his sweet time about it, too. He walked past the house slowly, then crossed the street, crossed back, walked past the house the other way, analyzing it every time, looking for the fastest escape route. Finally, after confirming that the fastest escape route was straight back the way he'd come (duh), he gathered the guts to go up to the door and knock.

The door opened a slight bit, and the face of the scary dude appeared.

"Ah, it's you. Can I help you?" he asked, opening the door a bit more.

"Um... Maybe. I was here a few days back and I accidentally left all my merchandise here... And... I'd like it back."

"Oh. That. Well it happens that all your merchandise has been destroyed."

"Oh shit," Yusuke said, imagining how his boss would react. "Thanks anyway..."

That went better than expected... He thought, turning to leave. The man caught his arm, spun him around, and planted a big, disgusting kiss on his lips.

Yusuke ran faster than he'd ever run in his entire life. Sort of. In five minutes, he was back in his boss's office, hearing two words he really would rather not have heard.

"You're fired."

Oh yeah. Those words.

"What?!"

"And you have to pay us back for the money we would have made off that stuff."

"What?!"

"Now get lost. I don't want to see you again until you have $500."

Yusuke made little squeaky noises as his mouth moved, not quite forming any words.

"OUT!"

"…And so now I have to get $500 to that dude and I have to get a new job to take up the rest of the community service time, then after that I have to get a paying job to make $500!"

"Your problem, not mine," Hiei said. "I'm not even going to bother letting you pick your job this time. You can go be a garbage man."

"Are you serious?!"

"Yes. Get lost."

Yusuke, having no idea what to do, wandered out of the house, into the street, and promptly got hit by a steamroller.

Sort of.

"So you're telling me after getting fired for the second time, that Urameshi kid went out in the street and got hit by a car?"

"Well, it was actually a semi..."

"What?! Is there anything even left of him?"

"Sort of."

"Sort of?"

"Well, yeah, sort of."

"How is there 'sort of' something left of him? Is he in a glass jar of preservatives?"

"Well, no, but he's unconscious in a hospital bed with a broken leg, broken arm, and four cracked ribs, not to mention a multitude of gashes and extreme blood loss..."

"WELL THEN WHAT THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO ABOUT THE REST OF HIS COMMUNITY SERVICE?!"

"Um... I don't know."

"Get lost, Jaganshi! I have to think!"

"One more thing. The operators section of the company Shadow was working for shut down, so now she has no job again."

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

And Hiei quickly left Akamatsu's office.

"So... now what?" Shadow asked.

"So now... You get to work as a stewardess on an airplane."

"What, I don't even get to choose this time?"

"NO! YOU'RE GOING TO WALK UP AND DOWN AIRPLANE ISLES HANDING OUT PEANUTS!"

"O.o Okee dokee sir! ...Did Akamatsu-sama yell at you?" Shadow asked sweetly. She received a slap in the head and Hiei pushed her towards the exit.

The plane had just landed and passengers had unloaded. A group of young men gathered a few feet away, casting glances at Hiei as he stood near the plane.

"Is it just me, or was that guy staring at that one black-haired stewardess through the entire flight?"

"It wasn't just you."

"He looks kinda suspicious if you ask me."

"Maybe he's a criminal."

"I bet he's stalking her, but he knew he couldn't attack her on the plane."

"We should talk to him."

"If by 'talk' you mean 'drag him off and beat the stuffing out of him for being a lecherous stalker,' I'm all for it."

"But what if we're wrong?"

"We'll apologize. Okay, let's go."

Hiei barely paid any attention to the group of men approaching him until they were surrounding him.

"Hey, short stuff. You know what you get for stalking a girl?" one said. They had Hiei's attention now. He regarded them with mildly annoyed curiosity.

"You get the stuffing beat out of you!" another said.

"Come with us and accept your punishment peacefully and we won't hurt you as bad," the first one said. Hiei snorted.

"Who is it that you're thinking I'm stalking?" he asked.

"That black-haired stewardess," the first man said. "The young pretty one."

Hiei couldn't help but burst out laughing. "Maybe I am stalking her, but if that's the truth, I'm not just going to stand here and let you hit me."

"Oh yeah? So you admit you're stalking her? Well, take this!" The man's fist slammed into empty space as Hiei ducked and flipped the guy over, flinging him against the man behind him.

Meanwhile, Shadow managed to get off the plane for a minute. She saw a fleeting glimpse of Hiei and ran towards him, pummeling the closest attacker with an aluminum tray.

"Back off, you psychos!" she snapped, holding the dented tray threateningly.

"What...?!"

"But he's stalking you!"

Shadow exploded in laughter. "Yeah, right. He's my guard. He's my guard against being stalked! He's not stalking me!"

"But he was watching you the entire time with lecherous eyes!"

"Hiei, were you staring at my ass?" Shadow asked accusingly.

"Yeah right!" Hiei said. "Why the hell would I do that when you live with me? If I wanted to stare at your ass, I'd do it at home."

"He lives...?"

"Yes, he lives with me," Shadow said. "Now take a hike, kids."

The guys that hadn't been flipped or pummeled with a tray all walked away rather quickly. Shadow and Hiei snorted.

"God, this uniform is a pain," Shadow muttered, plucking at the stewardess uniform she had been forced to wear.

"Why? You wear stuff like that all the time."

"Not skirts."

"Ah." Hiei paused. "Yes you do!"

"Not in public!"

"Ah. What about that one time—"

"Shut up and stop thinking. Just take my word for it. Unless, of course, you wanna trade places and I'll be the guard while you wear a skirt and serve Dramamine to stupid kids who're yacking up the contents of their stomachs all over the bathroom?"

"No, that's quite alright, Shadow, I think I'll take your word for it," Hiei said, horrified.

Kurama sighed. "I haven't had a customer all day. I think my guard has been chasing them all off... Cuz he's so ugly, y'know?"

Karasu chuckled. "Maybe it's just you."

"I doubt it," he said. He opened the door to the greenhouse and started in, then turned. "If any customers come while I'm in here, call me out. Do NOT scare them off."

"Of course, Kurama," Karasu said soothingly. Kurama chose to ignore the tone of his voice and quickly vanished into the greenhouse.

He'd been in there no more than five minutes when a group came into the shop: A teenage boy holding the hands of two little girls, twins by the looks of it (being as they looked the same and were dressed the same). Karasu thought he heard something about 'get well soon cards' in their quiet conversation as they wandered through the shop.

Aww, somebody's sick. Boohoo. Bwahaha. Miserable people are so easy to con.

He went and stood behind the counter. The group came up to the counter. Karasu had watched Kurama operate the cash register plenty of times and knew how it worked. The total came to something around $20, but...

They'll never know...

"That'll be sixty-nine dollars," Karasu said the first number that came into his mind. The teenage boy looked at him, confused.

"That can't be right. I added it all up before I came up here to make sure I had enough. It should only be $19.00," the kid said.

"Maybe you did your mathematics wrong," Karasu suggested, thinking more along the lines of, SHIT! Maybe they aren't as miserable as I thought! Or maybe my con skills have got rusty since all I've been doing for the past year or two has been stalking Kurama...

"No, I'm top student in my class! Almost."

"Almost, eh? There's a margin for error there, then."

"I don't think there's a fifty-dollar margin!"

"Well I'm sorry, but that's what the computer says," Karasu said, keeping his voice calm. I'm doomed. Maybe I should just call in Kurama and let him handle it. He'd be mad, but he's kinda cute when he's mad. Before he realized it, the kid had gone around behind the counter and looked at the screen.

"You're lying! It says nineteen dollars right there!"

Kurama, having heard the yelling, stepped out of the greenhouse, already having started saying Karasu's name.

"Karasuuu-oh shit," he said, taking in the situation. The customer turned around and spotted him.

"Minamino? You work here?"

"Uh... Sort of," Kurama said, slipping past him and standing next to Karasu, shooting him demonic evil glares out of the corner of his eye. "Can I help you?"

"That guy was trying to overcharge me!" the kid accused, pointing.

"I wasn't!" Karasu denied. Kurama elbowed Karasu in the face as hard as he could while apologizing.

"I'm sorry. Your purchase is free for your troubles, and please don't tell everybody in the world about this little mistake," Kurama said. The kid nodded absently, watching Karasu fall to the floor with swirly eyes. Then he snapped back to the real world and looked at Kurama.

"Thank you," he said with that "Yeah, you better believe it's free!" tone. Then he leaned closer and said in a lowered voice, "Incidentally, who's that guy outside? I've noticed he's always sitting there. What's the deal?"

"Eh heh heh..." Kurama chuckled nervously. "A friend of mine got me and a couple other friends arrested... And... This is community service. I have to have a guard, even though I had nothing to do with the riot..."

"Riot?! For shame. Well, I'll be off," the boy said. Then he smiled again. "Shuichi Minamino arrested? Never woulda figured something like that would ever happen..." Then he left.

Pfft. You have no idea, Kurama thought. Then he suddenly felt something he never wanted to feel again and stomped on Karasu until his face was black and blue. Having a psychotic perverted gay demon grope you is something we all hope you'll never experience. (However, it's too late for Kurama... ::sob::)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

God, what's wrong with me? I've become a lot more perverted in my stories... Like... Kurama has been horribly tortured by Karasu through all my stories... But he just got GROPED. And Yusuke got kissed by some complete stranger... MALE stranger... Is this disgusting you? Should I kinda try to restrain myself a bit? Heh heh... ::D
Hey! I have 86 reviews. Let's aim for 100! ::gets bludgeoned by people shouting "NOT IF YOU DON'T UPDATE SOONER NEXT TIME, DAMMIT!"::
It's hard to believe I started this in January... And now it's July and I'm not done... While my Wolf's Rain crossover fic took under a month... Eh heh heh...
Y'know, my stories have a lot of typos cuz I'm too lazy to proof read most of them.