Short chapter alert! Tee hee hee. I'm glad you guys like the story, too. Anyway, not many notes today, because (for once) I don't have anything to say! Oh, except for the fact that Ryu rules everything. Yeah. That's pretty much it. ^_^

*

She spun upon hearing her name, and instantly glared when she saw him.

"What else do you want to screw around? I only came out here for a ciggie. Don't tell me, you came out to play the drama queen,"

"Unlike you, I have never been to a drama lesson in my life, nor do I intend to," he said softly, not in the mood to argue, but not in the mood to stand by and let her passively insult him.

"Yeah," she snorted. "You wouldn't need to. Being the prick that you are, perfect at everything. So, you dumped Kasumi, too. I guess even normal girls aren't good enough for you, huh? Even Kasumi's normal, albeit a stupid, sadistic whore. Or perhaps, you're just the one that's not normal,"

He smiled faintly, the irony of the conversation amusing him.

"Yes, I have never doubted that,"

"Well, there you go, that makes two of us, then!"

She certainly seemed to be in the mood for provoking a fight. Nevertheless, he had to say what had been on his mind since that dreadful afternoon.

"Regardless of what you think, I am extremely… happy that you are alright,"

She sniffed. "Never seen you happy any other time,"

"Perhaps 'happy' wasn't the right adjective. 'Grateful' might be more appropriate," he shook his head briefly, trying to clear it. "I would have been distraught if you weren't," he admitted finally, to himself and to her.

He had his head down, so he couldn't see her reaction, but if her voice was anything to go by, then she was rather surprised, to say the least.

"No you wouldn't be," she said finally, although still sounding surprised by his frankness, if anything else. "You'd just brush it off after a while, like you did with that other chick,"

"You can't just stop living," he raised his head so he could meet her eyes. "Those that left would never want you to fall into the abyss of pain that their demise left. You have to keep on living for them. Them, if nobody else,"

"So that's what your life is all about?" Her voice, instead of containing some edge of spite as it always seemed to around him, was simply soft. A touch of the person she may have been without being cast into Kasumi's shadow. Almost a caring tone. He had never heard her sound so gentle before. "Just living for the sole sake of somebody else? Are you trying to tell me that if not for your weird morals, you wouldn't be standing in front of me now?"

He remained silent. For somebody always complaining that he could read into her too well, that he was too enigmatic, she was certainly doing a good job at reading into him.

"So it is," Still nothing. No bitterness, no spite, nothing that made her voice so typically Ayane. Scarily enough, without the hatred, it made her sound a bit more like Kasumi. I probably shouldn't express the comparison, though. "Seems a pretty shitty sort of life,"

He shook his head. "It's the best I can do. Irene was taken away from us earlier then any of us expected; hence, I want to live my life for her, as you say, shitty or not. No running away, not any longer. I've done that enough of my life. It's time for me to stay and face it,"

She looked up at him suddenly, and her countenance softened visibly. None of that defiance she flaunted usually; hung around her like a scent. "Perhaps you're not as much of an arse as I thought you were, Hayabusa,"

Before he could say anything to that, she smirked. And he knew everything was back to normal, albeit eccentrically so.

"You're just cliché and crazy. But hey, I've seen worse,"

*

C'mon! You think she could stay pissed at that gorgeous mug forever?!