I have nothing much to say! Shock horror! Except… I was mucking around with the speech recognition thing on XP yesterday. And my computer recognises the words Ryu and Ayane, but not Kasumi, Hayabusa or Hayate. Hang on… let's see what each one comes up as…

Ryu = Ryu

Kasumi = As soon (?)

Hayabusa = Have you set (?!)

Hayate = Heritage (Thank god he isn't)

Ayane = Ayane

Oh, and re-enter Lisa in this chapter. Yay!

"Mother. Perhaps you can help me,"

He sat down, opposite the small picture of his mother on his dressing table. A small sigh escaped his lips. It was a bad habit, talking to a picture. God knows he was basically talking to himself. He had managed to break it for a while, but perhaps… perhaps she really was listening to him.

Or, perhaps not.

"Hayate and I are going through… some disagreements right now. I don't know. We've had our disagreements before, but nothing like this. To me, it feels as though the friendship is in jeopardy, and I've never had to worry about that before,"

He raised his eyes to look at the picture. "I suppose that one good thing about being dead is that you don't have to worry about friendships. You don't have to worry about anything. That would be nice,"

Emerald eyes shut against the sun's rays shining in through the window.

"I know what you would say if you were here, down to the exact. 'Ryu Hayabusa! Don't you ever let me hear you say something like that again!' Then you'd come out with something which would be insightful, meaningful yet cheerful at the same time and we would all be happy again. Life seemed so simple when I was that age,"

He paused for a moment, his eyes still closed.

"But everything changed after you died, Mother. Father still can't stop blaming himself. He loves you that much. However, he doesn't want to live again. He won't let himself be happy. He misses you so much that he is willing to let you consume him. Only for you,"

Leaning back on the bed into a lying position, he opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling.

"I love you too, of course. But I don't think that my love can compare to his. He truly cares for you that much,"

Almost unconsciously, a hand reached up to touch the bruises on his face.

"He really does care,"

"Ryu!" His name was bellowed from downstairs. "Get your lazy arse down here and cook dinner! Now!"

He got slowly to his feet. "I suppose I should go, Mother. Hopefully you can help me with Hayate. He's a good friend to me, and I don't want to lose that,"

With one last pensive glance back at the picture, he left the room.

"Fuck!"

Ayane couldn't stop thinking about him. Even to the point where she had been applying mascara and had managed to stab herself in the eye with the wand. And it hurt.

Rubbing her eye proved foolish as soon as she did it, because the little mascara she had managed to apply smeared across her cheeks, making her look like some deranged panda.

"Fuck, fuck and more fucking fuck!"

"Ay, what the hell are you doing?"

"Shut up, Lisa! I'm coming! I just poked out my goddamn eye, okay?!"

She and Lisa had finally managed to catch up; they were going to see a movie. However, at the rate she was going, she probably wouldn't be able to 'see' much of the movie.

Grabbing the brush off the bench, she wrenched it relentlessly through her knotted hair, dumping the brush, before fluffing her hair up with her hand, checking the rest of her makeup and fixing the panda lines. She had decided to go gothic tonight, just to annoy the hell out of Lisa.

"Ay, what the hell? You know how much I hate this stuff!"

She grinned. It had worked. Perfectly.

"What do you want to see? Excluding you making out with some random ugly bum off the street because you can't get it from anywhere else,"

"Dunno. What's on? Other then you and every other guy in this country,"

"This sucks. These movies are all crap. Bit like your makeup,"

"Yeah. Let's go shopping instead. You're not buying any more gothic stuff, either. Got it?"

"Shut up, whore,"

"Bitch-face,"

It was almost a tradition. See how many different insults they could come up with for each other. The record was over two hundred before they had run out of ideas.

"Mushroom smurf,"

"What the fuck?" she exclaimed, turning to face Lisa. "What the hell is a smurf and why a mushroom?"

Lisa shrugged. "It sounds funny,"

"You look funny, butt-muncher,"

They went into the first clothes shop and browsed for a little while. She instantly spotted a gorgeous purple silk top, with emerald green etched butterfly outlines and fell in love with it. Swirled purple patterns, with butterflies. Big, wide sleeves and the bottom tying in a knot just above her belly button, showing her stomach. What wasn't there to love?

"Compared to what you're wearing, this looks positively revealing,"

She glared at Lisa. "Just because you enjoy dressing up like a skank doesn't mean everybody else has to, you know,"

Just above the knee length black skirt, complete with chains, knee-high black boots and laced black shirt. Quite modest for Ayane herself. But then again, her version of skanky was often Lisa's version of modest.

"Looks like Hayabusa's eyes," she mused aloud, examining the butterfly outlines.

Wait. Did I just say that out loud? SHIT!

Lisa immediately looked interested.

"So, who's Hayabusa?"

Oh, shitshitshitshitshit… not fair! Not fair!

She's asked that like ten times already. Her memory bank holds less then a freaking tea strainer.

"Just some random guy off the street. You can have him if you want. He just has really green eyes, is all. The colour is pretty similar,"

"You lie, Ayane. You lie worse then my dog roots legs,"

"Guess what, bitch? I never wanted to hear about your life of bestiality,"

Lisa grinned. "You lie, because your face softened when you mentioned him,"

No way. She's bull-shitting me. I'm softening over Hayabusa? She must be kidding.

"You lie too,"

"Nope. Go look in the mirror,"

She did. And she had almost a dreamy look on her face, as though she was stuck on Cloud Nine or something. It immediately turned back to her usual expression as she watched. "Just for your benefit, saxophone sucker,"

"Saxophone sucker? That's an interesting one. But I'll find out more about this Hayabusa guy, got it? Anyway, don't just stand there. Try the Hayabusa-top on,"

"Shut up!"

After glaring at Lisa, she grabbed the top and headed into the change-rooms, slipping the top on over her head. As much as she hated to say it, now that the top was somehow 'tied' to Hayabusa, it looked damn sexy on her.

"It's mine, bitch," she declared, waltzing out of the change-rooms and modelling it to Lisa, who applauded obediently.

"Certainly suits you. Bet the fact that it's now Hayabusa's top makes a difference,"

"Does it fucking what. He'll probably try and model it for me,"

She told Lisa about the formal dress experience.

Within seconds, Lisa was on the floor, trying to catch her breath as tears of mirth escaped her eyes. "Holy shit. What a good sport,"

"Yeah, perhaps," She changed back into her own top, pulling out some money. "Cheap, too. A nice find, that. That being the dress," she added after a short pause.

"Not as nice as-"

She swatted angrily at her friend.

"Shut your pie-hole before I shut it for you,"