A YEAR LATER... (12-19-04, last update: 12-24-03)

I'm sorry all, but don't get your hopes too far up for the rest of this story. I personally think it's gonna suck majorly, and though you may have a different opinion, I can assure you it won't be as good as the first half. I just want to finish it because I hate having an unfinished fic up... And I'm sick of people ASKING ME ABOUT IT!

THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GO A YEAR WITHOUT WORKING ON IT!
START A ZILLION OTHER ONES!
FINISH THE OTHER ONES!
LEAVE THIS ONE ALONE!
STUPID, STUPID AUTHORESS! DON'T DO IT AGAIN!
I'M DISAPPOINTED IN YOU!
SONOFABITCH!

CHAPTER FIVE
SNOWBALL FIGHT!

Shadow got up on Christmas morning around 9:30. Oh, honestly. She's fifteen, with no parents. Do you honestly think she'll make some great effort to get up early, all excited about presents?

She dragged herself down the stairs and into her living room to find Kurama, as Shuuichi Minamino, asleep on her couch. She screamed and hugged him.

"YOUKO'S GONE!"

"GOD, YOU THINK YOU COULD GIVE ME A BIT OF WARNING BEFORE YOU JUST HUG ME AND SCREAM IN MY EAR!" Kurama yelled. He attempted to sit up, but Shadow was hugging him so tightly he couldn't move, not to mention she was lying on his chest partly, so he was pinned.

"Um... Shadow? Could you... stop? I can't... really... breathe very well," he said hesitantly, poking her back. She looked up at him.

"Sure," she said cheerfully. She stood up. "Oh, merry Christmas, by the way."

"Merry Christmas," he replied once he'd caught his breath. "I have to go home."

"What?"

"Did you think I would spend Christmas with you? I do have a family."

"Do you need to be rude about it?"

"No, but--"

"Then repeat it politely."

"What?!"

"You heard me. It's Christmas. You're not to be rude on Christmas."

Kurama sighed and sat up. "Shadow, I would love to spend Christmas with you and Hiei. However, I've spent the last fifteen Christmases with my mother, and she'd be really upset if I shunned her to be with you guys. So, I must depart and return to my own home. I'll think of you both while I'm away, and will return tomorrow. Okay?"

Shadow nodded. "Acceptable."

Kurama added under his breath, "Not like she won't be upset if she finds out I got drunk and passed out on the couch here..." He stood up. "Bye. Tell Hiei merry Christmas from me."

"Okay!" the girl chirped, seeming not to have heard his 'drunk' comment. She followed Kurama to the door. He opened the door and a heap of snow fell in on top of him and he was instantly buried, not a trace of him in view. Shadow blinked down at the snow, then looked out the door. "Wow, Kurama sure can disappear fast! It's pretty cold. I think I'm gonna make some cocoa."

And she walked away, leaving the door open. Wind blew snow in, sent papers flying, and by the time Shadow returned, everything within ten feet of the door had as much as an inch of snow on it.

"Wow."

Under his snow blanket, Kurama twitched. Shadow screamed.

"SNOW MONSTERS! TWITCHY DEVILS OF THE COLD FROZEN WATER!" She poured her cocoa on Kurama. "TAKE THAT!"

"OW! SHADOW!"

"THEY KNOW MY NAME!!!" She threw her mug at him. It missed and shattered on the floor. Kurama stood up.

"My mother would be even more upset if I spent Christmas in a hospital," he snapped. Shadow glared.

"Well you deserve it for getting drunk and passing out on my couch! If you knew she'd be upset, why did you do it? You're just like any other teenager! Do you smoke weed, too? You could have overdosed and ended up DEAD on Christmas!"

Kurama stared, blank-faced. "That's a pleasant thought."

"Isn't it though?!" she said cheerfully, grinning. Kurama shook his head.

"No, actually, not at all. I'm going home now, despite the blizzard." He left. Shadow watched him vanish into the cold, windy, snowy outdoors, not caring in the least that he might get hypothermia or something.

"What the hell are you doing?" came Hiei's voice from behind her. She grinned.

"It's lovely weather, isn't it?"

Hiei let out a bark of derisive laughter, then glared. "No. It's cold. Shut the door," he said coldly. Shadow grinned at him and didn't obey. "You're stupid. Shut the door before I rip it off its hinges and beat you with it."

"Somebody has a eggnog hangover!" Shadow teased, shutting the door. Hiei turned to leave. "Hey! Look here!"

Hiei turned and received and unpleasant faceful of cold, wet snow. He let out an angry swear and wiped the snow out of his eyes. "You're gonna regret that, Shadow."

"Am I?"

"Yes. You are, Shadow. I assume you've heard the term sucker punch?"

"Yeah. But I didn't punch you. I snowballed you."

"Then it's a sucker snowball. Whatever it is... You'll regret it." He moved towards her. Her smile faltered, then vanished as he kept coming, looking angry and dead serious.

"Are you going to hurt me?"

"Perhaps."

"Um..." Shadow's hand found the door handle. "I think I'll go outside for a bit." She turned the knob, pulled open the door as she turned, and darted out into the snow. The second she'd turned, Hiei had sped up, and he was right behind her as she flew out into the cold.

The snow was knee deep on both the fire demons, but it wasn't that bad, especially since Shadow plowed through it, leaving a path for Hiei. Somebody had been by shoveling snow off sidewalks, so she made a straight path for the cleared area. However, reaching it at a dead run, she hit a patch of ice and gracelessly went spiraling out into the road. Having a bit of warning (but not much), Hiei managed to brace for the ice and keep his balance, spinning a bit as he slid out into the road after his sprawled friend.

Shadow squealed in fear and scrambled for footing as he came towards her, but she, being a bit clumsy despite being not in the least bit clumsy at the same time, ended up staying quite still on the ice. Hiei spread his feet apart and slid towards her, dropping to his knees and straddling her waist.

"Going someplace?" he asked.

"Well, I had initially planned on it, but it looks like I won't be now," she said. When Hiei just gazed at her silently, not looking in the least bit amused, she whimpered. "Don't hurt me. Are you going to hurt you me?"

Hiei grinned evilly.

"I don't like that grin. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I'll count to five," he said.

"Five? For what? Why?"

He stood up. "Start running." She noticed that in his hands he held... snowballs.

"YOU'RE GONNA SUCKER-SNOWBALL ME!"

"You have five seconds."

She scrambled to her feet, then fell back over.

"Two seconds."

Shadow attempted to run but stayed in place, her legs flying but continuing to slip.

"Zero."

The girl turned to give Hiei a horrified look and received about three snowballs in the face. She screeched.

"COLD!"

"Now we're even," Hiei said. He leapt from the road to the yard and stood in the knee-high snow, watching Shadow's pathetic attempts to get up. After a second, he got bored and wandered to the middle of the yard, kicking snow up in front of him into a big pile.

"ARE YOU JUST GONNA LEAVE ME HERE?" she screamed.

"That was my plan, yeah," he replied, absentmindedly burrowing in the snow with his boot.

"THAT'S HEARTLESS! HAVE A HEART ON CHRISTMAS!"

"Christmas is just like any other day to me, Shadow. Why should I treat it any different just because you say its special?"

"BECAUSE!"

Hiei snorted and went inside for his cloak, ignoring Shadow's tormented screams. He stepped out on the porch as she screamed, "SNOW PLOW! SNOW PLOW! SNOW PLOW!" repeatedly. She tried to run as the vehicle sped towards her. It was pointless. But...!

Five seconds before impact, all her pathetic attempts at running finally wore the ice through completely and she managed a solid footing with one foot. Not hesitating for a split second, her instincts kicked in and she flung herself into her own yard. There was an "OOF!" as she collided with Hiei and they both tumbled into the snow. He managed to roll them both over and he pinned the girl in the snow.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" he shouted.

"I think I was saving myself from being flattened, but I could be wrong. What do you think I did?"

Hiei fumed for a second. Until a scream distracted him.

"SNOOOOOWWWWW!!!"

Both fire demons looked towards the house in time to see Eclipse do a cannonball off the porch into a snowdrift.

"Oh great," Hiei muttered.

Eclipse came sneaking out of the snowdrift, swimming as you would underwater... only... over snow.

Then...

She stood up...

Towering over the two fire demons lying in the snow...

She grinned.

Her eyes glowed evilly.

And she held up two snowballs.

"Let it begin."

"It?" Hiei questioned.

"SNOWBALL FIGHT!"

And the fire demons had unpleasant hunks of cold, wet snow flung into their faces. Shadow let out a strangled angry cry and thrashed wildly to get out of Hiei's pin. He stood up and glared at Eclipse. She continued smiling until his glare felt like it would melt through her skull. Then she faltered and did the first thing that came to mind.

She bent down, grabbed a handful of snow, and shoved it into his face.

"YOU--!!!"

Shadow formed about three and flung them in Eclipse's face in quick succession. Hiei fumed and made his own snowball, which he crammed down Eclipse's throat at the first chance he saw.

"Gag! hack! Ewww!"

"Quick, Hiei, you're on my team!" Shadow said, grabbing him and running. "We've gotta build up defense!" She went to a snow drift and started making it into a fort. "Make sure my fort doesn't get destroyed before I finish it, please!"

So Hiei was left to fling snowballs at Eclipse and be a demon shield for Shadow and her fort. Eclipse had no fort, and thus, when Shadow finished hers, was at a bit of a disadvantage.

"You suck!" she whined, bombarding the fort with snowballs. "I'm running out of snow!"

"Make more!" Shadow retorted. "You're the water demon, aren't you?"

"But snow isn't water!"

Hiei raised an eyebrow at Shadow. She shrugged and went about making another snowball.

"It's not my problem!" she hollered back at the girl, flinging the snowball over her fort. But Eclipse wasn't there anymore. Confused, Shadow peered over the wall of snow and screamed in horror as Eclipse burst up out of nowhere right in front of her face and started kicking the fort.

"Die, snow fort! You are not permitted to exist!"

"E-clipse!" Shadow whined. She hit her friend point blank with a well-packed snowball. "I hate you!"

"Sudden death!" Eclipse exclaimed suddenly, stomping on the remains of the snow fort. "Everyone for themself, no teams, and once you're down, you're dead! How's that sound? Terrific? Marvelous!"

The snowball bombardment began again. Only this time, Shadow targeted Eclipse, Hiei targeted them both, and Eclipse went after Shadow. So it was more or less Shadow vs. Eclipse with randomly thrown snowballs occasionally impacting their heads with enough force sometimes to knock their brains out the other side, if they'd had any brains.

Shadow flung a snowball with all the physical strength she cold muster after being out in below-freezing temperatures in a spaghetti-strap shirt (only God knows why she didn't go change). Eclipse dodged and reached down for another handful of snow when there was a thud of impact. They looked around at each other, confused, until a familiar voice reached their ears.

"Wow, like, that so totally hurt, dude..."

Shadow stared at the man who her snowball had impacted. "RANDOM SURFER DUDE!" she squealed, running to him. She slid to a stop in front of him.

"Oh, hey, like, I know you, dudette."

"Isn't it a little cold to be dressed like that?" Shadow asked, looking at his summery attire. Shorts, a tank top with a flowery short-sleeved shirt hanging open over it, sandals, and his surfboard over his shoulder.

"Isn't it, like, a little cold to be dressed like that, dudette?" he said, pointing.

She shrugged and looked at her hands. "My hands are kinda turning blue, but that's okay. I've been out here for the past three hours."

"Like, you mean, dressed like that? What were you like, doing?"

"Snowball fight!" Eclipse cheered, shoving a snowball down poor unsuspecting Hiei's shirt. He yelped and hit her in the head. It didn't really matter, all three of them were soaked to the bone, shivering, and starting to turn a little blue. He could easily fix that, but he, surprisingly, had decided to get into the spirit of things and not spoil the girls' fun.

"Like, that sounds pretty tubular, dudette."

"It was awesome," Eclipse agreed.

"I don't know about you, but I'm freezing my buns off," Shadow muttered, rubbing her hands together. "So what brings you here, dude?"

"I'm totally going surfing, dudette! Isn't that, like, tubular?"

"Surfing?! Isn't it a little cold?" Hiei said. Random Surfer Dude shrugged.

"Whatever the weather, man. I don't care. Surfing is like, a year-round activity, dude."

"Way to go!" Shadow said, giving him a high five. "Live life to its fullest and all that!"

"Totally, dudette. Totally. Well, I better be like, going. Have an awesome Christmas, dude and dudettes." He waved and started back down the sidewalk. Shadow returned the wave and smiled. Once he was out of sight, she stomped her foot on the ground and hugged herself.

"I'M FREEZING!"

"I'm going inside," Hiei said. He turned and left. Shadow was on his heels, leaving Eclipse standing there looking rejected. Once the door slammed shut, she bombarded it with snow.

"WELL I HATE YOU TOO! JUST ABANDONING ME LIKE THAT! I SHOULD NEVER TALK TO YOU AGAIN!"

Inside, Shadow was wrapping a dry, fluffy towel around herself and shuffling into the kitchen to make hot chocolate. Hiei trailed after her, ignoring Eclipse's shouts and screams and the thud of snow against the door.

They were just sitting down to drink their hot chocolate when they noticed something scary. Silence. Eclipse had stopped her shouting.

"Maybe she froze to death," Shadow suggested when Hiei pointed it out.

"Your concern is obvious to me," he muttered.

"Maybe that snow scraper came back for revenge and flattened her instead of me. We look alike, don't we?"

"Not really," Hiei said tiredly, sipping his cocoa.

"Are you tired?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well we have to exchange gifts, so you can't sleep yet!"

"Exchange gifts?"

"I assume there won't be much exchanging. You didn't get me anything, did you?"

Hiei shrugged. "Maybe."

"Maybe yes or maybe no?"

"Just maybe."

The doorbell rang before further inquiries could be made.

"Who is it?!" Shadow snapped.

"CAROLERS!" came Eclipse's voice.

"Damn," Hiei muttered. "She didn't die."

"Yeah, real pity, isn't it," the fire girl said. She got up and opened the door.

"FROSTY THE HITMAN WAS AN ANGRY DISTURBED SOUL, with a switchblade knife and a broken nose and two dead guys on his shoul-ders!" Eclipse sang. Shadow laughed, then shut the door. "Hey!"

"What?" she said, opening it again. "Did you want money or something? For singing one line of a song?"

"That was more than one line and I want LET INSIDE!"

"Lettuceide? Is that like, pesticide and stuff, only for lettuce?"

"LET. IN. SIDE."

"Letin side. Where's that?"

Eclipse fumed for a second before she flung a snowball at Shadow and hit her in the face, then just pushed past her and walked into the house. Hiei chuckled.

"I want some hot chocolate," Eclipse whined.

"Too bad!" Shadow snapped, slamming the door.

"IT'S CHRISTMAS! GET IN THE GIVING SPIRIT!"

"I'm in the spirit to give you a butt-whooping!" the other girl retorted. "You snowballed me in the face in my own home!"

Eclipse shrugged. "So?"

"So I'm not giving you your present!"

"Then you're getting coal!"

"I like coal! It's black and it burns. What more could you ask for?" (I actually said this last year to one of my friends...)

Eclipse glared for a second. Then her attention was diverted to Hiei, who came wandering out of the kitchen with a cookie can. Her eyes widened and the glare turned into a grin.

"COOKIES!"

"Eek!"

And Hiei was shortly lacking his cookies and being sat on by the girl who'd stolen them.

"Get off me!"

"Cookies!" Eclipse chirped, stuffing her face.

"Wahoo!" Shadow said, running into the kitchen and coming back out with a toppling heap of cookie cans stacked about 15 high in her arms. She flung one at Eclipse and hit her in the head, knocking her off Hiei.

"Cookies!" Eclipse cheered, oblivious to the pain as she started in on the second can.

"Wahoo!" Shadow added, sitting down and handing Hiei some cookies. "Feast!" Then she blinked. "Holy cow, yeah, I'm supposed to fix a big dinner! Gotta change!"

She got up and ran away. Hiei and Eclipse blinked at the doorway.

Upstairs, Shadow became aware of loud shouting and screaming and stopped dead. "Holy cow! They're still locked in those drunk-proof rooms! Eeeek!" She reached for one of the doorknobs and stopped. "I'll make dinner first so I have something to placate them with and perhaps they'll spare my life."

And with that she darted into her room and changed into a warmer, more festive outfit: A red sweater, a green skirt, and white boots. Frightening. And where does she come up with all these odd outfits? Where does she buy them? Nobody knows... I think they just appear... Anyway...

Then she ran down the stairs and into the kitchen, hurdling over Eclipse and Hiei, who both 'eep'-ed and cowered away. She looked at the clock.

"I have plenty of time to make Christmas dinner!" she declared, and started pulling out ingredients.

Now how can this possibly go wrong? It is, after all, supposed to be a happy Christmas. I could just leave it at that. But what about the gift exchange? The people still trapped in the drunk-proof rooms upstairs? Christmas dinner? It shall be continued. If thou hath any ideas, thou shalt feel free to express them unto me.

I narrow my eyes.
'Drop a review and go read the next chapter.'
The voice echoes loudly in your mind. You feel a very strong, undeniable inclination to obey the voice. A very strong inclination indeed. You are unable to defy the overpowering voice.
'Drop a review and go read the next chapter, NOW,' the voice insists.
You obey.