(12-24-04) Christmas Eve (just barely. 12:20 AMhere, kids). Dude, sorry, this is the MAJORLY SUCKY last chapter of this story. Read on.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Gift Exchange
The next day, Yusuke, Kurama, Kuwabara, and Eclipse all showed up at Shadow's house around noon.
"How come you all always show up around the same time?" she asked, watching all four file inside. "It's like I called you or something."
"You did call us, Shadow," Kurama said. "Said something about a gift exchange."
"Oh, yes, that." She grinned. "Presents hath been purchased for you. All of you. Yes, even you, Kuwabara."
"Huh?"
"You can have yours now," she said, handing him a small box wrapped in shiny paper.
"Why does he get his first?" Eclipse whined.
"Because it's something useful to him," Shadow replied. "Go on, baka, open it."
Kuwabara cautiously pulled off the wrapping paper and was greeted with a box containing...
"Hearing aids?! Why did you get me HEARING AIDS?!"
"BECAUSE YOU'RE DEAF AND YOU'RE ALWAYS SAYING 'Huh?'" She paused. "Though really I should have gotten those for Eclipse..."
"Hey!"
"You're mean, Shadow," Kuwabara mumbled.
"I'm also a big fat comedian. It's a gag gift, baka," she said, smirking.
"Maaan, you're so mean," Kuwabara whined.
"You just said that a minute ago."
"Shadow," Kurama said, "where's Hiei?"
She snorted, shrugging and waving a hand to dismiss it. "Beats me. Not here."
"Not here as in... Not right here, which is obvious, or not here as in, not here in this house?" Yusuke asked.
"He didn't want to take part in the gift exchange so he left first thing this morning... With his sword. Probably to brutally murder some bystanders."
"You say that like you don't care."
"I don't."
Yusuke rolled his eyes. "Merry Christmas to them, then."
"Yup!"
"LET'S GET ON WITH IT, I WANT MY PRESENTS!" Eclipse screamed.
"Yeah, and shut the door, it's cold outside," Yusuke snapped. "Why the heck are you standing there with the door open? It's snowing!"
Shadow shrugged. "I forgot to shut it." She pushed the door shut and bolted it. "There, now Hiei will have to stay out in the cold."
"If indeed he is out there, which I don't think he is," Kurama corrected.
"What makes you say that?"
"The undeniable fact that he's in the living room asleep on the couch."
"Not even asleep," came Hiei's voice. Shadow flew into the living room and went tumbling over the back of the couch without hesitation, landing on Hiei.
"What are you still doing here?!"
"Get off me! I live here!" he snapped, trying to sit up and failing miserably.
"Really?" Shadow blinked, looking surprised. "That's pretty cool." She got up and walked to her chair. "Everybody sit down, we shall have the gift exchange!"
Kurama blinked. "So we're just giving you our gifts and you're giving us our gifts then we can go home?"
"If you want to be an antisocial butt, yeah," Shadow said. "But you're perfectly welcome to STAY even though Christmas was yesterday and you technically can go back to being assholes and not be lectured about Christmas spirit."
"You know I spend 85 of my time here, don't you?" Kurama said, handing her a gift. "My mother worries."
"Parents are a drag," she muttered. "That's why I don't have any."
"THE TRUTH COMES OUT!" Eclipse declared. "Shadow KILLED her parents because they weren't letting her get together with her friends! She's more of a psycho murderer than Hiei! At least he didn't kill his parents!"
Hiei snorted and rolled over on the couch, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
"What? Did I say something wrong?" Eclipse asked.
"Not like you care if you did," Shadow muttered, tearing at the wrapping paper on Kurama's gift. She stared at a very delicate-looking jewelry box. "Wow. How... fancy."
"Open it. You'll probably be more enthused by its contents."
Shadow blinked and opened it. Her face lit up. "Awesome!"
"I figured you'd like the whole contrast thing," Kurama said, smiling at her reaction.
"Contrast? What's in there?" Eclipse asked, scurrying over. Shadow slammed the box and hissed at the other girl.
"MINE!"
"I don't want it! I just want to know what it is."
Shadow cracked the box and peered inside with one eye, then looked up at Eclipse, then back in the box. "Hmm..."
"What is it?" Hiei asked. Shadow got up and danced over to him.
"Oh, fine! Show him but not me!" Eclipse complained. Shadow sat next to Hiei on the couch and opened the box.
"Jewelry," she replied, grinning. Hiei looked at it.
"That?"
She nodded. "Very, erm... I don't know the word. Evil? Hardcore? Demonic? I think awesome fits."
"What is it?" Eclipse snapped.
Shadow pulled out two bracelets that looked like shackles with broken chains. She held them up for show, then snapped them on her wrists. Kuwabara's eye twitched.
"Where the heck did you get that stuff, Kurama? I know I've never seen anything like that in a jewelry store," he asked as Shadow held up a leather collar that had a big buckle and a heavy chain attached to it. A grin spread across the girl's face and she quickly put that 'jewelry' on too.
"A friend," Kurama muttered vaguely. He pulled out another gift. "And Hiei, for you."
Hiei looked distinctly surprised that he was getting anything, even from the fox. He took it and tore away the wrapping paper with less excitement than wariness.
"It's not going to bite you, Hiei," Yusuke said, amused.
Behind the wrapping paper was a box. Hiei opened this and found it was stuffed full of tissue paper.
"For Gods sakes, fox, what the hell did you need so much stuff for?" he snapped, throwing a wadded up ball of the paper at his friend. "You made me go through all this crap for..." He finally reached the real contents of the box and pulled it out. "For a sword care kit."
"Like it?"
"Hn," the fire demon said absently, opening the box and looking through the various items inside. "You know I went without something like this for my entire life and my swords fared just fine."
Kurama shrugged. "Well then now they'll fare a bit better. There's also this."
Hiei shoved the box his sword care kit had been in over Shadow's head as Kurama pulled something much smaller and less carefully wrapped out of his pocket. Ignoring the girl's muffled shouts and the waving of her arms, Hiei took the second gift from Kurama and pulled away the paper.
"A padlock, fox?"
Kurama's eyes lingered on Shadow as she pulled the box off her head with a triumphant yip. "I thought you could find a use for it..."
Hiei followed his eyes and a smirk played on his lips. "Yes, I'm sure."
Shadow starting singing and waving her arms. With a burst of speed, Hiei gathered the ends of her shackle bracelets and locked them to the chain on her collar. She tugged at it with a shriek.
"You! You planned all this, didn't you fox!" she yelled. She thrashed her arms all around wildly and only succeeded in tipping herself over and falling against Hiei.
Everyone was laughing at her. Kurama pulled the keys out of his pocket and dangled them in front of her face. She made pathetic snatches at them and he tossed them to Hiei.
"She's at your mercy."
The girl turned pleading eyes on Hiei. He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment before he stuck the keys in his pocket.
"Later."
"But Hiei...!"
"Be quiet."
"Okay, I have something for you all," Eclipse said.
"I'M NOT GIVING YOU YOUR PRESENT, FOX!" Shadow shouted angrily.
"Hey, I didn't lock you up, and I'm not the one keeping you locked up. I just gave you the jewelry. You said you wanted something like that, anyways!"
Shadow sulked. "You suck."
Eclipse was handing out her gifts to everyone. Reaching Shadow, she set the wrapped box on the girl's head, cooing "Be still... stilll... sttiiiilllll..." like you would to a dog when you balance something on its nose. "Now, Go!"
Shadow bobbed her head up and the box went up into the air. She caught it and began the painstaking ordeal of removing all the tape from the gift without ruining the paper.
"Oh, yeah, Hiei, for you," Eclipse said, handing her last gift to the fire demon.
"What the hell did you people get me stuff for?!" Hiei asked, but he tore off the paper. "What the...?"
"Aroma therapy incense," Kurama read, grinning at Hiei. Yusuke snorted.
"Aroma therapy. Heh heh..."
"It's supposed to help you relax," Eclipse told him in a mock-soothing voice. "They're supposed to smell like..." She looked at it. "Mountain Springs. Very relaxing."
Hiei snorted. "Just what I always wanted." He tossed it on the coffee table.
Shadow, meanwhile, was getting frustrated. "ECLIPSE! Why did you put twenty layers of wrapping paper on my present?"
"It's actually twenty seven. I went around and gathered all the wrapping paper in my house and put a layer of each type on your gift."
Shadow snarled.
"Why don't you just rip it?" Yusuke asked. "That's what you're supposed to do, you fool. Thanks, by the way, Eclipse." He held up a couple manga.
"Sure."
"I don't get it," Kuwabara muttered, looking at his gift.
"It's a pillow," Eclipse informed him.
"I know, but why did you get me a pillow?!"
"I figured you could use it."
"Why?"
Eclipse smirked. "I heard you like pillows."
Shadow also had a devilish grin as she pulled the tape off a colorful birthday wrapping paper, and she was very carefully avoiding Kuwabara's eyes. He pouted and looked at Yusuke and Kurama. They also had smirks on their faces.
Why is it Kuwabara is the only one who doesn't remember making out with a pillow when he's the one who did it? (A/N: Ref to another fic, if you didn't know...)
"Guys...!" the human whined.
"Eclipse," Shadow said, taking off an extremely bright, shiny, silver wrapping paper and finally reaching her gift, "what the hell did you get me?"
The brown-haired girl danced over. She pointed to each object and named it. "Strawberries & cream shampoo and conditioner. You can smell like fruit, since you're a bit fruity. Mandarin Orange shower gel, so you can smell even more fruity. Sweet Pea lotion and body spray so you can smell sweet and girly." She smirked. "All in all, use some of each and poor Kurama's nose will have an overload and maybe his brain will short circuit. There's also some strange exotic perfume and some incense there that're supposed to give off a romantic scent. Maybe you can put that to good use."
Shadow and Hiei both narrowed their eyes at that.
"There is no romance in my life," Shadow said. "I don't believe in love."
"That's shit and you know it," Yusuke muttered.
"Mainly, I just got you all that stuff to torment you," Eclipse said cheerfully. Shadow glared.
"You're mean."
Hiei was taking each bottle and opening the lid, sniffing at it timidly. "Yech. Why did you get all this smelly stuff, Eclipse?"
"Everybody likes to smell nice!" the girl replied jovially. She grabbed the perfume bottle and sprayed it on Hiei. He gagged.
"Baka!" He got up, coughing slightly. "Stupid girl."
"Where are you going?" Kurama asked.
"No where." He went to the closet, pulled off his defiled shirt, and grabbed a jacket, putting that on rather than walking around shirtless for the rest of the day. "Now if you spray that crap on me again I'll beat you to death." He held up his shirt as a threat.
"Oooh, scary..."
"So what'd she get you, Kurama?" Yusuke asked, trying to ignore the fire demon as he wrapped his shirt around Eclipse's neck and attempted to strangle her.
"A book."
"Wow, a book."
"Yeah. I told her to."
"She actually bothered to ask you what you wanted?"
Kurama nodded. "In school."
"Ah."
"Everybody be quiet!" Shadow shouted suddenly. They froze. "Here's the plan for the rest of this. Hiei is going to remove this damned lock. We are going to give each other our gifts and be very generous and kind about it. Okay?"
Hiei unwrapped his shirt from Eclipse and let her head hit the floor with a dull thud.
"Yes ma'am," they all said finally. Hiei sighed and tossed her the keys.
"That's your Christmas present. I don't leave you like that."
"But... That's not much of a gift. You're the one who got me like this in the first place..."
"Shut up."
Shadow handed out all her presents, Kurama handed out the remainder of his, Kuwabara and Yusuke distributed theirs, and Hiei sat on the couch with a startled look on his face as he received three more gifts.
"Ready set go!" Shadow said, grabbing hers with excitement and nearly tearing it to shreds before suddenly halting and grabbing the first piece of tape she saw, slowly and with no insane ravenous-ness. Hiei sighed.
"Open the stupid gifts right, Shadow."
"I am. I musn't harm the paper spirits."
Hiei rolled his eyes and went after his own gifts. Yusuke grinned at his stack of unwrapped presents. Kuwabara had gotten him some pervert pornographic manga, which he'd gone for first, of course. Kurama's present had been a hardback book on Buddhist meditation with a note tacked on the front: "If you don't care to read it (though I think you would benefit, especially perhaps from the chapter on purifying the mind), you could always just use it to hit people." Yusuke had stared at the book, then at the porno manga, then at Kurama, and laughed a bit as the fox eyed the two as well and sighed. Shadow had gotten him two bottles of super-duper strength hair gel, guaranteed to last for at least fifteen hours. He'd looked at it and remarked, "I wonder if the guarantee is still valid when you're being pummeled by demons for a while during those hours."
In addition to the pillow, Kuwabara had gotten a whole crapload of little cat figurines and a shirt that said "Real men love kittens" from Shadow (Ever seen the shirt that says "Real men love unicorns"? Lol), a CD from Kurama, and various random things (and manga) from Yusuke.
"Shadow, please explain to me why you bought me a book on quantum physics," Kurama said. "I can understand the botany things and the chocolate, but quantum physics?"
"I found it in my closet. I read the entire thing and wrote down anything I figured would help me take over the world, so now I pass it on to you." She grinned. Kurama just shook his head and looked at what Yusuke and Kuwabara had gotten him.
"I don't understand you people," he murmured. Yusuke looked up from his manga.
"What? Indulge yourself in the finer things in life, fox boy!"
"I avoid pornography for a reason, you know," he said, looking at the manga Yusuke had gotten him, and the note stuck to it that said in bold lettering, "INDULGE YOURSELF!"
"Because you believe in abstinence?" Eclipse asked. "Because you're a gentleman? Because--"
"Because of Youko," the boy said dryly. Hiei let out a bark of laughter.
"Stupid fox."
Kuwabara's gift to Kurama had been a bit more respectable. About twenty seed packets for various flowers.
"At least Kuwabara doesn't try to shove it down my throat," the boy muttered. Yusuke looked up, a bit alarmed. Kurama was confused until he realized his wording.
"Pervert!" Shadow snapped, flinging a bottle of sweet pea body spray at the half-demon boy. "Nobody's shoving anything down anyone's throat! Not in my house!"
Eclipse was sitting there eating a lollipop. Shadow had gotten her a very large bag of candy. Kurama, Yusuke, and Kuwabara had also gotten her a crapload of candy. She'd requested it rather forcefully when they'd asked. "GIVE ME CANDY OR DIE!" were her exact words...
Shadow, on the other hand, had a folded shirt sitting on her head, her feet on the coffee table by her various scented things, the effects from Kurama in their proper places, and was working on opening Kuwabara's gift. She could tell it was chocolate, but she wanted to have her fun with the removing of the tape and the paper oh-so-tenderly as she was. The shirt Yusuke had gotten her had words printed across it: "Just be glad I'm not your child."
And Hiei was long since finished, had failed to thank anyone, and was curled up asleep at the end of the couch. His gifts were stacked on the coffee table: the kit from Kurama, the incense from Eclipse, a complete biker punk outfit from Yusuke and Kuwabara (which they'd collaborated on buying him, as it had to have cost a lot of money, what with the leather pants, coat, gloves, and knee-high buckle boots. Hiei was fairly sure they'd gotten it with more intention for other people, such as Shadow and fangirls, to enjoy, rather than him, since he actually wasn't into tight leather and had no reason to ever wear a punk biker outfit with skanky leather pants), and a bonsai tree with a proper care book from Shadow. He wasn't entirely sure why Shadow had gotten him a bonsai tree, and he was fairly sure she knew it would be dead within a week, but it didn't matter. She'd had no reason to get him anything.
"Well, that was fun," Shadow said, finally finishing with the opening of tape-happy-Kuwabara's chocolates. "Thank you, everybody, for your most considerate gifts. Except Kuwabara here's trying to get me to gain about ten pounds on a chocolate diet, but hey, I've been on a cookie diet since the second week of December. I'll just work it off next year."
Kuwabara grinned. Everybody was fascinated with their various gifts for a bit, and the room was silent except for candy wrappers, turning pages, and Hiei's deep breathing of sleep. Then Shadow paused and looked at Hiei's gifts, then at Hiei, then at her various fragrant things. She shrugged, leaned over and gently kissed Hiei's cheek to wake him. Kurama was the only one to notice and said nothing.
"What the hell do you want, woman?" Hiei snarled.
"Merry freakin' day-after-Christmas to you, too, you ingrateful bastard," she said. Hiei looked a bit startled, but she continued in a less hostile voice. "What do you want for dinner?"
"You woke me up to ask me that?!"
"Yes I did and if you don't answer I'll be pissed. I bought you a tree for Christmas. Do you think I honestly feel like I did anything nice for you?"
"You don't need to do anything nice for me. I never did anything nice for you. We're even."
"That's bull. Now what do you want?"
Hiei moved his mouth wordlessly. "I don't care."
Shadow narrowed her eyes. "So you're saying that you'll eat whatever the hell I decide to fix?"
The fire demon shook his head. "No. Only if it's typically edible."
"Damn. So if I put a plate full of dirt in front of you..."
"I won't eat it."
"Want ramen?"
Yusuke snorted. "What the hell kind of feast is that?"
"I never said I was fixing a feast now did I? I'm just fixing Hiei whatever he wants because I'm freakin' nice and he deserves it. Who's ever nice to Hiei? Poor Hiei, just because he thinks he's too good for common courtesy, never gets anything nice because people think he's too full of himself and wouldn't appreciate it. But Hiei, being Hiei, is just hiding it and he would appreciate it and he does have feelings and I will be nice to him." She spun on Hiei. "Now what the hell do you want?!"
"Nobody's ever that nice to me..." Kuwabara muttered. "I have to eat whatever's on the table."
"I have to find something to put on the table, then I have to share it with my drunken mother," Yusuke said.
"I order pizza half the time. My parents can't cook," Eclipse added. All three looked at Kurama for input. He shrugged.
"I guess I'm lucky. My mother can cook and she lets me have input." He went back to his book.
"Stupid fox," Yusuke snapped. Shadow had dragged Hiei off to the kitchen for him to go through all the cabinets and pick something for her to fix if he suddenly got some craving.
"I like candy," Eclipse said randomly. She ate some more chocolate. Silence stretched on for a while, Yusuke returned to his porno manga, Kuwabara returned to his whatever-the-hell-he'd-been-doing-earlier, and Shadow and Hiei went about their own dinnerly activities...
And so... I believe this story comes to THE MOST suckiest end of any story in the history of the world. But look at it this way: At least it finally HAS a frikkin' end...
The thing Eclipse said about Hiei not killing his parents, I had that reaction in there cuz I'm not so sure he didn't. I think I read someplace that he killed his mother...
Phew! This story is over. I can't feel guilty about having an unfinished fic anymore. No, I can just feel bad that it sucked major ass... BUT AT LEAST IT'S FINISHED, GODDAMMIT, AND IF I GET ONE FUCKIN' COMPLAINT ABOUT IT, I'M BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF WHOEVER THE HELL SAYS IT! BECAUSE I AM GODDAMNED TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT THIS STORY, I WANTED IT TO DIE BECAUSE IT BETRAYED ME AND WOULD NOT LET ME COMPLETE IT, AND PEOPLE WOULD NOT SHUT UP AND I WAS ON A FRIKKIN' GUILT TRIP AND HAD TO WRITE SOMETHING, ANYTHING, TO ADD TO IT, AND I DID, SO SHUT UP! I'M NOT KIDDING! YOU COMPLAIN, YOU DIE. IT'S DONE. I'M NOT CHANGING THAT. I DON'T CARE IF IT SUCKED COMPARED TO THE REST! I DON'T CARE, I DON'T CARE, I DON'T CARE!!! IF YOU WANNA COMPLAIN, TALK TO THE GOLDFISH! THEY CAN'T CHARGE A GOLDFISH WITH MURDER! AND THEY PROBABLY CARE MORE THAN I DO! ::fumes::
Sorry.