Okay, I got a serious story that I want my reviewers to go read. It is a most excellent piece of work, slightly darker than HMIM. It's called Matchbox, by Ia…Io…I can't remember the name…Anyway, the summary says something about "Meet Lupin, and average, music-addicted girl who has one problem: A red-haired stalker who just won't leave her alone!" Something along those lines, anyway. It is hilarious and pathological all at once. You'll love Lupin! I did. So much, I'm drawing fan art for it.

I love this chappie! A little sap toward the end, but, eh, you guys all seem to like Bri enough to trudge on through it. Anyone remember the painting she started in Gina's class?

Chapter 14: Gabriel's Painting

Bri

I lay in bed for a long time, when I finally woke up. Just resting my eyes and thinking about what had happened. How embarrassing! To fall asleep. I don't care if it was supposed to happen. I mean, the least my body could have done was wait until I got to my own bed so that I wouldn't have to be brought there. I just couldn't take Kurama laughing at me for falling asleep like that.

Still, I'd have to face the music sometime. I sat up with a sigh. My stomach was rumbling, my throat was desert-dry, and I felt miserable to boot. Kurama laughing at me would only make it worse.

"You finally woke up?" Kurama's soft voice carried in the room.

"Finally? How long I been out?"

"Nearly a week," he smiled. "I expected something more around a month or two, but it seems I am mistaken."

"A week?"

"Six days, to be precise."

I'd been asleep for six days. I moaned and let my head fall back against the wall with a heavy "thud". Kurama padded toward me.

"Don't worry about it. I told you, it will take a while before you can do anything substantial."

"I have all this so-called power in me, and I try one little thing and I go to sleep for a week. You do the math. I don't feel like crunching numbers. The math teacher is a torturous freak, remember?"

Kurama chuckled softly. "With an attitude like that, you won't get very far. Come on. You must be starving."

"Duh. Say, what'd you do all that time?"

"Training."

"Oh." I didn't really know what to say to that. It was really me who was supposed to be training, and I was dozing while he was training.

He spoke again. "Bri, your powers are no good for attack. I hope that's not what you were planning on."

"No." I said it a bit too quickly. How'd he known I wanted to help?

"Good. Your energy signature differed greatly from the attack style. You would be more suited for mind psychology. I will train you in some defense, if we get time."

Mind psychology? Me? Did he mean, like, more mind reading stuff? I hated that! I guess I can't escape my own powers, though.

I wrote on the little board what I wanted for breakfast and settled in at the table to eat. Kurama

"Hey, Kurama?" I said. "I'm going to keep training on the dance machine for a while longer. I'm not ready for the 'phenomenal cosmic powers' thing."

"I wouldn't quite say that about your powers, Bri," Kurama said. "You are quite powerful, but without the ability to control it…"

"I get it, I get it, yeesh," I griped. "I'm a helpless little kitty cat. Right?"

"With a hidden roar," Kurama laughed.

"Hey! What about you? I know you're powerful, too. How powerful are you?"

"There isn't exactly a power scale or anything of that sort…" He mused. "How could I tell you? You are barely able to comprehend that you yourself have powers."

"As all writers put it, sir, show, don't tell!" I grinned. "I want to see how powerful my Kurama-sama is!"

"Your Kurama?" To my benefit, we were both blushing.

"Well…I…um…"

He started laughing. "Come on. Let's go to the room."

I dunno why, but we both let the words drop.

But he never did show me his power.

I spent so much time on the demonized DDR machine that I began to believe that Kurama might have finally given up. He tried to get me to stop after a few hours every day. I did, but only to get re-hydrated. Then I was back on, a woman possessed. We spent two months like that. I don't know what he did during that time.

Well, actually, I know that for the first few hours every day we were together. We'd broken into a routine that seemed so natural, it was like we'd been doing it for years.

First, he'd wake up and write his breakfast on the countertop. I'd wake up to the smell of fish. For some reason, Kurama really like fish. Especially rainbow trout, which was very rare in Japan, at least I think so. Then I'd write whatever I wanted (usually pancakes and Mountain Dew Live Wire) and we'd talk.

About whatever.

Most of the time, it wasn't serious stuff. More like getting to know the Spirit Detective team without actually talking to the individuals, but only to one team member. I told him very little about myself, really. Except Keiko. I told him a lot about Keiko, and my "mom's" stupid rules that I never followed, and Tsuki.

I couldn't get it out of my head that Tsuki was really my mother.

"Tsuki always hated me after I moved in across the street from her," I said one day. "Keiko never really said much about her, other than she needed to get home for curfew. She never baked cookies or made lunch or any of that stuff. Keiko always did. I rarely saw Tsuki. Why would my own mother be like that toward me?"

"I don't know," Kurama said. "I could only imagine what would happen if I hadn't loved my mother all these years…She defines me."

"In a few ways, I guess Keiko was the one who finally out and 'defined' me. Even though I'm nothing like her. You're like your mom so much…"

"And yet very different," Kurama said, a darkness I couldn't understand in his tone. I didn't like it.

After our "talks", we'd go and dance together for a few hours. Kurama coaxed me off the machine every day at noon, and we'd eat lunch. Then he'd go in his little "cove" in the top bunk of the bedroom. I call it a "cove" because he'd put curtains around it, attached to the ceiling. I had done the same to mine, attaching it to the upper bunk, the first week we were here.

Then, I'd go and dance more. Around six, he'd knock on the door. Just knock. It was my signal to take a bath so he could get one after I was done. I loved the hot springs that I kept getting, mostly because I'd made it up out of my own imagination. My own little piece of heaven.

And then we'd eat dinner, talk more, I'd work on my paintings (I'd finished the girl—it was gorgeous!), and go to bed.

But, most of all, I wanted to know what Kurama did while I was dancing. What did he do while I was training? After about three months inside the Chronodom, Gina appeared once more at the door, bearing (ugh) more homework. She grinned at me.

"Well, looks like our kitten's gettin' stronger!"

"Nah, it's just me," I said. "What are you so chirpy about?"

"I think that painting's done, and I want to see it!"

"Oh, that one? Sure, I finished it a month and a half ago."

I dug the painting of the girl out and showed Gina the picture.

"H-Hey, wait a second!" Gina jumped. She was pale as a ghost. "I think…I recognize that girl! I saw her in a dream once."

"A dream?" I glanced up.

"Yeah! A couple of weeks after you left, I saw her. I didn't know you were going to paint her blouse that color, and it's the exact same shade!"

I puffed my cheeks. "Okay, freaky weird…"

"Do you know who she is?"

"Not really."

"Her name is Gabriel. She's one of the angels that guard King Yama!"

"WHAT!" I jumped to my feet. "What are you saying? And hold up, I thought angels were men!"

"I'm sure of it! That's Gaby, no mistakin' her face!"

I sighed. "Then why was she looking away from me?"

"Huh?"

"I saw her…in my mind. I wanted her to look at me, but she looked away. I had to draw her like that…"

"Gaby is a very powerful angel, in charge of fate," Gina said seriously. "King Yama has say in a lot of what she does, but she makes a lot of decisions. She's fated you with someone, I just know it!"

What a hopeless romantic.

"Uh, did it ever occur to you that maybe she was just fating me to become an artist or something to that effect?"

"You take the fun out of everything, Bri," Gina pouted. "Okay, I give. Probably. I've gotta get, see you two later!"

It wasn't until long after Gina left, when I was lying in my bed and writing in my journal, that I began to think about what my painting might mean.

The angel of fate. I painted the angel of fate without ever realizing it. What could Gabriel have been trying to say to me? Look into the future? Look to the past? Why did she look away from me? Could she have really meant my art? Or could she…

Is Gina right?

Did fate point me to Kurama?

How I wish I could just say to him what I feel. This is so annoying, these emotions are so pent up and strange inside of me. I've loved so very few people. Keiko Sawaguchi and my adoptive mother were the only ones. I was such a loner.

Alone or lonely?

Someone once asked me that.

Are you alone…or are you lonely?

"I'm alone in a crowd that wants to devour me alive," I'd said to them. "Of course I'm lonely. The world turned its back on me…So I turned away from it."

I got so used to Keiko's love, though. Now, without it…Without it, I'm sick. I don't feel right, like I should. I was meant to be alone. Then I wasn't. Now I'm not again and I'm heartsick. I've got Kurama, but he'll never know anything about me.

Someone heal me. I'm so heartsick, I'm bleeding.

This blood is a river.

Please, die, river.

I need you now.

Where are you?

Someone…

Anyone.

Heal my broken, heartsick mind.

Live Wire Mountain Dew and pancakes…I forgot about that breakfast. Sorry, had to bring it up again after that super-sad ending. So, what'd ya'll think? Am I good? Am I horrid? Oh…This is for my reviewers:

Stuck-in-a-tree: Thank you, I was trying my best not to make her annoying…Glad I succeeded. "Sometime soon" meaning a couple days later? I try my best to update quickly. Thank you for the review! I love you're nick.

Tsuki-no-sakura: Bri and cats…Oh, dear, that is something I cannot release the information on at the moment…I sound like a dang reporter. Sorry. You'll find out soon enough!

Sillylittlenothing: I dunno what you're thinkin' cause you didn't tell me…But glad to know I'm sneaky. I try. I really do. UK strikes again! Hey, if you're wrong, you could always take the idea and spin it off into your own story. I do that all the time…Though I disguise it very, very well. This story was inspired by another story…I can't even remember it. It had a good idea, but it didn't go in the direction I liked. So I took one of my characters and dumped her in the same situation. I did kind of make up her Empathe powers, though…and how they worked.

And I think the one where they discover the missing heartbeat is next…