I am Draith, hear me… shut up and get to the chapter… heehee ^__^
To all my lovely reviewer peoples: Ugh, NOW I sound like Delloth… Here, review shout-outs:
Angel Of The Light: Thanks, and yes, I know it's popular in the states, but that doesn't mean a sullen Fire Demon would EVER want to work there, no matter what country or culture he was surrounded by, ne?
Saturn Imp: heehee!!
Digi Girl: Wouldn't we all?
Pierce: SHHH!!!! Ix-nay on the ot-play iving-gay out-ay! (whoa…)
Reynamangga: thanks, but I owe "Bubbles" to Pierce, as it was her idea.
Blonde Fox: Yes, he would, but then he'd have to deal with Koenma…I love Hiei too, but I love torturing the poor Fire demon even more! * maniacal laughter *
Faegirl430: Hehe, I'm glad it's effective ^_~
Lita: Heehee… you rock!
Radical Edward: Hmmm… * grins evilly *
And the rest of you who reviewed thanks!!
To my muses… Yes, Pierce, I have decided, I DO have muses (and no, I didn't steal Charlie…though that would be fun)… Thanks!
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho, or its characters, or McDonald's, or Wal-Mart, or ANYTHING else that may or may not be mentioned in this chapter. I do not own a sword… no, wait, I own five, heh, never-mind! Moving right along then! (Warning: this may prove a bit oddly broken up with some tiny scenes, but there was no other way I could really do it coherently, and I decided I had taken ENOUGH time in writing this, so here you go, all swifty-nifty… and I'm insane. Ja!)
Chapter 3: Popular Kurama
Scene 1: Kurama's House
Kurama sat at his desk, finally on the last page of his homework. He finished the rest of his hot chocolate, as the breeze coming from his open window was cooling it too quickly. Placing the cup back on the desk surface, and without turning his head, he spoke. "So, how did it go?" a slight smile playing on his face.
Hiei silently and nimbly hopped in through Kurama's window, a sour expression on his face. "Hn," was all he deigned reply, as he sat on the windowsill, glaring at Kurama.
Kurama wrote out one last thing, placing the paper back in its folder. He then turned in his seat to face the window, draping his left arm over the back of the chair. "That badly, eh?" he asked, a twinkling of amusement in his eyes.
Kurama received a cold glare from Hiei. "You have no idea, kitsune…" he sighed, and folded his arms over his chest. "And I have to go back there tomorrow afternoon." It seemed as if Hiei was nearly… pouting.
Kurama grinned inwardly at this, being thoroughly entertained. Outwardly, he chuckled slightly, "I think this was one of Koenma's better ideas."
However, his smile was greeted by a snort, and Hiei promptly muttered something about traitorous foxes, and made his escape out the window with a flash of his black cloak.
Scene 2: The Next Day
After school, Kurama headed home to drop off his books, pick up his things, and head off to work at Wal-Mart for the day.
This should prove interesting…he thought to himself as he climbed the stairs towards his room, drink in hand.
Setting down his books and checking his watch, Kurama decided he had time for a quick lunch before he had to leave.
Scene 3: That Afternoon, in the Forrest.
Botan sighed as she continued walking among the thick trees. She had been wandering around for an hour trying to find the clearing she remembered Hiei seemed to live around, and with no luck yet. Finally fed up with the trek, she stopped and, looking around, yelled, "Darn it, Hiei, where ARE you?!" Botan had not really expected an answer, as she was sure that wherever she stood now was far from the clearing she was trying to find.
Just as she was turning to give up and move on, however, a black blur appeared in front of her from out of the surrounding trees. The blur quickly became an annoyed-looking Hiei.
"Hn. What do you want?" the diminutive fire demon asked as he stood up and assumed his usual stance, hands in his pockets. He was particularly cold sounding today, as the ferry girl had woken him from a very nice nap.
Botan sighed, and answered, "I'm here to remind you that you have work to go to today. Koenma would be most unhappy if you began skipping shifts before you even started!" Though her tone was an attempt at sternness, she still sounded bubbly as always, and her face reflected a bit of fear of Hiei.
Hiei, naturally, found this amusing. He smirked. "I don't need a reminder, onna. I had remembered, and was already on my way there." This, of course, was a lie. Nevertheless, Hiei found it better to appease the girl than have her bugging him for the rest of the day having already been yanked from his rest.
"Oh," Botan replied, taking the bait and figuring this was why he had been so hard to track down. "Well," she defended, "trees don't have alarm clocks, and it's better safe than sorry, you know. Besides, Koenma'd have my job if I failed to check up on you two properly!"
Receiving no response to those last few comments, Botan sighed again and let Hiei go, as she had to go check up on Kurama that day as well. At least he will be more polite and appreciative! She thought to herself as she watched Hiei phase off into the forest.
She smiled cheerfully as she brought out her oar and decided to fly the rest of the way out to town.
Scene 4: Wal-Mart
"Where did you find this kid?" asked the manager on duty at Wal-Mart of the current supervisor of the garden center.
The girl sighed. "We didn't find him sir, he just… came in and applied…" her voice sounded a bit distracted. In fact, the manager had noticed that throughout their entire conversation, his employee had not taken her eyes off the boy.
He sighed slightly. "Well, however he got here, he's a whiz kid for sales, that's for certain. We've had more business today than we have all week." He turned and pointed to the line of people waiting around the garden center's entrance; a line made up entirely of females.
The store certainly had had a lot of business that day. Kurama was thinking about that as he supplied yet another young girl with exactly what she needed… even if he got the distinct impression she did not really need it. He sighed softly as he spotted the long line, and looked pleadingly at his boss, as it was about time for his break.
The supervisor caught the look, and, taking pity on, let him go and went to handle the customers herself, which, of course, dissipated the majority of the crowd.
Kurama headed to a secluded section of the center to take his break. The break was only from customers, however. After taking a moment to collect his thoughts after his recent bombardment, he decided to work with some of the plants around him. Many of them had not been looking so good the day before, and now were doing better due to Kurama's "assistance."
Just as he was starting to focus his energy to "help" another struggling young sapling, he heard a female voice just behind him. "And just what do you think you're doing?" the voice asked, sounding incredulous and sternly authoritative.
Kurama quickly stopped what he was doing and whirled around, already thinking of an appropriate excuse, and dreading the thought of being fired… However, as he turned, he did not see his supervisor as he thought he would, but instead a young blue-haired girl with an expression of pure delight at his reaction greeted him.
Botan giggled. "Why, Hello Kurama! Sorry to scare you like that, but I just couldn't resist the thought…" Still giggling throughout the duration of her "apology," Botan certainly did not look very sincere.
Always the good sport, Kurama chuckled as well. "I admit you had me worried." He smiled, and turned back to finish his work with the young tree.
Botan watched him closely, intrigued with how the plant changed for the better. "You're really getting into the job, aren't you?" she asked, as he was almost finished.
Kurama smiled as he stood up. "It's not proving so difficult after all," he responded.
Just then, his supervisor spotted them. "Hey, Shuuichi, your break is done, time to stop talking to girls and get back to work!" she chastised from down the aisle.
"I was just showing this young lady some of our nicer trees, ma'am. I believe she intends to purchase one," Kurama responded. He was lying, but it seemed to satisfy his boss, and kept the crowd and her out of their hair for the moment.
"Oh! I don't want to be the cause of you getting into trouble, Kurama! That's exactly what I've been sent to prevent!" Botan cried nervously.
He smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry," he said, "I'm doing well enough that even getting in trouble for flirting with a customer wouldn't get me fired."
Botan's eyes widened slightly at this. Does he mean…no, he was only joking. She smiled. Of course! Botan, you baka, going and getting yourself all worked up for nothing… "Well that's certainly good to hear," she responded.
"I should be getting back to work now, though," he said with a glance out at the line of people forming anew. Then he smirked. "I was thinking of stopping off at McDonald's later, after work, to see how Hiei was doing… want to come along?"
Botan smiled and chuckled. "Sure! Sounds like fun." With that, she left Kurama to his work, and headed off to do some shopping to pass the time until they would go visit the fire demon at work.
Scene 5: McDonald's
"You're late!" growled the burly kitchen worker when Hiei walked into the back entrance of McDonald's. "Late workers aren't tolerated here," the man continued, despite a magnificent glare from Hiei.
Annoyed as hell, Hiei just walked past the man, responding in a slow, mocking tone, "Don't worry, it won't happen again…"
The man started to chastise the little fire demon's insolence, but could hardly get a word out as the ever-effervescent manager, Sara, spotted Hiei and exclaimed in a bubbly, happy manner at his arrival.
"Great!" she said as she ran up and pulled Hiei along with her. "You're just in time, I was starting to get worried… our lunch rush is getting under was, and I need your help with customers ASAP!" By this time she had already invaded the back office and dug out a uniform t-shirt for Hiei to wear, and a nametag that read, "Mr. Bubbles."
Silently cursing Koenma and doing amazingly well to control himself, Hiei put on the shirt and nametag and headed out to the kitchen. He was promptly directed to a cash register, where customers were waiting.
Having trained him somewhat the night before for such a task, Sara knew that she had to get a small crate for Hiei to stand on so he could SEE the customers. After doing so, she left Hiei to deal with his first batch of patrons…
Hn. Welcome to this hellhole, would you like to fry with that? But instead of speaking his thoughts and thus losing his job, Hiei sighed, and greeted the customers with clenched teeth.
Scene 6: Outside Wal-Mart
Kurama glanced around as he left work, looking to see if Botan was still around. After about a minute, the blue-haired ferry girl appeared out of the electric doors carrying many bags in each hand, barely able to balance them all. Kurama raised an eyebrow at them, and called out to her from beside the entrance. "Hello, Botan! Did you find everything you needed?" he asked, the smile on his face and twinkle in his eye betraying his amusement at her compulsive shopping.
Turning to find the source of the remark, Botan smiled and walked towards him, nodding. "Yes, thanks you, even a few things I didn't…" Then, as soon as she was sure no one was looking, the bags disappeared and replaced by her oar in her hand. *
"It's not that far to McDonald's, and I think a walk would be nice, don't you?" Kurama said, glancing at the oar.
"Oh, yes, I suppose so!" Botan smiled and put away her oar. The two then walked side-by-side towards McDonald's to check on the fate of the poor fire apparition employed there…
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A/N Ok, I know… that was a bit short, and left on a slight cliffy.. but HEY! I have WRITER'S BLOCK my friend! * whimpers * Anyways, I'll get back to Hiei in the next Chappy, but I HAD to post this before I went mental from the overwhelming-ness of it all! Ok, see you soon…. Please Review!! Flames welcomed, for whatever reason, I'm bored as hell.
