Disclaimer- Good lord, nobody's reading this anyways…
AN- Okay, here's the rest of the chapter and then some. I swear, I've lost control of the story. It's the first story I've ever written a plan for, and the plan was pretty crappy. It was like a list of junk, mostly involving what made Hiei tick. Hehehe… Now I'm lost.
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"Hieisan," Shuuichi called, gesturing for the shorter teen to walk closer to his desk.
"Don't be so familiar," he ordered sullenly, but he started moving, albeit rather jerkily.
Shuuichi noted the movements with vague interest. "Is something wrong? You look really tired. You've got huge bags under your eyes." He reached out toward what looked like a splash of red paint on Hiei's neck, and nearly fell over with shock as crimson eyes flashed dangerously, their owner jerking back suddenly.
"Don't touch me."
"Gomen…"
There was an extended moment of uncomfortable silence, with Shuuichi in shock at such a violent rebuff, and Hiei completely enraged that someone would try to touch him. You could just call it a misunderstanding: Shuuichi had no idea what he was doing was taboo, and Hiei didn't realize that it was possible for someone to be just concerned. But life isn't that shallow… is it.
"Gomen nasai," Shuuichi repeated, only vaguely aware that he had committed one of the worst transgressions imaginable, and desperate to somehow salvage the situation.
There was no response from Hiei, glaring with the fifteen years of shame and hatred he had never been able to express. It appeared he had finally found an outlet in Shuuichi, who was superficially everything he wasn't. Shuuichi the perfect, the adored, the genius… the boy who could soon become an orphan… a fact Hiei conveniently ignored in his bitterly one-sided assessment. It was not difficult to imagine that Shuuichi had never had an apology ignored. That he had already himself forgiven Shuuichi only made him angrier. It was patently unfair.
"Jaa, Shuuichisan," he snarled, piling on the sarcasm and leaning so hard on the last syllable that Shuuichi wondered that he didn't fall over. In fact he staggered as he began to walk, wounds protesting the unexpected movement.
"Minaminosan," a polite voice cut through the hum of the class.
Shuuichi looked up to see a smiling, aqua-haired girl. "Oh! Itetsusan."
A muffled "oof" sounded as Hiei stopped short, grabbing a desk for support.
"Is there something you need?"
Shyly, Yukina held out a neatly typed piece of paper. "I finished my part of the report a little early, so I thought I would give it to you in case you wanted to make any changes." Her speech was unique in the school- soft, each verb overflowing with humility, each noun preceded with an honorific, a direct contrast to her brother's.
"Arigatou. I'm sure it's fine." His smile lit up his entire face, causing her to blush the slightest bit and Hiei to begin mentally cursing him and his house for the next thirty-seven generations.
Almost as though he could sense the negative energy coming from behind him, Shuuichi turned around and cocked his head at the teen, currently trying to stand up straight while fixing an expression of intense loathing onto his child-like face.
"Takahashisan," Yukina acknowledged.
Something flickered on Hiei's face for the briefest moment as her polite voice washed over him. It felt nice, even gratifying, that his sister was currently in a state of not hating him, despite his certainty that all that would change if she found out he was her brother.
"You almost smiled!" Shuuichi exclaimed, surprised. Seeing his face settle immediately, the redhead pouted. "You did! I saw you!"
The bell rang, a harsh clanging that caused Yukina to start a little before bowing and leaving. Hiei followed her with what may have been construed as wistful eyes. He rather wished he could tell her who he was, but he wouldn't ruin her life, not for something as petty as his own happiness.
"She's nice, isn't she," Shuuichi remarked conversationally.
"Stay away from her," Hiei ordered before he could fully appreciate the implications of his statement.
Shuuichi's face went absolutely maniacal, a completely incongruous expression to the usual painfully nice/kind/considerate/perfect. It was rather disturbing, actually. "I see how it is."
"How what is?"
"It."
"What?!"
"It."
"WHAT THE HELL IS IT?!
"It… is IT."
'I will not throttle Shuuichi. I will not throttle Shuuichi. I will not…' He sat on his fingers to keep them from twitching. "What. Is. It."
"You."
A virtual vacuum formed around Hiei as he attempted to take a deep breath in order not to rip the other boy's head off. "What about me?!"
"You and…"
"AND WHAT?!"
"Itetsusan, of course." Shuuichi looked at him strangely. Had he seriously not gotten it?
"Huh? Oh. Oh. It's a bloody lie, whatever you're thinking," he responded automatically. Perhaps the most unfortunate side effect of Hiei's upbringing had been a lack of education in nearly all things emotional. He understood hatred, sadness, anger, jealousy and the sensation of really, really wanting to kill somebody, but that was about it. As such, it had never even occurred to him that he liked his sister in the first place. Watching over her was something he did because it was right, darned if he knew why it was right. That somebody would read into that was, to him, downright weird.
"That's what they all say." Shuuichi flashed a quick grin to show that he was joking, partly. "Oh well. I was going to ask you when you wanted to do the homework thing again, you know…"
"Again?"
"It's kind of a long-term thing," he reminded him dryly.
A stabbing pain ran up Hiei's leg, serving as a wonderfully stark reminder of why he hated school. He had an idea of what he could have said. "Oh but gee Shuuichisan, my daddy beats me when I do my homework. Heck, he beats me when I don't do my homework. And rice is really tasty but I really wanna be able to swallow, Shuuichisan!"
Yeah, that would go over well.
"Look, can we not do this? I really don't have time anymore."
A scandalized look swept over Shuuichi's face. "Not do homework? But we have to!"
"Not we, you."
A few seconds passed as Shuuichi considered this new development. He was never one to give up, especially in his continuing naïve view that Hiei could be insanely successful if only he tried. "How about lunch? We could do stuff during lunch…"
Mentally, Hiei disemboweled that horrible Shuuichi child. On the other hand, though, it wasn't like he actually had a lunch to eat in the first place. And it was extremely difficult to say no to someone with that hopeful of an expression… a plague on both his houses. "Sure fine whatever."
"Okay! Then I'll see you at lunch later!" The redhead practically bounced out of the classroom, feeling warm and fuzzy with his new mission of Helping Hiei Do Good. The aforementioned subject watched him disbelievingly.
"He must be nuts. Yes. Nuts."
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Yaa ne. That was kind of filler, but you get the gist of some of their feelings. You notice that right now Shuuichi is pretty dedicated to Helping Hiei Do Good. That's rather important…
I really don't want this story to turn into a generic one, with Shuuichi helping Hiei, followed by their mutual confession of love and Hiei's requisite "Oh but I'm the FORBIDDEN CHILD" speech. I'm trying to make them true to life. Whether this applies to anyone else is up to them, but I personally feel that every story is an autobiography.
I love all my reviewers! All……… (briefly blinks at numbers) two of them. Cookies for both of you! And for Ciu Sune (currently Reviewer of the Century…) I came up with pretty much all of the ideas. I've ended up on this depressed, introspective tangent lately. Thus, painting this story into complex emotions. For many aspects that I've thought out, I only know how they feel, but not exactly what happens. (This is what happens when you don't go outside enough). Yeah, and the name "Karasu" does mean "crow", but if you write it with different kanji it becomes "kill a plant", which I think is awesome.
Please review… this update is three days early, but 'cause I was two days late last time… ha! I really am following my formula!
