Disclaimer: If dedication actually counted for anything in this world, someone would already have awarded me a Kurama.

AN: This is kind of tragic… but here I am, writing instead of LEARNING. Yes, that's right. I'm being stupid in the middle of an educational facility. I'll shut up now.

By the way, this is WAY slower than it should be, because the i and k keys on my laptop don't work. Scary… omataseta ne… moushi wake aranu…

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"Takahashi?" Yunsensei called after class. "Can I see you for a few minutes?"

Hiei looked almost automatically at Shuuichi, who was putting his books in a pathetically neat arrangement in his bag. The redhead nodded slightly and began to walk out of the room.

"I'll wait outside, all right?"

"Yeah, sure."

Shuuichi had been speaking in those short, formal sentences ever since what Hiei now thought of as The Incident. It seemed that the whole thing had really hurt him, something that made Hiei feel bad, although not bad enough that he would think of apologizing. Not that he was a mean person, but apologizing was something that had never happened to him, and he was- had been- relatively certain he had come to terms with that fact.

That accursed Shuuichi, ruining the balance of his life.

"What is it?" Hiei asked now, finally going over to Yunsensei's desk. His math teacher was one of the few authority figures he actually respected (more or less), and he tried to arrange his face accordingly, into a neutral expression.

"Well, I first wanted to say that you have shown a great deal of improvement over the past month." As he spoke, he searched through his desk, finding the assignment Hiei had turned in during class. "Your papers are neat, correct, and turned in."

"Shuuichi helped me some," Hiei said with a noncommittal shrug.

"I see. The change in your family situation appears to have helped you. I had hoped it would happen sooner," he added a little dryly. "You are not inferior to Minamino in terms of potential, but only so much could have been accomplished under the circumstances."

"You knew about my… about what was happening?"

"I had my suspicions," he said heavily. "But there is little that one can do with only his suspicions, especially when he is merely a mathematics teacher. Besides that, I could hardly have accused your father without having at least spoken with him first, and he made certain that never happened."

That was too true, Hiei remembered. He had seen the phone disconnected, a pretty amazing shredder bought, and especially meetings not attended. Of course, they were only vague memories, set against a backdrop of blood and pain, but they were real.

"Is that all?" he asked finally. "Shuuichi's waiting for me, so I should probably go…"

"How are things?" Yunsensei asked, almost as though he had not heard Hiei. "Will the arrangement with Minamino be permanent?"

"I guess…"

"That's good. I hope things work out. If there's ever anything you need to talk about, you can always come and talk it over with me. I know it must be very difficult for you."

"Oh, not at all," Hiei countered automatically, a little puzzled at the statement.

"Is that so? Then that really is good. I won't keep you any longer, Takahashi. Thank you for staying."

"Sure."

Yunsensei watched Hiei's retreat with a faintly sad smile. He had seen enough of the world to doubt outward tranquility, even tranquility perpetrated by a student he knew would never consciously hurt Hiei. Still, he hoped that this at least would work out.

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"What did he want?" Shuuichi asked, ever infinitely polite, never 'nice'.

Hiei shrugged. "He said I was doing a lot better in class. Seems he knew something about what my dad was doing."

"Oh. That's interesting."

There was a slamming sound as Hiei stomped on the concrete outside the Meiou gates. "Dammit, Shuuichi! Can't you be mad like everyone else! You don't have to pretend we're on good terms at the moment!"

"Are we not?"

Hiei leaned against the wall, taking deep breaths as he attempted to figure out exactly how he was going to go about this. While he was perfectly aware that the whole thing was halfway his fault, that meant that half of the blame had to go to a certain redhead with an artificial smile and acting skills at least equal to his own. It seemed to him highly unjust that he alone was trying to salvage their friendship.

"Look, Shuuichi. I'm sorry I said all that crap, okay? Will you please be mad and get all of that out of your system? I want to be friends with you, but that doesn't exactly work so well when all you can do is be Mr. Super Considerately Polite."

Nothing moved on Shuuichi's face as he continued to stare holes through a point on the wall two inches next to Hiei's ear.

"You're stubborn as anything, you know that?" Hiei grumbled. "I'm sorry I didn't grow up in a touchy-feely tell-all family full of warm happy love. I'm sorry my mommy didn't love me and my daddy beat me. I apologize most profusely for my character failings, so will you snap out of it?"

"Fine," Shuuichi muttered, still sulking, but also trying not to laugh at Hiei's attempts to redeem himself.

"Shuuichi…" Hiei began threateningly.

He threw his arms up in a sort of exasperated affection. "Okay, okay, fine! I'm not mad!"

"Really?"

"YES!"

"Oh good." Hiei grinned, self-satisfied. "Then we're done here. I promise to be a tiny bit more open, okay? Let's go home."

"Finally."

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Balance.

All things in this world tend to equilibrium. Those in the center tend to stay there, content to give in to this inherent balance. It is those of the extreme who move so fluidly, such that at times the extremes blur and become one.

When two people settle for equilibrium between them, are they compromising their own identities? The center is a strange place in which to meet. Yet when all is said and done, maybe the entire cosmos is placed on a Mobius strip, surrounding those in the middle.

We are more alike than we care to think. Of course, isn't that what love is about?

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"Say, did you see?"

"I know! It must be true what they're saying…"

"Yeah, he's definitely bribing someone."

The halls were filled with a buzzing sound as people discussed the newest class rankings. Shuuichi almost panicked when he realized that everyone was looking in his direction and back to the list, but he didn't. Suddenly, the whole idea of being first wasn't as important. It was a strange feeling of losing what was an integral part of him, yet he couldn't say he regretted it.

"Hey, Kaitou," he greeted distractedly as he tried to force his way through the crowd. When the other boy did not respond, he turned around. "Kaitou? Are you okay? You look…"

Kaitou shook his head. "I'm fine. Just a little surprised."

"Hm?" Now that he was close enough, Shuuichi could almost recognize the familiar kanji of his name on the first slip of paper. So that wasn't it. He strained to see the second paper, where he knew Kaitou's name should have been. He couldn't see from his angle or distance, but it seemed as though there was one character too many. Yukina, perhaps?

In his distraction, he ran into Hiei, who had slowly been ambling from the end of the list forward, looking for his name. Currently he was frozen in front of the second name, disbelieving eyes widened.

"Takahashi… Hiei," he read slowly. "Taka… hashi… Hiei."

Shuuichi looked up, seeing the characters posted to the right of Kaitou's name. "Hiei… you…"

"Maybe there's a mistake…"

"Believe me," Shuuichi said bitterly, "they probably checked this result fifty times."

"Yeah…" Hiei sighed, still staring at his name, fully expecting it to vanish at any moment.

"But congratulations, Hiei," Shuuichi said warmly. He found that he truly meant it.

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This took a little longer than it should have… I got to a point in the story where I was trying to figure out how the characters would have reacted, but I wasn't sure… Oh well. I don't get enough sleep, and I can't think straight at all. Hope the chapter isn't too weird because of that… oro.

This updating is really sporadic, but hopefully I'll get another chapter up before I get home from this happy place. Who knows… maybe if I work hard the story will be done by Christmas. (Ha. Haha.)

By the way, with the new implementation of the hit counter for real, I am very suspicious of my 80 hits within the past week and no reviews. Strange, strange. Haha, but to all the people who did review, I love you… keep them coming.