(5-23-05) We're up to 546 reviews!

Okay, just to make it clear, I do know how Valentine's Day works in Japan... I just totally screw it up to confuse all you people (actually, I just don't care how it works. I kind of stick to it, and kind of don't, which amused me when I proofed this chapter, cuz it was actually just a mistake on my part and I'm leaving it in there cuz I don't feel like changing it...).

As for the foreshadowing in the previous chapter... A lot of you caught some of the foreshadowing, but nobody caught the one tiny itty bitty thing that I knew nobody would catch... You'll find out what it was around chapter 24 or 25... I can't remember which...

CHAPTER TWENTY
February 14

The first of their pranks was put into action immediately. Starting the following day in school, Eclipse played girlfriend. That way, even if Arisa managed to make Kurama 'hate' Hiei and Shadow, she still had to get past Eclipse, and that wouldn't be easy. That girl didn't respond to taunts, insults, threats, or rumors.

With Kurama guarded against further attacks from the Slut Faction, Shadow, Hiei, and Ryu could put all their energy into ruining Arisa's life and ambitions. On Valentine's Day, Kurama was the subject of many fluttering eyelashes, smiles, waves, and blown kisses. Opening his locker was going to be a chore and he knew it. Every year, he opened his locker and out tumbled 5,000 cards and boxes of candy and cookies and cakes. This year was no different, and Shadow cracked up laughing as the boy lay buried under twice his own weight in candy, cards, and roses.

"Oh my," she finally managed as he dragged himself out from under it all, "but aren't you special."

"Gimme a hand, would you? I've got to get all this crap back in my locker."

"No you don't," Shadow said. "I can put it in my pocket."

"All this?"

"It's the Neverending Pockets of Doom coat, Kurama," Eclipse hissed in his ear. Shadow struck a pose.

"BEHOLD!" she started, getting a dramatic background with lightning bolts and suspenseful music. "I AM THE WEARER OF THE COAT OF MANY POCKETS!" There was a huge flash of lightning and the music struck a chord, then it all died down and Shadow stood normally with her hands in her jeans pockets. "Well?"

"Whatever, just help me out."

"Okay!"

Ten minutes later, Kurama had packed what he could into his locker, and the rest was in Shadow's coat, which she stuck in her locker, not failing to notice the small pile of Valentine's gifts in the bottom. It was a bit of a shock to her.

"My locker didn't eat them?" she murmured questioningly, peering at the cards. Anything anonymous would be fed to the weasels back home. They liked chocolate as well as any appreciative humanoid would, and the doom made them immune to any possible toxins that were likely to be in it. "Anonymous... anonymous... Ryu Obake... Toru? Aoitori? Why'd they get me stuff? Oh well." The last one she looked at, she cracked up laughing so hard everyone in the hallway and classrooms in lining that hallway stared.

"Now if this doesn't scream 'poison' I don't know what does," she chuckled in the silent hallway, and headed towards Kurama's locker with the culprit card and candies, oblivious to or ignoring the stares she was getting. She met Kuama halfway--he was already headed towards her locker to find out what was so funny.

"What's so funny?" he asked. Shadow held up the candies and handed him the card. "Read."

Eclipse peered around him and read it out loud. "'Shadow-san: I'm sorry I've been such an asshole to you the last few years. Please accept my apology and these expensive chocolates. How about we get together sometime and start over? Sincerely... HIROSHI NAKADA?'" Eclipse, too, burst into hysterical laughter. Kurama rolled his eyes and handed the card back to Shadow.

"He's obviously in it with Arisa," Kurama said.

"He's probably her most frequent customer... The idiot wouldn't be able to get any otherwise," Shadow said. "He's too ugly."

Kurama blinked, looking past Shadow. "Speak of the devil." She spun and looked at Nakada as he rounded the corner thugishly.

"Hiroshi!" She hurried over to him happily. "Thanks for the chocolates!"

"Huh? Oh. You're... welcome..." He seemed to be fighting back vomit as he said the next words, "I really want to start over. You want to get coffee sometime or something?"

Shadow's sweet smile turned into a psychotic grin. "Sure!" She punched him in the face, breaking his nose. "MAYBE WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER! Tell Arisa to shove her plots and plans up her fat ass!"

She pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket amidst the cheers from her fans, wiped the blood off her fist, and dropped the cloth over Nakada's face as he lay on the ground, out cold. Nobody turned her into the office, not even the teachers who had witnessed it (Nakada is that big of a thug... How did he get into a school like Mieou, then?) and when Nakada got up, he didn't turn her into the office cuz then he'd look like a pansy tattletale crying to his mommy.

"So, how many times have you beat him up this year, Shadow?" Kurama asked. The girl shrugged.

"Three or four, I think. I can't remember. It'll be up to ten, at least, before the year's over."

"But we've only got three and a half more months of school."

"So? I can beat him up six or seven times in that amount of time. Jeez! If he'd stay conscious long enough, I could beat him up ten times in an hour!"

"True." Kurama smiled at yet another girl as she walked by and waved, saying, "Happy Valentine's Day, Shuuichi!"

"I hate Valentine's Day," he sighed quietly.

"Don't we all... Everything's... Pink. Your uniforms actually fit the day, though. Pink... Red... Y'know."

"It's not pink. It's fuschia."

"What the fuck ever," Shadow snapped, pushing open the door and walking into Black-sensei's classroom.

In addition to the eyes on Shuuichi all day, everybody was watching Hiei and Shadow's interactions like hawks. The two were careful to act no different than normal whenever anyone else was around. In literature class, which Shadow had decided to go to only on Fridays so she could get make-up work for the week, she reported to the gym dutifully and spent the class sitting in the bleachers watching Hiei make the entire class do suicides to ruin their day, since he's a sadistic bastard like that. :)

The second the class left--and boy were they in a hurry to leave when the bell rang--Shadow jumped off the bleachers and ran to Hiei, throwing her arms around him.

"Guess what?"

"Hm?"

"Happy Valentine's Day! I got candy in my locker from an odd assortment of people."

"Really?"

"Yeah! Nakada! Did you notice his absence?"

"Yeah... I was rather disappointed. I wanted to bitch at him."

"Well, I broke his nose again."

Hiei's eyes widened. "What for?"

"He's with Arisa and he left candy and a card in my locker saying he wanted to make it up to me after being an asshole. I told him we could go out for coffee when Hell freezes over, then I broke his nose."

"Way to go!"

"I know. It's wonderful."

"I have something for you too, but you'll get it at home," Hiei whispered. Shadow smiled.

"What is it?"

"You'll see."

She pouted. "You suck."

"No, Shadow."

"Oh yeah. That's my job. I'm sorry." She leaned in and caught his smiling lips with hers. Two seconds later and the gym door started opening. Hiei pulled away and jumped straight up, landing on a pipe. Shadow had regained her composure in half a second, and managed to act like she had been wandering around looking for Hiei as Yamashita entered the gym.

"Jaganshi!"

She spun, looking at him innocently.

"Where the hell are you supposed to be?"

"Um..." She thought for a minute. "Detention?"

"Idiot. Why are you here?"

"Hey! You can't call me an idiot, that could damage my self-esteem! As a teacher, it's your responsibility to--"

"DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT RESPONSIBILITY, GIRL!"

Shadow frowned, but Hiei saved her from retorting and getting really bad detention.

"Yamashita," he said flatly, walking in through the still-open gym door. The principal turned and glared.

"Where the hell were you?"

"Teacher's lounge. Am I not allowed to go there?"

"Why is this girl in the gym?"

Hiei shrugged. "Maybe she got lost. Were you lost, Shadow?"

"Absolutely, completely, and totally. Where the hell am I? What is this place? Am I dead? Is this Heaven? I'm not a Christian, why would I be here? Is there sake? Can I have sake?"

"You're in the gym, it's the gym, you're alive, it's not heaven, you're not here, there isn't sake, and you can't have any," Hiei answered, pulling a small flask out of his pocket and taking a drink. Yamashita's face turned purple.

"ARE YOU DRINKING ON THE JOB?"

"Yeah. It's..." Hiei sniffed it, "It's water."

The man turned blue. "Give it to me."

"It's water, you moron!"

Shadow smiled sweetly, clapping her hands together. "I've suddenly regained my memory! I'm supposed to be in the cafeteria! Come, Hiei!" She darted past Yamashita, grabbed Hiei, and ran out of the gym.

They went to the roof and continued where they'd left off.

A few hours later, Shadow, Kurama, and Eclipse entered Etsuko-sensei's classroom to find it decked out in pink and hearts and flowers. Shadow groaned. She was tired of everybody getting into the "pink and happy" spirit. All she wanted was to go home and spend quality time with Hiei.

Etsuko-sensei herself was wearing a pink dress with white hearts on it, which Shadow nearly gagged to death upon seeing.

"Good afternoon, class! Everybody's thinking about love today, and that's understandable! But you want to go about your love in the proper way! Sex is blah blah blah blah blah..." Shadow heard. She blocked out all the words and sighed, staring at the clock, willing the seconds to go faster. Of course, having control over doom and fire did not entitle her to time warps (unless it was a doomiful time warp). To pass time, she pulled out her health book and started flipping through it. Towards the back, she found some pictures she really would have liked not to see.

Male reproductive organs.

She let out a gagged scream, slammed the book shut, and ran out of the room, managing to suppress the shriek of horror until she was in the hallway, where it could echo loudly and disturb many, many classes instead of just her own.

She flung open the gym doors and ran straight towards Hiei. Throwing herself into the air to tackle him, he sidestepped and she slammed into the floor on her stomach, letting out a surprised "OOF!"

When she didn't move, Hiei looked down at her curiously and poked her with his boot. She rolled over limply and twitched once. Her eyes were rolled back in her head and her tongue was hanging out.

"What did you do to her, sensei!" a startled boy asked.

"I think she's dead," Hiei said, shrugging it off. "Keep running."

"Dead! But--"

"RUN!"

"Yessir!" the kid squeaked. He kept running, and Hiei bent over her and poked her stomach. No reaction.

"I'm not doing CPR on you unless you really need it, Shadow," he stated.

"I do," she groaned. "I saw naked men in the health book."

The fire demon's eyes widened slightly. "And that's your first experience with that?"

"Well, not... really... but... They were... and there were cross-sections and all kinds of sick shit!"

"Get up off the floor. It's dirty. I ran some kid to death earlier and he puked not too far from where you're laying."

Shadow screamed and jumped up, clinging to the wall like a fly. "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME EARLIER?"

"You were dead earlier."

"Asshole."

Hiei shrugged. "Yeah. So, anymore Valentine's Day shit I should know about?"

Shadow shrugged, dropping off the wall to stand next to him. "Kurama and Eclipse have been holding hands a lot, at my insistance... Arisa has been shooting us dirty looks... I can't wait until next month so we can leave her anonymous poisoned chocolates."

"Not poisoned," Hiei said. "Drugged."

"Whatever. Shut up. It'll be fun no matter what... I have no classes with her, so I'll have to set up cameras by all the bathroom doors." She snickered. "This'll be great... Nothing brings me greater joy than totally ruining somebody's life and making them a miserable heap of useless shit with no purpose in existing, and eventually hearing about their suicide on the news."

"You're sick."

"Yeah, and your point is...?"

Hiei shrugged again, then paused. "Nothing brings you greater joy?"

A short pause. "Oh, shut up. You know what I mean."

"Do I?"

"You should..." With a sigh, she said, "Nothing but you brings me greater joy than fucking up someone's life and making them suicidal."

"Thank you."

"Surely you don't really need reassurance of that. Is your self-esteem really that low?"

"Of course not. I just like hearing you say it." He glanced past her to his class. "Don't think just because I'm not paying attention that you can slow down! Pick up the pace!"

They, too, were running suicides. The nurse's office had been overrun with lightheaded people today, some of which vomitted or even blacked out, and one had to be rushed to the hospital. Hiei didn't particularly care; it had been an idiot who'd nearly died, not somebody halfway worthy of the slightest bit of his respect.

Shadow looked at them and sighed. "Hiei-koi, am I gonna have to run suicides too?"

"Yes."

She frowned. "I like the way you're so nice about it. What about Kurama and Eclipse?"

"Of course. And I expect you to show everyone up."

"Naturally."

"You wanna start now?"

"What, running? I'll be running for the next hour and a half!"

"No... I'm only requiring twenty, or until I feel satisfied that they'll die if they do anymore."

"Only twenty. What does that average out to in miles?"

"Peh! I don't know! Do you think I care?"

"Good point. But you know I can beat the crap out of Eclipse and get the crap beat out of me and drown and all that for half a day and I'll still have stamina left."

Hiei grinned. "That's good."

Shadow cocked her head, narrowing her eyes a bit. "What's that grin for?"

"What grin?"

"That grin."

"I'm not grinning."

"You're being a pervert, aren't you?"

"Not at all."

"Yes you are. You pervert!"

"Oh, come on. You're worse than me."

Shadow paused, then smiled, "Yes, I am, aren't I? Far worse. I'm such an obscene person."

Hiei nodded. "That's only good part of the time."

"So what am I getting when I get home?"

Hiei bit his lip. "I almost said something that would certainly cause rumors if anyone heard it."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"What?"

"Nothing!"

"What!"

"Go away!"

"But Hiei!"

"It doesn't matter."

"So what am I getting?"

"A boot to the head if you don't shut up."

Shadow pouted. "Hell of a way to treat your girlfriend."

"You'd survive it."

"I dunno," she said sarcastically, "I am a frail delicate girl after all..."

"You? Delicate? Ha!"

"Hey! I can be if I want!"

"You can't be delicate. You could get hit by a bus at the top of a mountain, fall all the way down and get crushed at the bottom by the bus, then blown up by a passing atom bomb, and you'd still live."

"Yeah. Point is?"

Hiei sighed. "Never mind, Shadow. Just go sit somewhere and wait."

"You're casting me off?"

"N--"

"YOU'RE THROWING ME AWAY?"

"Sha--"

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU HATE ME SO MUCH!"

The entire class was now staring.

"I can't believe you'd just lead me on and then just toss me away like a used... candywrapper! After all I've done for you! You just discard me like I'm nothing to you! And on VALENTINE'S DAY of all fuckin' days! You selfish asshole! I bet it's just so you don't have to get me chocolate! You cheap son of a--"

Hiei clamped his hand over her mouth and hissed, "You idiot, shut up."

"WHY SHOULD I!"

"YOU'RE ACTING LIKE AN IDIOT!"

"I HAVE EVERY RIGHT! APOLOGIZE!"

"What the hell for! You're the one being stupid!"

"JUST APOLOGIZE AND WE CAN FORGET THIS HAPPENED!"

"You will even if I don't..." Hiei muttered, but he kissed her and bowed slightly. "I'm sorry."

"Thank you!" She turned to the class. "OKAY YOU ASSHOLES, SHOW'S OVER! RUN YOUR FUCKIN' SUICIDES OR YOU ALL GET DETENTION FOR A MONTH! WITH ME!"

"Yeah! What she said!" Hiei reinforced intelligently. Everybody scrambled back into action and he turned to Shadow. "Why the hell did you do that?"

"Do what?"

Hiei closed his eyes and it was obvious on his face that he was restraining the equivalent to an atomic explosion. "Never mind," he finally managed.

"Lover's quarrel?" Eclipse asked, appearing right next to them out of nowhere. Shadow screeched and Hiei blew up on her.

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE GYMNASIUM!"

Eclipse was blown out into the hallway by the force of his voice, as were most of the students--everyone but Shadow, who had plugged her ears and gotten behind Hiei before he yelled. While everyone was recovering from his explosion (including Hiei himself, who realized he'd gone half deaf), Shadow spun him around and kissed him, breaking away after a second and bowing repeatedly.

"I'm so, so very sorry for pissing you off, Great Lord Hiei. Forgive me?"

Hiei looked at her levelly and she got pleading eyes.

"Please?"

No reaction. She threw herself to her knees, sobbing. "I'M SOOOOO SORRY! PLEASE, PLEASE FORGIVE ME! I'LL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE! I'LL LIVE IN YOUR GARBAGE CAN!"

Hiei grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet, muttering, "You do that anyway."

"I do?" she asked curiously.

"I don't know what else you'd call it. And if you don't now, you will eventually."

"Yes, of course. So I'm forgiven?'

"Sure, why the hell not."

"Thank you!" She hugged him just as the bell rang. People went into a mad scramble to change back into their class uniforms before leaving the gym, and Hiei found himself signing several dozen late passes and dragging Eclipse's immobilized, deaf, twitching body into the gym and hiding it behind the bleachers.

Kurama walked in with Ryu and glanced around. Shadow and Hiei were no where to be seen, so he hurriedly went into the locker room... and found them very easily. The blinds on Hiei's office windows were down. He nearly tore the door off its hinges to make sure they weren't being inappropriate.

"Hey lovebirds!" he snapped. They continued kissing until he physically tore them apart, and then they were both extremely pissed. Well, no, Shadow was grinning like a moron and Hiei looked kind of indifferent, so, if that's pissed, I'd hate to see what happy is. "Where's Eclipse?"

"Eclipse?" Shadow looked thoughtful for a moment. "Who's that? The name doesn't ring a bell."

"Oh, don't be stupid. You know who she is, and you know where she is, and I want to know. You didn't kill her for interrupting, did you?"

"No, we raped her and tied her up behind a dumpster someplace," Shadow said. "Wait. Who is it? I don't know who she is, so how could I have raped her? HIEI! YOU WERE CHEATING ON ME?"

Hiei just sighed. "You're not going to piss me off again, are you?"

"No. I'm sorry dear," she said meekly.

"Check the bleachers," Hiei advised Kurama. The boy looked at him suspiciously before turning to leave. The couple waited for a minute before there was a startled yelp and an angry yell from the gym.

"HIEI!"

Shadow grinned. "You were discovered."

"No, Eclipse was discovered. He's just yelling my name for the hell of it," Hiei said, shrugging. "I had nothing to do with it."

"Oh yeah. Yeah, that's right. Well, we'd better go out there and tell him that." She took his hand and led the way out of the office, waving to all the guys in their underwear before Hiei pushed her out of sight with an annoyed sigh.

"Hiei!" Kurama met him halfway to the door. "Why was Eclipse lying dead behind the bleachers?"

"Dead? I don't know. Maybe she felt like being there."

"Hiei..."

"What? I had nothing to do with it. Ask Shadow."

"He didn't," she assured the redhead. "He was too busy getting a proper apology out of me."

"Oh, is that what you two were doing?"

"I was apologizing, yes," Shadow said. "Now, what is this about Eclipse being dead?"

"She's dead."

"So bury her, moron."

Kurama frowned.

"What are you frowning for? Isn't that what you do with dead people?"

"She's not really dead."

"She will be when she's through with gym class," Hiei said. "Twenty suicides. Now. Go."

"I need to change, you vertically-challenged imbecile!" Kurama snapped. Hiei blinked, surprised.

"Well that was unexpected."

"Shut up! Move."

"What about Eclipse?"

"She's fine."

"But she was dead a moment ago," Shadow reminded.

"She was revived."

"By a kiss from her prince charming?"

"Get out of here," Kurama said, opening the door and flinging her out into the main gym.

"HAPPY VALEN-FUCKIN'-TINE'S DAY TO YOU TOO, YOU ASSHOLE!" she shouted, slamming into the floor and rolling with a frown and glaring expression on her face. She ran into Eclipse, who fell on top of her like a drunk. Shadow screamed in horror and was hanging from the ceiling in seconds.

"RUN YOUR SUICIDES!" she screamed. "AND THEN COMMIT IT!"

"Commit what? Treason? Murder? Rape? Theivery? Arsin?"

Shadow started flinging pieces of ceiling tile at her. "GO SCREW KURAMA!"

"EW! No!"

"What's 'ew' about it?" She dropped to the floor. "If it weren't for Hiei, I'd be with Kurama, leaving you... all alone."

"Wha..?"

"Because if it weren't for Hiei, Youko would have screwed me a long time ago, stealing my virginity at the age of fifteen, and I wouldn't have minded because he's fuckin' sexy and Hiei wasn't around."

Hiei heard this and stared with a blank expression until Shadow noticed him and flew across the gym to him.

"But you're around and Youko didn't screw me and I'm a lot happier and I swear to god I have no attraction towards Kurama and I would never, ever, ever even imagine having sex with him or seeing him naked or anything like that ever in my life I swear to GOD! Please forgive me I'm so sorry Lord and Master Hiei-sama of the World of the Wonderful Sexy--"

"Shadow," Hiei said, prying her hands off his shirt, "you can calm down."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"You forgive me?"

"For what?"

"For thinking Kurama and Youko are fuckin' hot."

"I'd be surprised if you didn't."

"Do you think they are?"

Hiei glared. She grovelled again.

"I'm sorry!"

"Go run."

"Yes sir."

One minute later, she was changed into the gym uniform and running suicides faster than anyone else, until Hiei tripped her and reprimanded her for being too much of a show off and she matched pace with Kurama. Hiei tripped her again a few minutes later and told her she was going too slow. She snarled at him and he continued, reprimanding her for acting inhuman.

"But pretty-boy's running them like that! I'm just matching him!"

"But you've already run more than him."

"So what?"

"So you're gonna stand out."

"I already do."

"People will think you're an inhuman freak and send you to the government for them to discover you're an inhuman freak and send you to the moon in a cardboard box, where you would live the rest of your existence in solitude."

"Oh well."

"Just run, you moron."

"How should I run?"

"Like Kurama. He's caught up to you now."

"Okay. Fine. I'll run."

"And just for being a pain in the ass, you're running until the bell."

"You!"

He grinned. "Run. Now."

"Kiss my ass."

"He'd like to!" Eclipse said as she ran by. On her next pass, Shadow tripped her, kicked her in the leg, and untied her shoe.

Shadow slept all through detention with her eyes open and her hand moving as if it were writing, but her pen had no ink so it made no words. She later discovered that, had it had ink, she would have written the recipe for the Philosopher's Stone, and a creepy sutra to ward off flying green monkies.

Arriving home at her accustomed time, by her accustomed transportation, she went inside via the back door. She was excited about finding out what Hiei was going to give her. She wasn't really expecting much, but she was wrong to underestimate him.

He was lying on the couch with a black muscle shirt on and form-fitting black jeans, and though he appeared to be asleep, Shadow had a feeling he wasn't.

"Hiei?" she questioned quietly.

"Hey, koishii," he said. She walked over and sat next to him, and he sat up and kissed her passionately, leaving her breathless and a bit disconcerted when his lips left hers.

Obviously, Valentine's Day is not a demon custom, and this was the first time Hiei had celebrated it, but he knew the point was to make Shadow feel extremely special and loved, and he knew how to do that (No, not sex... though that would certainly prove the point just as well).

"I made you dinner," he said.

"You did what?"

"C'mon." He took her hand and led her to the dining room, where an elaborate meal was laid out.

"You did this?"

"Yep."

"Where the hell did you learn to cook?"

Hiei shrugged. "Kitchen."

"Hmph. The food's there, but if it's any good is the question."

It was good, surprisingly, and Shadow finished her meal and gazed at him in awe.

"Where the hell did you learn to cook?" she asked again, with more appreciation and less sarcasm than the first time. He just shrugged.

"I've been around for a while. You done?"

"Yeah."

"C'mon, then."

"There's more?"

"Of course." He scooped her into his arms and carried her upstairs, taking her to their bedroom. He sat on the bed and held her against his chest, kissing her neck.

"What are you gonna do?" she asked.

"You'll see. Don't worry, I don't plan on ending this in sex."

"Oh. Well that rules out one of my suspicions."

"Just relax."

"Okay..." He continued kissing her neck while his hands gently massaged her back. It didn't take long for her to be totally relaxed; putty in his hands.

"I love you," he whispered. A hum answered him. He kissed her neck, then turned her head and gave her another passionate, disconcerting kiss, then laid down next to her and slipped off his shirt. "Want anything else while I'm at it?"

"I'd like to make mad passionate love to you," she said breathlessly, "but with my luck I'll end up pregnant."

Hiei chuckled and pulled her close. "Nah. Not tonight."

"Asshole," she mumbled tiredly.

"Shh. Sleep."

But she already was.

Hiei called in sick to work that night and hung up on Kyouken's bitching after three words, assuming he'd got the message. He returned to his girlfriend and found her awake.

"You're awake," he stated astutely.

"Kiss me again."

Hiei smiled. "If you insist."

Ten minutes later, Shadow was rather startled to find herself shirtless and shaking in Hiei's arms, her face buried against his chest.

"Let's not do that again anytime soon," he panted, "unless you want fucked."

"But I do," she mumbled, also panting.

"No you don't. Not now."

"Why not?"

"You're shaking. No matter what you say, you're not ready."

"That was wonderful, though."

"Mm-hm. Go to sleep or I won't be able to restrain myself."

"Kurama was right. You do have a breaking point."

"Yeah, isn't he always?" Hiei muttered, momentarily annoyed. "And it's only February."

"Are you gonna go jack off in the bathroom?"

"Shadow!"

"I'm sorry. I'm sleeping."

"Sounds like it."

She curled closer to him and kissed his chest. "I love you so, so much."

"I love you too."

Days passed. The world turned, the sun shined, birds singed, fish swimmed, and rivers continued to forever run through beautiful scenery like ribbons--but only in fantasy novels.

Kurama had noticed something odd about the way Hiei and Shadow were acting around each other the day after Valentine's Day. They were acting almost... skittish. However, only a trained eye would notice such a thing, and he didn't mention it to them.

About a week after Valentine's Day, Shadow made her next move against Arisa. The slut hadn't been harassing her lately, since she'd heard about Nakada's broken nose, but that was no reason for Shadow to behave herself. The Golden Rule of Shadow, after all, stated that people should treat her how they wished to be treated, but she could treat THEM however the hell she wanted to. In other words, being nice to Shadow doesn't guarantee she'll be nice to you. In fact, it almost guarantees she won't.

This next move was downright evil, but Shadow was proud of thinking it up all on her own. Given Arisa's choice of night activities, Shadow naturally assumed she had some sort of birth control pills or something. It was just a matter of finding them and replacing them while Arisa was distracted, which was no problem for our crafty lunatic.

"Well?" Ryu prompted when the girl walked into the house. Shadow held up the little bottle and grinned.

"She's gonna be taking sugar pills and she won't even know it."

Kurama frowned. "That's really rotten, Shadow..."

"What? If she wants to go screw every guy in that half of the city, she deserves it. She deserves it more for pissing me off, though."

"You might as well keep those," Eclipse said, pointing to the pills. "You might need them, Shadow."

Eclipse found a vase of flowers crammed down her throat. Shadow flung the pills out the door and they broke the window of a passing car.

"Now it's just a matter of time... Then we can go put Ex-Lax in her chocolates..." Shadow rubbed her hands together, grinning psychotically. "I hope she gets pregnant AND gets an STD."

"You're truly evil," Hiei said.

"This is actually the first time I've ever been evil quite to this extent, but this is high school. Everybody's evil in high school."

"Until you came along," Kurama sighed, "that didn't hold true for my school."

It wasn't until Hiei went to work that night that he remembered he had another problem: Kyouken was still bitching about him getting a physical. Since the following day was Saturday, Hiei began planning for his trip to Reikai. He'd have to bitch at Koenma a lot in order to get him to screw around with Ningenkai files again. Then the stupid kid would probably want something in return... Damnable toddler. It seemed to Hiei that everyone who had any authority over him was an idiot, an embarrassment, or, in Shadow's case, both of those, and a girl. Oddly, though, she was the only one with authority over him that he didn't mind obeying most of the time.

Does anyone remember when Coach Carter came out? Cuz I know I wrote this chapter around then...

Anyways, yes, what I was saying about screwing up Valentine's Day... Custom in Japan is that on Feb. 14, the girl gives the guy something. On March 14 (my birthday!), if a guy got something from a girl, he's expected to give something to that girl. Or at least, that's how I understand it. I screwed this up because: 1) Shadow had things in her locker from guys, and 2) cuz Hiei... But that's fine. Because this is my story, my universe, and I never adhered to common normal rules before, so why should I now?

Review! 600 is just over the horizon!
-SJ