(6-7-05) Well, it's summer vacation for me.Yay! I slept until 1:00 today!
Let's see. 630 reviews. I just finished writing chapter 28... I asked Eclipse if I should make you all wait and suffer until I'd finished 28 before I posted this, and she said I should make you all wait and suffer. You know how long you waited? Long enough for me to proof this. It turned out all I had to add to ch. 28 to finish it was like, three sentences.
I need to post crap faster. I'm getting tired of posting this story. I need to finish it. It's driving me nuts. I've now been writing this story longer than my own school year. How funked up is that? Then, instantly after this story, I'm gonna start the next one, which will be considerably shorter (THANK THE LORD!), cover about two weeks of time (instead of like, 8 months), and have a much more simple plot (sigh of relief).
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Espionage
March fourteenth came in no time, and by then, Arisa knew she was pregnant, and was having a cow. A few anonymous boxes of chocolate didn't make her suspicious, and she ate the drugged candies without a second thought.
Shadow kept track of Arisa's movements all day (effectively skipping all her classes to spy on the girl). She occasionally made reports back to Hiei via telepathy.
"So, overall," she reported to Ryu and her other friends back at home after school that day, "Arisa spent 90 percent of the day in the bathroom. To make this all better, she credited it to her pregnancy."
Kurama shook his head. "Koenma's gonna have a cow..."
"Why? Cuz we made her poop?"
Hiei chuckled. "We're supposed to be his responsible, mature tantei, remember?"
Shadow rolled her eyes. "Me? Responsible? My only responsibility is you."
"Me? I'm a responsibility?"
The girl nodded. "Sure. You're like my pet. I have to care for you and give you attention or you might rebel and attack your keeper."
"What, rape you?"
Shadow shrugged. "If that's what you'd do. But you can't rape the willing, so really... maybe I should just start rejecting you."
Hiei grabbed her hand and pulled her onto his lap. "You wouldn't do that."
"No I wouldn't," Shadow replied, smiling.
Eclipse rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. "You guys are sick."
"Uh-huh, and what's with you and Kurama lately? You've been... touchy and kissy. Like me and Hiei used to be."
"Exactly," Kurama said.
"Oh, wait, so you're admitting it? So what's that mean? Have you finally embraced your emotions too? ARE THERE GONNA BE LITTLE KURAMAS RUNNING AROUND!"
"NO!" Kurama shouted. "Jeez. We're like you used to be, meaning everything we do together is without love."
"It's lust," Hiei clarified, "which is perfectly understandable."
"If you say so," Kurama sighed.
Shadow clapped her hands together. "Alright! So, what's our next plot of evil against Arisa?"
"Why are we doing all this again?" Eclipse asked curiously.
"To ruin her!" Shadow reminded. "If we're lucky, she'll kill herself!"
"That'd be lucky," Kurama scoffed. "Koenma would have our skins..."
Shadow cocked her head to the side. "What would he want with those?"
The fox didn't bother answering past a sigh. "I'm going to do my homework now. Any objections?"
"No ma'am," Shadow said, shaking her head. "Now, what is our next evil plot?"
"To kill her?" Hiei asked hopefully. Kurama got up and left, rolling his eyes.
"No! She's not ruined enough!"
"She's pregnant, spent about eight hours in the bathroom, was kicked out of school--"
"Maybe we can turn her in for drug abuse!"
"Drug abuse?"
"Sure! All those birth control pills... I bet she got them off the black market. I bet-- WAIT! BRILLIANT FLASH!"
"What?" Ryu asked excitedly.
"Does her mother know she's a whore?"
"Her mother has no idea, from what I can tell," Ryu said. "I met her like, once."
"Well that's excellent! If we can get some blackmail pictures, maybe we can get her to give you the film and you can burn it, and you won't be in danger anymore, and we can be free to torture her more openly!"
"Excellent!" Eclipse said. "So who should take the pictures?"
"But wait... Will she even have sex anymore now that she's pregnant? Can't that cause some problems or something?" Ryu asked.
"You think she cares? She's probably gonna get a back-alley abortionist to get rid of the thing anyway, if her mother doesn't know about it."
"True..."
"So, Shadow, who's gonna take the pictures?" Hiei asked pointedly.
"Oh! I know! I will!" the girl replied sarcastically, bouncing up and down on Hiei's lap and clapping her hands. She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Why must I?"
"It was your idea, and you've got the least at risk if you get caught."
"Plah on you," she muttered. "Am I gonna have to stalk her now?"
"If you want to."
"Awesome. Well then, I'll get my camera and I'm on it!"
"Good luck," Ryu said. "Be careful."
"Don't screw up," Hiei said.
"You're confidence in me is astounding," the girl retorted.
It took Shadow twenty minutes of wandering around Tokyo before she realized she had no idea where Arisa lived. However, being a lucky little lunatic, she found Arisa and some guy wandering through the park.
Operation 'Stalking Slut-Face' begins... she thought to herself, concealing herself in the trees along the path as Arisa and the guy passed. Following at a safe distance, she found herself near a very familiar place: the edge of the pond. Shadow had some fond memories of her sixteenth birthday and this pond... Well, more like the edge of it and-- OH MY GOD!
The girl quickly got her camera focused as Arisa and her current partner stripped naked and jumped in the pond. This is not my favorite way to spend an evening... Spying on a naked whore and her customer... Gag me with a spoon... I'm never going near that pond again...
The little spy spent a quarter of an hour watching (or rather, trying not to watch) the pair swim. Then, they crawled out onto the grass and performed the ultimate sin. FORNICATION! RIGHT THERE IN THE PUBLIC PARK!
Shadow got a few more pictures, making sure they got clear identification on Slut-Face's face, then ran home and took a steaming shower while Ryu got the pictures off the digital camera and Eclipse printed them on the technology in The All-Purpose Oversized Closet Of Doom in the first floor hallway. It was really a room, but Shadow called it an oversized closet, thus, it was an oversized closet.
"And voila," Shadow said, presenting them to Hiei as he got ready for work. He stopped in the middle of putting on his shirt and took them, flipping through them, his expression getting more and more disgusted as he got closer to the end.
"God, Shadow! What are you, some kind of Playboy photographer!"
"Are they that good?"
"You're sick!"
"Sorry."
He shook his head. "Well, if nothing else, they'll succeed in giving her mother a heart attack."
Shadow paused. "You know, I was too caught up with you last month on Valentine's Day to realize that we were doing it backwards. I was supposed to do something for you last month, and then you were supposed to do something for me today. I got too caught up today to do anything for you since we did it backwards."
"That's alright," Hiei said. "You owe me, then."
Shadow smiled. "Alright. That works. Be prepared for something great this weekend."
"I got to wait clear 'til then?"
"Yep," Shadow said, reaching forward and buttoning up his shirt for him. "It'll be worth it, koishii."
"I'm sure it will," he replied with a smile.
Shadow and her friends perfected their plans for ruining Arisa... Really, Shadow, Eclipse, and Ryu were the only ones planning, then they filled in Hiei later, and Kurama sometimes hung around to give them displeased looks.
"I really approve of what you're doing," he told them once. "It's just that your methods are a bit vile."
"I am vile," Shadow had replied. "Everything about me is vile. I am the DEFINITION of vile!"
"No, you're the definition of evil," Hiei corrected. The girl snapped her fingers.
"That's what I meant. They sound the same to me."
Kurama rolled his eyes.
That Friday, Shadow got Arisa's attention outside school.
"HEY, SLUT-FACE!"
The entire mob of students hurrying from the school silenced and froze. Shadow started towards Arisa and they cleared a path.
"I have something you may want to show your mother," she said as she neared the girl. "Come with me."
"Why should I, whore?"
"Well, I guess your mother wouldn't mind seeing porno starring her daughter..."
"What!"
"I know what you did in the park the other day..."
"You... You SLUT!" She swung her fist.
Shadow dodged the assault easily. They hadn't gone any farther away than when Shadow caught up to the girl, so most of the school was still watching. Hiei, in fact, was standing on top of the wall around the school when his girlfriend ran past, occasionally turning to jog backwards and sneer and shoot insults at Arisa.
Once she'd lured Arisa far enough away, Shadow turned and pulled out the pictures.
"Exhibit one! Skinny dipping! Notice how clear your face is in this picture..."
Arisa was panting and eminating an aura of fury.
"Exhibit two! More skinny dipping! Oh, look where that guy's hands are!"
Shadow had great fun as she narrated and commented on every picture, getting more and more joy by the unconcealed fury on Arisa's face.
"Exhibit twenty-five! The climax! Look at--"
Arisa lunged to tackle Shadow, who screeched and jumped out of the way, hastily stuffing the photos back in the briefcase and locking it shut.
"You know you shouldn't exert yourself when you're pregnant!" she advised as she sat on a window ledge about six feet up in the air. "That's why Hiei hasn't been making you do anything in gym the past week or so."
"Shut up! Give me those pictures!"
"I have the negatives," Shadow taunted. "I can get as many copies made as I want..."
Arisa fumed out the ears. Hiei was standing on the roof of one of the two buildings forming the concealed back alley, watching his girlfriend with interest. That girl really knew how to tick a person off.
"Well?" the girl prompted. "I didn't get to finish the last one. I remember every word I said. I could do the exact same thing in front of a camera... and sell it on eBay. I know a few twisted people who would buy it. So what's that guy's name? Is he the father of your baby? You know you really shouldn't have sex when you're pregnant. It could cause problems." (I really don't think that's true, but this is Shadow trying to piss somebody off. She'll make up whatever she wants and say it convincingly.)
Arisa continued fuming. Shadow shrugged. "How would your mother react to seeing these? Would she be angry? Upset? Have a heart attack and die?"
"My mother already knows all about this!" Arisa lied. The other girl nodded.
"Uh-huh," she said skeptically, "and I got arrested for selling ice in Hell."
"She does!"
"Your mother probably thinks you're a sweet innocent little girl who gets bad grades because her teachers are prejudiced against her, not because she spends all her time firetrucking minus a few letters."
Arisa continued glaring.
"So, the last picture," Shadow said, pulling it out, "is of that final moment before all reality dissolves and you spend a few seconds in ecstacy before you realize that you were really pumped up on weed and the guy you just screwed is uglier than a troll."
"He is not uglier than a troll!"
"Yeah he is! Look at that nose! How much did he pay you?"
"What the hell do you want, whore?"
"Glad you asked!" Shadow chirped, returning the picture to the case. "You recall my dear friend Ryu Obake, don't you?"
"What about him?"
"Well, I noticed him about my house a few times and started getting suspicious, so one day when he was sitting across the street in his car, I flew in through the window, tackled him, and beat him until he promised to answer my questions. You've been blackmailing him to spy on me, he's bisexual, and he hates your ugly pregnant guts! AH HA HA HA!"
Shadow laughed for a while until Arisa blew up on her, then she continued to her point.
"My point is, I have these pictures, and I want you to give me the negatives or the disc on which the pictures of Ryu and his boyfriend are. Then, I want you to get on the loudspeaker in the morning and formally and honestly apologize to him, myself, Hiei, Eclipse, and Shuuichi for fucking up our lives."
"And then what?"
"And then, I want you to tell your mother you're pregnant, beg forgiveness, get rid of the baby, and spend the rest of your life as a nun, never having sex or indulging in pleasurable activities of any sort, and you have to go around wearing one of those big billowy black robes. For the REST of your LIFE!" Again, Shadow went into psychotic deranged laughter, until a rather large rock barely missed her head, causing her to scream. "YOU COULD HAVE KILLED ME!"
"That was the POINT!" Arisa shouted.
"I HOPE YOU HYPERVENTILATE AND YOUR BABY DIES!"
Arisa gasped in horror.
"AND THEN YOU DIE!"
She gasped in even worse horror.
"I WISH ILLNESS UPON YOUR FAMILY!" Shadow continued. "I HOPE THEY FIND OUT ABOUT YOUR DISGRACE! I BET YOUR ANCESTORS ARE SPINNING IN THEIR GRAVES!"
Arisa glared indignantly.
"Well? What about my favors?" Shadow asked.
"You can go fuck yourself," Arisa snapped.
"Do you know how difficult that is? I mean, I like to think that I'm a very well-educated person, but I've never learned the trick to fucking myself..." She pretended to be thoughtful for a bit while Arisa continued to seethe. "I'll consult my spiritual guide."
She whistled loudly and rather high-pitched, then called, "KARASUUUUUUUU!"
The crow demon was there in a second. "Yes?"
"O Great Crow, do you harbour the knowledge on how one fucks their own self?"
"You mean jacking off?"
Shadow groaned and fell off her perch. "Guys are such perverts."
"Who's this?" Karasu asked, looking at Arisa.
"She's a whore. Not even good enough for you. She's pregnant anyways, and she screwed some guy in the public park earlier this week. I got pictures, wanna see?"
"Sure!"
Shadow handed him the briefcase. "Don't let her get ahold of it."
"Of course not." He rounded the corner and flitted up to the roof to give Hiei company.
Arisa hit Shadow in the side of the head while she was sitting on the ground.
"Ow! You whore!" the red-eyed girl snapped, returning to her perch.
Hiei, meanwhile, glanced at Karasu with a bit of disgust as the long-haired demon landed on the roof next to him.
"Hello, Hiei."
"Hn."
"You an your monosyllables..." Karasu opened the briefcase and pulled out the pictures. "Ooooo!" He went to the next picture. "Oooh, this stuff is hot..."
Hiei sighed. "You're drooling on yourself..."
Shadow peered down at Arisa with a sigh. "Okay, so you don't have to be a nun. They wouldn't accept you anyways, but you do have to give up the negatives for those pictures of Ryu and apologize over the loudspeaker on Monday. Or, mommy dearest gets to see the pictures of her angel daughter..."
There were sounds of a scuffle from above, then Hiei darted around the corner and pressed the briefcase into Shadow's hands. "You're fucking 'spirit guide' was enjoying those a little too much."
Arisa looked in a horrified way at Hiei. "YOU! YOU ASSHOLE! YOU'RE INVOLVED IN THIS TOO!"
"I have nothing to do with this, besides any financial issues needing resolved."
Shadow nodded. "He's too much of a gentleman to ever blackmail anyone."
"Well, I'd best be off," Hiei said, walking away.
"Fine," Arisa snarled. "I'll--"
"Oh, and you have to make it clear to everyone that Hiei and I have never had sex."
"WHORE!"
"You were saying?"
"You can't show those fucking pictures to my mother!"
"I can too. I'm capable. But I won't, if you agree to all that. Negatives, apology, no more rumors. Agree, wench, or your mommy gets to see her little girl fucking lover boy in the public park."
"FINE!" Arisa shouted. She spun on her heel and stomped away. Shadow waved and called after her sweetly, "Thanks for doing business with me! Have a nice day! Don't get hit by a car!"
"Good job!" Hiei said, catching Shadow in his arms as she hopped off the window ledge.
"Thank you, koishii. I know I'm wonderful in every way, shape, and form."
"I bet you're wonderful in some ways I don't know yet."
Shadow grinned sinisterly. "I bet I am too."
Hiei leaned in to kiss her when somebody cleared his throat from the nearby end of the alley. Shadow glanced up while Hiei glared with fury at Karasu.
"Not to interrupt for any cruel reason, but is this really the ideal place for naughty talk?"
"Go to Hell," Hiei snapped. Shadow grinned playfully and latched onto his earlobe, causing him to let out a little startled noise.
"Fine," Karasu sighed as Shadow left a trail of kisses down Hiei's neck, "don't listen to me. Don't you have a bed for a reason?"
"Yes," Hiei murmured, pinning Shadow more securely against the wall with his body, "but if we want to screw in an alleyway, we have every right, don't we?"
"I suppose so," Karasu sighed. "Can I watch?"
He received a death glare as an answer and sighed again. "I guess not." With that, he wandered off, leaving the fire demons to tease each other in the alley.
That weekend, Shadow gave Hiei the special Valentine's gift he'd been waiting for, which he appreciated. Also that weekend, Arisa went to a back-alley abortionist, and luckily for her, did not die in the process of having the baby murdered.
"You know what's in less than a month?" Shadow murmured as she cuddled next to Hiei.
"Hm?"
"My birthday."
"Yeah, I know. We're going to dinner."
"What after dinner?"
"After? How about we don't worry about that now?" he asked, running a hand over her bare back. "You know... You insist I'm sleeping with less clothes on, but you're the one not wearing your shirt."
"Well you took it off."
"At least you kept your bra. I could have taken that, too."
"You want to?"
"You have no idea."
"Go ahead."
"No, Shadow. You're not ready."
Shadow cocked her head to the side somewhat. After a short pause, she asked, "Are you gonna go jack off in the bathroom?"
Hiei frowned. She giggled.
"What have I told you about asking that?"
"Um... That you have no need to jack off when you have me?"
"No! I never said that."
"You thought it."
"Shadow..."
"What?"
"Forget it."
"No problem..."
"Is it forgotten?"
"Is what forgotten?"
"Good job."
"What'd I do?"
"Nothing."
"Okay."
Short pause. "What is it I did?"
"Absolutely nothing, koishii. Be quiet."
"You can't make me."
"Are you so sure about that?" Hiei challenged. There was another short pause.
"How come we can't have sex?"
Hiei groaned and rolled over onto his back. "Good night, Shadow."
"I'm serious! How come?"
"You're only sixteen, Shadow."
"Almost seventeen. I'll be seventeen in a month."
"Whatever. My point is--"
"Do you have some sort of sexual dysfunction?" She sat up and grabbed his crotch. He let out a startled cry. "Nope, no physical dysfunction there..."
"What is wrong with you?" Hiei snapped, sitting up. Shadow gave him puppy dog eyes.
"Don't get mad at me."
"I'm not mad."
"You gonna answer me?"
"Shadow... You're not ready."
"How do you know I'm not ready? I have a mature mind and body! I can handle sex."
"Yeah, but..."
"What, you think I can't handle you, is that it?"
"Do you know how long it's been since I had sex?"
"Probably since the last time you were at Mukuro's," Shadow said darkly. Hiei frowned.
"No. Mukuro's pissed at me anyways, for ditching her to be with you."
"Serves her right. So how long has it been? Since the time before the last time you were at Mukuro's?"
"Forget Mukuro, will you? You'll get all worked up and if you ever meet her, you'll want to kill her. She won't like that."
"You've had sex that many times with her? So how many? Twenty? Thirty? A hundred?"
Hiei frowned at her.
"MORE?"
"NO! Would you drop it?"
"Don't get mad at me. I'm sorry."
"Uh-huh."
"You don't believe me? I love you, Hiei."
"I know."
"Then don't get mad at me."
"I'm not mad."
"Sure you aren't."
"I've never really been mad at you."
"Really? That's sweet."
"Sure."
Shadow tilted her head. "So how long before you told me did you know you loved me?"
"Huh?"
"I mean, it wasn't like you were fleeing my house and suddenly BOOM! You thought 'Oh my God, I love Shadow...' was it?"
"No... I don't know... I felt something towards you for a while, I just wasn't really sure I identified it as love. I never really loved someone before. Most demons aren't even capable of love."
"So I noticed from my time in Makai. My father didn't love my mother. He pitied her after he got her pregnant, so he took her in. I think he was really hoping I was a boy so at least all his efforts would have had some kind of fruit, but he got a daughter and didn't love her either." She grinned widely. "Lovely story, no?"
"Mine's better," Hiei sighed.
"I know!" Shadow sobbed, throwing her arms around him. "Your life sucked until Yusuke beat the shit out of you!"
"Um... That's not really how I would have worded it, but sure. If that's what you want to say..."
"Getting back to our original topic--"
"I don't want to get back to our original topic, Shadow. Can't you give it a rest? We'll have sex when we're both ready."
"So what you're saying is that you're the one who isn't ready!"
"You aren't, Shadow. With sex comes a whole array of new feelings, and I don't know that you're ready to handle that."
Shadow rolled her eyes. "I'm more ready than you think. I've gotten sex talks before. They told me all about the sensations and the potential side effects... My demon half might go psycho and start raping innocent civilians or something, or I could go to Makai and whore myself off to the wrong person just because I'm a sex maniac now and--"
Hiei clasped his hand over her mouth. "That's not what I'm talking about! Jeez! What kind of lunatic did you talk to?"
"Um... It doesn't matter, I think he might be dead. I don't believe it anyways."
"Was he a Makai pimp or something?"
"Not exactly."
"They tend to talk about stuff like that."
"Is it possible to get addicted to sex?"
Hiei snorted. "You mean like a drug?"
"Sure! You know... You can get a high from sex, can't you?"
"You mean an orgasm."
"It's the same thing. Sexual euphoria."
"I don't think it's quite the same as drug-induced high. I've never done drugs, so I wouldn't really know."
"Suuure you haven't... You think I don't know you were a drunken fool for a part of your life?"
"What? I was not!"
"You weren't?"
"No."
"But everybody goes through a drunken fool stage in life."
"I didn't."
"YOU FREAK!"
Hiei blinked mildly. "If you say so, but from what I know, the only people who go through a drunken fool stage in life are losers, fools, and miserable drug-addict suicidal morons."
"And people who can't get laid."
"Yes, them too, I guess."
"SEE? IF YOU DON'T HAVE SEX WITH ME I'M GONNA TURN INTO A DRUNKEN FOOL!"
"SHADOW!" Hiei snapped. The girl cowered. "No matter how much you think it, you don't need sex, and sex will make our relationship no better."
"You know you don't believe that."
"You don't need sex, though. That much is true."
"Yes, but I just want to see what it's like."
"Whatever happened to your New Year's resolution?"
"I forgot about it."
"Whatever happened to not moving our relationship too fast?"
"I forgot about it."
"Whatever happened to virgins living forever?"
"I forgot about that, too."
"And what about sex being a disgusting sin?"
"Um..."
"See? No sex for you."
Shadow frowned. "I hate when you win. We can still play, can't we?"
"Of course we can," Hiei said, pushing her back on the bed. "Just as long as we don't have sex."
"So I could give you a blowjob?"
Hiei's eyes widened. "Um..."
"It falls in the category."
The fire demon sighed. "I'm sleeping outside." He started to get up.
"No!" Shadow caught him and pulled him back down on the bed. "Sorry!" There was yet another short pause. "You know, Hiei, I recall earlier in the year that you were the one disappointed that I wanted to stay a virgin..."
"I still am, but I thought we were done talking about this!"
"You were, I wasn't."
Hiei sighed and lay beside her. "I love you, Shadow. I know you're curious, but... I don't know. Believe me, I'll know when it's the right time, and I don't think it is now. That's all. Just trust me, would you?"
"All right," Shadow said. Hiei blinked.
"Really?"
"Really. Sorry for harassing you. I'll trust your judgement. I won't make any more attempts to get sex from you..." She thought for a minute. "I'm not going to stop teasing you, and I'm not gonna stop tormenting you, though."
"Vicious psycho," Hiei muttered.
"But you like it."
"I guess that's true enough."
"So did you enjoy your Valentine's Day giftish sort of thing?"
Hiei nodded. "You're a good dancer."
Shadow grinned devilishly. "Why thank you, Hiei. I'm glad you enjoyed it. From this point on, I will not expect sex from you for everything suggestive I do. Anything suggestive, erotic, or sensual that I do to you will be an incentive, perhaps, but not an attempt to get you to jump on me and screw me at that very moment."
"Very good."
"So we're like mates that are friends with benefits who love each other?"
"What?"
"Well, we're not aiming to have sex, but we're still gonna do sensual erotic things, right?"
"Do we do sensual erotic things anyways?"
"What the hell do you call what I did earlier?"
"Um... A very enticing, sexually arousing dance."
"Sexually arousing and sensual are the same thing, you dork."
"I guess it was sensual and erotic, then, and it's certainly nothing I really would have expected from you."
"But I did it well, no?"
"Certainly."
"And dinner was good?"
"Yes."
"And you were totally turned on by everything else?"
"I was."
"Then how come you didn't... y'know..."
"I have good self control. It was very important to me in Makai."
"What? Why? So that if people tried to rape you, they'd think you had a sexual dysfunction cuz nothing they did could get you up?"
Hiei sighed. "Shadow..."
"What! I'm just making conversation!"
"Can't we have a conversation about something else?"
"Sure. It's nice weather, isn't it?"
Hiei groaned. "Not the weather..."
"Are you mad cuz I'm letting my grades drop on purpose?"
"I don't give a damn about your grades. As long as they're higher than Kuwabara's."
"No worries there. That boy still gets like, 10 on things..."
"Moron."
"I can't wait until Arisa does all that crap I said she better do."
"Neither can I."
"Why do you hate Kuwabara?"
Hiei looked at her quizzically. "Why do you insist on changing the subject after one sentence?"
"I don't know, I just want to know why you hate Kuwabara."
"I don't hate him, I just don't like him. He has some amount of my respect... A surprisingly large amount considering he's a baka ningen, but he has some admirable aspects, I guess."
"Like what?"
Hiei shrugged. "He's hopelessly devoted to my sister, which I appreciate, even though he's weaker than her. He's hardly a good choice for her; Koorime don't even reproduce with a mate."
"They can, though."
"If a Koorime mating with another demon can produce something like me, I'd hate to see what a Koorime mating with a baka ningen would produce."
"What do you mean 'something like you'? Are you bashing yourself? Are you implying that the fruit of their efforts was a worthless, forbidden nothing that doesn't deserve another being's love or even sympathy and is pretty much a cold-hearted good-for-nothing murder machine? Because if you meant that, or anything even similar, I think you deserve to be punished."
"Punished how?"
"Utter confusion of the senses."
"Oh, not that..."
"Yes! That! Do you take back any insult to yourself that you may have implied?"
"Yeah, alright..."
Shadow straddled him, her hands hovering over his chest. "Do you swear?"
"I swear!"
"Are you sure?" She put her hands on his skin.
"Oh, lord! Your hands are cold!"
"That's because I'm a dead corpse! BLAH HA HA HA HA!"
"Okay, how's this: I swear to God I didn't mean whatever insult I implied, but if you're going to torment me anyways, please do it now and get it over with."
"Oh, Hiei," she said, leaning down and kissing his cheek, "I would never torment you!"
Her hands ghosted over his skin, bringing a shiver from him.
"You're tormenting me right now."
"Just by touching you? Whatever happened to your total self control that caused you not to get hard-ons when people touched your sensitive areas?"
"Stop moving your hips!"
Shadow froze. "I suppose you want me to get off of you, too? I think you're afraid."
"I'm not afraid of anything."
Shadow lay on him, looking straight into his eyes. "Nothing?"
"Nothing."
"Not even of losing me?"
Hiei put his arms around her. "Don't even say that."
"But what if it happens?"
"Shadow!" the fire demon pleaded. "Please. I don't want to think about that."
"Oh, I'm sorry, koishii," she comforted, hugging him close to her. "I worry about that, though."
"Just stop. Don't think about it. It won't happen."
"Okay. I swear not to mention it again."
"Thank you," Hiei muttered, kissing her lips tenderly. "I love you."
Monday morning, Arisa found Shadow at her locker and handed her an envelope.
"There's your fucking negatives, Whore-Face."
Shadow smiled sweetly, then started looking through the envelope. "Thank you, Slut-Face. I do have a name, you know."
"Hmph." Arisa turned and left.
"Yeah, you'd better get to the office to make your announcement!" the fire girl called after her. "I'd hate for your mother to find out!"
When the morning announcements came on, Shadow and the others sat in silence waiting for Arisa's voice. Finally, at the end of the announcements, when it seemed like they were done, the announcer came back on and said, like an afterthought, "One final announcement, please, from Miss Arisa Okawa."
Shadow silenced Black-sensei's class. "THIS IS IMPORTANT!"
"I just want to say I'm sorry to Ryu, Shuuichi, Eclipse, Shadow, and her boyfriend Jaganshi-sensei, and I'd like to say that all those rumors that have been going around this year about those people are total lies. Happy now, Jaganshi?"
Shadow bowed slightly to the speaker on the wall. "Yes I am, thank you." She sat down and added under her breath, "Even though we all know you didn't mean it, you slut."
"Well done!" Eclipse cheered to Shadow.
"Thank you!"
Everyone else was staring at her like she had more than one head, and perhaps a third arm growing out of the middle of her chest.
Shadow encountered Arisa in the hall when she was on her way to the gym instead of literature class.
"I have one more request," she said. Arisa made a snotty face. "I want to you keep Hiroshi Nakada and all your little lackies away from Hiei, Shuuichi, Eclipse, Ryu, and me for the rest of the year. You'll get those pictures back when I'm satisfied that your lackies have not bothered us for the remainder of this year. If I'm in school next year, I want you to respect me and I'll leave you alone too, but keep this in mind: I always win. Always." She grinned evilly.
"Whatever," Arisa snapped. She pushed past Shadow and stalked away snootily. The demon girl strolled into the gym humming merrily and found the whole place in a total uproar.
"Well this is nice," she muttered to herself. After a closer inspection, it seemed Hiroshi and Hiei were the center of attention and everyone else was yelling and shouting in a ring around the two. Shadow sighed and took a running leap over the heads of the spectators, straight into the fray, landing with her back to Hiei and catching both of Hiroshi's fists.
"Hi," she said sweetly, grinning cruelly. "What's this all about?"
"He started it," Hiei sighed, already having lost interest and waved it off. "Handle it however you want, koishii." The crowd parted for him and he strolled across the gym and into his office.
Shadow's muscles were tense and Hiroshi's were bulging as he slowly but surely got his hands free of her grip. She waited for the exact right moment... He got loose, pulled his fist back...
And Shadow slapped him, then did a complete split to kick him in the face, sending him up and backwards. She had taken off after Hiei before Nakada even hit the ground.
"Hiei?" she called, looking around the boy's locker room. The blinds were closed on the windows of his office, so she opened the door and peeked inside. He was sitting at his desk reading. "What are you doing?"
"Reading." He shut the book and looked at it. "I like this Stephen King guy. He must have been some kind of murderer or demon in a past life, to be able to so graphically describe all that blood and rot."
Shadow grinned. "No kidding. So what was that fight all about?"
"He was just pissed about Arisa's little apology on the announcements this morning."
"He started a fight over that?"
"Yeah, he says it's all me and 'my scheming bitch of a girlfriend's fault'... and 'what does she have to apologize for when we've been assholes to her all year?'" he mocked. "Moron."
"Certainly."
"I'm sick of these moron students. Most of them, at least," he added when Shadow gave him a Look.
The locker room door flew open, banging loudly off the wall. The office door burst open and Nakada was standing there, his face red, eyes wide and teeth bared in fury.
"BITCH!"
"Yes, and your point is?" Shadow asked politely.
"Come on! I'm gonna beat the snot out of you! OUTSIDE! NOW!"
"No," Hiei said coldly, getting up and stalking slowly towards Nakada. "She's not going anywhere, but you are. Get out into the gym, you stupid son of a bitch, and leave us the hell alone before I pummel your fat ass into the ground and dump you in a fucking river." By this point, he was right up in Nakada's face, glaring the icy promise of death into the moron's eyes. The teen looked a little nervous for a second, then furious, and attempted to punch Hiei.
Of course, Hiei dodged, even at such close range, and again, Shadow took charge of the fight. She darted in between Hiei and Nakada, grabbed the latter's wrist, put her hand on his forehead, and cracked his skull into the doorframe. He collapsed, and by the looks of it, wasn't getting up again any time soon.
Though half the class had seen that, Hiei merely pushed Nakada out of the way of his door closing, pulled Shadow into his office, and employed a few of her relaxation techniques before he did anything else, for fear that if he didn't, he was at a high risk of exploding on the next person to irk him in the least.
As it turned out, it was a good thing he had employed Shadow's soothing, because the next person to tick him off was Yamashita when the paramedics came to take away Nakada's unconscious body for the fifth or so time that year.
"What happened here!" the man snapped. Hiei shrugged.
"An accident."
"Don't you find it odd how so many accidents have befallen Nakada over this year, mostly in your class?"
"No. A lot of people have accidents during games."
"Nobody has ever been sent to the HOSPITAL!"
"Nakada has."
Yamashita glared. "Nobody else has," he clarified.
"Hey, I can't help it if the boy is a total moronic klutz," Hiei retorted.
"Nakada has never had accidents in phys ed class before you came!"
"Well maybe all your previous teachers were inadequate."
"Do you have a comeback for EVERYTHING!"
"Usually."
Yamashita was seething. "Jaganshi, I'm pretty damn tired of your mouth."
"Well I'm pretty damn tired of everything about you, but you don't see me breathing my stinking breath in YOUR face, do you?" He pulled some breath mints out of his pocket. "Here."
The man attempted to hit the mints out of Hiei's hand, but the little demon was too fast and quickly returned them to his pocket. "Alright, your loss..."
Yamashita fumed. "You are THIS CLOSE to being fired! THIS CLOSE!" He showed Hiei about a centimeter between his fingers.
"Really? Well, if you could let me hang onto this job until the end of the year, I'll save you the trouble and quit. But if not, that's okay too. You can just have a substitute gym teacher and all these kids can get fat over the next few months with no physical activity." Hiei shrugged. "It's not my problem."
Yamashita fumed. Shadow was flying all around the boy's locker room in Hiei's office chair. She suddenly crashed into the lockers and made one hell of a loud noise, audible even in the gym. The principal's eyes snapped to the door of the locker room.
"What the hell was that?"
Hiei looked at him like he was insane. "What was what?"
"That noise!"
"I didn't hear anything," the fire demon continued convincingly.
"How could you not have heard that!"
"Maybe because there was nothing to hear... You've lost your marbles."
"Shut the hell up!" Yamashita snapped, stalking towards the locker room. Hiei shrugged and followed, knowing Shadow would be able to cover up for herself.
Sure enough, when Yamashita went striding into the locker room, Hiei's office chair was in his office where it belonged, and Shadow was no where in sight. Yamashita looked all around, even in all the open lockers, but he couldn't find a thing. He started to ransack Hiei's desk, and the fire demon blew up.
"What the hell are you doing! Do you think something in my desk jumped out and made this noise that you apparently heard!"
"YOU HEARD IT TOO!"
"I didn't hear anything! I swear to God! You're going senile, man!"
Yamashita fumed and grabbed Hiei's shirt. "Stop lying."
Hiei's face went from innocently clueless, if slightly amused, to dark and hateful, and he smacked his hand onto Yamashita's wrist, then clenched it tightly.
"Get. Your. God.Damned. Hands. Off Me," he growled, pulling Yamashita's immobilized hand away from him and flinging it away furiously. "Touch me again and I'll break it," he warned as the man gently held his injured wrist.
"I could have you FIRED for that!"
"Go for it, asshole!" Hiei snapped. Yamashita seethed, glared, trembled with fury, then finally spun and stalked away. Hiei waited a few seconds after the locker room door shut, then went and shouted out, "AND WHY DON'T YOU CONSIDER ANGER MANAGEMENT CLASSES?"
He ducked back inside before he could receive the look Yamashita sent him. Shadow dropped off the ceiling right in front of him, nearly causing him to jump. She'd had her feet and hands braced against either side of the short hallway leading from the door into the gym to the actual locker room.
"Bravo, koishii," she said, grinning. Hiei stared up at the ceiling, then looked at her.
"Creative," he complimented.
"Why thank you, dear."
"Good thing you got me good and relaxed before Yamashita came or I probably would have punched him."
"My pleasure," Shadow said, bowing.
"It was probably more mine, actually," he muttered.
She smiled. "It was both of ours."
Okay... One more chapter down... Six written so far that aren't posted... And probably five or so not written and not posted... I think I'm gonna die now... SEE IF I EVER WRITE A STORY THIS LONG EVER AGAIN! I'LL FALL OFF A CLIFF AND DIE!