High-Maintenance Girl

Summary: A fairly ordinary Friday night becomes much less so when Lee finds himself out on something distinctly resembling a date with Michelle Cheung. Uh...what? Lee/Michelle friendshippy. Silly fluff.
Disclaimer: The characters within this story are the intellectual property of the guy who thought them up. Who is, by the way, not the guy writing the story, as she is a girl.
"Mr. Lee!"

Lee glanced up from the manuscript he had been poring over for the last four hours in futile attempt to figure out if his exhaustion-addled brain was simply making this up, or if he really was reading a rough-draft novel about a shark who periodically terrorized beach-combers while trying to launch his singing career, and keep his family's pizza parlour from going out of business.

When he found his eyes fastened on an extremely impressive amount of cleavage peeking (or rather, one step away from coming out to play) from amidst several lacy pale-blue ruffles, he began to wonder if the evening was taking tentative steps towards being a good one.

At least, until he lifted his slightly stunned gaze a little higher and saw the girl's face.

"Oh. Hello, Miss Cheung," he greeted with a slightly forced smile, setting down his red pen and making a mental note to shut and possibly lock his office door from now on. "What brings you here?"

What, indeed? This had to be one of two things.

Something to do with Nenene – unlikely, as he had spoken to her on the phone not an hour ago, and she had shown no signs of either going missing or landing herself in danger, or anything else that might involve leaving the house this evening.

Or, as was infinitely more likely, to do with the Three Sisters Detective Agency and the money that he, lucky Lee Linho, was to pay them at some point.

He knew that she felt strongly about the issue of paid vacation, but he hadn't expected her to come here in person to push the issue.

"Oh, it's just a social call," she replied quickly, before peering down at the papers spread out before him. "What are you working on?"

"Editing," he replied dryly, with a slight teasing smile to take any sting out of the sarcasm of his tone. "Like an editor gets paid to."

"Hmm…it doesn't look like it's a very good one," Michelle noted, thoughtfully, bending over his desk.

"Why do you say that?" he asked with a sigh.

"Well, some of your notes seem a little…hmm. 'Physically impossible', 'Read a world atlas; right now'…and you've got 'WTF!' six times on this page alone!"

"This page needs a little work," Lee said carefully, pulling the pages out of her line of vision.

It was vaguely impressive that she could so easily read his writing upside down, when most of his authors pronounced it utterly illegible from any angle, but that was no reason to let her read first drafts best kept confidential between editor and author.

"I don't think that's an honest opinion," she said very seriously. "I think you're just being nice."

With this very slight temptation to vent, confidentiality flew out the window. He was pretty sure the young man had just submitted as a joke, anyway. Seriously! A singing shark, with a pizza parlour!

"It's so bad, I'm thinking of showing to Miss Sumiregawa in the hope that she'll kill the guy for his mockery of the authorly process," he announced immediately.

Michelle frowned.

"Oh, Mr. Lee, that's not very nice."

"You just told me to be honest!"

"But that was just mean," she countered reproachfully. "And you're usually so nice! I suppose Miss Sumiregawa was right – you're under far too much stress. Luckily," she continued, brightening and striking a vaguely dramatic pose (that set…certain things bouncing enthusiastically, much to Lee's delight), "I'm here to cheer you up!"

Shut up! Lee's brain sharply commanded other certain parts of him as his imagination began working overtime in conjuring up things that Miss Cheung could do to cheer him up.

"Y-you're here to do what?" he asked, with what he hoped was an innocent expression.

"Cheer you up," she repeated. "I'm going to take you out!"

"Take me out?" he repeated slowly, wondering at this sudden strange urge to play on some sort of hand-held game system while dancing around like an idiot to the echoes of the insidiously catchy rock song floating through his head.

"Nenene sent me down here, because she thought you'd need something to lift your spirits."

Lee blinked. Several times.

"Nenene sent you down here, to…lift my spirits," he repeated flatly.

Michelle tucked her hands behind her back, and nodded briskly.

"By…taking me out," Lee finished.

"Well, no," the blonde admitted hesitantly. "She just gave me some money and said to buy you a cake. But if she's really dedicated to the cause of cheering up her dear, wonderful editor who had encouraged and guided and supported her through the years, she won't mind a bit of healthy improvisation from the plan!"

And before Lee could voice any further protests, to the tune of piles of work to finish and an early start tomorrow, and the fact that he didn't particularly want to spend the evening with this woman chattering and bouncing next to him, he found himself seized tightly by the arm and whisked from the room amid a flurry of long silky hair and lace ruffles.

An hour and a half later, he found himself admitting reluctantly that this wasn't so bad.

After all, it had been about twelve hours since his last meal, so dinner had been a welcome break from any more of The Untold Tales of Singing Sharks who Make Pizza.

And conversation with Miss Cheung wasn't turning out as vapid as he'd feared. Weird; he'd known that she'd read more books than he'd likely ever hear of in his life, but somehow it hadn't occurred to him that she'd be this well able to talk about them. Intelligently, even.

And if the restaurant she'd dragged him to was a bit pricier than he'd have chosen for himself…well, she was treating him, after all. Still, with what she'd ordered – easily the most expensive thing on the damn menu, just like a woman – he was glad he wasn't the one picking this up.

Although, he was starting to get a little worried. The bill had come several minutes ago, and so far she hadn't made any move to look at it. Her expression seemed a little…expectant.

Lee blinked, the reality of the situation smacking him soundly upside the back of the head.

Oh, dear God.

No! There was NO WAY he was going to pay for the meal she'd practically dragged him out of his office for, to "cheer him up". Which he hadn't needed, anyway.

There was just no way.

Thus deciding, Lee sat back in his chair and crossed his arms firmly. He would have narrowed his eyes, had they not already been closed and thus as narrowed as they could possibly be. And so, he improvised by simply shutting them very, very tightly, hoping to convey in this manner some of the immovability of his current position.

He wasn't paying for this meal, and she could just get that through her head as soon as possible, so he could get back to his work.

Nope. No way in Hell.

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"It was so nice of you to buy me dinner, Mr. Lee," Michelle chirped as the two made their way down the city street, bathed in the warm glow of street lamps and shop windows.

"Don't mention it," he said flatly, calculating exactly how many hours he would have to give up smoking to make up this unforeseen expense. "Although, I have to ask: do you usually invite men out for dinner and then make them pay?"

She gave this a long moment of careful thought.

"I think this is the first time," she finally replied.

"Lucky me. So, I'll see you later, then?"

"I don't know," Michelle said dubiously. "You still don't seem very happy…"

"What?" Lee asked, alarmed. "No, believe me, I'm happy; I'm overjoyed! Really!"

"I guess that just means we need to go have some more fun!"

Lee whimpered, trudging dejectedly after her as she took off.

"Can't I just go back to my nice, safe office and cry a while instead?"

Three hours later found that same unfortunate Mr. Lee wanting not simply to cry anymore, but to gnash his teeth and tear his hair and wail long and loud.

A bookstore!

She'd taken him to a goddamned bookstore to cheer him up!

And now he'd have to give up smoking for a whole day – maybe two! – to make up for all the books he'd (somehow) found himself buying for her to avoid congesting the line-up while she searched (futilely, he suspected) for her money.

Seriously, had she needed three copies of Anna Karenina?

Particularly as she now seemed to be dragging him towards something that looked suspiciously like a movie theatre.

"Great," he muttered. "Now she's taking me to a movie, that I'm going to pay for, to cheer me up. While she reads the whole time."

No, he decided in an instant, this simply could not be. The meal was one thing – he'd been too startled to do anything else. The books were…uh, also one thing (or rather, many, many, many of the same kind of thing) – he couldn't just let her stand there, holding up the line forever.

This time was another thing entirely.

This time, no matter how long it took her to cough up some money for this movie of hers, he'd wait. Patiently.

Not that two movie tickets were going to break him. It was the principle of the thing. Maybe, if she had to actually pay for some of this herself, she'd think twice before trying to cheer people up at their own expense.

Five minutes later, his new-found resolution was still holding fast.

He smiled pleasantly at Michelle as the ticket girl announced the price of two tickets, and stepped politely away from the counter.

"Go ahead, Miss Cheung."

She looked a little startled.

"Oh! Um…well, okay…"

After a few seconds of pawing half-heartedly through her purse, she beamed up at him.

"Do you think that maybe you could get this, Mr. Lee?"

"I don't think so," he replied, beaming in return.

Her bright, cheery smile wilted a bit.

"But doesn't the man usually pay for the date?"

"Not when the woman invited the man," he countered, smile remaining in full force, not even bothering to wonder exactly what she meant by calling this a date.

He might have had some recollection of that word, but a dim recollection at best. A faint echo from his college years.

Trying a new tactic, Michelle's expression grew embarrassed.

"W-well, the thing is, I don't know if I have any money."

"We just paid you a few days ago," he reminded her lightly.

"Yes, and we bought some wonderful books with our pay," she said, cheeks flushing and eyes growing starry at the mere memory. Then her face fell again. "So, I don't really have much money right now."

"We could go Dutch."

She frowned.

"But…I'm not Dutch."

"We could go home."

"But this is supposed to be a really good movie!"

"Then go ahead and buy the tickets," he invited politely. "If you brought me out to a movie theatre, you must have some stashed away somewhere. What kind of idiot invites someone out for an evening and expects them to pay for both?"

"It can happen!" she protested. "Sometimes people just underestimate the cost of a really special book they stopped to pick up on the way over!"

"Oh, so that's what happened to the money Nenene gave you for a cake…"

"Well…yeah," she admitted with a sheepish tug at her cheek. "So, if you don't mind…"

"I told you, I'm not paying for this."

"But I don't have any money!"

"Then we should probably get out of the line-up and let the rest of these people through," Lee pointed out, gesturing over his shoulder at the crowd of decidedly miffed people watching this little drama unfold.

"Oh. Alright," she sighed. "It's too bad – I really thought this movie would cheer you up. Are you sure you can't get it, just this once?"

"If it was just this once, it would be fine," Lee replied dryly. "But it's already been 'just this once' twice today."

"But you have to admit," Michelle said, blinking wide hopeful eyes at him, "that you're in a better mood."

Lee stopped, and pondered this. There had been a dramatic increase in his good mood this evening, and it had occurred at about the point that he'd noticed all those envious looks cast at him by random men on the street, due to the gorgeous blonde at his side.

It was kind of fun, being the object of envy for once, instead of the object of pity as always.

And, of course, there was also the appeal of seeing her bounce happily down the street when she got her way.

With that, he turned resolutely to the ticket girl.

"We'll take two, for Destroy all Humans: The Movie."

End Notes: Hehe! This story was based on a silly sort of "ROD: The Blind Date" story-game that I'm doing on livejournal. Y'know, someone is nice enough to humour Rhianwen by coming in and suggesting a couple, and then she struggles to produce a fic that comes halfway close to doing the idea justice.

Anyway, it was oodles of fun to write, despite coming nowhere near actual shippiness (or perhaps because of...?), and I hope you enjoyed it!