A/N: heh heh...I usually don't reply to reviewers in my fics, no no it doesn't mean I don't love you guys but I just find it annoying sometimes when I see other authors writing notes to ppl in the fic.All that scrolling just to get to the story... But this time I have to break the rules because Mag-chan, the webmistress of Peaches and Oranges, left me a review! We all know what Peaches and Oranges is right? It's one of the very first yohren sites out there, in english. In fact, it's the only english yohren site I know...not counting mine. If not for the haoren component of my site then our sites can so totally be sister sites :D I bow down to you Mag-chan and we all love you!
Mission to Save the World
"He's here! He's here!"
Chocolove bounced excitedly from the window. He turned around and waved for the others to bring Ren out. A group of people came down from the stairs. They dragged Ren with them—the victim of their dress up game for the past two hours. They tried on everything they could find up in Yoh's room. They even gave him some of Chocolove's costumes. Poor Ren had his clothes pulled off and on and was pushed up and around for everyone to see. He fought back at first, batting off the many hands away, but in the end he gave up, letting the others move him around like a limp doll.
They finally decided on something Jun had brought over. As soon as she heard about their plan on the phone, the older sister had agreed enthusiastically and rushed over with piles of Ren's clothes, with the help of Pai Long of course. They went through the collection and stopped when Ren had on a fine white Chinese tunic with matching pants. It was silk and elegant and it matched Ren's colors well, but it wasn't perfect, Ren could tell. There was a gleam in his friends' eyes that told him, if they weren't short on time, they would've liked to dress him up some more. Ren shruddered.
They opened the door and shoved Ren outside, all before Hao could even walk up to ring the doorbell. The fire shaman eyed his date up and down with a content smirk on his face. Ren gave him a warning glare. He had his clothes changed all afternoon and he wasn't about to let anyone change his clothes again. Hao waved away the grumpy look on purple haired boy's face with a smile. He approached the boy as he fished for something in his kimono sleeve.
"Here Ren, this is for you." The older shaman took out a shiny object and proceeded to fix the small clip onto the front of Ren's shirt. Ren stared curiously at the small object and only when Hao's hands moved away did he see that it was a tiny gold broach in the shape of a star. Ren looked up and saw that Hao had on the same broach, sitting conspicuously in the front of his kimono. The western accessory hardly matched his traditional Japanese clothing, nor did it match Ren's traditional Chinese outfit, but… Ren fingered the small broach for a moment then left it alone on his white tunic. He had a liking for stars after all, now how had Hao known that?
Hao waved a hand authoritatively and one of the Spirit of Fire's hand immediately descended to the ground until it was beside the two. "Oh no! No way!" Ren backed away from the blatantly glowing red hand. There was no way Tao Ren was going to hop on to the enemy's spirit and make himself vulnerable to certain incineration.
"Yoh, that wasn't part of the plan!" Horohoro whispered at Yoh nervously. "Ren can really get into deep trouble if he climbs onto that thing."
"I know," Yoh replied as he hastily made his way up towards his other half and his friend. He placed a hand on Ren's shoulder, causing the boy to instantly spin around. "It's okay." The wide eyes softened at Yoh's gentle tone. The boy trusted Yoh. He was even willing to risk his own life and Yoh knew. Yoh released his hand from Ren, which Hao had been eyeing testily, and approached his other half. He put on a scowl of equal caliber and the twins glared at each other.
Yoh reached into his pocket and pulled out a metal key. He held it out for Hao. "Here's the spare key to our house."
"If you hurt Ren in any way…"
"Don't worry," Hao smirked as he grabbed the key from Yoh. "You won't find a single hair missing on that pretty head. I'm not the type who lets his possessions get damaged."
Yoh narrowed his eyes. He wanted to shout back, that Ren wasn't an object to be possessed, but he couldn't for the sake of the plan. The angered boy reassured himself that after this day, Hao will be gone. He stepped back from the Spirit of Fire. The giant spirit took off and the people below waved them goodbye. Ren sat uncomfortably as he stared down at the glowing red medium. They were hundreds of feet above the ground and if Hao were to change his mind and decide to burn him, he would have nowhere to run.
"Ren," Hao knelt down and held the small curled up boy from behind. "I wouldn't burn you." He slipped a hand under Ren's chin and pulled his face towards him. "You have such a pretty face." The pretty face immediately scrunched up into a scowl. "I don't like being called pretty." Hao smiled generously, complying to his love's wishes. "Okay."
"Then I'll call you gorgeous."
Ren turned away and fell back into a depressed heap on his knees. 'Just bare with it', that's what he's been told, but Ren doesn't know how long he will stand. He sulked to himself as Hao embraced him in a tight hug through the whole way.
'Finally it was the end…of the first part of the date,' Ren sighed as he added to the end for himself. Now it was time to have dinner with Hao at Yoh's place and most importantly, carry out the plan.
"Please,"
Ren came back to reality and ignored the outstretched hand Hao had offered to him. He gracefully hopped off the Spirit of Fire and walked off towards Yoh's house, all done under the watchful eyes of Hao who seemed to be enjoying himself a bit too much for Ren's comfort. As Hao worked with the keys on the front door, Ren cautiously eyed the surroundings, checking for any of his friends, whom he knew would most definitely be spying on them. When he couldn't find any trace of them, he thought to himself, 'At least they can do some things right'.
He was brought back again from his thoughts when he heard the soft 'click' of the lock on the Asakura home's door. They slipped inside the dark house, once again with Hao yielding for Ren to go first. And Ren knew what Hao was up to. 'I'm no damn weak woman, you bastard,' he thought bitterly but swallowed his anger for the sake of the plan.
"My, my, it's dark in here, but I can fix that," Hao said when he turned away from the closed door and with a flick of his hand a small ball of flame appeared in his palm. He held it up triumphantly to throw light into their dark surroundings. That is until Ren smacked him over the head and shouted, "You idiot, haven't you learned anything about using fire in the indoors?"
"You can set this house on fire!"
Hao waved away the flames, an amused smirk still remained on his face. "Come on, I know the way around this house," Ren said, starting to sound exasperated and Hao bagan to follow Ren through the halls of the dark house obediently until Hao suddenly grabbed Ren's arm.
"Wait."
The sudden jerking on his arm caused Ren to stumble. "What do you want?" he said angrily when he found his footing again, but Hao gave him no time as he began pulling him again towards a different direction.
"I want to go this way."
"What!" Ren let out incredulously and sounded half annoyed, he was just this close from completing the stupid plan and regaining his freedom, but followed Hao up the staircase anyway because his grip on his arm was like tight steel. When they have reached one of the rooms, Hao flicked on the light switch. It was Yoh's bedroom.
"Hmm…so this is where my other half lives," Hao said amusedly then he walked from the doorway to the small table on the center of the floor and sat down without reserve. "Hao? What are you doing?"
"We're supposed to be having dinner downstairs!" Ren added, as-a-matter-of-factly, to the end with a little strain to his voice, but Hao simply patted the area next to him on the floor.
"Don't worry it's just for a while. We have plenty of time. Yoh said so, didn't he?"
Ren let out a frustrated but defeated sigh and thought, 'the last thing I want to do is spend more time with a monster like you.' But he obediently sat down by Hao's side anyway. "So tell me, how did you and my brother meet anyway?" There was that cocky tone in Hao's voice again which told Ren he was really not interested in the answer to his question, but then Hao always managed to sound arrogant.
However, this time Ren knew what Hao's objective was. It was that hand that Hao had slyly slid on his lap which Hao seemed to be most focused on at the moment. When Ren glared from the imposing hand to Hao's face, the long haired shaman simply gave him a look that read, 'it's only for a while,' and seemed to say 'just bear with it, you know you won't have to go through this again after tonight'.
For a moment, it was as if Hao knew exactly what his plans were for the night. 'Had Hao found out?' Ren quickly shook the thought away. The last thing he needed was to feel doubt and lose his focus.
'Just bear with it and stick with the plan.'
So he began his story on how he and Yoh met, keeping it as brief as possible, but throughout Hao kept asking him questions and each time he did he moved his hands to a new area on his body, each place more imposing than the last. And whenever he did he repeated that look for Ren which always managed to stifle the boy's urge to fight back.
It was somewhere between their reaching Patch village and their forming their teams when Ren realized that things may have just gotten a bit out of hand. And indeed it was. Now both of Hao's hands were underneath his shirt which somehow the long haired shaman had managed to unbutton without his noticing. Ren stopped in his story and opened his mouth to say something about the way Hao was handling him when all of a sudden he felt a pair of lips over his own.
The kiss was hot and a bit forced for Ren had no idea what Hao was doing. When the kiss broke off, Ren pushed himself away and wiped his mouth. "What the hell?" But two hands pushed his back onto the floor before he could glare accursedly at Hao. He looked up at the other with shock on his face and Hao leaned down to whisper into his ear.
"It's up to you. You can back out anytime you want, but if you do, I will walk right out of this house."
Panic began to course through his body as Ren nervously assessed on what he should do. Then he saw the faces of his friends when he isn't able to go through with the plan. He shook his instinctive doubt away. He wasn't about to let his friends down nor was he about to back down on anything. He stared straight at Hao, "Do what you want, but afterwards, we're having dinner downstairs."
The smirk on Hao seemed to grow by a fraction as he cheerfully replied, "Anything you say." And as he leaned down to do whatever it was that Ren would have no idea or preparation for what was to come, Hao thought to himself, 'And by the time I'm finished with what I want to do with you, you wouldn't be in the mood for dinner anymore,' but Hao wasn't about to share this piece of information with Ren as he secretly smiled to himself.
Outside on the street, Yoh shivered as he stared up at his lighted room in his house. "Hey, it's been hours already. Why is it taking so long?"
"Well, there's nothing we could do but wait," Horohoro said cheerfully, still hopeful about the plan.
"Oh look, the lights went out. Maybe now they'll head downstairs to the kitchen, right Anna?"
But Anna made no reply. In fact, she had fell silent a moment ago. She turned and walked away, letting out a loud 'hmph' like a mastermind who had realized that her masterplan had just failed.
"Um, Anna," Yoh fought to catch up to her storming pace. "Where are we sleeping tonight?" And she stomped faster away.
Ara, the plan failed so Hao gets to live, but we all knew that from the start didn't we It probably would've been nice to see Ren maiming Hao, but it's much more fun to have him around alive and well, to give Ren-chan lots of love, of course!