Chapter 14 is up and at them. I was contemplating on the situation of this story, and finally came up with the final draft of the story. Yes, I'm hoping to end this story at chapter 20, at most chapter 25 or 30. I always liked to end stories on a nice, full number. Somehow it seems more significant, don't you agree? Well, that's just a personal opinion, I guess. grins. Here this chapter is, everyone. Not that many "scenes" in here either. Many apologies, but I'm building up to that area. But I hope I can use Anna's jealousy to keep you fantastic readers amused. lips twitching Please read and review.

CHAPTER 14

Anna was not in a good mood.

Somehow, even as that was, it sounded somewhat like an understatement. Yoh knew exactly what the source of her anger was the very second he heard her yell from her bedroom. Manta looked up at him curiously and Yoh just smiled sheepishly. " It's that time of the month again, Manta." Yoh said, almost pleasantly, as he sipped his tea calmly. Manta blushed to the soles of his feet and let out an embarrassing cough.

The two of them sat in his empty kitchen for a moment before they heard the slam of the door in Anna's room. " There she comes now." Yoh said, putting down his cup.

Manta raised his eyebrows.

" How can you stay so calm?" Manta asked curiously.

" Hmm?" Yoh asked dreamily, resting his chin on the palm of his hand. " No, actually I'm scared of her stiff even when she's not. . .yeah. . ." he added hastily, earning an encouraging nod from Manta. " But just knowing that she can have periods and everything, that makes me realize that she's actually human."

" Er. . .Yoh?" came Manta's edgy voice.

" What?" Yoh asked defensively. " You have to admit, although she can be cute and sweet at times, there are just times where she's just plain sadistic to the core."

" Yoh. . ." Manta said, an even more obvious edge to his voice now.

" What?" Yoh said indignantly, starting to get annoyed at his friend's strange tone of voice. " Okay, she was cute yesterday, but you have to admit, sometimes she's just mean. . .to. . ."

At that moment he noticed a strong aura coming out from behind him, and it was only when he turned around when he noticed what Manta had been so petrified over. Anna stood there, lip twitching, her eyes in slits, yet there was an uncharacteristic smirk on her face, that was far scarier than her glare. " Well, I'm sorry Yoh, that's what I am." Anna said in mock sweetness. " I thought that after this many years you would get used to that by now."

" Aw, Anna, I didn't mean all that. . ." Yoh said hastily, getting to his feet.

" No, it's alright." Anna said, smiling at him. " I'm used to you talking bad behind my back and everything. . ."

If she was using her smile to increase his fear for the situation, she was indeed doing it very well. She waved goodbye to his before turning her heel and walked off.

Yoh let out a sigh of relief, but that moment of weakness caused him to ignore the fact that Anna had whipped around once again, grabbing the nearest flower pot from the table next to her and flung it at him.

" That's gotta hurt." Manta whispered, watching Yoh fall to the ground.

" And now for you, Manta." she said curtly. " Speaking ill of me with my fiancee aren't you?"

" No!" he spluttered. " I nev- - -"

WHAP.

" Good morning!" called Ryu from the front steps, when he saw what scene had met his eyes. He gasped and started to run when he found out that Anna's beads had wrapped themselves well around his body. There was a cruel grin plastered on her face as she crossed her arms.

"Oh crud." he whispered as she walked over to him.

" You were the one who spiked my drink, weren't you?" she hissed, her hand raised in a ready position to slap him across the face.

" Okami. . ." he started meekly, but was cut short by once again, her hand whipping itself across his face.

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" Well, this is an interesting sight." Ren muttered, stepping into the house with Horo Horo behind him. Ryu, Yoh and Manta were all hung on the ceiling, every so often knocking into each other as the wind blew. They grinned down at the two of them as they saw them enter.

" Morning, Ren. Horo Horo." Ryu said, as cheerfully as a person who was hung up more than eight feet above the ground could say.

Ren and Horo looked at each other before sighing.

" Want me to help you get down?" Ren asked, grabbing his family sword before flicking it out, ready to cut through the beads when he heard Yoh speak up.

" It's no use, Ren." he said. " Anna's magic is too powerful for your sword to cut through. But never mind, she'll let us down once she simmers down."

At that moment Anna appeared from the television room, slamming the sliding door to one side, it immediately smashing to pieces. Ren, Horo, Manta, Yoh and Ryu just looked at her with wide eyes. She glared at them and they looked away quickly, Horo and Ren immediately removing the shoes from their feet. Anna walked up until she was just under Yoh before raising her eyebrows at him.

" Yoh, remember to fix that door." she said, pointing restlessly to the door of the television room.

Yoh nodded numbly.

She looked at him for a moment before walking off back into her room. The others shivered as Horo Horo looked at his watch. " It's around a week since Hao gave you his last lesson, don't you think it should be about time he gave you another?"

Ren snorted and crossed his arms across his chest.

" You won't need his stupid advice." Ren said sulkily. " I'm enough for that."

" Which reminds me. . ." Horo said, pointing his finger accusatingly at Ren. " My sister says that you have been snubbing her for quite some time now. I'm in no position to step in the way of you disliking my sister, but I always thought you would at least act like you liked her for my sake."

Ren blushed and looked away.

" I didn't snub her." he muttered under his breath.

Horo raised his eyebrows at Ren.

" Well, then that's good to know." he said slowly.

There was an awkward silence that followed if not for another flashy appearance of Hao, who burst out of flames in the middle of the room. The fires lapped at his clothes, but disappeared under the flick of his hand.

" Nice entrance." Horo said, grinning.

" Thank you." Hao said lightly, bowing gracefully.

" Show off." Ren muttered under his breath.

" So where's my dear brother?" Hao asked, ignoring Ren's comment.

Horo sighed and pointed his finger to the skies.

" He's dead?" Hao asked, alarmed, looking up. " Oh." he finished.

" Hello." Yoh said, wincing.

" What the Heck are you doing up there?" Hao asked.

" Anna's in a bad mood." Yoh sighed.

" Ouch." Hao winced. " That must be dreadful."

" Right on the spot there." Ryu groaned.

" I'll speak to her to let you guys off." Hao said flatly, straightening his cloak. " I can't give you lessons if you're hung up to the ceiling with. . .beads. . .right?"

Suddenly he remembered his very, very, VERY wrong dream he had about him and Anna before shuddering and walked off. The others looked at each other and shrugged. Well, Ryu, Manta and Yoh tried to shrug, anyway.

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" Hao Asakura." Anna said boredly. " Do you think I'm stupid?"

" That's a rather bold statement to say." Hao said lightly, shutting the room door behind him. " Why would you ask that?"

" Coming in with that fancy swagger of yours. . ." she said dully, taking another rice cracker from her basket and bit into it. " In what you hoped I would take into consideration and then after you would pop in some question of you hoping me to do you a favour, or let you take Yoh to a strip club or something. . ."

" While we're on the subject of that. . ." Hao said, grinning.

" Drop dead." she said curtly, looking away.

" Tsk." he muttered. " Cold."

" Towards you, anyway." she said, rolling her eyes.

" I have come to request that you remove Yoh, Ryu and Manta from the ceiling." Hao said, in a bow so low that his forehead was practically touching his knees.

" And why would I agree to that?" Anna asked curtly.

Hao had thought of a perfect comeback for that, but before he could start on it, she got to her feet and strode past him. " Fine." she muttered under her breath.

Hao raised his eyebrows.

" That was unbelievably easy." he said to her.

" Whatever." she said.

" And. . .that was. . .in some way. . .a mood swing." he said coyly, smirking at her. Predictably, her hand whipped across his face and he staggered back, wincing.

" Pervert." she muttered.

" But it's true that you're. . ." he started, when she slapped him once more.

Her hand raised once more, glaring at him, and he took a step back, wondering what other reason she could slap him with. In the end, her hand whipped across his face once more and walked away from him. " What the Hell was that for?" he yelled indignantly, rubbing his sore cheeks.

" Just in case." she muttered, disappearing behind the wall.

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" Damn, your fiancee sure is a wild cat." Hao muttered, wincing as Faust dabbed the cotton wool on his smarting cheeks gingerly. At this, Faust stopped for a moment, confused, and looked at Eliza questioningly.

" I was talking to Yoh." Hao said witheringly.

Faust nodded and pressed a finger against the smooth plane of Hao's cheek. Hao gritted his teeth, and Faust nodded his head knowledgeably. " I see what's the problem here. No doubt you chose a wrong time to provoke Anna-san. . .all of you." his eyes skimmed the room for the offending individuals besides Ren and Horo who were sitting down cross-legged on the ground, twiddling their thumbs. " In any case," Faust said simply, getting to his feet slowly. " The burning feeling should leave in a couple of minutes, Hao. The cream I put on your cheeks works wonders. I remember the time I was massaging Eliza's warm, milky skin with it, when I felt this huge. . ."

" Thank you for sharing." Yoh cut in, while the others coughed nervously.

Faust nodded ceremoniously, before leaving Yoh's room, Eliza following faithfully behind him.

" Well, shall we begin?" Hao asked pleasantly, folding his sleeves.

" Yeah." Horo said eagerly. " Is it alright if I stay and watch?"

" Certainly." Hao said jauntily. " Ren? Would you care to help me out?"

" I'm not your helper, Hao." Ren said sourly.

" I'm sure that's true." Hao said, almost witheringly, before turning to Ryu and Manta. " Do you two want to stay and try to get tips too?" he asked kindly. Manta blushed and shook his head furiously while Ryu just laughed. " Thanks, but no thanks, Hao." he said, grinning broadly. " I've pretty much got it handled with the ladies by now."

The others raised their eyebrows at him.

" If. . .you say so." Hao said, shaking himself before he turned back to Yoh. " This is my second lesson for you, is it not?" Hao asked Yoh, cocking his head. Yoh just nodded his head numbly. " Excellent." he said briskly. " Now. This may be a slight of a risk for you and your personal well-being, but that's what Faust is for isn't it?"

Yoh nodded, slightly more nervous now.

" Ren." Hao called out, and Ren opened one of his shut eyes. " What would you do to a girl who you know has to be attached to you in the end, but shows no remote interest in you at the moment?"

" You're just acting stupid now." Ren said tiredly. " Of course you would. . ."

Then he stopped, frozen to the spot as he looked from Hao's grinning face to Yoh's confused look. " Oh, you wouldn't." he said, looking shocked and terrified for Yoh at the same time.

" Of course I wouldn't." Hao said, getting to his feet, patting his twin brother on the shoulder. " Yoh's going to be the one who will do it."

Yoh looked at Ren, then at Hao, then at Ren once more.

" Do what?"

Hao smiled.

" The best way to find out if a girl is secretly in love with you is by using the beauty of the sting that has been dwelling inside each of our hearts. That, of course, is what Ren has obviously already guessed. . .jealousy." he patted Ren on the back, ignoring the look of pure shock on his face as he just looked at Hao in disbelief.

" Surely you jest." Ren said, appalled. " Yoh is not yet experienced. . ."

" He has my genes." Hao interrupted, on a voice of forced polite. " He is capable."

Hao turned back to Yoh, smiling at him confidently. " This is what you will do, Yoh." Hao said. " Please do not interrupt me until I am done, as I have a few things I will have to ask you to do. First of all, totally ignore Anna in the morning, and leave the house without her." Yoh's mouth burst open in an attempt to remark on that, but Hao cut him short. " Secondly, accept EVERY SINGLE present that girls give you today." he said. " I have asked them to not give you anything on your birthday itself for a reason, you know. I thought of this way ahead of time. Thirdly, do not sit with her at recess. Sit with me, where I would invite six or seven girls. Then, go out with the boys for dinner. Sound easy enough?" he added pleasantly, smiling brightly at Yoh.

" That's attempting suicide!" Yoh gasped, gaping at his brother. " I'm going to be murdered by Anna the second I don't prepare breakfast for her! And what if. . ."

" I think it's a beautiful plan." Horo said, rubbing his chin. " Nice job, Hao."

" Thank you." Hao said, bowing.

" Hao. . ." Yoh said slowly, but Hao simply smiled.

" Trust me." Hao said. " She will not lay a finger on you."

" How are you su. . ." Yoh started.

" Trust me." Hao said, firmer this time.

And Yoh stayed silent.

" Alright, listen up." Hao said, grinning rather cheekily at the two of them. " Girls are the sort of people who do not realize how much they like a person until they know how popular or how cool they are to the public or to others. Frankly speaking, I do not see how people like ' Chris Tucker' or 'Ryan Brown' can get the ladies so easily if they weren't so famous. Sure they're pretty good-looking and everything, but they're just about as smooth as a cement floor."

Horo and Yoh listened to him, lapping everything up.

" Nursery." Ren muttered, getting up, not allowing Hao to hog up the limelight. " A girl is attracted to those who others attract. You must have the X-Factor to make them fall for you. I believe even a person as cold and silent as Anna must have some silent cravings for herself too."

" Really?" Yoh asked, sounding doubtful.

Hao chuckled.

" I noticed one not too long ago." Hao said, smirking at Yoh. " It was when you beat down those three huge bullies who were intimidating the little girl in school a couple of days back. It was pretty smooth of you to just walk away without looking back, I have to admit. And I noticed Anna standing in a corner, watching you, a blush on her face."

" Really?" Yoh asked, a grin on his face. " She saw me?"

" Yeah." Hao said, nodding.

Ren smiled at Yoh.

" In any case, since Hao trusts you so much, just go for it tomorrow."

Yoh looked at the two of them before nodding his head.

" Okay." he said confidently. " I'll give it a shot."

Horo, Hao and Ren smiled at him.

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Anna looked around her the next morning, frowning. That was odd. Yoh was nowhere in sight. She walked into the kitchen, before noticing a note to her on the table. She picked it up with raised eyebrows at looked at it. " Dear Anna, Sorry I cannot go with you to school today. I will be going with Hao, as I have duties with him. From, Hao." She crumpled it up and tossed it out the window, pursing her lips irritatibly.

" He didn't even bother to apologize. . ." she muttered before grumbling out a number of swear words before opening the refrigerator door which surprisingly was devoid of any foods. She blinked as she peered deeper, but it was more empty than it was when they first bought it. That couldn't be right, she had asked, or maybe even forced, Yoh to buy the groceries the day before. She slammed the refrigerator door with all her might and stomped out the door, her stomach growling painfully. Who knows, maybe Yoh had prepared something for her for recess when they went to school the next day. . .

Little did she know how much of a surprise she was going to be in.

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Lyserg entered the classroom cheerfully that day, but his eyes widened at the sight of a huge swarm of girls crowding around Yoh's table, forcing gifts into his hands, before running away, screaming and giggling their heads off. He noticed Yoh in the center of it all, smiling rather sheepishly at Lyserg as he tried desperately to mosh into the middle of the crowd, but was knocked in the head by one of the girls who had bought Yoh a chocolate bar the shape and nearly the size of the Eiffel Tower. When he finally made it beside Yoh, he was already sporting bruises and cuts in places he didn't even know he could get bruises and cuts.

" Hello." Lyserg said, sitting on a handmade chair that a girl had give Yoh, which had her face on it encircled with heart shapes. " I thought it was your birthday two days ago."

" Yeah, but I guess some people did their calendars wrongly." Yoh lied.

" How's Anna taking all this?" Lyserg asked.

Yoh pointed in Anna's direction, and Lyserg looked. Anna was not even looking at Yoh, reading a book in her hands, but she was looking noticeably sulky, and her eyes were practically boring holes into the paper, and there was a temples appearing out of the side of her forehead. Lyserg shuddered and looked at Yoh. " Aren't you afraid of what she's going to do to you?" he asked.

" What? I'm not doing anything wrong." Yoh said simply, before accepting a humongous teddy bear that a girl had sent him, which was so big that she had cut it up in six pieces, and requested Yoh to sew it up together once more himself.

" Do that as it may. . ." Lyserg said slowly, but Yoh didn't hear him, as he accepted the singing poem from an embarrassing girl, who jumped out of the window halfway, crying as she forgot the rest of the song.

" Hope she dies." Anna muttered under her breath, crunching up the book in her hands, slamming it onto the ground, and ignoring the many stares she got, walked out the door and slammed it behind her.

The room shuddered at the noise.

Hao smiled to himself in one side.

" Keep going, Yoh. . ." he whispered. " You're doing fine. . ."

Recess had arrived soon enough, and Anna somehow was not surprised when she noticed Yoh sitting with Hao at the recess table, laughing at something that Hao had said. But there was something that made her feel a pang in her heart, and that was that there were seven girls that were surrounding them, two of them rubbing their chests against Yoh's arms coyly. Anger seemed to flare from the deepest of her every being as she just glared at the nine of them. For how long she looked she did not know, but finally Yoh noticed her standing there.

They looked at each other for a long time.

He looked at her.

She looked back.

Then he did the worst thing possible.

He smiled.

Somehow this gesture seemed to seemed to hurt her more than anything Yoh had done this morning and ran off in the opposite direction, eyes filled with tears.

Yoh watched her go, his heart burning with guilt.

Even Hao looked rather reluctant.

" Should I go after her?" Yoh asked doubtfully.

" No." Hao said. " Or else our whole morning would have been in vain. Honestly speaking, I didn't think Anna would crumble so easily. I guess it's because of her period that made her so easy to crack. . .Pirika!" he called out, and the girl turned around. He pointed in the direction that Anna had ran, and did a couple of brisk sign languages, which nobody had the faintest idea what it was, but Pirika seemed to funny understand.

She nodded and ran off.

Hao smiled at leaned back in his chair.

' I If I know Anna well enough,' he thought to himself. ' She would try to make Yoh jealous back, which in turn makes him jealous. She's much better at that game anyway. And that would lead to the final step.'

He took a sip of his drink.

' Confrontation.'

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" Anna?" Pirika asked, slowly stepping into the bathroom that Hao had gestured, expecting to see Anna curled up in a ball and crying. But she saw none of that. Anna was glaring at the glass in the bathroom before her, looking almost angrily at her reflection in the mirror. Anna turned in Pirika's direction, and at that moment Pirika saw what was in Anna's eyes. There were no tears, those might have been wiped away ages ago, but it was stone clad determination. Anna was up to something, and Pirika was aware of that.

" Didi you see him in the recess hall?" Anna asked tightly.

" Well. . ." Pirika said half-heartedly.

" Pirika?" Anna said coldly, and Pirika flinched.

Then she sighed and nodded.

" Yeah." she said. " I did."

" It was disgusting, wasn't it?" she said.

" Well. . ."

" Pirika?" Anna asked again, glaring at her.

Pirika sighed.

" Yes, it was." she said.

" I bet he's feeling smug and happy for making me cry just now." she said, sounding somewhat embarrassed and angry at the same time. " He's trying to make me jealous, isn't he? I'll show him what jealousy would feel like. . .I'll burn a hole in his pathetic little heart."

Anna smirked at Pirika, who was looking at her with a confused expression.

" Not a word to Yoh about this, alright?" she said, smirking.

" Wouldn't dream of it." Pirika said.

And as Anna walked off, Pirika smiled to herself, her arms folded across her chest. " You're such a genius in your own way, you know that, Hao?" she muttered. " Everything is just going according to your plan. . .what could possibly go wrong?"

And at that, there was a distant rumble in the skies for possible downpour, and Pirika might have wondered if that was the Heavens speaking, almost defying what she had previously said.

END CHAPTER 14

Well, this chapter is done! Went through some troubles to get this finished, I can promise you. As you can see, something will go that is not according to Hao's plan. Well, that is to be expected, despite the perfectionist that he is. However, Anna's going in his direction, and this will be done in most likely seven more chapters. Hey, just thought of something. Two straight chapters without ACTION inside it. What did you think of it? Hopefully some of you aren't TOO angry about that, but I'm just building up the feeling towards it until it finally comes. What say you? Lolz. Please look foward to chapter 15, where I sincerely will try to add action inside.

SPOILER: HAO MIGHT HAVE ANOTHER ONE OF HIS " DREAMS" AGAIN