Whe you meet your match

Chapter Three

Tasuki grumbled all the way to the lake where he and Kouji found that god forsaken girl. No girl outside his family has ever treated him like this, largely because he hadn't come near any other girl apart from the ones in his family, but still, he was already a grown up strong man with the power to manipulate fire, he shouldn't be talked that way by any girl!

Tasuli found it strange, he let the girl almost push him around like that. Normally at that type of situation, he would be shouting at the girl until the end of eternity, with flames raging in the background as the girl cowered in fear of his face and voice and then proceeded to worship him and the ground that he walks on from then on.

At least, that would be what's happening in his mind. But the things that happen in your mind often don't happen in the real world anyway.

He went back to the place he and Kouji found Mayumi. The grass still had some blood stains in them and there were flies nearby. He moved away, all the way across the other side of the lake and sat there to grumble some more.

He wondered what would happen if they decided to leave the girl. There would be no witty remarks today for instance, but then he thought that the guilt of leaving someone dying there would probably eat him up and he would feel even more guilty after returning to find that she's dead. He would never be able to live it down.

Keeping her alive meant that there would be an extra mouth to feed, and her wounds to tend to. He saw those wounds, they were not pretty and would leave a lasting scar to her thighs. Pity, he thought that she had very sexy thighs too...

Tasuki shook his head and forced the thought of Mayumi's thighs out of his mind. Why was he thinking about those anyway? She's just a girl, like she's of any importance. What he should really be thinking about is the money that she's got, now that could take him places.

He was thinking about the many ways that he could take the money away from Mayumi when he heard rustling behind him. He held his giant fan beside him and stood, ready for any attack. He was about to attack, when -

"Peace!" a feminine voice cried and shoved in his face was a hand with two of the fingers up, holding the peace sign. It was so close to his face that he was starting to get cross-eyed.

Mayumi held her hand down and she smiled prettily at him. Tasuki looked at her, and thought that she looked unusually cheerful. "Hi, Tasuki!" she greeted very very cheerfully, as if she forgot the fact that he wanted to rip her to pieces an hour ago.

"Hn." he said, not questioning it and instead looked out into the lake. "Is anyone with you?"

Mayumi sat down next to him and shook her head, her black hair bouncing after her. "Nope," she said, "just me. Kouji wanted to come with me, but I told him I'd find my way here, eventually." She smiled again.

"You got lost?"

"Nope," she said, rather proudly. "I'm quite surprised myself. I really thought that it'll take a while for me to get here and thought that once I do, you'd be gone, but surprise, surprise."

She smiled again.

Tasuki raised an eyebrow at her. "You like smiling a lot, don't you?"

"I guess so," she said, "one of the guys gave me this medicine because I said that my leg hurts and they told me to take it and after that I'm all happy and the pain's gone."

"Those no good sons of a jackal," grumbled Tasuki darkly, "they drugged you."

"But I'm happy," cried Mayumi, leaning on Tasuki's shoulder. Tasuki resisted the urge to peel himself away from her, "I couldn't have been drugged, I feel fine."

Tasuki grumbled again. "Those frigging idiots," he said, "how's your leg?"

"It doesn't hurt anymore, I told you," she said, "thanks to those wonderful medicine!"

Tasuki looked at Mayumi. She had a lopsided grin and her eyes were looking at him though they were unfocused. She was swaying to and fro and Tasuki had to hold her to make her stop falling.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Dizzy," she said, blinking a few times, "but I came here for a reason."

Tasuki looked at her again. "And what's that?"

"I came here because I want you to know that I appreciate the rescue," she said, "I think I would've died if you didn't find me."

Tasuki smirked. "I know that you would've died if I didn't find you."

Mayumi nodded and smiled again. "Right," she said, "and as a thank you, I want you to have that money bag that I have in the tent. I even had a very weird dream about that money bag, someone was trying to pry it off my hands a little while ago..."

Tasuki smirked and looked at the lake. Wow, so taking that money was easier than he originally thought. "So you're sure that I can have it?"

Mayumi nodded. "Absolutely," she said. "But don't take my necklace away, it's very special."

Tasuki looked at the necklace. It had a pendant of a man's name in it: Akira. "Boyfriend?" he asked, quite stiffly as he glared at the pendant.

"No," she said, "he's my brother, he died a long time ago, just before he gave me this. He had his own necklace with my name on it, but I don't know where he kept it."

Tasuki thought that hearing Mayumi's story would be very interesting, but this was not the time. "Is that all you have to say?"

"No," said Mayumi, grinning. "I think you're very pretty."

Tasuki sat in stunned silence.

"If you were a girl you'd be very pretty."

He couldn't move.

"But even if you're still a guy you're still very pretty."

He just couldn't do it.

And before he knew it, Mayumi had collapsed into his arms, and was fast asleep.

It took about an hour for Tasuki to get over the fact that a girl thinks of him as pretty. He was raging inside. Why could it not have been handsome? Or even good looking? Why pretty? Of all the words that can be used to describe what she thinks of his face, why the hell did she choose pretty?

Mayumi was pretty, that much he had accepted, but how can she think that he was? True, he wasn't bad looking if he does say so himself, but why use that word? He glared at Mayumi, who was sleeping soundly in his lap, without so much care as to what he was thinking of inside.

"Arg, why am I letting this girl get to me like this? She's just a stupid girl!" But try as he might, he couldn't bring himself to remove her head from his laugh. He actually succeeded once, only to feel guilty and let her rest in his lap again.

It was well after sunset and the stars have been illuminating the earth for quite some time, when Tasuki decided to carry a soundly sleeping Mayumi back into the camp. When he got back there, he hunted down whoever thought it was a good idea to drug the girl.