Written: Finished 1/13/2012.

Rating: T for mild language.

Notes: Yeah, it's a Christmas story, and it's a few weeks late. You're not my English professor. Sue me. ;) I will try to have the second part finished a little quicker. Enjoy!

Restless Spirits

Kiss #34

All along the walls of the cozy living room ran twin strands of green and red garland. Beneath them, frosty windows peered out onto a front lawn piled high with fresh snow. Like a pair of honor guards, a food-laden dining table and roaring fireplace flanked the Christmas tree.

Yoh stood in the center of the room. He was close enough to see his distorted reflection peering back at him from the red bulbs on the tree. He could have knelt before the tree, picked up one of the many gifts, and given it a curious shake. He could have sliced himself some glazed ham or snuck a peek into one of the stockings hanging from the hooks above the fireplace.

Instead, he blinked.

Everything vanished.

"Hmph. Great to see you hard at work as usual, Yoh."

Yoh leapt straight into the air. It was almost as if Anna's chilling voice had coalesced into an icicle and pricked him right in the rear.

"Anna! I was just daydreaming – "

"What else is new?" She slowly sauntered across the room, passing the bare bit of wall where Yoh's imaginary fireplace had been. She stepped through the nonexistent Christmas tree stand and stack of presents. She rested her elbows upon the empty kitchen table. Placing her chin atop both her palms, she leaned her torso forward toward Yoh. She was wearing a curious, almost guilty expression.

It was about then that Yoh took note of her manner of dress. The snappy black get-up that was practically her exoskeleton was nowhere to be seen. In its place was a set of priest's robes. Plain and woven of a coarse brown fiber, they would be winning no fashion or comfort awards anytime soon.

Yoh covered up his confusion by making an irreverent observation. "Anna, I'm sorry to say, but even if you catch the express train, you're still going to be late for that Halloween party."

"Ugh. A party isn't in my immediate future, Yoh. Unless you count the bons mots I'm sure I'll be exchanging with the restless spirits at the hospital."

Comprehension began to register in Yoh's eyes. "Oh, exorcising some spirits? Why aren't you making me do it?" He hadn't meant to say it at all, much less in the tone he used, but it just kind of slipped out.

"You're right, Yoh. In fact, since you so obviously could use the practice, volunteering you for this job was my first instinct." She unslung her bo staff from behind her back and began rolling it to and fro on the kitchen table. "Unfortunately, this job is best suited to an itako." Seeing Yoh nod in response, Anna saw fit to continue, "Don't you worry, slacker. There will be plenty of jobs to do once I return."

Yoh pouted inwardly – he knew that when Anna had to do work that Yoh was incapable of, it didn't improve her mood at all. He bit down his dread and instead asked, "When will you return, then? How long will you be?"

"Three days or so," Anna said. The words tumbled out one on top of another.

There was no calendar in the room, but Yoh still knew that meant she would be away tomorrow – Christmas Eve – and the day after …

"Before you ask," Anna broke in, the glint of her eyes daring Yoh to interrupt, "yes, I absolutely do need to be away this time of year. Unless, of course, you want a whole ward of tormented patients on your conscience."

Yoh just grimaced. He didn't see any point in arguing, or indeed anything to argue against. If Anna was needed on Christmas Day, then she was needed on Christmas Day. She was, he had to remind himself one more time, possibly even more powerful than he in many ways, and the holiday season does have its ways of aggrieving spirits that, on normal days, would be content with simply chewing the scenery.

He understood. That didn't mean he liked it.

She could sense his wordless resentment. She took up the staff and tottered towards the front door. Yoh continued to stare at where she had just been. At the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of brown hesitate in mid-stride. Anna was slowly giving Yoh a once-over that lingered upon his face. Awkwardly she moved closer to him, patted his shoulder absently, and stuttered, "You…I'll see you later."

He blinked.

She vanished.

For a time Yoh tried to sort everything out by sitting in front of the television. Watching other people's problems unfold in the illuminated rectangle before the couch kept him distracted, but after a while, he came to envy the world of the sitcom character, where any dilemmas were neatly wrapped up within the half-hour block. Yoh glanced at the clock and wondered how many half-hours he would have to wait alone for Anna to return.

After all the pumped-in laugh tracks and clichéd dialogue, Yoh heard something distinctly different. Someone was rapping on the door.

Anna! he thought as he scurried to the door. He slid it open –

"Rather excited to see me this evening, aren't you?"

That sophisticated, calculating voice could have come from Anna, but it was not her cold eyes he was now staring into.

"Ren!" Yoh did his best to conceal his disappointment. "What are you doing here?"

Ren didn't wait for Yoh to invite him in. "Your fiancée, it seems, sees fit to force me into the role of babysitter."

"So she told you before she told me?" Yoh would have been more incredulous, but he knew better than to be too surprised by Anna's seeming indifference towards him.

"She more than told. She coerced." It took a lot for Ren to display any discomfort, but his sour facial expression spoke volumes. "Anyway, I brought some things to pass the time."

The pair sat face-to-face at the kitchen table. Ren began to pick the black chess pieces out of his backpack while Yoh placed his white pieces on the board.

"I have to tell you, Ren, and don't take this the wrong way, but if someone told me six months ago that I'd be playing board games while my fiancée is away for Christmas … Ah hell, I would've believed it." He thrust one of his pawns forward in exasperation.

"I don't suppose Anna is the festive type, huh?" One of Ren's knights hopped over his wall of pawns. "Such a shame, too. An inn like this seems like a perfect place to host a Christmas party."

"I can't remember the last time I've seen so much as a shred of wrapping paper in this house. But it's all right, I guess."

"All right? I know firsthand that being alone is drudgery. But at what point is the price of company no longer worth it? Christmas, after all, is a pretty big deal."

"You know, I used to think about it a lot," Yoh admitted as Ren ate one of his pawns. "Always wondered what it was like to wake up bright and early on Christmas morning, rush downstairs to find that Santa had left a big pile of presents under the tree. But over the years I guess I just kind of got to take it for granted. It just isn't going to be a part of my life, and that's okay."

Ren captured another of Yoh's pawns. "When you put it that way, it doesn't seem so grievous."

"Still," he sighed, attempting to launch a counterattack with his bishop, "even if I don't care about the presents and decorations and whatnot, how am I supposed to feel about this? You can hate the gift-giving and fake cheer and stuff, but in the end, can you ignore the day itself? Isn't it, you know, bad, to spend Christmas alone, especially when you're engaged?"

"Check. I mean, that's the thing," Ren replied as his rook swung down to menace Yoh's king. "She has a reason to be away this Christmas, but damned if the timing of the thing doesn't seem just a little too serendipitous."

Yoh hesitated with his fingers hovering over his king. "In words that I'd understand, please?"

"I'm just saying that depending on how you choose to look at it, the fact that this exorcism just so happens to fall on Christmas is either just terrible luck…"

Ren's queen swooped across the board. Yoh's king was in his death throes.

"Or it happened that way because she wanted it to." Yoh tipped his king over in surrender. "And if she did, you have to ask yourself why."

"Right now I'm asking myself why I agreed to chess. I suck at this."

"I'm no grandmaster myself," the Chinese boy conceded, "nor do I devote any special time to this game. It is simply an extension of my personality. I am suspicious of the other player's motives and intentions, both behind the pieces and in real life. I try to scry into the future, to anticipate any hint of an ill-conceived attack or weakness that may present itself for my exploitation. I may not do so with perfect accuracy, but, as you have just witnessed," he concluded loftily, waving an airy hand over Yoh's fallen king, "it works well enough most of the time."

"Indeed," Yoh said, for lack of a better reply. "So, you have any, I dunno, cards or something?"

"I give you priceless insights into the vagaries of the human mind, and you ask if I have cards?" Yoh couldn't tell if Ren was sincerely incredulous or just overreacting. "As a matter of fact, I do," he continued, rooting through his backpack, "but first, let's go deeper."

"My pal Ren, the armchair psychologist," Yoh laughed. "I almost miss the days when all you tried to do was kill me."

"Is that so? We could do that again, for old time's sake. But let us return to the chess analogy for now. What do you suppose is the reason behind Anna's last move? What should your next move be?"

As Yoh pondered his response, he picked up a bishop and began twirling it between his fingers. "What can my next move be? She…" Yoh sighed and rolled his eyes. "Since you love the chess analogy so much, you could say that, in more ways than one, she 'keeps me in check.'" Ren actually smiled at the lame pun. "This is just the latest in a laundry list of things she's done that I don't like. All I can really do is move out of the way."

"Or…" Ren gripped both sides of the chessboard with his palms and leaned forward until Yoh could count his eyelashes had he wanted to. "…You plan an attack of your own."

Yoh put the bishop down. His imagination easily gave it a face framed by a fiery bandana and swatches of blond hair. He tried to imagine himself, the king, marshaling an army of resistance to give her a taste of her own medicine.

He just couldn't see it happening.

He did see, however, Ren gradually slink back to his seat. He was favoring his friend with a questioning look, one that only intensified the longer Yoh remained silent.

"It's all right," he said at last. A smile came to his lips, and to his surprise he didn't have to force it. "Christmas is best spent with friends and family. I guess if I can't have both, one out of two ain't bad."

Ren studied the woodgrain pattern of the chessboard intently. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed the words he was about to speak. "Jesus, Yoh," he said, still refusing to look at him, "what am I supposed to say to that?"

"Nothing, I guess." He nodded in the direction of the pack of cards. "Just shuffle up and deal."

Ren finally looked up into Yoh's eyes. Something in them was contagious. He gave what passed for a smile on his face and began to shuffle the cards. "Yoh, I don't know how you manage to deal" - he looked down at the cards – "pun intended, I suppose."

"Nothing new to me, Ren. I just play the cards I'm dealt."

"Yoh?"

"What's up?"

"If you make one more pun involving the games we're playing, I'm going to take every last pawn and shove each one up – "

"Loud and clear."

Ren's calculating arrogance may have been intimidating in the midst of battle against other shamans, but in poker against someone as unflappable as Yoh, it didn't do much. Yoh was enjoying the game, and it showed on his expression. It blotted out any exasperation that might otherwise have surfaced as the result of a poor hand. After losing all his chips for a third time, Ren called it a night.

Yoh's toothbrush was halfway into his mouth when he realized Ren was standing right behind him. "Oh, Ren! Are you staying the night? I assumed you had better things to do."

"What else would I be doing? Going to Vegas? You just showed me that would be a good way to go broke."

Yoh grinned. He couldn't deny that it felt good to win after the chess humiliation. "Stay here, then. You can sleep in my room."

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

Ren rolled his eyes. "Where do you plan on sleeping?"

"Um," Yoh grunted as a rivulet of toothpaste lather wended its way down his chin. "Is that a trick question?"
"No, of…of course not," Ren replied after a second of hesitation. "Of course we can share the room."

Yoh found a frankly embarrassing futon in the linen closet. He tried to convince himself that it was printed with a yellow and brown paisley pattern, and not simply stained by years of various bodily emissions poorly cleaned up, but in the end he decided to let Ren sleep in his instead.

He snickered when he saw it. "I like the print on it," he remarked, pantomiming the act of taking a hit from a joint.

"Those are maple leaves, not weed!" Yoh shook his head, but a badly suppressed smile betrayed his denial.

"Whatever helps you rest, Yoh." Ren partook of a great gaping yawn. "Speaking of rest, I'm exhausted. It's quite a walk to your place."

Yoh nodded and hit the lights. For a while they stared into the darkness on the ceiling, exchanging just enough words to keep a conversation alive, until the only thing that broke the silence was Ren's soft snoring. Aided by a shaft of moonlight, Yoh squinted and saw that one of the pillows he had offered Ren was now lying unclaimed beside him. He corralled it in with a clumsy swipe.

Yoh slid the pillow into the futon with him. He embraced it with both arms and it grew warmer. The pillow cover tickled at his nose. He tucked the end of it just under his chin. Now it was Anna's hair bristling his cheek, Anna's face nestled upon his chest, Anna's waist encircled by his arms…

Ren's snoring was soon covered up by a strange, soft drone. No, check that – Yoh was actually talking in his sleep. Before long, the snoring stopped altogether as the speech grew loud enough to rouse Ren from his slumber. He rose slowly, rubbing his temples as he did so.

"What the hell? Yoh, if you're going to steal my pillow and talk in your sleep, at least cover your face with it, so you don't keep me up."

The mumbling continued. He gave his sleeping friend a soft nudge on the shoulder. Nothing happened. He tried it again, putting quite a bit more force behind his push. He might as well have shoved a wall.

"Do you always talk in your sleep? Ugh, no wonder you don't get to share a room with Anna –"

"Anna," Yoh echoed.

The stained futon took flight like a spooked snow owl as Ren kicked it up in surprise. A single speck of white light – the moon – shimmered off of Ren's wide eyes. It hadn't occurred to him that perhaps his speech was more than just inarticulate rambling… "Yoh?"

"Anna," Yoh said. His face looked tranquil in the silvery light. "You're here."

"No, I'm not," Ren said, but even as the words left him he sensed that Yoh couldn't hear them.

"Nice to have you home." Yoh shifted his hands a little higher. The pillow moved with them. "For Christmas."

Something broke within Ren when he heard this. He stopped trying to wake Yoh up and waited for him to continue his monologue.

"I missed you." Yoh's speech was crisp and clear now. If Ren couldn't see his shut eyes, he would have sworn he was wide awake.

"Oh, that's okay." Ren wondered what it was. "I got one for you this year."

For a moment Ren thought Yoh was going to full-on sleepwalk and act out the rest of his dream on the moonlit stage that was his room, but Yoh was simply shifting the pillow again. It was smothering his face now.

"We can share it." Ren struggled to hear the muffled words through the stuffing of the pillow. "If you like."

Ren's curiosity was really piqued now. He eagerly waited for another clue to figure out just what it was Yoh was offering to share for Christmas. He felt patently absurd, staring as hard as he was at a dark, sleeping figure whose face was obscured by a pillow.

Then he saw Yoh's hands scurry out from the futon and take up a position near the top of the pillow. He wasn't sure, but he thought he heard a wet popping noise, like opening a new jar of jam.

The hands began to explore the pillow cover. Ren heard it again, for sure this time. He thought for a second – and then he blushed.

"Oh God, Yoh, are you making out with your pillow?" He watched for a few more seconds, as if needing to confirm his hunch, though the now rapid smacking noises made it obvious. He averted his eyes. He considered leaving the room. Instead he walked to the window. From behind him the smacking continued.

Ren didn't know what to think. He knew that, for the moment at least, Yoh was happy, but he knew it would be a temporary joy. The morning would come. He would blink. And she would vanish.

He felt lonely, but a single glance at Yoh told him that, if anything, they both were – Yoh perhaps even more so. Every smooch he heard Yoh giving his pillow was a kiss, Ren knew, that Anna had not allowed to be placed upon her lips, and had to end up somewhere. And now she wasn't even here at all…

Ren peered through the glass pane. His sense of direction was uncanny, but Funbari Hospital was quite a ways away. Still he squinted in the general direction. He thought he saw it – a tall, nondescript building with all the lights still on – and imagined Anna inside, waving her beads and staff around, banishing restless spirits.

But wasn't Yoh, in his own way, a restless spirit too, driven crazy from an unrequited love? Didn't he deserve Anna's attention? Shouldn't Anna be at least a little concerned that for every exorcism she was performing away from home, she was also exorcising away another page from the book of memories they shared?

Ren sighed. Since when am I the deep thinker? "Yoh, for both our sakes, I hope dreams do come true sometimes."

To be concluded in Kiss #35