Chapter
Fourteen:
"Yo,
pretty ladies around the world, got a weird thing to show you, so
tell all the boys and girls…!"
Eve slowly descended, lowering the two of them onto a patch of grass. She panted as soon as she landed, apparently still unaccustomed to flying with another person. Fuko gave her a smirk.
"What, am I too fat?" She joked. Eve glared and wheezed,
"You'renotfat. " It came out more or less as one word due to lack of oxygen.
"Whatever you say." Fuko replied with a shrug as the members of Team Urameshi came speeding at them.
"Are you okay??" Yusuke inquired, in overly-protective-older-brother-mode.
"Yeahyeah I'm all good. Eve saved me." Fuko jerked her head at her companion.
"Oh that's—wait. You know this Acadian?" Yusuke asked, raising an ebony eyebrow.
"Yupperz." Fuko said.
"Damn straight. We were roomies." Eve added, oxygen deprivation now worn off.
"'Roomies'?" Kurama asked, he too raised an eyebrow. Eve turned to him and immediately gaped. She turned to Fuko.
"Is that Kurama?" She demanded.
"What? How does she know my name?" Kurama asked, unnerved.
"Fuko told me. So tell me. Is that him??" She repeated, rather appearing like an excited blond puppy. Granted, a puppy with wings, but still a puppy nonetheless. Kurama turned to Fuko with a smirk that plainly stated, "Do tell". Fuko grit her teeth.
"YES
EVE. That is him."
"DAMN! You never said he was THAT hot…."
Eve whispered excitedly to her.
"Eve—"
"I mean I gathered but jeeze…."
"Eve—"
"Hey,
for the time that you keep being in denial about being crazy-in-love
with him, can I date him?"
"EVE!" Fuko shouted, bright red.
"Yeah?"
"HE CAN HEAR EVERY DAMN THING YOU ARE SAYING!!" Fuko exclaimed, completely turned a shade of red yet to be properly named by artists. Eve blinked.
"Really?" She asked. She turned to Kurama who was laughing quietly. But, being the cool calm and collected Kurama, he may as well have been guffawing as loud as he could possibly could.
"LET'S. GO. HOME." Fuko told the others through grit teeth. Yusuke, confused, nodded and told Botan to open a portal. Kuwabara was on the same bewildered wavelength as Yusuke, but Hiei seemed moodier than he had been. Eve looked at Fuko.
"Sorry." She whispered sincerely.
"I know you are poppet." Fuko sighed and patted her friend's head as a large swirling vortex opened. Eve twitched.
"Jeeze Fuko, I know you were irked at me but you don't have to throw me into an alternate dimension." She half-joked. Fuko laughed.
"Come on." She linked arms with her newly regained compatriot, and the two strode into the wormhole before everyone else.
◊†◊
The two reunited friends waited together in Fuko's room. Eve was still (just a bit neurotically) apologetic for her earlier words. Eve could seem obnoxious sometimes, but she never meant harm, and if she ever did any by accident, she was always desperate to remedy it.
"I
really didn't know he could hear me. She reiterated.
"EVE.
Chill. I know." Fuko told her once again. Eve suddenly halted.
"…Whoa. Cool ears." Fuko looked at her dumbly.
"Are you serious? Like you JUST noticed?" She asked incredulously. Eve shrugged.
"I was busy drooling over those guys…and then apologizing…so now with both out of the way, I'm free to notice whatever I'd like to…and I LOVE those ears!" She squealed, grabbing hold of Fuko's fuzzy, recently acquired, fox ears and fiddling with them. Fuko twitched.
"Must you?"
"Yes, I'm afraid I must." Fuko sighed in reply to this predictable response.
"So are you gonna' explain all this to me sooner or later…? Emphasis on the sooner?" Eve inquired, continuing to fiddle with the pointed yellow ears.
"Ah yeah…I'm guessing my lovely team mates are currently in favor of later." Fuko told her. Eve nodded, still tweaking her ears. She stopped abruptly.
"That's it." She said suddenly.
"What's what?" Fuko ever-so-eloquently replied.
"THAT is it. I'm going to put you and that hot redhead together."
"WHAT? WHY?!" Fuko shouted, bright red.
"BECAUSE. It's my way of apologizing for before."
"YOU ALREADY APOLOGIZED!! AND WHAT DO YOU INTEND ON DOING, MORTIFYING ME FURTHER?!"
"Yes. Wait. No."
"WHICH IS IT!?"
"The last one. It's obvious you two have great chemistry."
"Great chemistry. Coming from the girl who thought throwing a massive chunk of sodium into a lake was great chemistry."
"I stand by my reasoning, and I'm sure those fish recovered." Fuko threw her hands into the air with an animalistic growl of irritation.
"So…I'd say he's a ten." Eve stated. Fuko blinked.
"What?"
"On a scale from one to ten…you wouldn't do it, what with him being your 'arch-foe' or whatever, so I'm going to." Fuko twitched.
"Why is it that you never know when to STOP!? I mean if I was a less tolerant person, you'd easily have lost two or three limbs by now." She hissed.
"What am I saying? He's WAY past a ten. Twenty maybe?"
"Are you listening to a word I am saying??"
"Huh?"
"…Never mind." Fuko groaned, defeated.
"Just trust me…" Eve said with a peace sign. Fuko twitched, mentally cursing her friend's one-track-mind to the deepest depths of hell. You know. The depths reserved for Bush and people who eat KFC (the ones who are fully aware of the torture that the chickens go through, and eat it anyway).
"I need music." She muttered.
"Who's stopping you?" Eve pointed out with an infuriating wink. Sighing again with annoyance, Fuko waltzed over to her speaker and threw in another random mix.
"Whatcha' in the mood for?" She asked her friend.
"Eh…I'm good for whatever. I missed you being the DJ." Eve replied. Fuko randomly hit buttons, thinking.
"Ah. We need good music….for an explanation…and so loud and obnoxious I can still bother everyone in Team Urameshi."
"Everyone?" Eve smirked.
"EVERYONE." Fuko reiterated sharply, slamming the play button so hard, a small triangle shape was printed on her fingertip. The lyrics of Korn's "Word Up" filled the room.
"Yo,
pretty ladies around the world:
Gotta a weird thing to show
you,
So tell all the boys and girls."
Eve turned to her friend.
"Pray tell, what does this have to do with explanations?"
"Well it says 'Gotta weird thing to show you so tell all the boys and girls'…" Fuko pointed out.
"That's kinda cheap…" Eve noted.
"Well can YOU do better in terms of finding a song about 'explaining' outside of 'The Sun Is A Mass Of Incandescent Gas'?" Fuko retorted, naming one of her favorite They Might Be Giants songs. "Word Up" hit the best part; right before the chorus. Eve grinned and danced around in time with the lyrics. Fuko laughed and joined her, cranking the volume to max. A volume at which, deafness was a most definite possibility. The two sang in tandem;
""Wave
your hands in the air like you don't care!
Glide by the people
as they start to look and stare
Do your dance! Do your dance!
Do
your dance quick, mom…"
The door was slammed open by Yusuke.
"COULD YOU TURN THAT DOWN!?" He shouted.
"SORRY!" Fuko yelled back.
"CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Eve hollered. The two girls threw their heads back and laughed maniacally. Yusuke glared and then slunk off, beaten. The girls assumed it was to lick his wounds, but he then returned with reinforcements. Kurama and Hiei.
"WE'RE GOING DEAF OVER HERE!" Kurama yelled at them, hands clamped firmly over his ears.
"I'M WARNING YOU FUKO TURN THAT DOWN!" Yusuke shouted. Fuko and Eve continued to dance and sing. Kurama turned toward Hiei and nodded. Faster than you could blink or say "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" (not that it's easy to say that quickly, even if his name is your name too). Hiei whipped out his katana, raced across the room and, again, faster than a flicker, sliced the stereo in to. Fuko blinked and stared at the sacrilegious carnage that was her broken sound system.
"Fuko…? Sweetie?" Eve asked very gently, placing a hand on her shoulder, but to no avail. Fuko continued to stare at the melancholy pile of circuits and wires.
"Fuko…it was just a CD player…" Yusuke stated. Eve winced.
"That…was NOT a smart thing to say." She told him, taking a few steps away from Fuko, who seemed to be emitting an aura strong enough to strangle a puppy (not that anyone would want to kill a puppy). Fuko turned around with an expression so very demonic, it was a miracle that "One Winged Angel" didn't begin to blare with a flaming background.
"Oh..um…kay…F-Fuko? We'll g-get you a n-n-new CD player…" Yusuke stammered, hands up in an attempted gesture of peace. It was a futile effort, though, seeing as she began to approach the three of them with a murderous fire blazing in her gold eyes.
"You killed the music." She hissed in a tone icier than the frigid north.
"Um…technically Hiei did it." Yusuke managed to choke out and point. Hiei glared at him, though even he was beginning to seem freaked out.
"DIE!" She shrieked, running after him. Yusuke yelped, grabbed Hiei's arm and raced out the door quicker than a bat out of hell, or a vegetarian out of a Mc' Donald's. Fuko gave a shrill sort of war-cry and raced out after them. Eve turned to Kurama.
"So…seeing as you're the only guy left here, I'm guessing you're going to explain what exactly is going on?" Kurama sighed as multiple explosions were heard resonating throughout the background.
"Have a seat."
†◊†
Eve pushed a few locks of her golden hair behind her ears, eyes solemn as she tried to piece together all that Kurama had told her.
"So…you're saying that I'm something called an Acadian."
"That is correct."
"…And you're a fox demon."
"Also correct."
"…And Fuko is a half-demon."
"Yes."
"…And…she was an …evil half demon?" That was the part she couldn't quite encompass in its entirety.
"…" Kurama was silent for a moment before saying rather quietly,
"Yes." At that moment, there were footsteps heard, and the door was opened. An exhausted-looking Fuko panted and trudged in, some red stains on her hands that indicated either that she was successful in her ventures, or she had beaten the crap out of a ketchup bottle.
"I got 'em." She gasped, collapsing onto her bed.
"So I can tell." Kurama remarked, eyeing her blood-stained hands, and wondering vaguely if the wounds they had inflicted were fatal. Eve looked at Fuko rather sadly. Fuko, now noticing that she was being watched, sat up and met her friend's eyes.
"What is it?" She asked. Eve gave her a disappointed look and shook her head.
"You lied to me." She said. Fuko blinked. What was she talking about…? Then it suddenly hit her like a ton of bricks. Eve had found out about the real work Fuko had been doing for Karasu.
"Eve, let me explain—"
"You know Fuko, I think you could have 'explained' on quite a few occasions now." Eve cut her off, getting to her feet. She bowed her head to Kurama in respect and left the room. Fuko turned to Kurama, immediately piecing together what had happened.
"You told her?!" She exclaimed incredulously.
"I'm sorry Fuko but I had to…"
"You TOLD her!?" Her voice rose to a shriek.
"Fuko listen I—" Kurama tried desperately to get her attention. But at this point, Fuko was sick to high-hell of her day, and not in the mood to hear anymore. She slapped him, the sound ringing around her silent room, more distinct and prominent than a car alarm at two in the morning. He blinked, shocked beyond words.
"You had no business telling her that! I was going to tell her that! But you just had to, didn't you!? Why? Because you just can't pass up any opportunity you get to ruin my life, can't you?! Let's take her away from her friends! Let's make her a half-breed-freak! Let's take away her music! Let's drive away her closest friend! Well up yours asshole! I've had more than enough of you!" She panted, now finished with her long, all-too-audible, ramble, this too, seemed to place him in a state of surprise that was so intense, he couldn't seem to open his mouth to defend himself against her harsh accusations. Fuko whirled around and left, even though it was her room. She needed music, a walk, and to convince her friend that she wasn't some cruel sadistic villainess. She came to the conclusion that, all in all;
"Today sucks."
◊†◊