(A/N: Hey all! Sorry this took so long! My work schedule is such a bitch! At anyrate, enjoy!)
"Aaaaaaaaawnn-nah…" Yoru yawned loudly as she stumbled sleepily down the stairs, "…need caffeine…chocolaty-chippy waffley goodness."
She lurched into the kitchen and open the pantry, only to find to her horror –
"No…iced tea mix?" Yoru whimpered, on the verge of crying, "And we're out of chocolate chips? NOOOOOOO!"
To show her annoyance of being denied her sweet, chocolaty goodness and energy-instilling caffeine, she kicked the corner of the pantry a wee bit harder than necessary and, as a result, wound up on the floor, hissing and spitting like a territorial tom cat.
"ShitshitSHIT that was stupid." Yoru moaned tearfully, holding her injured foot in her hands and rocking back and forth on the cold, hard tile floor, "Gawd, why am I always such a 'tard first thing?"
Forcing herself to look at the injury, Yoru was very relieved to see that there was no blood (still hurt like hell tho')
"Can't believe I have to go to the store this early." She grumbled, clamoring to her feet, wincing a little as she applied a bit of weight to her wounded foot, "Just to the convenience store. No way I'm doing the big trip at six in the morning on a Sunday."
Yoru tugged a coat on over her PJ's, slipped on a pair of Keds and trudged out the door and into the crisp morning air, breath catching in her throat at the sudden blast of cold.
"Nestea, chocolate chips, Nestea, chocolate chips." She chanted aloud, making an early morning jogger shoot a weirded-out look her way, the kind that says, 'Is she high or something?'
Ignoring the look, Yoru continued on her set path to the convenience store, driven by her caffeine addiction, reached the two block marker in record time, relishing the sound of the automatic doors opening as a small victory.
"I'm lucky that baking goods and drink mixes are only an aisle apart." She grinned, reaching for a basket.
Yoru lifted the basket upwards and went to walk towards the two aisles of 'Joy and Happiness', but found she wasn't moving forwards though her feet were and found reason why relatively quickly.
She was being anchored firmly in place by another hand that had reached for the same basket. And that hand belonged to someone she knew and loathed.
"As if this day wasn't already going to hell in a hand basket." She snarled, releasing her grip on the grocery basket.
Yaminade Aoshi, Yoru's estranged father, blinked at the seventeen year old without any sense of recognition as she stomped off to collect her two items.
"You're going to do what?" Touya murmured icily, tapering his already narrow eyes into slits, "Do you mind repeating that, Suzuki?"
"I said, were going to have the ningen girl baby-sit you." Suzuki said with a knowing smile, "While she's watching you, we want to see if now that she knows you aren't all you appear to be if she treats you like she does all other males, or as she did before – like a child."
"So I am just supposed to play the part of a agreeable participant in this experiment of yours?" Touya asked blandly, arms folded across his chest, "I fail to see how this would benefit me in any way. I do believe I will abstain from this daft idea of yours."
"Aw, c'mon Icy." Jin said cheerfully, cuffing Touya around the neck and giving him an overly aggressive noogie, "Whuh cood it hur'?"
"Just indulge our curiosity Touya." Shishiwakamaru said absently, checking his appearance in a spoon as the miniaturized Juhyou Tsukai shot a frigid glance his way, "I'm sure I'm not the only one who wonders if this is a deep seated grudge or pedophilia."
"Did you just call th' lil Sheila a child-lover boya?" Chuu asked dangerously, sending a threatening smile Shishi's way, "All ah can say is, you're already on thin ice, nu oun intended, there Toy…s' don't push it, Featha Head."
"Just think of it this way Touya – it's the fastest way to shut us up." Yusuke said sheepishly, "And do you really wanna hafta suffer anymore than ya already have?"
The answer to that one was obvious in Touya's mind: No.
"…I suppose there is no way out of this short of my shortly impending suicide?" Touya asked, annoyance seeping into his voice.
"It's looking that way." Keiko sighed tiredly, giving his shoulder a sympathetic pat.
"O-kaaaaaayee." Yoru sighed, pushing her syrup soaked plate away from herself, "Much happier now. It's amazing what a few pounds of sugar will do."
She rose to her feet, clearing her dishes as she did so, contented smile on her face.
"It can quiet screaming children." Yoru ticked off as she crossed the kitchen, "It can end domestic disputes, it can-"
-SWEET LITTLE BUMBLEBEE-
-I KNOW WHAT YOU WANT FROM ME-
-DOODOODOODOODOODADA-
-DOODOODOODOODOODADA-
Yoru hurled the syrup covered plated she held into the air at the sheer volume of her cell (she had used it as an alarm that morning; forgot to lower the volume), scrambling to both answer it and stop the dish from obeying Murphy's law which it did, landing syrup side down on her lap.
"…send you spiraling into blinding rage." She quivered in just barely contained frustration at her own spazmodium as she answered the polyphonic ringtone she had set for Yukimura Keiko's home phone.
"Hey. Is this a bad time?" a very perceptive Keiko asked carefully, practically feeling Yoru's white-hot rage seep through the receiver to singe her earlobe
"Oh…no…what is it Keiko-chan?" came the reply through obviously gritted teeth, making Keiko inhale sharply to restrain the peal laughter that wanted to break free.
"Um, I just wanted to know if you were free to baby-sit, that's all." She said calmly, twisting a strand of dark brown hair around her fingertip.
"Eh? Who do you want me to watch?" came Yoru's confused reply, "You don't have any siblings, and that youkai child has the mentality of an old man. He can handle himself."
"Actually, I do want you to watch Touya-san." Keiko said tentatively, "You see, we're trying to see if we can find some way to return him to normal."
"Yeeeeeahh…and?" Yoru pressed, sounding slightly annoyed. Keiko knew why; Keiko knew the teen was probably thinking, 'why don't you let him alone? He's fine as he is! Don't ruin him by turning him into a…a MAN!'
"You see, Yoru-kun, this is Touya-san's first time in the Ningenkai." Keiko pressed, deciding to prod at the teen's sense of responsibility, "And, at the moment, he is locked in battle with his child persona. He's mentally unstable so-"
"I getcha, I getcha." Yoru sighed over the phone, sounding defeated, "You want to make sure he doesn't get, oh say, kidnapped by some little boy lovin' pervert or hit by a car whilst your doing your research…is that it?"
"Exactly." Keiko replied, knowing she was victorious, "So will you so it Yoru-kun?"
"Just bring him over whenever you're gonna go do whatever it is you're gonna do." The teen replied irritably, hanging up quickly as Keiko pumped her fist in triumph.
"This…is beyond gross…YEEWW!" Yoru groaned as she peeled the syrupy plate off her thighs, "Gero-gero! Too disgusting!"
She tossed the sticky thing into the sink like a frisbee and stormed towards the stairs, muttering to herself.
-MAJIKARU MAJIKARU NAASU-
-kodou wa DOKIDOKI-
-choushinki ga nakute mo kikoeru deshou?-
-MAJIKARU MAJIKARU NAASU-
"Oh no, not today!" Yoru cried, recognizing the ringtone she had designated for Sakuranbo Daycare Center, "They can't call me in toDAY!"
But a short conversation with her supervisor proved her wrong and hanging up, she knew she would be dragging the youkai child with her to work with her.
"This just isn't my day…week…whatever." She mumbled, returning the cell to it's vibrate setting as she stalked into the bathroom and stripped out of her ruined skirt and top to shower off the gluey mess.
"Is there no where it didn't get into?" she asked herself disgustedly, scrubbing down her legs and stomach irritably with a loofa and soap, doing her best to avoid her boy-short underwear.
Of course, her current run of luck holding steady, Yoru leaned too far forward and, overcompensating by leaning too far back, she slipped off the edge of the tub, cracking her tailbone on the floor.
"Ah, god-DAMMIT!" she cried, hand her lower back as she collapsed in dry sobs, "What else? What ELSE are you gonna hurl my way, Kami-sama?"
Hissing as she pushed herself to her feet, slightly thankful that she had at least had the foresight to drape her clothes on the toilet, Yoru left the bathroom and went to her bedroom to change.
She had just tugged a t-shirt over her head when the door bell rang.
"Crap!" Yoru yelped, snatching up a clean skirt and knee-socks, hopping into the former as she dashed down the stairs two at a time, "Keiko, learn to not be so damn efficient, wouldya? You're making me look bad!"
She reached the bottom of the stairway and hit the wall roughly as she began doing the 'Putting-On-My-Socks-Dance' before answering the door, very red in the face and sweaty.
"…are you okay?" Yusuke (yes, it's NOT Keiko) asked, raising an eyebrow at his childhood friend who currently stood gasping for air in doorway, clutching the frame for support.
"Don't patronize me, Yusuke-chan." Yoru wheezed, mustering up her strength to raise her head to glare at him.
"…I apologize…for the inconvenience." Touya said tentatively, watching as she turned to look at him, eyes softening slightly.
"Ah, don't worry about it, Touya-kun." She replied, ruffling his hair slightly, "Let me grab my shoes and we'll go out for awhile, kay?"
Touya nodded, watching as she grabbed a pair of slip-ons from a nearby shoe basket and tug them on her feet as Yusuke waved good bye over his shoulder although Touya knew better.
The mazoku had already informed him that he and the other youkai would be keeping watch close by in case anything went wrong.
"Alright lil' dude, let's boogey." Yoru said cheerfully, taking him by the hand and hurrying down the sidewalk.
Touya didn't expect such difficulty keeping up with her, but then, his legs were so much shorter than hers now; an added boost of youki quickly remedied the problem though and he had no trouble keeping up with her long hurried strides.
"Yamina…Yoru-san? Where are we going?" he asked, causing her to slow a bit and look back at him apologetically.
"Remember my secret?" she asked, "Well, we're going to where I work. One of the ladies who works there got sick so they called me in."
"Oh." Touya said with a nod as a thought occurred to him, "Yaminade-san said she worked at a daycare…that means…ningen children…"
Now he was worried. How would his brain handle being submersed in so many bodies, that wanted to do as his did, and play?
He didn't have long to dwell on it as Yoru's cry of alarm broke his thoughts.
"Oh my lord! Daidoji-kun! What happened?" she cried worriedly, Touya's childish brain noticing with avid curiosity bright red and blue flashing lights coming from atop more strange forms of ningen transport.
"Yoru-kun! Our house was burglarized while we we're asleep!" a middle-aged ningen woman said shakily as Touya began quashing down the juvenile thoughts of 'Ooo…it's so shiny and I want to play with it', "We slept right through it!"
"We locked all the doors and windows! How could they have possibly gotten in?" a middle-aged man asked, looking a mixture of anxious and incensed.
"Ohhhhhh no! The WINDOW!" Yoru cried, palming her forehead as Touya, and the ningen couple looked at her quizzically, "Remember? When I watched Chihiro last month and she got herself locked in the bathroom?"
"That's right…you told us you had to jimmy the lock to get her out." the ningen man moaned, allowing his head to fall in his hands.
"We've been meaning to replace the damn thing but something always kept coming up." the woman said dejectedly, "We better inform the police of this,"
"I hope you recover what you lost." Yoru said unsurely, giving Touya's hand a tug to lead him off, "I really am sorry about all this."
"The Ningenkai is more perilous than I'd first thought." Touya mused, "And I'm sure whatever was stolen has been pawned off already. It's a sad fact they must face I'm afraid, so I hope they stole nothing of sentimental value."
(1) the first ringtone is "Bumblebee' by Smile.dk
(2) Gero-gero - and Osakan term, totally adorable in my opinion that means, "SICK!" or "Gross!"
(3) the second ringtone is "Ai no Medicine" by Momoi Haruko
(4) Sakuranbo - cherry
(5) the burglary is based on personal experience; they got in through a window with a broken lock in the bathroom I had broken to reach my little cousin who had locked himself in; my parents failed to replace it and it resulted in us being robbed while I was at school and they at work.
(A/N: Touya takes a trip to daycare, and much, much more! R&R!)