The Lusting
Chapter 4
Exiting the Tokyo International Airport better known as Haneda Airport, Kim and Shego paused underneath a streetlight outside the terminal and looked around for a moment while they waited for Ron to bring their luggage. It had been a long nonstop flight and Shego stretched her muscles while she waited. They had left at 11 a.m. from Colorado and now it was somewhere around 9 p.m. in Tokyo. Even though they had arrived in a private jet and Kim was well known, they still had to have their luggage examined by customs agents.
Kim had feared that Shego might be detained or searched, what with her previous reputation but it would seem that the public relations work that Global Justice had done on her behalf had reached even Japan. The officials had merely nodded their heads at Kim and Shego allowing them to pass through with minimal hassle but Ron was stopped, searched and there had even been some discussion on whether Rufus was going to be allowed to enter the country or be detained in a quarantine cage for the duration of Ron, Kim and Shego's visit.
Kim with a great deal of apprehension noticed Shego just starting to activate her plasma powers when the official, who had not been looking at Shego and thusly could not be intimidated by her suddenly cocked his head to one side as if listening to something, even though the only thing Kim could see around him were some dark shadows at his back and then announced that there would be no need to hold Rufus and that he would be allowed to enter Japan along with his owner Ron.
Ron wheeled out a heavy luggage transport filled with Kim, Shego and his luggage and stopped between the two women as he wheezed at the effort.
"Man I thought they were going to insist on going through every single piece of luggage there for a moment." He finally managed to say as he caught his breath.
Kim glanced over at him. "Is Rufus still pissed on how they treated him?" She asked.
Rufus stuck his head out of Ron's pants pocket with his tiny arms folded angrily over his chest and blew a raspberry.
"That would be a yes." Shego stated. "How dare they treat Rufus like some kind of pet? He's as much a part of the team as any of us." Shego added as she reached down and patted him on the head.
This elicited a smile form Rufus and a pleased look from Kim.
"What?" Shego asked noticing her look.
"Nothing. It just gives me warm feelings that you admit you are part of 'our' group." Kim said with a smile.
Shego appeared uncertain how to react to that for a moment before she too smiled. "I can't say a part of me doesn't occasionally miss being a villain but all in all it feels okay to be a 'hero' again."
"Only okay?" Ron asked her with a raise of an eyebrow as he left the luggage carrier and came up beside Kim and Shego and slightly to the lead of them as he looked for a cab to meet them at the curb.
"Hey. I still say that the hero business has worse hours and less pay than the villain gig did." Shego said but still smiling to show she wasn't completely serious.
"Yeah but then there was the downtime of jail after you were caught every time." Kim reminded her.
"But then the thrill of the escape when I broke out of said jail, every time." Shego replied, her grin growing larger.
Kim decided to let it go for now. It had almost become a kind of game of sorts between her and Shego, to banter/discuss which part of Shego's life had been the more enjoyable for her, hero or villain. There was only one time in the early days of Shego being with them that Kim had pressed the matter and Shego had finally admitted with a sad lost look in her eyes that the worst part of her villain days was the loneliness and sense of isolation. After that point Kim was always careful to break off the banter before it reached that point again.
"So where is this mysterious cab to take us to your ninja school monkey boy?" Shego said in her snarky/teasing manner to Ron.
"I don't know. Every other time it was always just sitting here waiting for me to come out." Ron replied looking around. Even though it was late evening it was still surprisingly for such a busy airport that the curb was empty of cabs or other vehicles at the moment. Strangely the sidewalk itself was bare of any life outside of Ron, Kim and Shego as well even though planes were landing and taking off all the time. At least that it was empty of everyone except for Ron, Kim, Shego and Rufus was what Ron thought.
"Unfortunately Ron-san we will not be going to the school this time." A female voice said from directly behind Ron.
Kim jerked her head to look to her left and was surprised to find Yori standing behind Ron and right next to her. Even though there were heavy shadows between the streetlights she could have sworn there was no way anyone could have snuck up on them and gotten between Ron and the luggage carrier he had left.
Yori was wearing a dark blue colored blouse and a matching dark blue skirt that ended just above her knees.
Shego's reaction wasn't as overtly surprised as Kim's had been but it was obvious from the way her smile of moments ago had turned into a frown that she too didn't like to be caught off guard and surprised by Yori's sudden appearance right between her and Kim and directly behind Ron.
Ron turned to face Yori and smiled largely. "Yori!" His smile slipped a little a moment later. "Why not? I so was looking forward to showing Shego the school."
Before answering him Yori looked to her right at Kim. "Kim-san. Always a pleasure to meet you." She said somewhat formally and then bowed in her direction. She then turned to look back at Ron with a large smile. "Ron-san. It is very good to see you again too." She took a half step in his direction as if she was about to hug him but then simply bowed deeply in his direction instead, she then briefly glanced to her left at Shego. "Shego." Was the only thing she said and she did not bow to her at all.
The fact she dropped the respectful ending and didn't even incline her head in her direction was not lost on Shego at all whose frown deepened. She was starting to take an instant dislike to the young Japanese friend of Ron's.
Yori turning her full attention back to Ron she continued. "The school is closed for renovations and remodeling. For your visit I will be escorting you to what you Americans would call a 'safe' house."
"Safe house?" Ron asked in confusion.
Yori frowned as if wondering if she had picked the wrong American term. "A place of safety where students of the school may seek refuge while in Tokyo if for some reason they can not return to the school?" She asked in a half questioning manner.
"Yeah that would be a safe house all right, will we be the only visitors to this safe house?" Shego asked.
Yori's eyes barely flickered in Shego's direction. "Yes." She replied tersely.
A white van pulled to the curb and Yori made a gesture in its direction. "We shall travel to the safe house in this vehicle." As the sliding door in the middle of the van opened Shego couldn't help but notice there were no windows in the side of the van and the interior of the van was dark and closed off from the front of the van. Once inside there would be no way for them to tell where they were being taken. Shego could barely make out the forms of two individuals inside the van awaiting them because they were dressed in full black ninja uniforms with only their eyes visible. To say Shego was starting to feel uneasy about the whole thing would have been an understatement. Glancing over at Kim, Shego was rewarded by a pensive looking teen.
"Surely we could have just taken a cab to this location?" Kim asked Yori.
"The van is more practical for the carrying of all your luggage." Yori replied turning to glance at Kim and Kim for a moment was taken aback by the look she caught on Yori's face before it was replaced by the Asian woman's normal placid features. It had only been for a split second but Kim got the fleeting impression of resentment and almost betrayal from the woman in the brief moment.
"Then it would be my bondiggity honor to escort my lovely ladies to our chariot." Ron said in his charming and goofy manner as he held out an arm to Shego and Kim.
Shego's frown deepened as Yori stepped between her and Ron and practically dragged him to the van by his arm before Kim or Shego could respond to his invitation. Ron turned to look back at them and the luggage. "Um, what about our luggage, I need to load it in the van?"
"Do not be silly Ron-san. It will be Kim and Shego's honor to get it." Yori replied.
Shego looked over at Kim and raised an eyebrow. "Our honor?" she mouthed to her.
Kim just shrugged and walking back she took a hold of the luggage carrier's grips and with Shego's help pulled and pushed the thing toward the van in which Yori had already strapped Ron into. Kim was pleased that at least as soon as she got the carrier near the van the two dark clad ninjas inside quickly reached out and began loading the luggage for her and Shego. After the carrier was empty, one of the ninjas politely offered her and Shego an arm to help them up into the van.
The van had one long bench seat running from side to side. Yori had strapped Ron into his seat at the extreme left side and was sitting next to him keeping Kim or Shego from sitting with him. The two ninjas having acrobatically leapt over the bench seat and were sitting in the back with the luggage, with a shrug Kim sat down beside the Asian woman and seat belted herself. A slowly fuming Shego sat next to her. As soon as the van doors shut Yori turned a light on inside the van so they would not have to sit in complete blackness.
The ride seemed to take forever and the trip's apparent length was in no way lessened by Yori's actions. It wasn't like the young ninja woman was exactly rude, just non-communicative. Ron tried several times to ask what changes they were making to the school but Yori would only answer him with one or two word answers or a slight shake of her head. Ron tried asking what Yori had been up to since he last saw her and received another head shake and a terse we will have time to catch up once we are settled in at the safe house.
Yori sat between Ron and Kim with her shoulders back and her hands resting flat on her legs. She continued to look forward only turning her head to address one of Ron's questions with the before mentioned brief answers or shakes of her head when she didn't know the answers or didn't wish to reply at the moment.
Ron attempted to lean forward to talk to Kim but Yori without overtly appearing to would lean forward at the same time blocking their view of each other. To her right Kim could hear Shego angrily muttering to herself that she had seen police road blocks that weren't that obvious. If Yori heard Shego's comment she decided to not comment on it.
Kim decided herself that she had just about had enough of Yori's unexplained actions as well. Sure she knew that Yori once fancied Ron but surely the ninja no longer harbored such feelings or resentment towards Kim for taking Ron as a boyfriend?
Kim's eyes widened with the realization that no one had yet explained to Yori that her and Ron were now together and not just that but that Ron, Kim and Shego were together as well.
"Wait. If Yori doesn't know Ron and I are together, then her actions are even harder to understand. She is acting like she is resentful and jealous of me and the way she made sure she sat herself between us makes it look even more like she knows that me and Ron are together. Is her obvious chilly actions toward Shego mean she knows that all three of us are involved? And if so, how? Does Yamanouchi have spies watching Ron all the time?" Kim thought to herself.
Kim was just about to ask Yori how she knew when they would arrive to meet them at the airport, because as far as she knew Ron hadn't told her the exact time they would arrive, only that it would be sometime today when the van pulled to a stop alerting her that they had arrived at their destination.
As soon as the van was fully stopped, Shego was already opening the sliding door and getting out. Kim glanced over at Ron and Yori before hopping out herself and watched as Yori while helping Ron to unbuckle his seat belt left her hand on his upper thigh a moment longer than was really necessary. Kim felt a sudden rush of jealousy and anger but locked it down before it could get out of control. She would wait till she could get the young Asian woman aside and then calmly explain to her that Ron was now 'off the market' so to speak and to keep her hands to herself and if that didn't work? Well she and Shego could always do a little tag team persuasion of Yori then. That pleasant thought caused the normal pacifist Kim a twinge of pleasure.
Shego who in her brief time with Ron and Kim had learned to read them very well wondered what had brought about the angry flush to Kim's face and neck, yet at the same time Kim had a slight smirk on her face. It reminded her briefly of the time when her and Kim were on different sides of the law and Kim would break into Dr. D's lair. Kim would get that same smirk right as Ron would somehow always manage to trip the self destruct mechanism of the lair. Shego had learned to call that look, 'Kim's gotcha look'.
Looking past Kim, Shego watched as Yori 'helped' Ron out of the van. The ninja woman had one hand lightly placed on Ron's hip and with her other hand she unnecessarily held onto Ron's arm. Ron might have the occasional bout of clumsiness but really. The way Yori was helping him out was like he was an old lady or an invalid. Shego's eyes narrowed as she witnessed Yori allowing her hand to slide up Ron's bare arm as if she was caressing him before letting go and stepping back. Shego also caught Yori giving Ron's waist a brief squeeze with her other hand as well. Shego glanced over at Kim to see if she too had caught it and was rewarded by a fire in Kim's eyes and the smirk being replaced by an angry frown.
"Oh yeah. She caught it all right and is Princess ever mad. This little trip might be fun after all." Shego thought as she mentally popped her knuckles in anticipation. "That little ninja tramp is trespassing on private property and she is going to find out that Kim and I are not forgiving Landlords."
An equally dark thought was going through Kim's mind at the same time. "How am I going to keep Shego from killing Yorifor the duration of our stay and do I really want to stop her or do I want to help her?"
Shego glancing down the road noticed they appeared to be in an alley between two long high cement walls with street lights lightning up the area. At regular paces on either side there were openings in the cement walls with gates. Shego assumed they lead to other houses. With Yori now leading the way they walked through an opening in the high cement wall and found themselves in a gloomy overgrown and obviously not cared for in a while garden. A typical older style Japanese two story house sat darkly in the center of the garden. There wasn't really anything remarkable about the house other than it had obviously lain vacant for some time. Half way through the garden Ron turned to look back at the entrance to the alley.
"What about the lugga..." He barely managed to get out as three dark forms zipped through the opening with luggage in their arms and breezed past the group to enter the house and a moment later zipped back out again. Two more visits and all of Kim, Shego and Ron's luggage were now in the house. The three dark clad ninjas then came to a stop in front of Yori. The tallest of the three bowed very low in her direction while the other two remained standing ramrod stiff at attention.
Yori barely inclined her head at the bowing Ninja. "Very good, remain here and I will be out shortly after getting Ron-san, Kim-san and Shego settled with further orders." The ninja straighten from his bow and replied with a curt "hai."
The two ninjas who had remained standing moved quickly to either side of the gate leading to the alley as if on guard while the third who had just bowed to Yori remained standing where he was.
Yori gestured towards the house for Ron and his friends to follow her.
The two ninjas at the gate nearly blended invisibly with the darkness with only their eyes visible in the gloom. One of the ninjas glanced silently over at his partner. When you are trained in the ways of stealth you learn early on to be able to hold entire conversations if need be by the eyes alone. The ninja on the left side of the gate looked towards the house Yori was leading Ron to and then glanced back at his partner with a slightly raised eyebrow. The ninja on the right gave an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders and allowed his eyes to widen slightly. The one on the left without taking his eyes off his partner ninja inclined his head a millimeter towards the house as if saying, "Would you go in there?"
The ninja on the right with his head turned to look at his partner slowly and briefly shook his head from left to right as if to say, "Hell no."
The ninja standing in the middle of the garden slowly turned his head to look over his shoulder at the two at the gate. His posture plainly saying "Shut up the chatter back there!" The two ninjas at the gate stiffened to attention and faced forward once again.
As Ron entered the house he could feel a weird sensation come over him. Ron obviously didn't have fur on his arms or back but the sensation was just as if he did and it was starting to stand on end. In the back of his mind he could the murmuring of monkeys. It wasn't like that time at Global Justice when they were screaming at him danger but all in all there was something that was just on the outside of his Mystical Monkey senses telling him that there was something 'off' about the house.
Glancing down at his pocket he noticed Rufus was standing up and he too was peering around the house as if sensing something wasn't quite right. The house itself wasn't spooky or sinister in any manner. It just appeared like a house that had been empty for a while.
They had entered through the kitchen entrance and a large central light illuminated a western style breakfast table sitting in the middle of the room with a heavy coating of dust on it. Cabinet doors and a compact kitchen stove, refrigerator and kitchen sink finished off the small room. Nothing sinister at all, so why did Ron feel like it was suddenly hard to breathe as if the air had thickened somehow?
Shego as she entered with Kim looked around the kitchen cautiously but relaxed a moment later. The kitchen and indeed the entire house radiated the dusty and utterly still feeling all empty houses do. Shego made two deductions from that immediately. One, the house must have been on the real estate market for a while with no buyers and had been bought by the mysterious ninja school only recently and two they were probably the first people to be staying at said house in a very long time.
"Yamanouchi just recently purchased this house didn't it?" Shego asked.
Yori didn't look back at Shego but nodded her head. "Yes." She replied.
"Okay... Obviously we're not going to have any long heart to heart chats with this Asian bitch." Shego thought to herself in annoyance.
"Are we the first to stay here? I mean since the school bought the property?" Kim asked.
"Yes Kim-san. We shall be the first. We will, how do you Americans say? Break it in for the others?" Yori replied glancing back at Kim. "I will show you your rooms now."
Shego noticed that Ron was looking uneasy but merely chalked it up to the obvious tension that was apparent in the room between her and Kim vs Yori.
"Why don't you ladies go, me and Rufus will hang out here in the kitchen for a while and we'll be up in a moment." Ron stated.
Shego gave him an affectionate smile. "You know Ron, I really doubt there is anything in the house to eat unless Yori and her ninjas have recently stocked it."
Even though food was the last thing on his mind at the moment Ron flashed her a smile of his own. "You never know till you've looked." He said.
Yori gave an almost imperceptible frown as she watched Ron and Shego interact. "Very well. Come along Shego, I will show you and Kim-san your rooms. They are at the other end of the hall upstairs. We can get Ron-san and show him his room later. He is at the other end of the hall in the room next to mine." Yori then turned and walked out of the kitchen without looking back to see if Kim or Shego had followed her.
Shego mouthed angrily to Kim as they made to follow her. "Our rooms? There is no way she is separating us and what is it with this, Ron's room is at the other end...Next to mine?!"
Kim raised her hand slightly in a calming manner. "We'll get this settled. She is not separating us." Kim mouthed back.
As the girls left Ron looked around the now empty kitchen and then with a shudder he glanced down at Rufus. "You feel it too?" He asked.
Rufus nodded his head and squeaked out. "Bad place."
"Maybe we are just overreacting? You know a new and strange place, its night and its dark and not to mention how the ladies are acting." He asked Rufus showing that while he may sometimes be clueless around women but not even Ron could ignore the hostility in the air. Both of them looked around the kitchen again and then at each other.
"Uh huh! Bad place." Rufus insisted once again as he hopped out of Ron's pocket onto a nearby counter top.
Ron couldn't argue as his feelings were telling him the same thing but with a shrug he opened a few of the cabinets to see if he might not be able to find something to cook. Ron did find cans with faded labels but they were of course in Japanese and Ron couldn't make heads or tails out of what the contents of the cans were meant to be.
"Hey Rufus?" He called out to his friend. "If this house has been sitting empty for a long time like Yori said... And she hasn't stocked the cupboards... What would make the previous owners leave so fast that they left all this can food behind?" He finished nervously.
Rufus looked just as nervous as Ron as he stared at the row upon row of canned goods that were left sitting covered with dust on the shelves of the cabinet.
Suddenly a loud shout was heard from upstairs. Without pause Ron dropped the can he had been holding and ran out of the room to find the stairs leading up to the second floor. Rufus raced along the counter top he was on to join his owner when he suddenly paused and looked up at the ceiling of the kitchen near the edge of the central light.
The strangely thick shadows near the edge of the light looked like they were moving and joining together to form even larger shadows. As Rufus stared upward at them, he could swear the shadows were not mere shadows but somehow three dimensional. The little naked mole rat had almost convinced himself that maybe he was looking at a large spider or maybe lots of little spiders when the dark mass pushed away from the ceiling slightly and hung downward. In the center of the roiling black mass two red rimmed milky looking eyes opened and stared down at the nearly paralyzed with fear Rufus. It was when the dark mass parted even more revealing a gray lifeless face of a young Japanese girl was when Rufus's nerve broke and with a high pitched scream of fear he tore out of the kitchen in the direction that Ron and the others had gone.
The gray face turned to look at the direction the mole rat had left by and a thick flaking desiccated tongue pushed past bloodless lips and licked them. Tiny clods of dirt and dead skin flaked off the lips and tongue to rain down on the dusty floor beneath. The lifeless face slowly pulled back into the dark mass of shadows and was gone. The last thing to be seen was the dead milky eyes staring out of the patch of shadows before closing and the kitchen was once again still and quiet.
AAAAAAAAAAAA
Author's notes:
AAAAAAAAAAAA
See? I said we would get to the horror sooner or later.
First though I would like to discuss something someone said in a review about the first chapter. They felt that I was making Shego too insecure about her feelings and reactions to other girls looking at Ron. That is not my intentions. Although in my story Shego does have some 'issues' and is working through them that is not what I have motivating her reaction to others finding Ron desirable. No my motivating factor with her is pure and simple. Shego is possessive. What is hers, is simply to her, HERS. You can look but don't even joke about touching.
On Kim. Same reviewer thought that I was wrong to have Kim react so badly to the way Monique was acting in the first chapter. That maybe I was ending their friendship. Rest assured that was not my intention and I would never write that. Monique loves to push Kim's buttons. In the series we have seen several times she likes to tease Kim about her 'jellin' over someone putting the moves on Ron. This was just the first time the 'jellin' was over Monique herself. I meant for the confrontation over Ron to be a friendly teasing one. Shego was never going to hurt the girl and Kim wasn't all that upset just more surprised that anything else.
Monique: Was she really interested in Ron? Yeah she was. At first she was just curious what the others had found so mouth watering over the new improved Ron. Don't forget that Ron usually wears baggy clothing and even with Shego and Kim now dressing him, he would still tend to downplay his improving form. One, because... He's Ron. That is what he does. Two: While Shego has no problem admiring his form, she wouldn't want others to because...She's possessive. And Kim wouldn't want him wearing tighter or more revealing clothes because she gets intensely jealous when others look at her Ron.
So Monique first peeked at Ron out of curiosity and the other times because she liked what she saw.
Would Monique ever attempt to take Ron away from Kim and Shego if she could? Come on! Monique doesn't have a death wish! And she knows she wouldn't have a chance to get Ron to leave either Kim nor Shego and most importantly, Monique is Kim's best friend. She would never do that to a friend.
Would Monique join Shego, Kim and Ron if they asked her to... Ooh that's a tough one. My read on the character of Monique is she likes danger and thrills. Maybe not to the extent that Kim or Shego does but she would definitely enjoy the danger and thrill of a foursome.
Was Monique really turned on by Shego and does she secretly lust after Kim? Um, in my mind? Shego: Yes. Kim: not really. Kim is too much Monique's friend for her to fantasize about her, not that good friends can never end up as lovers. Just that I don't think Monique was serious about her last comment to Kim but was just pushing some more of her buttons.
In Shego's case I think if Monique was encouraged by Shego she would try a fling with her. Again, just my read on the characters.
Oh and one last thought on the review? Why don't I have Shego and Kim proudly showing off Ron as theirs? Shego's personality (again just my read on it) is that of a collector. While intensely proud and possessive of her 'collection' she's the type that would lock it away in a private museum and only permit herself to enjoy it if she could.
In Kim's sake, she's afraid of her father's reaction, plain and simple and fairly close to the canon of the series. She doesn't want anyone or anything to get back to her father just yet about Ron or Shego until her and her mother can figure out a way of broaching it to him that doesn't end up with someone being launched in a rocket to a black hole or Shego kidnapping both Ron and Kim and running off with them.
Yori fans: Yeah I know I'm going to get some flak from you guys and probably rightly so. All I can say is Yori is acting the way she is for a reason and it will be made clearer (I hope) as more chapters are written.
On Japanese culture and geography. The only thing I know of Japanese culture and geography are the things I've seen in anime or what I've researched using Google. I'm sure I'm going to get a ton load of things wrong and I'm sorry about that. I am trying to be as accurate as I can.
And lastly, just to make a long Author's note a little longer.
A quote from Alfred Hitchcock
When asked how to please an audience?
Give them pleasure - the same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.