Ren cursed to himself repeatedly as he walked to the train station the next day. What a crock.

He wasn't going to go along with it.

No chance in hell.

Less chance in hell than a snowball.

Make that a raindrop. Yeah, a raindrop.

"Ren!"

Ren's eye twitched. Murder seemed like a good idea right now. Or suicide… Maybe both.

"Hey, Ren! Wait up!"

Murder.

Definitely murder.

"OI! REN!"

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT, AINU?!" Ren screamed in Horo's face when he span around, a vein throbbing in his temple.

Horo nearly doubled back, before righting himself

"Seeing as we're dating now—"

"WE ARE NOT DATING NOW!"

"But, dude—"

"I AM NOT 'DUDE'!"

Horo sighed.

"Fine, Ren. Being together is part of the plan."

"FUCK THE PLAN!" Ren yelled before Horo jumped at him and covered Ren's mouth with his hand.

"Look," Horo said, whispering harshly into Ren's ear, "I'm not too hot about it either. But it's for Yoh. That, and Anna would kill us if we didn't go along with it!"

Ren slapped Horo away and continued towards school, cursing again.

"It's not my fault you picked the short straw. It's not my fault I picked the other short straw. But the whole thing falls apart without us." Horo stated, running to walk next to Ren, "Come on, Ren. Face it like a man instead of a spoiled child!"

Ren spun round.

"In any other circumstances, I would. But excuse me if I'm a bit upset that my sexual preference has been flipped around for the sake of someone who seems to be constantly on crack!" Ren snapped.

"Look, it's just for two weeks. And it's not like we'll have to… ugh, kiss or anything." Horo reasoned.

Another vein popped in Ren's temple as he growled.

"Argh!! Fine!" He replied, obviously furious about the pair-up, "But NO kissing!"

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Yoh got quite a shock when he turned the corner in the hallway at school. Horo and Ren were…. Hugging…. Not only that, but Horo has his arms around Ren's waist while Ren's arms were around Horo's neck loosely. As if that weren't enough, the two were smiling and whispering in each other's ears.

Thoroughly spooked out, (no pun intended) Yoh backtracked around the corner and walked in the opposite direction.

"Is he gone yet?" Ren murmured, keeping the fake smile plastered onto his face.

He felt Horo move his head, obviously to see if their laid-back brunette friend was anywhere in sight.

"Yeah…"

Not less than one second had passed before both boys pushed the other away, Ren with a scowl and Horo looking embarrassed.

Thank God that nobody else was in the hallway.

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Yoh was sat at his desk, watching curiously as Horo and Ren paused in the doorway, hands linked, Ren gazing into Horo's eyes.

To Yoh and everyone else in the room (if any of them happened to care at that moment) this was a gaze that promised love and caring.

To Horo, this was a gaze that promised death as soon as school ended.

Ren and Horo unlinked their hands and both walked away from each other. Ren made sure he was out of sight before doubling over in the hallway cringing and Horo walked to his desk, keeping up his façade of happiness and calm, when inside all he wanted to do was beat Yoh up.

Horo finally found his desk and, making sure that Yoh wasn't looking, collapsed into his seat and let out the long, angry breath he'd been holding.

Horo looked up as a tiny bit of crumpled up paper hit his head.

Yoh, 3 seats in front and 4 to the right, grinned at Horo and indicated for him to open it.

Horo read Yoh's note quickly, new anger flaring up inside.

'You and Ren seem pretty cosy recently. Anything you wanna tell me?'

Horo growled silently before stealing a biro off of the girl next to him (she wasn't going to notice) and scribbling back his reply, before throwing it at Yoh, who caught it and turned to face the front quickly.

'Oh, you know. Things happened.'

Yoh grinned and wrote 'what kind of things' before throwing the note back and to the left.

Horo: Well… We got into an argument yesterday

Yoh: Aaaand?

Horo: We both said things that we didn't mean…

Yoh: Aaaand?

Horo: We made up

Yoh: Aaaand?

Pirika: They're dating, baka! Now stop throwing notes before sensei catches you both!

Yoh snickered, but quickly stopped when their teacher turned around.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Hey, Ren." Hao greeted, sitting next to the Chinese boy. Ren gave a small nod, his eyes trained onto his work.

Hao opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by their teacher walking into the room.

"Name one thing we know about Taoism. Kenta."

"They believe in…. like… balance and all that… ya know."

"…… Okay. Who can tell me one proverb? … Aki."

"'The journey is the reward.'"

"Good choice. Ren, name one thing Taoists can't do up to one week before writing talismans."

Ren rolled his eyes.

"Have sex," he answered boldly, ignoring the giggles that began to circle the room.

Hao smirked and continued his conversation with Ren, their teacher now completely flustered.

"So… Manta tells me that Horo woke up with balls this morning."

Ren raised an eyebrow.

"How so?"

"You know, he finally told you how he feels. I swear, any longer and I'd have made flyers." Hao laughed, not catching Ren's growl, "Yoh also caught you having a 'moment' with Horo this morning. Care to elaborate?"

Ren opened his mouth to retaliate, but Hao smirked and returned to his own seat on the other side of the room.

Ren returned to his work and grumbled something about being surrounded by idiots.

As the lesson dragged on, Ren decided that he needn't concentrate and thus let his mind flit to things with no relevance to anything at all while he picked at a loose thread on his cuffs.

'I should get this fixed… or I could get a new shirt… damn it, my glasses are annoying… Note to self: order more lenses.' Ren thought aimlessly, though thoughts of his black-rimmed glasses could only lead to the inevitable, and Ren was soon making up his own little Taoist curse to inflict on a certain blue-haired Ainu.

Ren blinked and suddenly, the most malicious and cunning grin broke out on his face like acne.

He knew how to get Horo back, and it'd be the perfect punishment.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Horo dove into his apartment, before slamming the door shut, locking it and putting a chair against it.

Horo suddenly stopped moving, before gulping down some air and slumping against the wall, head hidden in his hands.

This had to be a nightmare. It just had to be. There was no…

But wait…

Surely, that if he could realise that this was a nightmare, then it wasn't really a nightmare?

Surely, it could only be a nightmare if he didn't realise it…

Surely… he would have woken up by now if he had realised a nightmare.

But no… He had realised… and he hadn't woken up.

He took another deep breath, more to stop shaking than to supply oxygen to his body.

He stood and walked into his bathroom, deciding to lock the door and close the blinds, just in case.

Horo, slowly and quietly, peeled his clothes off of himself, flinching at every foreign noise, and stepped into the shower.

He stared at the deep blue wall tiles as the cool water ran over him, totally lost in his confused thoughts.

When Horo found himself, he had curled into an upright ball at the bottom of the shower with his head against the tiles. He blinked slowly and stood up, switching the shower off.

He shivered and dried himself, before donning himself in grey joggers and a black shirt and walked into his living room, his hair dripping onto his shoulders, and curled up in the corner of his sofa.

His thoughts were everywhere. He didn't know what to make of the situation at all.

He let out a sigh and closed his eyes, scared more than anything.

He was jerked out of his reverie as his hybrid kitten pulled herself onto the sofa and rubbed against him, before mewing softly and climbing into his lap. He smiled and scratched behind her ears.

"You know. I should really give you a name, little one." Horo almost cooed to her as she purred and nuzzled his fingers.

"How about… Hure-so?" Horo suggested, chuckling as the kitten flicked her tail in annoyance, "I guess not… Unahure? Hureuna?" he questioned, and was pretty sure that the small kitten had glared at him.

"Heh. You don't like the word 'hure', ne? … I could take the Pirika approach and call you something like Merumo, but that's way too girly for both of us," Horo smiled, and clicked his fingers. "How about I call you Kiyay?"

Horo beamed as the small kitten licked his fingers and purred louder.

"Kiyay it is!"

Horo sat petting Kiyay for quite some time before his mind wondered back to the…. Incident.

He stopped and frowned, letting the links slowly fit into place.

'Okay… Scenario 1 is that Ren has finally cracked, Scenario 2 is that Ren is playing along and Scenario 3 is… Scenario 3 doesn't bare thinking about.' Horo grimaced, 'We're all going to the Asakura's tonight anyway. I can ask him then…'

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Phew! Sorry for the slow update, but I really wanted to write more (I was going to stop after Hao goes back to his seat, but I persisted and got about 670 more words :D)

I tried not to indicate too harshly what had mucked Horo up, but I couldn't help the bit at the end. –wanted to keep it a surprise-

Ainu – English

Hure-So – Red Waterfall

Unahure / Hureuna Ash Red / Red Ash

Merumo Small Light

Kiyay: Sunlight, Sunrays etc

If anybody does history and has seen the video, they will know that 'back and to the left' connotates JFK's assassination. I had to add that in because the phrase is circling my school and it has influenced me u.uU