Chapter 5—Top Blown

Charlie was sitting on the tree next to her, a silence rising up between Hika and himself that they both found far too comfortable to make go away. He had found the young woman interesting from the moment they had met during lunch at school. That interested had only been fueled during the afternoon's relaxation at the diner. Charlie had thought that he would not get to spend enough time with this demon girl that had come to join their little school. Then she had appeared on the tree outside of his room with her bat wings unfurled and glinting in the moonlight that poured down on her. It was like seeing a dark angel come down to lead him off into the night where he would be consumed by her loveliness. Charlie turned from looking up at the sky to say something to the young woman sitting not an inch from him…

Hika was staring off at the sky, thinking of the demon that had threatened her earlier that day at the school. That only brought her to thinking about the help that Charlie had offered. He was so full of knowledge it astonished the young demon. It was like going to the Library that Lord Koenma held and taking a full day just to read whatever she wanted. She wasn't sure if she could ever thank him for the offer to help. She was about to turn and ask him what she could do to thank him…

They froze to stare into each other's eyes as they sat; their lips not two centimeters from each other. His sky blue eyes met her ice-grey eyes as they considered just what was going on. Hika's cheeks turned a like pink as she watched him carefully. Charlie was the first to look away, his own cheeks a light pink. Hika took a breath that she didn't know she'd been waiting for and turned away as well to look sheepishly at her knees.

Charlie wasn't given a chance to apologize for the close kissing encounter. Hika dropped from the tree branch and flew up into the tree a bit higher as someone knocked on Charlie's room door, calling to him that it was time he shut off his lights; even if he was a high school junior he still needed sleep. Hika hid up in the top branches of the tree as she watched him craw back into the room and close the window behind him. Slowly, as Charlie started to get undressed, Hika flapped her way into the air, letting her whim take her where it pleased.

As her body floated across the sky on the wings of a bat, Hika thought about the near kiss. Her stomach flipped flopped as she tried to figure out if it meant anything. Charlie was a nice guy, and she really wouldn't mind if it did mean something.

"…What are we going to do Tylia? Lord Koenma reincarnated your mother so that she could find true happiness with the man that she loved! What if that Inane person gets in the way? Your mother will be unhappy with her draw of luck this time around too, and you heard Lord Koenma. She only has this chance. She can't come back to the living world next time she dies." Takji was saying in a hurried whisper. She, Night, and Tylia stood in the corridor.

"We will just have to wait and see. Hika has this year and next year before she's out of high school. Then she'll be a free adult to this human world. If they can't figure it out by then maybe someone else will make my mother's soul happy." Tylia answered and frowned. "Though, my mother did love Kuronue."

Her gut descended five air currents as she thought about what was implicated by those words that her mother and Takji had shared in the hallway outside her bedroom earlier that evening. Maybe she would date Charlie—if only to spit her parents that had tried to decide her life without her knowledge?

No, she thought to herself, spinning in the air and swooping down into a dark back yard before darting back up into the air a gain. If I date anyone it'll be for reason of my own choosing, such as really liking that person.

Hika smiled at her thoughts and spun again in the air as she dive bombed near a dog setting it to barking so loud it woke the owners. She laughed and continued through the air, playing havoc on the different small pets that lived in the area. Her black hair spiraled around her as she slowly landed on another tree in another backyard. Most of this household was black except for the kitchen window.

Being the weird girl watching from the shadows of the tree, she watched as someone moved out into the backyard. She climbed a bit forward as quietly as she could on the tree branch she was sitting on.

The light from the kitchen illuminated the young man that was Kuronue. He stood out in the night and stared up at the moon as if looking at someone that he had lost. Frowning as he concentrated on the moon, Kuronue broke his stare to look at the tall oak in his backyard. If he focused just right he could feel that girl's energy in the tree. What in the Makai and Spirit World was she doing up in one of his backyard trees? That was a question he was debating to ask when his company came out of the house to join him. He felt female arms wrap around his waist and he relaxed, knowing that the woman in the tree would leave soon enough if her looks at lunch had told him anything about her.

Kuronue turned indigo-blue eyes to his girlfriend Inane as he turned around and kissed her on the lips. "I thought you had fallen asleep on the couch after the movie," Kuronue whispered, unsure of how keen the bat-girls ears were. Bats were good with hearing since the animal had echo-location to determine its way about, but did that go for bat demons as well? He couldn't see the girl using her voice as a way to move about.

"I did, but when I felt you leave, I thought I'd follow you and see what you were up to," Inane told him with a grin. "So what are you up to Kuronue? Gazing up at the moon like a lost wolf?"

"Sort of," Kuronue admitted with a wry smile. "I didn't want to bother you with my howling at the moon." It was a joke; one that Hika found very dry for someone that was supposed to be the reincarnation of the man that had been said to have bedded thousands of women before meeting Hiromi.

Hiromi yawned and pushed herself out of the tree as a cloud fell over the moon for a moment. Using that darkness, she heard Inane let out a little scream of shock as the noise form the tree emitted from her brushing tree branches and leaves on her way up. She stuck around just long enough to hear Kuronue tell her that it had to have been a bat or an owl.

So he did know I was there, Hika thought with a grin. Maybe he hasn't lost all his bat senses after all. Her night's jaunt over, she flew slowly back to her home. Slowly she spiraled down into the courtyard of her home and found that her flight had tired her more than she had thought. In the Makai, Hika would take flights like this each night before she went to bed and was never this tired.

You never went to high school, had to deal with humans, and make sure everything you said had nothing to do with demons before, her inner voice told her as she trudge through the house that was so silent that she heard one of the mice move about the walls. Yawning she opened her door and went about going to sleep. As she went to sleep she checked the clock next to her bed and yawned again. 10:38pm blinked back at her on the clock.

The next time her icy grey eyes opened they were peering at the clock that read 5:23 am. Groaning, the young bat demon pushed herself up from the bed and began to brush her hair as she thought about her day. Rubbing her eyes to get the sleep from her eyes, Hika moved down through the house to the kitchen where she stood for a moment. What was she going to do for the four lunches she had to create for herself and three friends?

Hika was found in the kitchen an hour later putting together the final touches on the four lunches. Takji and Night entered together, holding each other's hand before they saw that Hika stood there, watching them with a raised eyebrow. They gasped and fumbled to try and tell her what they were doing, before the noticed the grin that spread over Hika's lips.

Hika had suspected that the woman known as Takji had been interested in Night since she was fifty years old, though no one spoke of it in public or polite company. This show of affection that was not meant to be seen by anyone else just confirmed her suspicions. Turning away, she put the lids on the four lunches and tied them up so that when she walked to school if they fell they wouldn't bang open. When she turned back and saw that Takji and Night were still standing there, staring at her, she sighed.

"Listen, Takji, Night. You two don't have to act like I'm going to bite you in half for being in love with the one of your dreams. So to, would I expect if I ever came home with someone; be they male, female, or a talking giraffe." Hika told them with a smile at the two before leaving the kitchen to go get ready for school. She could never understand why demons and humans could not accept that the gender of a person did not mean that one could not love them.

Whistling as she awoke from her sleep, she skipped along to finish getting ready. Hika didn't even growl at the binders that she was being forced to wear as she had the morning before. Having snacked on the food she had made that morning, she had no need to stop and have breakfast with the four demons that were sitting in the dining room. Hika picked up the four lunches she had made at 7:24 and left the house, calling goodbye over her shoulder.

Not looking where she was going, Hika almost ran smack dab into the young man that was in her way. Clutching the four lunches to her chest so they wouldn't go flying, she took a few steps back to stare up at the young man. Her eyes focused on face of Kuronue, who looked far more unpleasant than he had the day before when they had first been introduced by Kurama.

"Oh, Kuronue, hi, do you think you would be able—" Hika started before his look darkened and she slipped into quietness. Her blue eyes searched for some reason behind his apparent displeasure with her. Hika had kept her promise. She had made him lunch for that day. She would repay in full what she'd eaten the day before.

"Don't ever come to my house at night again Hika. I do not know what you thought you were doing there last night, but do not ever do it again. I will not be as kind to you the next time you trespass in my back yard after ten o'clock," Kuronue told her before turning and leaving her with the four lunches and the rest of the way to school to walk alone.

Hika felt a little bit like she had been smacked. Her mouth hung open for a moment before she looked around to make sure no one had seen the telling off and closed it slowly. Swallowing back whatever hateful thing she was going to say, for that would not make her any friendlier with Kuronue or the people at the school, she squared her shoulders and started off again towards the school. Her morning that had started out so well had taken a wild rollercoaster ride and was quickly becoming a gut wrenching monster of a day.

As she entered the courtyard, she saw familiar faces standing over to one side: Kuronue, Inane, and Charlie. Clutching the lunches to her chest, Hika lowered her gaze and walked past them. When Charlie called her name, she refused to look and quickened her pace. She was thankful that not as many people stared at her as she entered and went to her locker this morning as compared to the morning before. Hika had seen the look of indifference on Kuronue's face when he'd seen her and for some reason that hurt more than if he had slapped her earlier that morning. What if he was so influential that he made Charlie and Inane mad at her too? There were demons like that in the Makai, and she'd dealt with them once. She did not like being turned away from her friends when she was just making them. So she wouldn't let them turn her away. She'd turn away herself, before she could get hurt.

Stuffing the lunches into her locker, she pulled out a notebook that she'd left in her locker overnight and her pencil box before closing it. Hika jerked when she found that Charlie was waiting on the side that the locker's door had blocked out, watching her with curiosity.

"Did I scare you off last night?" Charlie asked; worry making his accent a bit stronger than it had been the day before. Hika blinked and thought back to the night before and remembered the inches that had been consumed so quickly when they'd sat next to each other on the tree branch. She was about to say something to him when Kuronue walked up to his own locker and started to go through it looking for his own things.

Hika's shoulders stiffened as she turned to look at him out of the corner of her eye. She frowned for a moment and then decided that this meekness was not her style. Hika looked at Charlie first since he had been the first one to join the conversation and smiled.

"Charlie, please, I grew up in the Makai," Hika said soft enough that only he and Kuronue could hear. "I didn't want you getting caught sitting on a tree limb with a girl with bat wings is all."

"So the troublemaker stopped at your house too?" Kuronue asked, closing his locker to look at the two that spoke near him. His gaze only rested on Hika a few moments before going to his older friend.

"Listen, I don't get what your problem is with me Kuronue," Hika said, turning on him now with the ferocity of a mountain lion. "I was flying around randomly. As you've overheard, yes I did stop by Charlie's house. We spoke, and then he had to go to sleep. Your house was just on my little flight. You were awake and I was going to say hi but you already had company so I didn't bother. I didn't think you wanted Inane seeing wings so I left when there was the cover of darkness. Snapping at me like you did this morning was no way to treat someone that was just curious about a new town she was in!" She took a few breaths to calm down as she glared her icy gaze up at Kuronue before brushing past him so that she could go to her classroom.

Hika was about to go into class when running footsteps caught up with her. She felt her hand being grabbed. She spun, kicking out without realizing that she'd done it. She froze, her foot an inch away from nailing Charlie in the head. He was staring down at her with wide, unbelieving eyes, that slowly inched down to where the young woman's skirt was starting to slip back to reveal more and more flesh of her upper thigh. Then his eyes snapped up to look her straight in the eye as more skin was shown. It was at that moment that his cheeks turned a bright pink that Hika remembered that unlike the day before she had not bother to wear a pair of shorts underneath her skirt.

This realization hit her quiet powerfully—so much so that she lost the balance she had maintained by holding onto the wrist that had grabbed her own and balancing on one foot. The fact that others had stopped to stare at the strange scene played out between Charlie and the new girl did not help the young demon girl. She toppled over and landed on her back. Hika's legs quickly snapped shut and she started to push her skirt down that was already up to mid-thigh. Her own skin turning a light pink, Hika pushed herself up and started to busily brush her skirt off, unable to look at Charlie. It was then that she noticed a man standing behind Charlie that had been there the whole time and seen the same spectacle that Charlie had. She looked up into the embarrassed face of Kuronue.

Charlie seemed to be in a state of embarrassment and shock as he stared at the girls face. The underwear that he had seen when her skirt had lifted was imprinted plainly on his mind's eye even though he was trying to replace it with an image of the girls face instead. Quickly he brought up the first thing he could think of other than her underwear.

"We normally meet up in the courtyard for lunch. If you want, I can meet you at your locker and help you carry the lunches there," he offered to the young woman that was about to turn around and leave. He could already hear gossip start to take hold in the onlookers and he wanted to make sure that she didn't get the sharp end of it. If Charlie could change the situation where he was the 'bad' guy then he would. The new girl didn't need to deal with that kind of thing on her second day.

Hika paused in her escape to look at the two young men that had seen a place she had never let anyone else see. She just wanted to hide her face and get away from these people. But she was supposed to blend in, so accepting help, her mind told her, would be a good way to go. Putting on a sheepish smile, Hika nodded. "If you could, that would be very helpful thank you Charlie. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go and … find some way to make myself very unnoticeable." And with that said, she practically ran from the area where so many people had stopped to see what was going on. She felt like her face was on fire.