Chapter 6

Charlie wasn't alone when Hika returned to her locker at lunch. Inane was standing with him, speaking animatedly with the young elemental boy. When Inane's eyes locked on Hika's nearing form, she broke off in mid-sentence to rush at the astonished young bat girl nearing her. Hika was about to say something along the lines that she was just now going to get the lunches out when Inane grabbed both of Hika's hands and held them up in her own hands as if pleading with the other girl.

"I am so sorry for the way that Kuronue acted earlier. Charlie told me all about it. He's normally such a sweet guy. And after you made us lunches and all, how Kuronue could yell at you is beyond me. I mean you didn't even mean to take us home with you, we just kind of pushed ourselves onto you and made you take us to your house. If we'd known that it would have gotten you into trouble we would never have—" Inane was saying so fast that eventually Hika just stopped listening and nodded her head dumbfounded.

What had Kuronue yelled at her about? What had Charlie told Inane had happened? Hika bit the inside of her lips to keep from breaking out into a smile at the rate in which Inane was trying to apologize. Confusion must have been plain on Hika's face, for eventually Inane stopped talking and looked up at the girl with wide eyes.

"Please, Hika, don't think badly of Kuronue. Please don't make him or Charlie suffer by not giving him or Charlie lunches because of what happened in the hallway. We are really nice people given the chance," Inane finally finished, her worry splayed over her own face. Hika couldn't help but grin at that. While there had been a time when she'd been considering refusing to give the guys their food for looking up her skirt, she had decided against it in the end.

"Inane, please, why would I refuse to give people food when I promised to bring it in the first place? That would be no way to gain friendship with anyone," Hika told the young woman before slowly slipping her hands free and going to her locker. Opening her locker, she pulled out the four boxes carefully so that nothing spilled. She found hands reaching forward and taking two before she could balance them properly. When her blue-grey eyes searched for the body that controlled the hands she saw sky blue eyes return the gaze sheepishly. Then feminine hands took another of the boxes and Hika was left with carrying only one box. She looked at the two that were helping her with surprise.

"I promised I would help you carry these," Charlie told the demon girl with one of his smiles that seemed to brighten up the area all by itself. He was trying hard not to think of the underwear he had seen earlier in the day and having a hard time of it. Every time that he looked at the young woman the scene replayed in his mind as if trying to get him to acknowledge his mistake—sneaking up on a young woman who had grown up around demons. Instead, he turned to focus all his energy on Hika's face which was showing disbelief and suspicion.

"You have to be the weirdest—" Hika started to say before looking sideways at Inane, "people that I have ever met." She had been about to call Charlie a demon. Hika made a mental note to start curbing what she was saying to others. It would not be good for her or her family to release a little bit too much information.

"Really? Do people not normally keep their promises where you used to live?" Inane asked as she turned to lead the way to where they would be eating carrying one of the boxed lunches.

"No. The people I used to live with were basically outlaws. My mother was best friends with the leader so we were allowed to stick around. He died a few years ago so we decided to move into the old house. Ma's not really accepted by the main family, because she choose to live with Yoko; so they were more than happy to let us have it." Hika said, scrambling to come up with a cover story. She should have hashed one out with her mother before she had started at this school. That or she would have to be careful what she said in the future. She was already being given a weird look from the human. No doubt the fact she grew p o the 'wrong side of the law' would be all over the school by the end of the week.

"No wonder you aren't afraid of your house! Do you have any stories from growing up? I find those that are on the opposite side of the law to be really fascinating," Inane encouraged after losing the incredulous look from her face. She was very good at hiding her emotions.

Um, yeah, I have tons of stories. If you aren't going to turn them over t o the cops, I'll be happy to tell you about the time I lived with our little group, HIka said, thinking back to the last one hundred years that she could think of and remember. She had plenty of stories. She would just have to remember to 'censor' the demons and other nonhuman details out of them.

By this time they had entered the courtyard wehre they were to eat. As her eyes attempted to adjust to the sunlight, HIka paused to look around. Before she could continue after her to-be friends, she felt the lunch box that she had been carrying lifted from her grasp.

This was one of the things that Hika had to admit was annoying about being a bat demon in the human world. In Demon World it was general overcast, or dark because of the red-brown sky that hid the direct sunlight. Bat demons had an advantage there: their eyes didn't have to adjust to the gloomy light all the times. But here in the Human world the sun did not have that protection of a red-brown sky, but could fall right down on the humans. That meant that for demons like Hika, they had to wait at least ten seconds before their eyes could fully adjust to the difference to the light after coming out of buildings. Because of this weakness, HIka was set upon and relieved of her lunch before she could adjust to the light that had temporarily blinded her. And then a shadow was covering her face and the young bat demon was once again blinking rapidly to try and accustom her eyes to the flipping back and forth of the light to shade.

"Hika?" came Inane's voice that rolled like water over pebbles to the ears of the bat demon.

"What's wrong with your eyes?" came a voice that sounded like the quiet crackling ofa fire to Hika's suddenly super sensitive ears—Charlie she guessed.

"I'm sorry, did I spook you?" came another voice from the direction of the shadow that loomed over her. It was almost musical to the girl's ears—like the sound of wings beating against the wind in the middle of the night, of tree's whooshing in the wake of a storm. It was ask she heard this voice that her eyes became accustomed to the light.

Looking up, Hika found that it had been Kuronue that had taken the lunch box from her. He'd been waiting next to the door for them to get there with the lunches, not being able to get himself to go and help at the lockers. Breaking herself form the zoning out she found herself, Hika found the three of them looking at her strange, as if her zoning out had been accompanied by speaking in tongues. For a moment, Hika worried that maybe her bat wings had broken free, but they were still tightly wound against her body by the brace. It occurred to her that she must have been staring at them for a time without answering their questions about her eyes.

"Oh, yeah, sorry, it's these new contacts and all. They don't like sudden change in brightness so my eyes took a moment to adjust is all. It didn't help that Kuronue startled me either by taking the lunch when I was almost blind," Hika lied slowly, looking away from all three of them to glare up at the sky. So that was two times that she had lied to these people she considered friends in the last few hours. She would have to either start figuring out her lies or she'd be in a tangle of mess before long.

They continued to ask if she was okay as she went over to one of the lunch tables that were laid out, letting Kuronue carry the last lunch box. She wasn't going to argue if others wanted to do her work for her. They sat around her and took a box for themselves, leaving her with the one that Kuronue had carried over after scaring her.

"So tell me about those people you lived with if you don't mind," Inane asked, after a silence had continued on for a few moments. She was a woman that needed to speak to fill up a silence whereas Hika could relax in a silence.

Hika blinked as she took a bite of rice and looked away at a tree nearby, trying to think of one that she could tell without having to worry too much about censorship. As the tree swayed in a breeze, she smiled and looked down at her food. She took another bite and then put her utensils down and closed her eyes as if reciting a story from memory. A demon had helped her hide from her mother for five days when she had been angry with her. She put in different explanations other than 'he could turn things invisible'. Then she told them a story about a guy that was stuck in a bank that they had to 'extract' that she had taken part of a year before when she was 'sixteen'.

Inane was hooked on the stories and ate with her eyes focused on the storyteller. Charlie watched the young demon girl with interest though he seemed more interested in the food he was eating. It had been cooked with a demon world twist—different spices that could only be found in the demon world. It would not change the basic taste of the rice or chicken or other food that she had prepared for each person, but it would give a subtle hint of exotic taste underneath that taste.

Kuronue was looking away to mask his own interest in the tales. He ate the food, but did not compliment it like the others had. The taste had opened something in his mind and he was remembering small things from being a demon—bamboo shoots that were coming down fast, a necklace, earrings in the shape of a moon and stars, a woman who looked so much like Hika hiding in a hay loft with a look for pure terror on her face. He blinked away the memories when that picture of a woman sprang into his minds eyes. He turned to look at the young woman laughing as she talked about how the man that was caught in a trap had tripped over her, sending them both sprawled over the concrete with her on top of him and how Yoko had dragged the thief off of her with a look of pure fury on his face.

Kuronue's blue-purple eyes looked at Charlie. He had seen the way that Charlie had acted around the young woman that was new to the school. He had never seen the elemental incarnate show any true interest in any woman that they had ever met. Even Inane Charlie ignored for the most part and treated her like she was just 'one of the guys'. With Hika, Charlie was treating her like she was a delicate rose that he wanted to pick and preserve but at the same time wanted to leave attached to her bush so she could grow more and become more beautiful.

Kuronue couldn't understand why his heart clinched whenever his friend seemed to get that look on his face. He had Inane and he loved the human girl. He could hardly stand the Bat demon that seemed to be so on top of everything. She seemed to believe herself better than the ones around her. All because she had grown up in demon world and could remember it.

He didn't realize it but he was frowning deeply at Hika at this point when she opened her eyes and took a bite of her food. She paused as their eyes met for a moment. Chicken half way to her mouth, she watched him as he glared at her. The other two at the table looked in between the two, confused at the reactions.

Hika slowly put the chicken back down in her lunch box and straightened as she continued to hold the eye contact with Kuronue who watched her with an increasing frown and glare. What had she done now? Did he disapprove of how close she had come to telling the human about demons with her stories? She frowned and looked down at her food. The disapproval that she saw in the back of Kuronue's gaze scared her.

Slowly the young girl pushed a few strands of her hair back out of her face and rose from her seat. Without saying a word she took the lid of her own lunch box and put it back in its place. Raising her eyes up from her lunch box she looked at Kuronue and Kuronue alone.

"I'm sorry that I dropped by without announcing it last night. I'm not used to normal behavior. After all, I was raised by a gang of thieves and hustlers. If you didn't want me here Kuronue, you just had to say it before I went and made a fool of myself," Hika said, her voice low and without emotion. She had thought that she had seriously been making friends here.

"Hika, wait, you don't have to leave," Charlie started before Kuronue made a movement to hush him.

"I know when someone doesn't want me around Charlie. I won't force my company on anyone," Hika said, her eyes never leaving Kuronue. Inane seemed to fluff a little at the insinuation that Kuronue was going to force Hika to leave. She had really been enjoying the stories. But before Inane or Charlie could stop her, Hika smiled at them and left.

She kept her back straight until she was sure that no one she had been sitting with could see her. Then Hika slouched against the wall, holding the lunch box to her chest as if it was there to protect her from anything that was about to attack her.

"You know, I don't normally hate people, but when someone assumes something about another, I really can't help but dislike them."

Looking up as she blinked away hate filled tears, Hika stared at Kuronue who had followed her and was not standing in front of her. It had been him that had spoken, bringing her to the attention that she was alone with him now. She stood straight, reaching up with her hand to dash away the small tears that had started to form on her eyes lashes. Then she straightened her face and looked up at Kuronue.

"I'm only going off what you yourself have done. First of all, you yell at me for spooking your girlfriend last night because I was trying to get out of the tree without her noticing my… unusual characteristics. Then you call me a troublemaker. Then when I've given you the food that you ate, you start frowning and glaring at me like I'm sort of annoyance. Did I leave anything else out?" Hika said in her softest voice as a group of girls and boys went by. Kuronue took a step closer so that they were less than three feet apart so that the group could pass them and he could still hear Hika.

"Maybe I just don't like spies." Kuronue retorted once the group was gone out of hearing range.

"And maybe I just like to take strolls at night to keep my wings from going useless. Let me remind you Kuronue that I grew up in a world where I could go out flying without having to worry about being seen. Your house was just on my flight," Hika snapped. She didn't like the term spy. It indicated that she shared what she saw; that she worked for someone.

"And if anyone saw you then the whole world would know about demon world and nowhere would be safe from demons or humans."

"I know!" Hika said a bit louder than she had meant to. Clenching her jaw shut she looked away. This man made her so mad. "Listen. You wouldn't understand. You've never been able to fly through the air without a care in the world. To have the wind whip your hair around as if it were trying to tell you something. You've never rested on a cloud and thought how peaceful it would be to stay up there forever and never have to deal with the world again. You don't understand what it's like being kept from all that. To not be able to stretch a part of you that, if everyone else around you got their way, would never stretch again. You, Kuronue, haven't felt that, nor will you." She was realizing just how true her words were. If her parents got their way she would be stuck in this world for the rest of her life. She turned from the human after she considered punching him for getting in her face about this.

"You are right, I don't know that feeling. But I know what it's like to be in a roll that you don't think you are supposed to be. I've had that feeling since I awoke consciously. I never fit in. I don't know if I ever will. But I'm at least trying. I was able to find a human girl that makes me happier than I ever was when all I thought about was how I didn't fit in around this place. My suggestion to you Hika, is to find someone that makes you feel that way and stick with them. It'll make you a lot happier," Kuronue said before turning to walk off. He wasn't going to get yelled at by a demon that thought she knew everything.

After Kuronue was gone, Hika turned and slammed her fist as hard as she could into the wall. As the pain ran up her arm she glared fire at the wall. If she hadn't hit the wall she may very well have gone and kicked the ass of that human. How dare he tell her to just give up on her wishes to go home to demon world and live a free life!

"I'll never be a friend of his. Not if this keeps up." She said as her anger disappeared. It was her own fault. She was technically, if you asked human law, an adult. She was almost one hundred and fifty after all. Hah. In demon age, that was hardly out of childhood. She could run away.

"Run away huh? I think you should do it. It'd give me all the opportunity to get at you."

Slowly, the young girl turned to look at a student that was standing behind her. He was about a foot taller than her and loomed over the girl. While he was using his own voice, it had a ring to it that sounded like the man that had met her the day before. Stiffening, Hika put her back against the wall as she watched him.