That night, I had an uninvited guest… again. "Yo!" Kisshu waved at me, perched on the back of my desk chair. I found myself asking how he could do that on such a thin rail of wood until coming to the obvious conclusion: He flies, dimwit. I was shocked to see him there, but only barely.

"Kisshu, don't make me use this!" I pointed at the pocket that concealed my mew charm.

"Your pocket?" he raised a doubtful eyebrow.

"No!" I snapped. "My transformation charm! I would show it to you, but I can't touch it without going all crazy-instinct and transforming by accident." He chuckled at me. "Why are you here, anyways?" I found myself asking.

He answered, "Research. Pai says I'm not supposed to fight you anymore. I have to study you instead. It sounds horribly boring."

I gave him a questionable glance. "What brought that about?"

He pointed at his slightly maimed ear. "This. Since Pai is the science guy on board, he has the most medical training. While he was doctoring the… injury, he found your DNA all over it. – You spit on me, remember? – So, he asked me what happened. Since the wound was a bite and your spit was there… and something about the position of the teeth marks… Pai calls it forensics. I had to tell the truth because none of my lies matched the evidence and such. You really embarrassed me, kitten."

I saw no correlation between what he was saying and his change of assignment. "And this all ties into your job changing… how?"

He raised his eyebrows slightly. "I told Pai the truth. He decreed that I only got out of there alive because you let me go." Kisshu blushed a little bit. "So, he decided that he wasn't going to put me in harm's way anymore. He just wants me to observe you. I'm not even supposed to be speaking with you, really. But research is boring enough already. It will only be even duller if I have no one to talk to."

"You're sure that's the only reason you want to talk to me?" I asked, putting my hands on my hips. "I happen to think that you assume you'll get more intel if we chat and the like. You think you'll get me to say something I shouldn't, don't you?"

He gave a low laugh. "You're smart, kitten. Thanks. I was supposed to determine your intelligence level. Oh! And I already got a DNA sample too. So, thanks for spitting on me." He winked at me.

"Do you expect that I'll just let you follow me around?" I asked angrily.

He licked his top lip contemplatively before stating, "Yes. For the sake of your friend across the street and the life of that tree-hugger loser."

And there it was. He had me… again. "Alright, fine! But Joey's not a tree-hugger," I sulked. Then something else hit me. "No one in the anime ever calls Aoyama a tree-hugger. That's normally done in forums and fan fictions. You… Did you read…?"

Kisshu smirked. "I actually have indulged in some of those fan fiction things. I convinced Pai that they were a good source of possible theoretics. I needed a respite from the mundaneness of that show and its plot. After about the twentieth time, I got tired of seeing fictional me be such a lovesick loser. If there was a Deep Blue, I wouldn't betray him for some human girl."

"There's not a Deep Blue?" I asked incredulously.

"No, there's not," he answered matter-of-factly.

"So you read stories about yourself in which you don't act like you? And have seen a TV show about it too? Gosh, that must be weird. And here I thought becoming an anime magical girl was strange… But for you it must be like… ten times as weird."

"Are you trying to understand my feelings, kitten?" Kisshu asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Um… Maybe a little bit?" I replied, unsure if I was or not.

"Don't," Kisshu commanded bitterly, scowling.

"Why not?" I huffed. And then it dawned on me. "You're scared. You think that if you find out I'm not as heartless as you've been trained to believe, that you might actually turn into that 'lovesick loser' from the anime, don't you? You're scared of me! And it's not because I could kill you. It's because I could…" I trailed off before saying the words 'love you' and thought hard to replace them. "Care about you," is the phrase I decided on.

His frown deepened, and so I knew that I had hit the nail on the head. "Maybe you're not so smart after all," he commented.

"So you're going to tell Pai that I'm dumb, then? That will only protect me, you know. Or was that your intention?" This time, the one who was smirking was me.

Kisshu shook his head rapidly. "Quit playing mind games with me!" he hollered.

"If what I'm saying is bothering you, it's only because it's true," I told him. "It may be in your subconscious somewhere and you aren't aware of it yet, but that doesn't make it any less true. If my words didn't ring a bell somewhere inside your head, then you'd only be laughing at me right now."

"Shut up!" he snapped, rising from his 'seat' and swinging an arm at me. My cat appendages burst forth as I ducked. "You little (bleep), shut up," but his words lacked any real force. He sounded almost agonized; seemed to be trying to convince me to keep some unspoken secret. I was sitting on the floor and leaning against the footboard of my bed. His figure arced over me; his feet on the floor, his right fist against the wood as the arm that he had used to swing at me was now supporting his weight. The way he breathed hard suggested that he wasn't used to bearing this weight, and something about it seemed almost metaphorical. His golden eyes were slightly glazed over. He looked tired and confused and oh, so sexy. Those gorgeous eyes stared into mine. He moistened his lips before parting them and asking, "Why couldn't you just surrender?"

Staring up into those eyes, I saw something that the anime never showed. In the show, Kisshu had always been playful and feisty and a bit of a pervert. But never had I seen the anime character possess the burden that seemed to be bearing the real Kisshu down now. "Is it hard?" I wondered. "Always being the one that makes the jokes; never being the one to hear them. It must be awful having to cheer up everyone else and never getting cheered up by anyone yourself." And it was then I knew what I had to say. So I said it. "Because that would be boring…"

He snapped out of the sorrowful daze. His eyebrows raised, his eyes gleamed, and the edges of his mouth curled up into a smile. It started with a suppressed giggle. That soon changed into maniacal laughter. And after seeing something that was never in the anime, it surprised me that they had gotten his laugh just right.

When Joey arrived the next afternoon, I was surprised to see Ginger with him. One look from me and she shrugged. "I saw him come over. I figured I might as well be here too."

Joey stared me in the eyes; his were slightly crazed and had dark circles underneath of them. "I stayed up all night," he said stoically. "That. Was. Awesome."

I looked at him. "Yeah? Well, apparently I'm never getting a teammate. I'm going solo on this biz. Something about the rarity of genetic markers. And Keiichiro is a fictional character. And so is Deep Blue."

"Aw man, that sucks!" Joey frowned.

Ginger widened her eyes at the one new piece of info. "How do you know there's no Deep Blue?"

Oops. And then Kisshu appeared above us all, hanging by his knees from one of the blades of the ceiling fan and said, "I told her, because it's true." Double oops.

"What the heck is he doing here?" Joey yelled up at the ceiling with a frown. He took one aggressive step forward before swaying back and forth and almost falling into a lamp.

"He's not… You're seeing things. You've been watching way too much, way too fast. Take a nap on the couch. You'll be better when you wake up," I said only half-jokingly. I was kind of hoping he would buy it. The last thing Joey needed was to pick a fight with Kisshu while he was this sleep deprived.

"Joey may be seeing things," Ginger snapped, "but I slept perfectly sound last night, thank you. And I know what I see. I see a Cyniclon on the ceiling fan!"

"We're not called Cyniclons," Kisshu grumbled.

"Let me at 'im!" Joey growled, stumbling forward like a drunkard. He promptly fell on his face. Kisshu chortled at him.

Ginger ignored Kisshu's statement and just stared daggers at me. "Why did you let the enemy in your house? This is real life, Kaylee, not some sappy fanfic fluff piece! He could kill you in your sleep, y'know!"

"He threatened to kill both of you if didn't let him stay and 'study' me, or whatever his job is now. Was I supposed to let him do that instead?" I retorted.

Ginger crossed her arms sulkily. "No, I guess not." Then she looked at me with worry in her blue eyes. "But you're my best friend too, Kaylee. I don't want you getting dead either."

"Why are you guys talking about me as if I'm not here?" Kisshu inquired peevishly. I was getting stressed out because suddenly three people were very angry at me. Then a noise from the floor caught and held all of our attentions.

Joey was snoring. And drooling. It was kind of gross, but yet funny at the same time. "Chocolate chip cookies," he moaned, "with peanut butter!" He smiled in his sleep and some more drool trickled out of his mouth. Now I couldn't blame him for the drool. I mean… he was dreaming about cookies.

Ginger stared at him. "What should we do?" she pondered aloud.

"Take pictures and put them on Facebook," I grinned wolfishly.

"Okay!" Ginger agreed with a smile. From his place on the ceiling fan, Kisshu raised a curious eyebrow.