A/N: Hey guys, it's my birthday, or it was a few hours ago! I'm another year older and my favorite present was discovering that yumikuri is officially been confirmed as canon.

But here is my present to you my lovelies

Enjoy!

Usually Gaz's attentiveness during her pre-calculus class was anything but engrossed and intensive; in fact, most of the time she fumbled with her current Game Slave model, decapitating and annihilating fleshy, pink, mindless, vampire pigs. Gaz usually found that murdering the bloodsucking pieces of meaty pork distracting from the dismal reality that was around her, not to mention highly satisfying to see her animated blade slice through the fatty skin of the pigs, seeing blood pour from their mangled throats. This time however she couldn't seem to last more than thirty seconds into a level. Her thumbs twiddled rapidly away on the various buttons of her Game Slave, trying to land hits on her round enemies, while attempting to dodge various attacks from her bloodthirsty adversaries. She let out a muffled growl when a grotesque animation of her character flashed on the screen as her life bar came to a startling end. A piggy, demented and disturbed, opened its jaws, revealing long, spike-like teeth, and plunged them into her character's neck. The vile creature, with a quick flick of its head, violently tore out the flesh around the character's neck; blood splurging and dispersing everywhere it came into contact with. The deranged piggy then smiled darkly, cryptic green eyes glowing, crimson dripping rapidly from its mouth.

"Damn it." Gaz whispered as silent as a mute while she watched the caption on the screen, in bloody letters, said, "Game Over: You Lose". She finally decided to give up on that level for the day, for she could not bring herself to fully concentrate on it. She sighed, shutting off her console before closing it quietly and placing it within her bag next to her desk. Her desk was at the farthest corner in the back of the classroom, near the window—an intelligent move by the teacher in order to escape her wrath before it came swirling at her—which taunted students on sunny days like this, except Gaz who couldn't care less, in fact, it was weather like this that infuriated her. She could feel the burning heat of the sun pierce through the glass and onto her body; though, she never really sweat, it simply irritated her skin.

As she cursed the sun for its incessant shining, she begrudgingly attempted to, once more, clear her mind, which proved to be, to her fervent dislike, nearly impossible. Her mind was swimming in questions, drowning and gasping for air in curiosity. Her mind was reeling endlessly about exactly what had occurred during lunch earlier in the day; however, she hadn't the desire to question, think, or find out what happened. She needed to find something to take her mind off of the past events—the Game Slave a total failure in doing so—and moved her eyes to the window, and watched in boredom at empty space in the parking lot. It didn't take long for her distraction to become useless and she had to repress an irritated groan from escaping her lips as she scowled deeply and placed her head histrionically in her arms as she put her head down on her desk. She blinked her eyes hard several times, taking in deep, oxygen-rich breaths. She was losing it.

She had almost laughed!

If it weren't for her quick thinking—soiling her brother's shirt—she surely would have let out such a sound that hadn't been used for so very long. She thought back on it, how that strange, yet pleasant feeling had busted through her, flowing throughout her entire body. She could not comprehend or fathom what exactly had come over her in that moment, but she was positive that she never wanted to revisit it again.

The reason she was being so troubled by this seemingly small event was because of the fact that the laugh that was about to escape her wasn't a malicious chuckle that she usually produced when about to beat the senses out of her annoying victims. No the laugh that she barely suppressed was warm and pure, completely genuine; that's what was bothering her. She truly had not laughed whole-heartedly since she was very young, even though she could lie and say she couldn't remember the last time she laughed like that, she wouldn't do that to herself. The last time that she uttered a laugh that was so innocent and gentle was when her mother was still here. When her mother could still hold her close to her bosom and tease Gaz with tender love. Even now, Gaz swore that she could remember her scent.

But she didn't want to remember, so she pushed the memories away; her mother was gone.

That's what bothered Gaz, the fact that she had the ability to still laugh like that puzzled her to no end. The last person she remembered that made her laugh was gone from her life, and from that day on Gaz sought, nor discovered any reason to laugh, to really laugh; to laugh until her sides started to burn from overuse. At least, that's what she believed, until today however. For whatever reason, Gaz had found Zim's insult against her brother to be mildly amusing, and she didn't know why. In the past he had assaulted her brother with countless taunting and offensive words and she had never been affected by them, until now apparently. She moaned in disapproval as she reflected the alien boy, replaying the occurrence again in her mind. She saw his conceited, green face roll his eyes at Dib as her memory played in her head. She watched and saw Zim scoff at her moronic brother and sneer at the human male.

"The only thing that's poisoning her is your stupidity" he had commented with aloofness that she never had thought possible. She squeezed her arms tightly to prevent herself from any foolish action; just remembering the comment caused silent laughter to stir within her body, to which she desperately forced down. She didn't know exactly why the statement had such an effect on her, for Zim had previously expressed endless insults towards her sibling, but for some reason, this time was different. She couldn't quite place what made this insult shadow all the rest, but she assumed it was because she mildly, no, completely agreed with the invader. Above his logical and intelligent brain, Dib was always and would forever be a complete moron. He had a nasty habit of jumping to conclusions and acting irrationally in every situation. For God's sake, he still believed that Zim was trying to take over humanity despite the fact that it had been at least four years since his last failed attempt. Dib assumed that Zim was carefully planning his next assault, but Gaz knew that Zim wasn't clever enough to carefully plan something and put up a charade for four years without once announcing his plan to enslave the human race. So she felt that Dib's attentiveness and hostility towards Zim was unnecessary, not to mention troublesome. It wasn't all verbal, the physically fought as well. She never really stayed to watch them foolishly attack each other, but Dib would come home in bruises and cuts that he would wear proudly as a reminder that he was a, "protector of the human race". Gaz simply thought he was naïve; they were more an embarrassment than a trophy.

Thus, Gaz completely agreed with Zim and his words. The arrogant irken was now harmless and now simply wanted to complete his psychology project without having Dib breath down his neck the whole time, so she could relate to him. Her brother seemed to always keep an eye out for her, and while some people would assume that he's trying to be a good sibling, she found it annoying. She felt that she never got any privacy, especially when she could fell the strain of his gaze on her, protective and intense. He had even attempted to convince her to place cameras in her room just in case something dangerous occurred; Gaz had replied that the only thing that was going to be dangerous was her if Dib even thought about placing anything, even a microphone, in her room. So even though Dib had made it out that Zim could "poison" her, it was clear that Dib would be the only one to do that to her with his daft tendencies; he would drive her to insanity with his idiocy, much like how Zim's comment was driving her to madness.

Gaz blinked hard once more and rose her head up to glance at the clock in the front of the classroom; there was twenty minutes left in class and the end of the day. She sighed deeply and put her head back down, waiting for the bell to chime, waiting until she would be forced to be with Zim while he probed meaningless questions at her and she was not looking forward to it.

*0*

Walking out of the Skool had been as difficult as usual, but Zim didn't mind, for he was too preoccupied in thinking about his superiority and how he had led the foolish Gaz-human into his trap so easily. He smirked to himself as he walked out the doors and triumphantly stepped down the stairs, seeing his violet-haired guinea pig at the bottom of the steps. He almost paused to stop and speak with her, but she simply moved on ahead down the campus sidewalk, keeping a fair amount of distance away from him. He trailed behind her, maintaining the distance that she strictly kept from him as they continued to walk towards his base in silence. After they were away from the student body's eyes, Zim thought it best to venture closer to the girl and when she didn't violently force distance between them, he thought it wise enough to speak.

"Zim appreciates you putting forth effort into assisting him with his project."

"You being sarcastic?" she replied dispassionately, continuing towards the alien's base. Zim faltered in his words, unsure of how to answer such a question.

"No!" he said rather loudly, much to Gaz's discontent, "I mean, uh, no, Zim is being very genuine when he says this. He truly appreciates you going through all this trouble so that the Dib-stink cannot contaminate my research."

"Yeah, well, it better be worth it," she muttered harshly, "just make sure to keep up your end of the bargain." And as an afterthought, she added, "idiot." In truth, Zim didn't like pretending to be thankful for this disgusting Earth-child almost as much as he hated being insulted by such a lesser being, yet he would never dream in voicing this out loud; he needed to keep up the charade and he also needed to live. The rest of their walk to his base was in comfortable silence, to which Gaz was thankful. She was irritated enough as it is, with her brother demanding that they walk home together immediately after she left her classroom. Of course she had to lie in order to escape his scrutiny, telling him that she received another detention, to which she was thoroughly lectured on before she demanded Dib to go home. She felt no remorse for the lie much like how she felt no emotion, lying had seemed to come easily to her, and though she didn't do it often, it got her out of situations that she'd rather not been in, so she didn't care. With Dib at home, she at least could concentrate on the stupid alien's questions, leave, and wait till she got her new Game Slave; simple as that.

They finally approached Zim's base a few minutes later, and Gaz watched intently as the gnomes on his lawn followed her with their own gazes. After one last glance she ignored them and waited for Zim to open up his house. The alien growled in frustration as he tried to pry open his front door. He then knocked furiously on the large wooden door.

"Gir, open the door!" he shouted vehemently at the little cyan-eyed robot that peered its head through the door. The little metal man smiled dumbly, narrowing his eyes with glee at the sight of his master.

"What's the password?" Gir drawled out sweetly, much to Zim's annoyance. The irken sighed, completely enraged by his SIR unit's foolish antics. He didn't have time for games like this, but he digressed, giving in to the robot's demands.

"…Tacos." He stated with a huge, irritated huff. The deranged SIR unit squealed happily and disappeared from his spot near the window in order to unlock the massive door. He happily opened it and smiled wide at the green alien. His gaze however traveled to the violet-haired girl behind him, to which the robot gasped in glee.

"Masta brought home a girly fr—"

"Yes, yes, I have brought home a guest. Gir, go inside and play somewhere while we talk." Zim commanded, silencing the SIR unit, though he did it unintentionally, not even giving thought to what the moronic robot almost said, for he didn't hear him. Gir obeyed, his eyes going red for a moment, and gave his master a salute before playfully running into another part of the house. After the robot's departure, he invited Gaz in accordingly. She immediately made her way to the couch, tossing her bag down carelessly before plopping down next to it. Zim was taken aback by her brazen actions and stood there dumbfounded. He had never had a guest before, so he was unsure of how to react. After a few moments Gaz turned her head towards him, staring at him expectantly.

"Well?" she queried roughly, "Aren't you going to ask me questions or do I have to magically answer them on my own?" Anger boiled within Zim, he had the mind to verbally vaporize her, but he willed himself to ignore her insulting tone.

"Do you want something to drink or…?" he questioned through clenched teeth, trying to keep his resentment towards the female down to a minimum.

"No," Gaz stated quickly, "just sit down and ask me your stupid questions already." With a clenched jaw, Zim walked to the other side of the couch, his black backpack in hand, and sat down quietly on the couch, taking out the same supplies that he had earlier that day, including the "pencil sharpener". With his notepad in hand, he sat up straight and turned slightly towards Gaz; his eyes ready to scan the human female. In the same likeness as earlier that day, Zim flipped a page of the notepad over, trailing his eyes over the questions he had planned to use during this interrogation. Suppressing a gratifying smile, he let the page fall back to its original placement. He then rose his head histrionically, pencil barely making contact with the paper in front of him; completely prepared to write down any reliable information. He looked at her intently and Gaz raised an eyebrow in reaction to the aliens cryptic gaze. Both parties were completely silent for a few moments, and Gaz was put off by the invader's seemingly constant scrutiny.

"Do you like video games?" he said in a seriously.

"Are you kidding me?" she stared wide eyed at the green boy in front of her and realized that she truly didn't know just how unintelligent the alien actually was. When Zim responded to her in seriousness, she sighed deeply. "Of course I like video games, if I didn't I wouldn't be here answering your ridiculous questions." During her answer, Zim fervently scribbled notes down on his note pad. Silence hung in the air as he continued to make notes, looking over them to make sure they were satisfactory when they were finished. Pleased with himself, he nodded then rested his eyes on Gaz again.

"Next question," he looked to the other page once more, "how do video games make you feel?" This inquiry caught Gaz off-guard and upon hearing it, her eyes grew in surprise.

"What are you a shrink?" The look she observed on Zim's face indicated that he wasn't familiar with the terminology or the implications that went along with it, so she huffed brazenly before actually responding to his question; though, it didn't take long for her to be able to describe her answer. With an emotionless face, she simply replied, "Nothing, they don't make me feel anything." Zim had to hold his breath at the blatant answer from the violet-haired girl. He couldn't believe it, so he quickly scanned her, secretly glancing at the device by his lap which only confirmed her previous statement. He had to breathe and prevent himself from growling at the girl who appeared to be increasingly difficult to break. Once he calmed himself he wrote down the female's reply. Once finished he looked back up to her, staring at her with strange attentiveness. Silence again shrouded the two adolescents and it was growing increasingly irritating to Gaz, especially under Zim's unending and obscure gaze. "What?" she seethed at the annoying irken pest.

"I ran out of questions." She couldn't believe that she actually heard that statement leave the extraterrestrial's green mouth. In her disbelief, she rose from the couch abruptly and grabbed her bag before heading for the door, "Wait, where are you going!?"

I can't believe how ignorant you are! She wanted to scream at the moronic green alien, but she refrained from stressing her vocal chords.

"I answered all your questions," she stated mockingly, "so I'm leaving now." Zim panicked, he couldn't have her leave now, he had barely made a dent in his research, and now she probably assumed that his faux psychology project had everything necessary to be complete; which would destroy his attempts of observing the violent young woman without arousing suspicion. "This was a complete waste of time." He heard he mutter under her breath. Gaz continued his tread toward his door and promptly exit his base.

"Wait!" he pleaded as she reached for the doorknob to leave, "I-I didn't come up with enough questions, but if you stay longer, I know that I can think of something!" Zim's eyes darted around the room, attempting to construct more questions out of thin air. Growing ever frantic under Gaz's malicious amber eyes, he was struck with a brilliant idea as his eyes rested on a blue piece of machinery that was on top of a large black end table that was where his television standed. "Perhaps," he said carefully, trying to coax her into staying, "it would be easier for me to complete my research by watching you play video games." Confused by his statement, Gaz followed his stare, until her eyes locked on a magnificent, metallic blue box, but it wasn't just any box. Even under some magazines and discarded newspapers, any video game player could decipher what that box was. She took a quick inhale of breath at what was in front of her, completely mesmerized by its glory.

"Is that," she paused, swallowing and taking another gratifying breath, "the z-boxstation 420?" Zim smirked, he got her.

"That it is." He replied quietly, letting the offer hang in the air above Gaz. The teenage girl didn't own the magnificent console, for upon asking her father, he withheld purchasing for her because of her increasing misbehavior at Skool. He had offered to procure the new and holy console if she went through two months of Skool without receiving a detention; this feat proved to be too difficult for Gaz, so she had given up on that incentive. But with it actually in front of her, she couldn't look away from it. She wanted to leave, but it was beckoning her, demanding her to play and feel its controller buttons under her soft fingertips. Her fingers twitched in desire to play on the god-like console. She bit her lip, trying to resist the urges that were coming to her, but it was all in vain.

"What games do you have?" she asked quickly, tossing her bag over to the couch once more before dashing over to the console and brushing the miscellaneous objects that buried the metallic machine. "Why do you even have this?" she questioned softly, more to herself than Zim. The young woman was so absorbed in her appreciation for the expertly crafted machine that she didn't even notice that Zim was next to her, until he crouched down next to her and opened a drawer of the table that held up his large, flat screen television, pulling out a few games of his.

"Gir insisted on getting it, along with these games, but he only used it a few times before becoming bored with it, so it's been just sitting here for about a month." He answered her gently, much to Gaz's surprise. The irken handed her the games and she went through them quickly before choosing a game called Zombie Survival. After she turned on the z-boxstation, she inserted the disc into the console, secret anticipation running through her. She grabbed two blue controllers from the drawer he just opened, shut it, and trailed behind Zim as they both found respite on the leather, maroon colored house.

"Don't you play?" she asked, not because she was genuinely concerned, but because she was curious. Zim raised an invisible eyebrow at the frightening girl's query.

"Zim, play? No," he scoffed, "Zim is far too busy to tinker around with foolish video games."

"Yeah, whatever." She stated plainly, reaching for the remote control on the end table, taking a moment to examine it, looking over the unfamiliar buttons until she found a large red button that she assumed to be the power button, and pressed it with her thumb. When the television flickered to life, she pressed a small grey button at the bottom of the remote as she read the words "input" under the miniscule dot. After a few more repeated clicks, she landed on the correct input for the console and quickly began to play.

Zim watches her as her thin, delicate fingers daze around the controller in her hands; moving gracefully like an elegant dance. He ran his gaze along her body; her legs crossed in a pretzel-like fashion on the couch, her posture poor in her hunched state, discreetly scanning her once more. His vision then connects with the device by his lap and his eyes narrow as soon as it confirmed that she still was not feeling any emotion. He grimaced, thankfully out of Gaz's line of vision. He settles in continuing his ruse and pretends to scrawl down meaningless notes, watching her now and then to see if he can scan an emotion from her.

Gaz wasn't oblivious to Zim's gazes. Though, she tried to ignore him, remembering that it was all for his project, she still couldn't seem to cease feeling his eyes upon her. It was disconcerting, and while her thoughts were concentrated on Zim and the true meaning behind there obscure glances, the protagonist's head was ripped off by a crazed zombie in a bloody and gory frenzy. She mentally slapped herself; she didn't even know why she was being bothered by all of this. Although other women would find it offensive for people to rake their eyes all along their bodies, she felt neither resentment nor anger for the egotistical extraterrestrial. He was an alien after all, so he wouldn't understand such scandalous topics, nor would he even know the implications of staring at someone constantly. Despite these reassuring thoughts, she could still feel those contacted eyes traveling up her and she could feel her skin begin to get irritated. The feeling could be compared to having an itch that one couldn't scratch, and Zim's intense looks was an incredibly massive itch.

After a few more minutes, and more tragic character deaths, she finally could no longer fathom the continuity of Zim's stares. She paused the game and abruptly grasped the second controller in her left hand and shoved it directly into Zim's face, to which the startled irken jumped at the brash action.

"Play." She demanded without looking at him.

"What? Why?" she gave no real answer.

"You'll probably get more credible information if you play too." Zim was stunned; this was an outcome that he was not prepared for. He knew that he would have to give into her demands; because denying to receive reliable information would poke holes in his deception, so he reluctantly took the controller from her hand.

"I'll play for a few minutes." He resolved, to which Gaz only nodded and after a few awkward minutes of learning the controls of the game—to Gaz's dismay—they both began to play in silence, and Gaz no longer felt Zim's unyielding gaze, except for a few occasional glances.

A few minutes turned into a few hours and soon the sun began to wildly set, leaving fiery colors to paint across the sky. Both beings seemed lost inside the game, and Zim was finding himself enjoy massacring zombies with chainsaws or bludgeoning them with short range weapons. He truthfully had not found the great appeal of video games until that moment. Originally the green boy had believed that video games were pointless inventions that offered no benefit to human society, but Zim found it truly entertaining. They played through four levels, defeating one of the boss missions before reality swept through and the concept of time returned to both the alien and the human. Gaz took her phone out of her jet black jeans and saw that the clock was quickly approaching six and she needed to be home by dinner or else Dib would through a fit and go out to "rescue" her as he had done many times before. And she didn't want to see what would occur if her brother discovered that she was here in her enemy's base besides a stereotypical lecture. So she sighed and gathered up all her things to leave.

"You're leaving?" Zim inquired, still engrossed in annihilating the undead enemies on his television screen.

"Yeah." She answered, putting her bag over her shoulder and moving away from the leather couch and towards the front door. In the daze around him Zim realized he hadn't come up with any questions to ask her whilst they were playing. The realization caused horror to surge through him like a painful electric shock and he immediately ceased in his actions and turned his head to the violet-haired human.

"Wait! I forgot to ask you more questions."

"Don't sweat it," she told him, "you can just ask me the next time I come over." The alien froze in astonishment, not believing what he just heard come out of the wicked woman's small mouth.

"Next time?" Gaz turned fully around, her face still a mask without any expression, looking into the irken's eyes.

"Yes, next time. I expect to have something to do while I wait for my new GameSlave." She confirmed and Zim was ecstatic to hear that his guinea pig would still be close for observation. He suppressed the devilish grin that threatened to come across his face by pinching his own fingers beneath his leather gloves.

"Oh?" he acted oblivious to his own plot, "That's fine, but only if you answer my questions!"

"That is if you think of any…" Gaz mumbled.

"Hmm?"

"Nothing." Gaz clarified and finally leaving the alien's establishment without another word, yet before she left Zim scanned her one last time. He picked up the device next to him, eyes avoiding the black screen; finally, his eyes latched themselves to the word that showed in bloody crimson letters. He couldn't suppress the malevolent laughter that came from deep within him upon seeing what flashed on the device's screen. Re-reading it again, his eyes spelled out the word "entertained" from the red letters. The laughter continued to grow exponentially, and soon it completely consumed him. After his laughter subsided, he took a look at the television, seeing a zombie that was ripped in half floating in the sky, a strange urge came over him and he gently put down the device and picked up the blue controller, un-paused the game, and continued to play.

A/N: It's my birthday, so a review would be a great gift ;) just saying…