Chapter 36: Kunzite's Evil, Kids, Stay in School!

[scene: Monday morning. Zoi has moved a chair nearer to the door so he can listen for Kunzite's car. At last he hears it approaching so he walks outside and locks up before Kunzite parks to save some time.]

[Kunzite still gets out and they meet each other halfway.

Zoi: Hi.

Kunzite: Hi.

[They embrace with their faces close. Zoi still has the memory of their first kiss still in his mind. He desperately wants to kiss him again, but he's afraid Kunzite will think he's too forward.]

Zoi: Hi.

Kunzite: Hi.

[Zoi moves his face forward a little and draws back as if from an open flame. Then Kunzite does the same. Before they know it they are kissing again, with a passion that borders on starvation, both completely oblivious to the world around them. Eventually they break it off.]

Kunzite: [whispers] What is this strange hold you have over me?

Zoi: [whispers back] I don't know, but I hope it never goes away.

Kunzite: I guess we'd better go to school.

Zoi: I guess we'd better.

[Zoi gets in and Kunzite's crazy driving brings him out of his haze.]

Zoi: Is it my turn to ask questions again?

Kunzite: If you'd like.

Zoi: Why are you in high school, anyway?

Kunzite: [smirks] Why wouldn't I be in high school?

Zoi: As someone who is actually forced to attend high school by the dictates of my family, age, socioeconomic status, religious affiliations, and species, I can think of about a thousand reasons I would try to get out of it, if I were you.

Kunite: I take it, you don't like being in high school?

Zoi: Not at all.

Kunzite: [smiles] Go on. Enlighten me. Why shouldn't I be in high school.

Zoi: For starters, If I were an evil godlike creature, I certainly wouldn't want to hang around some place where I needed a hall pass.

Kunzite: You must have noticed by now, I don't actually need a hall pass. [smiles at Zoi] Neither do you for that matter.

Zoi: Be that as it may, I can't imagine a worse hell than being stuck taking high school history and civics classes for a thousand years in a row.

Kunzite: That's the beauty of astral projection. I don't actually have to pay attention to anything the teachers are saying. They're wrong about most of it anyway.

Zoi: But, why? Why highschool? You can pass for older, so why not spend your days at a country club? Or a community college learning something that's actually interesting, at the very least?

Kunzite: [smiles] We go to high school because it's an ideal feeding ground. All those fresh young souls, being slowly crushed into powder by the exquisite grindstone that you humans call the "core curriculum." All that wasted potential needs to go somewhere, so the air is thick with life-sustaining energy.

Zoi: Gee, thanks. Now I'm thoroughly depressed.

Kunzite: Then while we are on the subject of not needing a hall pass, how disappointed would you be if you had to skip Biology and PE this afternoon?

Zoi: Not disappointed at all. Biology class is way too easy for me and PE class is way too hard.

Kunzite: Good because I was thinking we might go off-campus for lunch today.

Zoi: [eyes light up] You're going to take me out to lunch? In a restaurant?

Kunzite: [nods] A restaurant in Paris, to be exact. Though because of the time difference, it will be more of a dinner.

Zoi: [sits up straight] You're taking me to Paris? As in Paris, France?

Kunzite: You think I'd go to all this trouble to bring you to a Paris that isn't in France?

Zoi: [overcome] I don't know what to say.

Kunzite: [smirks] Well, if you're having misgiving about missing school, I'll let you order me a café au lait, and we can justify this as a school trip.

Zoi: Oh, no, I'm definitely going! I just wish I'd known earlier. I would have brought a camera.

Kunzite: I can provide the photographer. Then we can both be in the pictures at the same time.

[Zoi gives Kunzite a startled and uneasy look]

Zoi: You're bringing a photographer along with us to Paris?

Kunzite: She's a youma. She can get there by herself. Don't worry. She does excellent work. And she's very discreet. You won't even know she's there.

Zoi: I'll know she's there.

Kunzite: There's no need to be self-conscious. She's not human, so nothing we do will shock her. And you don't have to worry about her listening in to our conversations, since she doesn't understand a word of English.

Zoi: Oh…ok.

[He smiles. His shyness at the thought of being followed around and photographed by a monster overcome by the prospect of having a huge collection of candid pictures in Paris with Kunzite.]