Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ My Shinigami, My Hamburger ❯ The Mortal and the Thundering Youkai ( Chapter 13 )

Chapter 13

The Mortal and the Thundering Youkai

Iria sat down in her voluptuous, womanly-looking office chair, skillfully toed off her red pumps, and kicked them across the room. The walk-in closet she'd insisted on installing automatically slid open and a pair of identical blonde-haired dress-sprites picked up each of her shoes and scurried off to put them away. She barely paid attention, though, as she sunk back in her chair and turned into a bag of bones from her long workday. Of course, most wouldn't consider shopping, flaunting herself, and playfully seducing whomever took her fancy as typical hard work, but as far as she was concerned, it was, and someone had to do it.

The Goddess also known as Aphrodite sighed breezily to herself, running a hand through her bright blonde hair. After a minute of toying with it, she decided to let it down and as she shook it out, she picked out an empty, rose-colored martini glass from the mini-bar beside her work desk and when she put it to her lips, it was full. The room itself was in the shape of an average-looking boardroom, but she'd tweaked it in a few places to best fit her interests. She didn't know why mortals didn't do the same with their dreary workplaces. It was different shades of passionate red, sweetheart pink, and white, and everything else in it followed suit, including the mini-bar, the walk-in closet, the spacious powder room filled with Divine makeup, and the balcony that overlooked her small allotted patch of Space and Time known affectionately as Valentine.

It was a haven for free love, sprites of all varieties, and the business of running love fortunes and romance that Iria governed. Of course, it was also an ideal Divines' honeymooning destination, but that didn't bother her in the slightest. She had all the more fun trying to break up newborn marriages with her talents in seduction.

She smirked to herself, and that reminded her she could change her shade of lipstick to pass a little of the time. Iria, now dressed in one of her favorite sheer white dresses, crossed her legs femininely as a shape-shifting dress-sprite hopped up onto her desk and took the shape of a mirror. She smiled, and leaned toward it, taking a tube of coral blush out of a jar, where there would be pens on a normal work desk.

There was a loud bang as Nadette, the stereotypically beautiful blonde secretary, burst through the door and it swung loudly against the wall. As dictated by her employer, she clad in all white, pristine and pressed. The only thing that would have distinguished her as a secretary, and not some typical heartbreaking, Parisian belle, were her stylishly nerdy librarian's cat eye glasses.

The loud sound didn't jolt Iria in the slightest, and she continued applying her lipstick flawlessly, not bothering to look up as she asked, "Is something wrong, Nadie?"

Half-breathless from the sprint she had taken up to Iria's office, on high-heels, no less, the secretary clutched a hand to her chest, and a small item in the other hand, keeping it a considerable distance from her body and suppressing tiny trembles that ran up and down her arm. "Miss Iria," she managed to address her politely between breaths. "There's been a package delivered for you."

The vain Goddess of Love couldn't have cared less about any parcel. Most of the time it was something radically boring having to do with her actual business, and she always asked Nadette to open them for her. If it were a decent gift, she'd keep it. If it was another fruitcake, she let her secretary keep it. Otherwise they all went into the round file or incinerator. Sighing and rolling her eyes in the mirror, she finished her top lip and was moving on to the bottom one when Nadette nervously held out the small, black lacquer box she'd been sent to deliver to the one known as Aphrodite.

"It's from, um…"

She puckered her lips to her reflection and dramatically rolled her eyes again. "Just spit it out, darling. If it's from Hermes, just throw it out. I'm sick to catering to my brothers' and sisters' whims on their high and might mountain top. If they want me to stick someone with some cutesy arrow, then they can deal with that whiny brat of mine, Eros, not me-"

The blonde secretary swallowed nervously, afraid to hold the item in the palm of her hand any longer, lest it infect her or be filled with plaguing locusts. "Miss Iria… Father Shinigami sent it."

Iria let out a half yelp as she accidentally bashed her forehead against the mirror and stood bolt up, and would have knocked over her chair if not for the dress-sprites who appeared out of nowhere to secure it. There was a ragged streak of lipstick extending from her lip to her cheek, and her whole face had gone sheet pale beneath her blush while she stared in disbelieve at the tiny black box. "You've got to be kidding me," she said incredulously. She wiped the smeared lipstick off with the back of her hand, while walking around her desk, eyes glued to the box.

Nadette shook her head anxiously, holding out the box and acting as if she were terrified of it, but also terrified that she had brought it into her forewoman's office. "That's what the messenger told me," she said breathlessly. "I tried to refuse it, but he just wouldn't allow it. It was a corpse, Iria-he sent a corpse to deliver it!"

Walking quickly up to her secretary, Iria spread a wary look across her face. "Don't get upset, now, Nadie," she comforted coldly, too busy carefully eyeing up the suspicious gift to make it genuine. She lifted an eyebrow and almost scoffed to herself. "Knowing him, he'd probably get the biggest kick out of getting us all in a fuss like this, instead of going through the trouble of killing us."

"Miss Iria," Nadette almost whimpered, looking very anxious and pale herself. "please don't say something like that! Now please, just take your package."

"Nadette, calm down," she sighed in return.

"I just don't want to hold it, Miss Iria. It's your package!" the secretary protested, flushing beneath her pale blush.

Despite having met Iria's infamous Shinigami son, she still was not as levelheaded in the face of such a powerful force of Death as her boss was, and even the mention of the eldest Shinigami could have made her nervous. Besides that, Father Shinigami was notorious for very rarely giving out items to other Divines, or even socializing with them-making the little black lacquer box all the more suspicious. And him being the eldest God of Death, there could have been anything inside of it, from a swarm of scorpions to the robes of Krishna [1].

When her paling secretary tried to jab the box into Iria's hands, she was shaking too much to be fast enough. Iria took a wary step backward, still giving it an appraising look underneath her blood red eyeshadow. "Did the messenger say anything about what it was?"

"He couldn't say much, Miss Iria. He was a rotting corpse."

She lifted an eyebrow. "Oh."

The secretary opened her mouth and at first only made a few awkward sounds, shaking her head. "Please, Iria, I can't-"

"Fine," she sighed hurriedly, putting out her hand. "Give that thing to me before you pass out on my new silk rug or something."

Still struggling not to tremble to much, she hurriedly forced the lacquer box into her employer's hands and quickly began wringing her hands nervously, swearing in paranoia she felt something sinister going up her arms and into her veins. Although Iria would have told her if she'd sensed any sinister energy on the outside of the box, her secretary still had a very delicate constitution and a hypochondriac tendency that aggravated that. The blonde Goddess of Love cradled the small, smooth wooden box in both her palms, slowly running her fingers along the side of it. She didn't say anything when her secretary called her name, too engrossed to notice.

The sheer black ebony wood was almost nondescript, if not for the tiny Latin phrase declaring, "Death is merely a fantasy of those in search of futile reprose; Life is Death," etched completely around the rim of the lid, which was fastened shut tight by a cold, golden locked clasp. It was small enough to just barely stretch the width of her slender palms, but something about it didn't seem quiet as insignificant as the appearance would have led her to believe. Coming from Father Shinigami himself, the cryptic and strangely sagacious deity that had shrouded himself in the deep shadows of the Underworld, living life as a Deathly hermit, she knew it probably held more than it seemed. But she didn't know what the hell was inside of it, and why in the world he had sent it to her.

Was he up to something? Or just sending her anonymous gifts all of the sudden? Together, they had spawned the most troublesome Son of Shinigami of the whole litter, but they hadn't interacted much before she had been approached and asked to donate a feather to the creation of a new Angel of Death to carry on the Deathly responsibilities when another Shinigami became incapable to crossing souls over. He had been much too arcane and elusive to form much of a friendship or even a rapport with, always smiling vacantly, as if he were contemplating something you couldn't have imagined. He'd liked Iria enough, she'd thought. If he'd really gotten annoyed with her, she'd be fertilizer for one of his Venetian Flytrap demonic plants before she would know what'd hit her.

"Miss Iria, the messenger did give me this note along with the parcel," Nadette said cautiously, interrupting her reverie on the mysterious intentions of the eldest Shinigami. She nervously reached into the tiny pocket against her hip in her white skirt and took out a small parchment envelope, one that was so completely black it almost seemed to become silvery white. It was humming with Darkness-it was definitely from the old man Shinigami himself, then. He was the only who could afford to throw that much energy away on such trivial things without risking the Drains [2].

"The messenger," the secretary continued, pausing a moment to swallow dryly at the memory of the corpse who had knocked on the door, then left with a trail of small body parts falling off him as he walked away. Luckily for them, his jaw hadn't fallen off by the time he ran the doorbell, so he was able to deliver a short message. "He told me specifically that only you were to open it, and only after the parcel had been delivered to your office, Miss Iria. And then he warned me that Father Shinigami would be very upset if he found out that you had refused his gift." The apparition girl was again paling and clutching a hand to her chest. "I believe it was a very thinly veiled threat, Miss Iria."

"Thinner than my lingerie," the one known as Aphrodite muttered.

"And if it was not, it was still very frightening to hear. Would Father Shinigami have any reason to harm you?"

"Maybe. I have no idea what the hell I did to piss off Death, but then again, I've been known to break hearts and take names in the past, haven't I?" Iria went on to herself, gazing up at the ceiling for a moment in remembrance.

"You and he gave creation to the Thirteenth Son of Shinigami. Why would he want hurt the caretaker of his youngest son?"

"Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. Whatever it is, I'll just call in a favor with Shini and ask him to kick his ass for me if he really tries anything on me. He knows just as well as I do that he wouldn't stand a chance against him, and he's the one who got him kicked out in the first place. I'd say he'd better watch himself, if he knows what's good for him," she said wickedly.

"Miss Iria, even I know that Shini would be no match Father Shinigami, not that he has yet to realize his inherited powers. He'd be slaughtered."

"I was just saying when he does…!" the Goddess of Love replied in a huff.

Giving a nonchalant flip of her blonde hair, Iria tried to brush it off with a shrug, and took the envelope after she'd put the lacquer box on her desk. Leaning against it, she cut the seal of embossed kanji with a manicured nail and unfolded a tiny sheet of parchment from inside. Written in boxy English letters, it read simply as, "Keep this in safekeeping until the Divine Centennial, won't you please? No peeking." That made her twist her lips up unhappily, in that strangled little frown she'd often made in the presence of the Arrogant Mortal, but reconsidering, it could have been a lot worse.

It seemed that this entire incident of the deity asking for a small favor, but Iria knew better. Something important was in the box, but she wouldn't be able to open it; she could feel the energy swirling around the lock, fortifying it. Father Shinigami had always been a mysterious one, but now Iria had the sudden urge to talk to him again. Of course, she could rule that out. In only a four more days, she would be thrown back into the drama of finding Shini a new residence, and if her son had been successful in seducing the stubborn mortal man. Catching even a trace of Father Shinigami could take weeks, even months.

While the blonde haired goddess sighed to herself, Nadette was standing beside her and reading the note silently. When she looked to down to her employer (she also happened to be fantastically tall, something Iria had demanded when she'd been stocking her office with model beautiful apparitions) she asked her, "Is it something of yours? What would he ask you to take care of, Miss Iria?"

"I don't have a damned clue," she sighed, walking around her desk in her bare feet to sink back into her chair and run a hand through her hair, "because that recluse owns hardly a material thing. I don't what he could give to me to baby-sit for him."

The secretary clicked over on her black heels until she was positioned directly in front of her desk, folding her hands in front of her humbly. "The Divine Centennial, that's that banquet of the gods that you spoke of once before, isn't it?"

"The epulor of all epulors. The World Series of Divine mingling and relaxation. Amrita [3] in golden dishes as far as the mortal eye can see," Iria recited dully, tossing her golden hair over her shoulder and closing her eyes as she reclined. She suddenly had another thing to keep a close eye on, besides just, oh, only the most troublesome pre-pubescent deity in all the circles of Hell.

"But that's not for another hundred years!"

"Yeah, I know. I went to the last one and had a generally lavish time," Iria mumbled blandly, reaching out and picking up the black lacquer box. She idly ran her fingers over the carved Latin phrase over and over again, as if to soothe some sort of answer out of the mysterious little thing that had come to her doorstep in the hands of a dead, rotting man. "I wonder what he's trying to do. He might try and fool us, but he can't. I know he's up to something, I just don't know what… But, oh well, darling, what can we do about it now?" She grinned tiredly and waved the black lacquer box in hand. "We'll just have to keep this until then, won't we?"

She stood up abruptly and teased one of the many square glass windows that made up the French doors that opened onto her balcony with a hand, stirring it like it was water. A diamond clear drawer knob appeared and Iria pulled it open, her own special security vault. The drawer itself wasn't big enough to hold the black lacquer box, but it instinctually widened to accommodate it, and she shut it again with it inside, dusting off her hands when she finished. "You feel better now, Nadie? It'll be safe there, and we'll be safe from it. That's that."

"Miss Iria, are you sure nothing's wrong?"

"Something's probably wrong, but I can't put my finger on it," she purred to herself, then went around the desk and slid her arm around her secretary's hip. "But, to Barathrum with it. There's obviously nothing we do now. Let's go get a drink, shall we, Nadie? I could use one."

She beamed sweetly in return, welcoming the needed R&R after the strange incident stemming from one seemingly innocent box. "Alright, Miss Iria. But you'll have to pay this time-you've been forgetting to write my paycheck as of late," she reminded her with an equally kittenish grin as they went through the doors and the blonde dress sprites rushed to open the luscious red door for them. And when they pass through, they shut it, and sunk to the carpet in unison, out of breath from running so quickly on such tiny legs.

===

When Heero woke up, to the drone of the of the plane beginning it's descent toward the Tokyo airport runaway [4], he untangled himself from the arms of the Shinigami and rolled his neck once, cracking his vertebrae pleasantly. After he'd been dislodged from his arranged husband, the black-winged deity just gave a little snore and crumpled against his side, curled up in a semi-fetal ball. He barely even registered the movement when Heero, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes fully, shoved the Shinigami over just enough to reach over and buckle him in for the landing. He even leaned back a little to admire his handiwork once he had finished-the Shinigami was slumping against the seatbelt until he was at a neat forty-five degree angle, his eartails hanging down just enough to brush the top of his thighs and a little trail of drool on the side of his mouth. The mortal snorted amusedly to himself, and turned to fasten his own restraints.

===

While they departed from the bustling Japanese airport, with the sky still dim and sleepy from the morning sun, Heero's mind began to wonder away from him. He wasn't overly concerned with losing sight of the Shinigami this time-everything he'd seen in the San Franciscan terminal wasn't too radically different from the one in his homeland, and for the moment Shini was content to yawn into a hand and hold his arranged husband's hand and be pulled along. Occasionally Heero might feel him make a tug backwards, pausing to take a second look at something, but just after walking up he was mellower and much more manageable; he wouldn't lag behind long before catching up.

He walked in a content silence behind him. The only sound coming from him was the swish of the cloak fabric brushing against itself and his barefeet padding on the floor.

That left him to begin mulling things over, while his body automatically navigated the both of them towards the overnight lot beside the airport in the misty morning light. Like the practical-minded parents he'd been robbed of at a measly twelve years of age, he started making an organized list in hopes to make some sense of the impossible situation he was in.

First of all: He was traveling with an Angel of Death, a Shinigami, one of the very spirits who probably had escorted his parents to the otherside, where ever they had gone.

Second: He was in an arranged marriage with said Shinigami, which was, according to the Goddess of Love, validated and eternally binding.

And also according to the Goddess of Love, it could be rendered null and void if he so wished, if he felt the responsibility was too much for him. It had been a strangely selfless offer of Iria, considering how much she had claimed that they had searched for a suitable long-term candidate. And considering it for a minute, he could understand just how impossible that search must be, when dealing with the Thirteenth Son. He was having difficulty adapting to the divine company for just a few days' stint, and it would have drove him insane to have looked for centuries for a suitable caretaker for a being as profoundly emotional as this particular Shinigami was. Then again, he wasn't his mother-and there were a lot of things that would be done in the name of a mother's love for her children.

An arranged marriage. He had to laugh inwardly at the thought of it. He'd hardly planned on marriage of any kind, if at all, only a few days before this entire incident, and now he found him in an arranged marriage. In Japan, it wasn't uncommon at all. Even in the modern day and age, there was a good forty-five percentage of arranged marriages, formal or informal, just as was antiquated tradition. And in those marriages, it wasn't unheard of, or discouraged, if the husband and wife slept in separate quarters and the male head of the household to have affairs outside of the marriage.

It was something Heero had been very aware of, his parents being a very blatant exception to that standard. His Western father had lured his mother out of an arranged marriage himself, being wholly appalled by the thought of a non-romantic engagement for a lifetime. By no standards was his father, Odin Lowe, anything of an obvious hopeless romantic, but he'd been raised with a strong sense of freedom that couldn't handle the thought of an arranged marriage. His mother had been the more romantic one, he remembered, and had welcomed his father and completely shut out her parents' protests and the shame they put upon her for eloping with the gaijin. Perhaps they had influenced him in that aspect, but he couldn't tell. He didn't know what to feel about his own sudden arranged marriage. To think about his bizarre situation was to be confused on what he wanted anymore, what he knew anymore. It was to question his sanity in a way.

Behind him, Shini began to get talkative again, still being towed along hand-in-hand. He mumbled a little bit about feeling very in need of a hot bath, whined a little about the tangled state of his hair, and a few other miscellaneous things that Heero wasn't paying full attention to, but then it came. That inevitable little tone that meant he was just about to ask another question. "Teishu?"

"Yes?" he returned dutifully, now crossing the sidewalk rimming the airport, closer toward the overnight lot. He waited to be inquired about something mundane-maybe a streetlamp this time-but was surprised to hear him start talking to him quite animatedly.

"Shini was thinking to himself and wanted to know where you lived. It doesn't reside in a cottage by the sea, does it? You see, he would be very upset because that would mean he would not be able to go, and the thought makes him so upset he would pull out his own hair if it were truthful. Miserable, he would be. Shini does not think you have the sea here in Tokyo, but things have changed much here since he last visited." The Shinigami, his fingers happily lacing themselves between Heero's as he trotted up alongside him and continued his bright chatter without hesitation.

"Beaches and suntanning can be a cup'a tea, but in here in Teishu's homeland there can be nasty things in the water. He has a problem with the kappa, he does. They love to follow Shinigami to try and get some of his blood, and that's not very nice to do, all that pouncing and draining," he said, smiling brightly at Heero, who was getting lost in all the confusing rambling without a roadmap keep track of it all.

"Kappa love Shinigami tasting," the deity explained merrily, even pulling his hair into his hand and lifting it up to expose the nape of his neck. "Especially right here. Nasty kappa, neck suckers." He smiled flawlessly.

For a second, Heero looked like he was trying to decode encryption in his head, one eyebrow hitched upward in a mild look of confusion. It was a little difficult to keep up with the Shinigami's chatting, and it was more than a little strange to realize he was looking a God of Death in the face and listening to him jaw on and on being afraid of the Japanese water vampires of myth. The misty morning air of Tokyo and the hand in his own started having a strange effect on him, and he suddenly started to enjoy the company of Shini's voice, running steadily in the background, like a reliable engine, about anything and everything. When he realized that he was just staring blankly at the Shinigami, Heero shook his head a little to clear his head.

Shini concernedly tilted his head to the side, slowing to a stop beside him. Now that the mortal noticed it, he'd slowed to a stop as well, in the middle of the sidewalk, the overnight lot just a few meters away. "Hm? Something wrong, Teishu?"

"I was just distracted, I'm alright," Heero answered quickly, starting up walking again. Surprisingly, he didn't have to yank Shini into motion beside him; he was walking alongside him, still looking at him for another reassurance that he was really alright. He didn't like the expression burning into his face, so he decided to speak to try and be rid of it. "I live in our old-I mean, my parents old house. Just before they died, we were making plans to sell it, since my father was building a new one in the countryside for us to live in. I stayed in the city while the family attorney helped to sell the new land and the new house was demolished."

Shini seemed genuinely glad to hear it, even though it wasn't the happiest story he could have told. "That's sad, Teishu. What's your home like?"

"Nice, I guess," Heero mumbled. "I've lived there my entire life. I don't know how to describe it anymore. It's just nice. Filled with memories, and all that."

"He understands. It sounds very nice. Oi, Teishu, do you have flowerboxes underneath the window with carnage-ations? They're Shinigami's very favorite!" The Angel of Death gushed at him, either not noticing or not caring that he had confused 'carnations' with a similar-sounding, but very different word. Whichever it was, it made Heero feel the urge to smirk at him, and he indulged in a little twitch of his lip. Meanwhile, the Shinigami was putting a hand to his forehead shielding his eyes as if to block out the sun and squinted out into the distance, craning his neck.

"Can we see it from here, Teishu?"

"No, so don't try and go hurting yourself. It's some ways outside the main city, but it shouldn't take long to get there," he reassured flatly, now that they were weaving through the overnight lot, between the assorted cars that had been left by owners in favor of a cheap rental while they relaxed in the sun and sand. Well, his excursion hadn't exactly been a vacation, but he momentarily forgot about all that when he saw his vehicle sat waiting for him loyally, hidden safe in the far corner of the parking lot. There was a certain comfort in coming back and laying eyes on something completely familiar, even if it couldn't smile and greet you a warm welcome with words.

In a blur, the Shinigami had ducked behind him at the sight of the strange horseless carriage. But soon he couldn't help it and gaped at it over his shoulder. "Ooooh."

After a second, he even let out a tiny little squeal, being ambiguously between being in fear of it and enraptured by it. He ran his eyes down the gleaming surface of the two-wheeled horseless carriage, it's bony, metallic ears jutting off to the side, it's back soft, sagging, and made of steer skin, and it's tail horribly barren and smelling of an awful smoke. All signs were pointing him towards caution, but Shini couldn't quite be afraid as he crept around the mortal and walked slowly up to the strange looking creature. Hanging in the air around it was that faint scent like fireworks, and it sent little shivers down his spine as he breathed in.

"It's a motorcycle," Heero explained plainly. "It's still a horseless carriage, just with two wheels." He put his hands in his pockets, now that the Shinigami had let go of him, and allowed himself to simply watch him explore it cautiously, like he was a dog circling an animal he didn't know what to think of.

Shini picked up fistfuls of his cloak to keep it out of the dirt as he squatted down and looked at the bulky, metallic intestines that were visible on the outside.

"How does it not loose all of its parts like this?" he wondered out loud to no one, poking at the greasy metal when he noticed the silver appendage protruding out from the side of it over on the other side. He scampered over, still balling fabric in his fists. It was a narrow metallic tube that seemed to support the sleek, wasp-shaped creature. He titled his head so he could look at it sideways, then upside down, and he grinned.

"It actually stands on that? He's going to loose it that way. Then Mister Auto-mo-beel will not be having pleasant days," Shini commented brashly to himself, feeling very giddy this morning. It came mostly from knowing he was soon going to be in his husband's house and just thinking of what he'd do.

"That is one awful looking horse, Teishu," he said playfully, craning his neck around to leer at his arranged husband's face. "It has no legs and a very ugly face. Are you sure that you have not been gypped?"

Heero stiffened up as he felt the eyes turn back on him. There was an awkward feeling of almost being caught watching the Angel of Death, ogling almost, as he went around his motorcycle in rapt fascination, but that was ridiculous since he'd been doing nothing of the sort. He opened his mouth to say something and realize he'd been too busy defending himself from himself to think of something. But Shini didn't need an answer from him; he was gleefully realizing he had figured out how to sit on it.

Like a scientist yelling out "Eureka!" the Shinigami's face lit up. "Just like umi! Western saddle style!"

Heero lifted an eyebrow at that and dully marked it up as another of his strange, oddly American sayings. There'd been a few of those before.

"Oooh… sugoi," Shini whispered in rapt fascination, once he had swung a leg over it and managed to get his cloak to cooperate with him so he could sit on it. He put his hands on the handlebars tentatively at first, then started to smile with extreme satisfaction as he drummed his fingers around the grips. "Very sugoi!"

"It's… uh, new," Heero said lamely. Though he had a great affection for the machine, he was still unsure of what to say in the situation.

"He thinks this is a very, very nice horseless carriage of yours… May he be allowed to name it? Pretty please with sweets on top?"

The mortal man snorted flatly. "Like what?"

Shini made a rapturous face, as if he were sorting through a bowl of Turkish delights. "Hmmm," he debated shortly, pressing a finger to his lips as the gears turned in his head. "He thinks Youkai would do. A fierce and charming demon, a beautiful apparition, a youkai."

He was purring and sinking into the seat like he had with the airplane, but Heero could tell from the certain gleam in his eyes he preferred the motorcycle very, very much so. As walked up to the motorcycle, already pulling the keys out of his pocket, Shini had started leaning forward, with both hands on the handlebars, and peering closely at all of the gauges and awkwardly pronouncing the American brand name printed on it.

"Where do you get such wonderful metal in such a fantastic shape, Teishu?" he asked him, turning to face him once before he started licking a few choice areas on his motorcycle.

"Hey, hey, don't do that," Heero said quickly. He made an almost squeamish expression as he bolted forward and caught the Shinigami by the shoulder, managing to pull him away after he'd had only a little taste. "Don't lick that, it's just been waxed!"

"It tastes like candles…" Shini muttered as he sat up and pawed a little at his tongue. His face scrunched up like a young child just experiencing his first taste of broccoli. "Not very good," he complained.

"Maybe you shouldn't try and taste everything you see," Heero said, almost chiding. He put his hand on the handlebar where the Shinigami's used to be, making sure he paid attention to him this time. "Not everything is edible here in Tokyo. And I'd rather not have to rush you to some toxin center when you start tasting something poisonous or swallowing things." The mortal gave a long-winded sigh, getting the feeling like he was taking care of some haphazard child when he said that. "Now move back, I'm driving."

The young Japanese man went around the rear of his motorcycle and began to unlatch the largest saddlebag that stored his single helmet and once he had removed it, he latched it again with his backpack stuffed inside. He felt the inhumanly colored eyes of the winged deity sitting on his motorcycle on him and his lips twitched into a rather amused smile.

"Don't be silly, Teishu," Shinigami smiled at him as he walked around again and dismissed him with a playful wave of his hand.

Heero frowned down at the cheerful face as he clutched the helmet casually under an arm. "What?" he growled unhappily, feeling a little insulted.

"You are very silly," he insisted, leaning toward him and poking him playfully in the stomach. "Wholly sweet of you, Teishu, to be worrying about me. But he is immortal. He's not going to become ill and pass on if he some of your bad substances. No mortal poison will kill Shini."

Letting off a bright, flawless grin, Shini felt a little swell in his chest as he watched the face of his normally levelheaded, mindful husband twist into one of fluster.

"Oh." Heero had honestly forgotten the fact that he was traveling in the company of an Earth-bound god, but who would blame him, after he'd seen all the trouble that said god could stir up. After the last few days of constantly having to keep an eye out for him, it suddenly had become something like second nature to worry about him hurting himself. He'd been fretting over him without even noticing.

Heero felt that sensation of being a little insulted blossom into full out embarrassment, or what was full out for him. There was a trace of color in his face as he grumbled, "Well, with all the trouble you stir up…" and blindly shoved the helmet into the Shinigami's hands.

Shini instantly burst out laughing, and Heero quickly realized his second blunder, but this time he could feel the frustrated heat settling into his face. He snatched it back out of the deity's hands and put it over his head and hoped that it would hide the fact that he'd handed a helmet to someone couldn't be killed by any mortal danger, and therefore wasn't too worried about getting thrown out onto the pavement. It could hide the embarrassment in his face, but he could still hear the Shinigami snickering behind him as he sat down and stuck the key into the ignition.

"Ah," Heero grumbled, as the engine turned and thundered and rumbled pleasurably, "be quiet and hold on. You know how to ride a horse, don't you? Just hold on to me so you won't fall off in the middle of the highway."

"Whatever you say, growling youkai," Shini murmured impishly into the back of his head as he lifted his feet up to rest on the motorcycle and pulled the excess fabric up into his lap. He strung an arm around Heero's waist, happy to comply, and continued to snicker into his shoulder to himself as Heero revved the engine once and tried to ignore it, pulling out of the parking lot just as the sun began rising to the exact same height it'd been in San Francisco hours ago.

He was getting tempted to purposely dump him off in the middle of the road-he was still laughing.

===

Epulor = banquet

Barathrum = the abyss / the underworld

Sugoi! = Cool!

Youkai = demon, spirit, or apparition

===

[1] Krishna, the eighth incarnation of the Hindu God of Protection, Vishnu. Very blue looking. Should get a tan, in my opinion. ^.-

[2] One of the many energy sicknesses related to Shinigami of all ages because they control such mass amounts of Darkness. The Drains is a common and painful disorder when too much energy is expelled and it creates an almost literal leak in their spirit. Soon, the body begins to almost deflate and wither away, officially called "The Leaving Death"-you'll be getting familiar with a lot more very soon. ^-^ Just to let you know, it's my creation, so don't expect to find it browsing through a library book anytime soon.

[3] Amrita is the substance that supposedly sustains immorality. Ambrosia and nectar are the food and the drink of the gods. They're all thought to be types of honey because of the supposed cleansing and healing power it held. You'll also be getting familiar with those soon, too. I'm just a foreshadowing fiend, aren't I?

[4] Alright, if anybody was paying enough attention to catch it, they had a relatively short flight. Why, you ask? A simple error in my writing, an itsy-bitsy plot hole? Well, for one thing, I didn't want this entire story to end up on the flight over to Tokyo, and I was sort of assuming that in the age that they're in, with the colonies being built and all, that the airlines would have developed faster planes. I just hope you guys buy it. Things like those always make me so frustrated when I notice them later in my writing. But don't listen to me being a snotty perfectionist.

===

[[[A/N]]] Man, does anyone get the feeling the footnotes are almost or just as long as the chapter? I just churned this one out, so beware of low-flying grammer and spelling errors. Might wanna wear a hard hat. Well, right now I'm getting bitched at to get my ass of the computer, so I'm just going to do what I came to do. I thank every one who's been reading and supporting me with reviews, which have been so wonderful, I have to admit. I'm a little overwhelmed now, realizing I've hit and gone over the hundred review mark, but I'm just getting warmed up. Just a couple of months ago, I couldn't have imagined being past Chapter Six, so thank everybody so much. I think I smell a group hug coming on. Huh, huh? Yeah, just ignore that part. ^-^;

][More Soundtrack][

"Clown" by Kabalevsky

"Runner's High" by the Pillows

"Somebody to Love" by Queen

"One Headlight" by The Wallflowers

"It's the End of the World" by R.E.M.