Yami No Matsuei Fan Fiction / Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Uprising ❯ Self-Indulgence ( Chapter 11 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

(Disclaimer:  I do NOT own Yami no Matsuei or Yu Yu Hakusho.  Never will.  Thank God.  Still own the three girls.  Do I look like I'd own anything of Kuroshitsuji?  Nope.  Okay, moving on.)

(AN:  I’m SO sorry for the lateness in this chapter.  Exams and final projects don’t work hand in hand here.  And then there were projects I had to work on before Spring Break.  But, here you go!  Enjoy!)

@;-‘--;---‘--

The next day, Chloe and Viola headed to Andrea’s apartment.  Andrea was off of work for the day, so they were hoping to get her out of the house at least for a few hours.  However, every time they asked her, she would either tell them that she didn’t have time or that she was called into work.  The last sin took a lot out of them, and they were going to check up on Andrea, since the girl looked rather pale after seeing Satoshi’s corpse on the car, dead.

“Are you sure she’d want to?” Viola asked her friend as they reached the stairs.  She wore a cream colored shirt with gray jeans and black shoes.  “Maybe she’d want to take it easy today.”

“Look, she’ll look like a vampire if she stays in so much,” Chloe reasoned as the duo walked up the stairs to Andrea’s apartment.  She wore a black plaid shirt with a white tank top under it, a pair of blue jeans and black shoes.  “After what we saw yesterday, she might need some fresh air.”

“Don’t remind me,” Viola said, shuddering at the memory of seeing Satoshi running through Michiko and landing on top of a car.

“I think it’s good that she has Tsuzuki staying with her,” Chloe said.  “I think he likes her.”

Viola looked at her friend after they had gotten to the third floor.  “Andrea said that she didn’t have the time to invest in a relationship,” she said.

“Come on, a cute guy like that staying in her apartment, and she’s not taking advantage of that?  What planet is she living on?”  Chloe then looked at her friend.  “Soooooo, how about you and Shuichi?  You like him, I bet.”

Viola shook her head, her cheeks a very pale pink.  “I-It’s not like that,” she said.  “We’re only friends.  That’s all.”

Chloe raised an eyebrow, smirking slightly.  “Sure,” she said before they reached Andrea’s apartment.  “Well, we’re here.”  She knocked on the door.  “Let’s just hope she didn’t get called in again.”

It was almost a minute before there was a sound of a door unlocking and the door opened, revealing a very-awake Andrea.  She was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved peasant shirt with white socks.  Her house slippers stayed on her feet while her hair was up in its usual ponytail.

“Hey, how are you doing?” Chloe asked her.

“Okay, I guess,” Andrea said, moving back to let them in the apartment.

Chloe and Viola walked into her apartment and looked around as they took off their shoes.  Just like Andrea to have the apartment picked up, even the sheets for the couch were put away.  They had been inside her apartment before, so this was nothing new.

“Where’s Tsuzuki?” Viola asked her.

“Breakfast run,” Andrea answered.  “Told him I’d cook, but well...”  She shrugged.  “He’s probably the most stubborn man I’ve ever met.”

“Well, can you blame him?” Chloe asked her.  “Considering what happened yesterday.”

“I’m fine,” Andrea said, stretching her arms over her head.

“You were kind of pale yesterday,” Chloe pressured.  “Especially on the fire escape.”

“That was a lapse,” Andrea answered.  “It won’t happen again.  I could have gotten you two killed.”

“It’s okay, really,” Viola replied before sitting on the arm of the couch.  “It wasn’t your fault.”

Andrea took a deep breath and put her hands over her face.  She couldn’t believe she nearly lost it yesterday.  That wasn’t like her!  “Viola, you could have been killed...”

“Hey, we signed up for this like you did,” Chloe said.  “So you looked down and you looked like a ghost.  That happens.”

“Chloe...” Viola said, shifting her dark silver eyes at her friend before she turned back to Andrea and put a hand on her shoulder.  “We signed up for this, remember?  It’s okay, really.”

Andrea looked up at her friends, taking a deep breath.  Being the oldest of the three, and being an orphan besides, meant that she’d have to act tough around her younger protégés.  At the moment, however, she didn’t feel that way.

“So, that’s why we’re here,” Chloe said.  “We wanted to see if you wanted to go with Viola and me out for the day.”

“I-I don’t know,” Andrea answered.

“Come on,” Chloe pressed.  “You can even let Tsuzuki go with us.  It’ll be fun.”

Andrea sat down on the loveseat and took a deep breath.  She would have answered if she didn’t hear the door open and a familiar voice in her apartment.

“I’m back!” Tsuzuki said, holding a bag of muffins in his hand.  He looked at the girls in the apartment.  “Hi, Chloe, Viola.”

“Hi,” Viola answered.

“Good morning,” Chloe answered after her friend.  “We were just checking up on you guys after yesterday.”

“Oh, we’re fine,” he said.  “You didn’t have to come here just to do that.”

“Actually,” Viola said, looking at them.  “We were asking Andrea if she wanted to go out with us today.”

“I really don’t feel like going,” Andrea answered.  “I mean, what if my boss calls me in for work and I’m not here?”

It hadn’t even been a day after they had dealt with Lust, and Tsuzuki could tell that Andrea was stressed out about something.  Was it about Satoshi’s mangled corpse on the car?  Could that have made her pale yesterday?

“Come on, Andrea, it’s Saturday,” Viola said.  “It’s not like your boss would drag you into work on the weekend.”

Andrea took a deep breath.  Did she really want to go?  No.  But did she think she would win against Chloe, Viola, and even Tsuzuki?  Definitely not, as far as he was concerned, and if she thought she could claim she was fine after what she had witnessed the day before, she would be dead wrong.  “Okay, “ she conceded.  “I’ll go along with you.  Just where are we going?”

Viola smiled at winning Andrea over.  “Well, we were thinking to just make a day of it, you know?  I mean, think about it.  Yesterday was intense.”

“Not sure if that’s the right word,” Andrea said, standing to her feet and stretching her arms over her head.  Her peasant shirt lifted slightly as she shrugged her shoulders before lowering her arms back to her sides.

“Okay, maybe not intense,” Viola replied.  “Maybe... shocking.”

“So, where are we going?” Tsuzuki asked them.

“Shinjuku and Akihabara,” Chloe answered, smiling before looking at Tsuzuki.  “Oh, wait... you don’t know where they are, do you?”

“Just Shinjuku,” he answered.  “I’m really from out of town.”

“Akihabara has a lot of really cool stuff,” Chloe explained.  “Isn’t it called ‘Electric Town,’ Andrea?”

Andrea nodded.  “Yeah,” she answered.  “Wasn’t Kabukicho on the east side of Shinjuku?”

Chloe nodded.  “I really hope we don’t go there for a long time,” she answered.  “I wouldn’t want to go back there.”

Viola nodded in agreement.

Tsuzuki actually agreed.  Kabukicho was a place that the girls did not need to go anymore, regardless of sunshine.  It wasn’t that he had a problem with going there, but at the same time, the amethyst-eyed Guardian could do with some time out of the apartment as well.  It was more to the fact that three teenage girls without a chaperone didn’t sit well with him, not after what had happened.  He WAS a gentleman, after all.

“So, where to first?” Viola asked them.  “We could go to Shinjuku.  And stay away from that place, right?”

“Sounds good to me,” Andrea answered.

@;-‘--;---‘--

Shinjuku was an amazing city, with tall skyscrapers and lighted billboards even with the sun shining.  One of these buildings was called the Tokyo Metropolitan Governmental Center.  It stood like a giant in a field of ants at its mercy.  The foursome exited the train and left the station at Shinjuku.

“Oh, wow!” Chloe said, looking up at the building.  “I heard that you can see all of Tokyo from this building!  Isn’t that cool?”

“Sounds like it is,” Viola answered.  “Come on, let’s go.”

With that, the four of them went inside the building and went to the elevator.  Chloe pressed a button after they got into the elevator and watched the door close.  After a while, the doors opened and they stepped out of the elevator.  They walked from the elevator over to the observation decks, where Chloe’s brown eyes shone with excitement and Viola’s silver eyes sparkled with amazement.

“Oh, look at the view!” Chloe said, looking out the window.  Shinjuku, and even Tokyo, looked tiny from the view.  The people were barely noticeable, while the trees all looked like pieces of broccoli on a dinner plate.  Other skyscrapers towered in the distance, and the houses all looked so tiny.  Even Tokyo Tower seemed like a toy on a stick from a distance.

“Yeah, the people look like ants from up here,” Tsuzuki said.

“It’s so tiny from up here,” Viola answered, looking down at the town.  “Hey, Andrea, you should see it.  It’s gorgeous.”

“I can see it just fine,” Andrea answered from almost five feet away.  She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall away from the window, her face slowly getting paler by the minute.  She felt her heart beating faster and faster until she thought for sure it would burst out of her chest, and she shoved her hands into her pockets as she softly tried to get her breathing under control.

“Are you sure?” Chloe asked her, looking behind her at the girl against the wall.  “You’re not seeing that much from there...”

“I-I’m fine, all right?” Andrea hadn’t meant to shout, but she did.  When she realized it, she looked at the door to the stairwell and raced to it.

“Andrea...” Before Viola had a chance to ask what was wrong, the door to the stairwell closed, and Andrea was gone.  “What’s gotten into her?”

“I’ll check on her,” Tsuzuki said.  “You two just stay together, all right?”

“Sure,” Viola answered, nodding as Tsuzuki went to the stairwell door.

He opened the door to the stairwell and looked.  Andrea wasn’t there, but he did hear a quiet voice get louder as he went down the stairs.  Tsuzuki peered over the railing and saw Andrea sitting several floors down with her head lowered.  As he got closer, he saw that her head on her knees and her arms wrapped around her legs.  She probably doesn’t know I’m here, he thought before he finally stepped down and sat next to her.  Now what he had heard was clearer.

“Ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, nana, hachi, kyuu, ju... one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten...”

Tsuzuki looked at the shaking hands over her legs and watched her lips move faster through the numbers.  Now he knew what she was saying:  one through ten in Japanese AND English.  He gently moved his hand to her back.  “Andrea, it’s okay,” he said gently.

Andrea blinked her eyes open, her heart still beating rapidly in her chest.  “I-I’m fine...” she answered, her hands still shaking.

This time, Tsuzuki didn’t believe her, and he was going to let her know it.  “No, you’re not,” he said.  “Is it the building that caused that outburst?”

Andrea sighed, taking a deep breath with her head still on her knees.  “You wouldn’t understand...”

“Try me.”

Andrea rubbed her eyes and leaned back against the stair behind her.  “Y-You promise not to tell anyone?” she asked.

“I promise.”

Andrea blinked up at the worried yet comforting amethyst gaze before she looked back down at the landing below.  “I-I...”  She stopped.  There was no way she could tell him she was scared of heights.  No way!  Not this tough teenage girl, not the girl who would have been more than willing to send Tsuzuki back to the Judgment Bureau as a woman for the rest of eternity.  Not... not the girl sitting there and looking as if the world had ended.  But as it stood, Tsuzuki wouldn’t either shut up or leave her alone unless she said anything.

“I-I’m... I’m just scared of heights.”

Amethyst eyes blinked at the girl next to him.  Scared of heights?  Tsuzuki couldn’t have heard her right.  “Heights?” he echoed.  “Like...”

“Like this damn building, you idiot!” Andrea screamed suddenly before holding her trembling hands over her mouth.  “S-Sorry...”

“It’s all right,” he consoled her, still keeping his hand on her back.  “Everyone’s scared of something.  Don’t tell Hisoka I said anything, but he’s scared of the dark.”

Andrea raised an eyebrow at him.  “He’d probably kill you for telling me that,” she said.

“I know, but still... everyone’s scared of something, Andrea.”

"It’s not just that... yesterday...”

“What about yesterday?” he asked her.

Andrea took a deep breath.  “When Chloe, Viola, and I were on that fire escape and Viola went on ahead, I looked down, and...” Her hands went to her face as she looked down again.  “I couldn’t move.  I couldn’t freaking MOVE!  I-I heard Viola scream, and I couldn’t MOVE.  I could have gotten them killed!”

“Andrea, it’s not like you knew he would go to the roof,” Tsuzuki said.

“But I SHOULD have!” she said, breathing into her hands again.

“But you couldn’t have,” he corrected her, keeping his hand on her back.  “You’re not a mind reader, Andrea.  You can’t possibly know everything at that moment.  Besides, I didn’t hear the girls blaming you for it.”

“They probably wouldn’t in front of me,” she said.

“I doubt they would blame you for something like that,” he said, gently patting her head.  “I wouldn’t, either.”  Tsuzuki gently stood to his feet before looking down at the auburn-haired girl on the stairs.  “Come on, they’re probably worried about you.”

Andrea blinked and looked at him before she stood to her feet.  “All right,” she said.  “But tell them, and I’ll personally toss you from the 45th floor window myself.  Got it?”

“Got it,” he answered, leading the girl back up the stairs.  I don’t want to know just HOW Andrea could do that, he thought to himself as they walked up four flights of stairs.  He held the door open for her and walked behind her after she walked through the doorway.

“Hey, Andrea, are you okay?” Chloe asked her.  “You just bailed a moment ago.”

“I’m fine,” Andrea answered.  “Just brought back some bad memories with the height, you know?”

“Well, we’re just glad you’re okay,” Viola answered, her dark silver eyes full of relief.  “We thought with how fast you went out that you’d have fallen down the stairs or something.”

“No, I’d have to have the IQ of a rock to do that,” Andrea answered.

Chloe chuckled into her hand.  “So, what do you think of something a little bit closer to the ground?”

“Works with me,” Tsuzuki answered while Andrea nodded.

@;-‘--;---‘--

After the group got back to the ground floor, which if Andrea had been alone, she would have kissed, they looked around and snapped pictures on their cell phones before hopping on a train and headed to Akihabara.  This was a different town than Shinjuku, primarily because of the billboards and the lights.  The anime-themed places also stood out like sore thumbs.  Tsuzuki could tell a difference simply because they were away from the Kabukicho area, and that enough made him happy.  Anywhere away from that sinful place was good for him.

The group walked down the street now, looking at the billboards.  Chloe and Viola looked around almost as if they were children, Andrea simply looked as if she was a mother, and Tsuzuki, well... he was like a mother hen, keeping an eye on the three girls.  Maybe he was over worried about what Andrea had said to him, or maybe it was the fact that it was three teenage girls with him, but at the moment, he was fine with the situation.

Chloe looked up at a sign.  “Kei Books,” she said, stopping her friends in their tracks.  “Hey, maybe there’s some Kuroshitsuji manga in here!”

“You like that, too?” Viola asked her, her mouth open in shock.  “I didn’t know that!”

“Yeah, it’s really freaking cool!” Chloe replied.  “I think there’s a musical or something playing today.”

“That’s why you wanted to drag Andrea out?”  Viola crossed her arms over her chest.

“Well, no, but still...” Chloe shrugged her shoulders.

“I like musicals,” Tsuzuki told them.

“You DO know what Kuroshitsuji is about, right?” Andrea asked him.

“Not really...”

Andrea took a deep breath before answering, “Kuroshitsuji is translated to Black Butler.  It’s set in England in the 1800s, and it’s about a kid who’s been dealt with some really bad stuff.  Then he enters a contract with a demon to get revenge.”

“Revenge for what?” Now Tsuzuki’s curiosity looked to be getting the better of him.

“His parents,” Andrea answered, her voice softening to hide the fact that she could understand the hell the main character had gone through.  “They were killed when he was younger, and so, in a way, he’s hell-bent on getting revenge on those who took them away from him.”

Chloe looked at Andrea.  “You never said you liked that series, Andrea...” she said, her brown eyes open in surprise.

“You never asked,” Andrea answered, looking up at the sign.  “Maybe we’ll find it in here, then.”

With that, they walked inside the building known as Kei Books.  Inside were shelves upon shelves of items, ranging from manga and doujinshi to even body pillow cases.  To the foursome, it looked almost like a library than a store.  The shelves housed possibly more than a library could.

“Hey, look at this one!” Chloe said, handing each of them a copy of a doujinshi.

All four of them opened their copies before their faces ranged between pink and beet red with what they were reading.

Chloe’s cheeks were tinged a strawberry milkshake color. “W-What... what is this?” she asked.

Viola’s cheeks were the color of a pink crayon.  “U-Um... why is she naked?” she asked.

Andrea’s cheeks weren’t any better.  Hers were the color of a strawberry.  “Forget that, why is HE naked?” she squeaked.

Tsuzuki’s were the reddest of them all; his cheeks being the color of a beet.  Sure he was the adult between the four of them, but even this made him blush.  “W-What are they...” he asked as he turned a page.  The page showed a nude couple of a man and a woman with the woman on top, her back arched in the throes of ecstasy.  His hands were at her hips and holding them firmly.  “O-Oh my...” he whispered before he closed the book, his hot, blushing face completely evident.

The girls followed his lead and closed their books before putting them back on the shelf.

“We should get out of here...” Andrea said, the blush on her face not going away.

Tsuzuki wordlessly agreed before he grabbed Andrea’s arm and walked with her out of the store, Chloe and Viola very close behind.

“I don’t think I want to know just what we were reading,” Viola said, trying to calm her face down.

“I don’t want to go back in there, period,” Andrea said, shuddering from the image that was now implanted into her mind.

Now Tsuzuki had to turn their attention away from what not only he but the girls had seen.  Considering he was the adult, he had to think of something they could definitely agree on.  But what?  He didn’t want to traumatize them any more than they probably had been.  “A-Anyone know a good place for lunch?” he asked.

“I think there’s a tempura place not far from here,” Viola answered.  “And it’s on the ground floor.”

“Thank the Gods,” Andrea mumbled before walking with them.

@;-‘--;---‘--

Tempura had never tasted as good as it did now.  After what they had seen, they needed something in their stomachs.  The girls thought they were in Heaven from how amazing the tempura looked, smelled, and tasted.  Predictably, Tsuzuki already thought that way from the moment he walked in the door.  The place was a welcome change from the bookstore they had walked out of; the bamboo plants on either side of the doorway almost made the place a serene getaway from the craziness from the outside.

As usual, Tsuzuki’s ticket was more than Chloe and Viola’s combined.  Chloe looked stunned at the comparison of the tickets; Chloe and Viola’s weren’t that much, Andrea’s was a little higher considering she had to order two fried tempura ice creams because Tsuzuki nabbed one before she could even blink, but Tsuzuki, well... that man could put food away.  She felt sorry for Andrea for having to deal with this day in, day out.

“Andrea, how do you deal with this all the time?” Viola asked, looking over Chloe’s shoulder at the large difference in the girls’ tickets and the Guardian’s.

“Hisoka has it worse,” Andrea said.  “He’s dealt with the sugar vacuum here longer than I have.”

“You do know I can hear you,” Tsuzuki said, pointing at himself.

“I didn’t say you were deaf,” Andrea said, rolling her eyes.

Viola couldn’t help but smile at the pair sitting across from her and Chloe.  “You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that you two argue like a married couple,” she said.

Andrea and Tsuzuki both looked at each other before leaning away from the other.

“I don’t think so,” Andrea answered, crossing her arms over her chest.

“We’re just roommates,” Tsuzuki added, waving his hands in front of him while they looked away from each other.

“If you say so,” Viola answered them before looking away unbelievingly.  How could two people not show any kind of affection towards the other?  Maybe, she thought, it’s because she’s quieter than he is.  I mean, he’s so talkative and funny, and Andrea’s so... different.  Almost like she can’t stand him.

Andrea looked at her friend.  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.

“I didn’t mean anything,” Viola answered her.  “Just wondering how the two of you argue and you haven’t killed him.”

“Well, it’d be hard to do that,” Andrea answered.

“You’d find a way, right?” Viola asked her.

“Probably.”

“I can still hear you,” Tsuzuki said the girls.

“Glad you’re not deaf,” Andrea answered.  “So, when did you say this musical starts?”

Chloe looked at her watch.  “In about two hours at this theater in Shinjuku,” she answered.  “We should go, guys.”

With that, they paid for their food.  Well, to be more accurate, Tsuzuki and Andrea argued about who’d pay for her ticket while Viola and Chloe paid for theirs without an argument.  He wanted to pay for it, as any good gentleman should.  She told him that she’d be fine paying for it herself.

In the end, Tsuzuki won.

Viola looked at the formerly arguing pair.  They really do fight like a married couple, she thought as the foursome left the restaurant.

@;-‘--;---‘--

They decided to sit next to each other at the theater and as they sat down, Andrea looked at the bulletin for the musical for Kuroshitsuji called “The Most Beautiful Death in the World:  A Thousand Souls and a Fallen Shinigami.”  She looked at the bulletin and her hand went to her mouth, a name looking quite familiar to her.

“Andrea?  What’s wrong?” Chloe asked her, leaning over Viola’s seat to look at the bulletin.

“This man...” Andrea said, pointing to the kanji under the cast for the musical.  She moved her finger down to where it stated who would be playing Sebastian Michaelis, the demonic butler in the musical.  “Yuya Matsushita... he sang the ending song to the second season of Kuroshitsuji called ‘Bird.’”

“His voice was really good in that,” Viola said.  “Andrea, you’ve seen BOTH seasons of that?”

“Yeah,” she answered, leaning back in her seat.  “The first season’s the best, though.”  She looked at her cell phone before checking any messages.  No messages.  Andrea then turned her phone off.  “Guys, we better turn the phones off before it starts.”

The three obliged, turning off their cell phones before they looked up to the darkening lights.  The show was about to begin.

Throughout the first part of the musical, they sat there, transfixed to the stage, where Ciel and Sebastian made their contract.  The next scene had it where they were in the Phantomhive manor, where Sebastian dressed Ciel while he talked about what breakfast would the young master like to have.  The quiet scene was interrupted by three people running into his chambers, one holding what looked to be a rocket launcher.

Andrea raised her eyebrow at the sight, but she blinked at Sebastian’s rather loud, and demanding, voice at the trio on the stage.

“Bardroy!  Mey-Rin!  Finnian!” Sebastian shouted, rather upset at the bumbling trio.  “What is the meaning of this?  How dare servants storm into their master’s bedchamber?”

“S-Sebastian, sir... w-we’re sorry, but...” Mey-Rin, the maid with the large glasses, stammered before she bowed at the tall, dark butler on the stage.

“But we saw a mouse!” Finnian, a blond guy with a straw hat behind his head, likely a gardener, said with a panicked tone in his voice.

“L-Look!  It’s right by the young Master!” Bardroy, a taller man with an apron, said, looking at the young Master in the chair.

The foursome in the audience watched as the maid and the gardener hurried to pull their Master out of the chair before the chef fired the rocket launcher at the chair.

“Honestly, what a racket...” Sebastian said under his breath.

Tsuzuki and the girls watched as Sebastian looked to have picked up the “rat,” grabbed a “bat,” and “hit” the rat as if it was a baseball.  They turned their heads up to try to look for the mouse in question.

“How did he do that?” Tsuzuki whispered to Andrea as the foursome went back to their original positions.

“Theater’s an interesting thing, huh?” she whispered back, looking back to the stage.

More like, Tsuzuki thought, Andrea’s interesting.  I didn’t know Andrea knew anything about this kind of stuff.  Or anything about her in general.  He decided to put the rest of his thoughts out of his head and, along with the girls, watch the musical.  It seemed to hit a high note before the audience was told there was a twenty minute intermission and the lights were turned on again.

As in most theaters, the intermission was only good for getting up and stretching before having to sit back down.  This was no exception, and the intermission seemed way too short for a musical of any kind.  The plot was getting really good, really fast, and it seemed like the intermission was just teasing them with the ending of the first act, to keep their curiosity piquing, if you will.  With a plot this good, one would think the second act would be better, and when the lights dimmed again for the second act, the foursome could only hear voices.

“Hey!  Don’t be so rough!”

“Oh, but it’s so tight already...”

Andrea held a hand over her mouth, while Viola and Chloe’s faces were beet red from what they were hearing.  Tsuzuki was confused from what he was hearing.  Were they... were they really... no, it couldn’t be.  Could it?

When the lights turned on, it showed the two owners of the voices, one in a long wig and a pink and white dress with Sebastian almost on top of him.  Andrea tried hard not to laugh at how funny it looked that Ciel was in the dress.  Then again, Andrea had seen the anime and read the manga.  Maybe this musical wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

Tsuzuki looked over at Andrea, who still had her hand over her mouth.  Whether she was sick or trying hard not to laugh at the scene that was unfolding around them, he didn’t know.  What he did know was that maybe there was more to Andrea than just looking tough and acting it as well.  She was pretty, for sure, but he felt like he had to censor himself in front of her.  He was staying with a girl, after all.

The rest of the musical had taken a sad and somber tone, and the acting was, to put it rather bluntly, superb.  The ending was better than they had thought it would be, considering that Sebastian’s actor was trying to dance like Michael Jackson.  That made the girls giggle, even Andrea, and it was hard to get her to laugh considering what they had endured the day before.  Tsuzuki even had to laugh at how the normally serious butler even broke character and danced like that.

“That was pretty good,” Chloe said after the curtain had closed, signaling the end of the musical.

“Yeah, that was pretty good,” Viola agreed, standing up and getting her purse.

Andrea got up from her seat and grabbed her purse.  Even she had to admit, a day away from work was pretty good to have.  It was hard for Andrea to admit that she was having fun today.  She looked in her purse and grabbed her cell phone to turn it on.  No missed messages.  Maybe Viola was right; she wouldn’t be called into work on the weekend.

“Still haven’t been called in?” Chloe asked her.

“Nope,” Andrea answered, putting her phone in her purse again.  “Maybe it’s not busy there today.”

“Is it usually busy on a Saturday?” Tsuzuki asked her.

“Normally,” she answered.  “But on some Saturdays, and it’s not very often mind you, it’s not that busy.  Middle of the month, you know?”

Why does Andrea have to work so much? Tsuzuki thought to himself.  Even on a day off, she’s looking at her phone an awful lot.

“So, where to next?” Chloe asked them.

Viola looked at her watch.  17:57. “I don’t know, really,” she answered.  “Maybe we should head home.  I kind of have to study for that midterm coming up.”

“Oh, don’t remind me,” Chloe complained, holding a hand to her head.  “I can’t figure out that formula in Biology.  You’re lucky you have Shuichi as a tutor.”

Viola blushed slightly.  “I-It’s nothing, really.  It’s just that he’s a friend, that’s all,” she said before looking at the floor.

“Hey, that reminds me,” Chloe said.  “Andrea, I haven’t seen you go to school for a while.  Are you all right, or did you graduate early?”

Andrea blinked.  “Yeah, I’m fine, I just... transferred somewhere else,” she answered.  “Close to home.”

“Oh,” Viola said gently.  “Well, maybe we should head back home.  I don’t think our teacher is going to give us a break on the midterm.”

With that, the foursome left the theater, all the while Tsuzuki was wondering about Andrea again.  Working like she was and transferred to a school close to home, yet he had never seen her leave the apartment in a uniform for any kind of high school.  Maybe it’s a small school, he thought as he walked with the girls.

@;-‘--;---‘--

Andrea sat down on the loveseat, hanging up her cell phone.  “Viola and Chloe got home safely,” she said, plugging her cell phone up to the charger.

“That’s good,” Tsuzuki answered, still unnerved about Andrea’s remark about school.  “So... where do you go to school?” he asked her.

Andrea looked at him.  “What do you mean?” she asked him.

“Well, it’s a simple question, isn’t it?”

“I just take some classes,” Andrea told him.

“What kind?”

Andrea was about to snap a remark at him before she heard her ringtone.  Relieved that the answer would come later, she grabbed her phone and answered it, “Hello?”

“Andrea?” Kurama’s voice came from the other end.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s about the next sin, Gluttony,” Kurama answered.  “It appears that the cause for it is to over-indulge in certain food and drink.”

“Makes sense,” she answered.  “So, you found who it is?”

“Hisoka told me who it is.”

“Who?”

@;-‘--;---‘- -

(Well, it’s finally starting again.  Looks like no one will get a break in this go round.  Neither will I.  Exams are coming up REALLY soon and the next chapter might not come out until after it’s all over.  Yep.  So, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I did NOT spoil the ending for the musical.  Watch it on Youtube, I highly recommend it.  Please read and review, and if you REALLY enjoyed the story thus far, please follow it, as I will finish this story to its end.)