Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ A Rose Turned Real ❯ Sea Rose Green ( Chapter 3 )

Shuichi watched Eris as she fished through her school bag for her key, a light smile still on his lips. The pinecone incident was soon forgiven after the girl had scooped a handful of slushy snow and stuffed it in his face.

 

He thanked the powers that be when she finally gave the key a jiggle and the door popped open, a whoosh of warm air washing over him as he stepped in.

 

“Welcome to Casa de Eris! It's not much, but it serve's its purposes.” She kicked off her shoes and threw her bag onto a nearby armchair that looked extremely comfy.

 

The house was impeccably clean, with an array of smells wafting on the warm air. The heater whirred to life, and a washing machine beeped from a room below them.

 

“Oh, I forgot mum said she put a load in… excuse me for a second. It beeps until someone pays attention to it.” She flitted off through an open doorway that must have led to the kitchen and a stairway to the basement. A pattern of thumps vibrated the house as she ran down the stairs and into the laundry room.

 

Shuichi slid his own leather shoes off and put Eris' jacket neatly on the back of an office chair that sat in front of a large oak computer desk. Lazily hooking his thumbs in his belt loops, he wandered over to an oak standup piano with pictures littering the top.

 

Many were of Eris and two older adult figures. A woman with cropped brown hair and blue rimmed glasses, the other a man with messy black hair and a scruffy black beard with gray and white hairs poking out here and there. A few others were of Eris and a younger man, but still older looking than Eris, with short brown hair and happy green eyes.

 

Shuichi picked one up of a very little Eris and this boy in a silver frame. Eris sat on a swing set, gripping the chains for dear life as the boy pushed her. It must have been summer; they bother wore shorts and sleeveless t-shirts, Eris' with a cat wearing sunglasses. Her naked toes were painted bright red and mussed with dirt.

 

“That's my brother, Jack. He graduated last year. Now he's a big bad freshman in college.”

 

Shuichi turned to see a smiling Eris leaning against the doorway to the kitchen.

 

He grinned and put the picture back, careful not to upset the other frames and little knick-knacks. “You two look almost nothing alike.”

 

“Yeah, we get that a lot. You know, I've been answering an ocean of questions about me, but I haven't heard a single thing about you.”

 

He shrugged, that damn smile still stuck on his face and hands in his pockets. So Kurama like. “I'm not that interesting.”

 

“Liar.” She smiled wickedly and sauntered over to plop into the same chair she had chucked her bag on. Said bag was firmly kicked out of comfy chair.

 

“I'm really not!” He took her lead and sat down on the matching couch across from her, taking a moment to examine the pretty oriental clock on the coffee table, grateful for the distraction of her piercing gray-blue eyes. The clock was white porcelain with a red, orange, and gold phoenix painted around the silver hands and numbers.

 

“Jack brought that back for my mum last year. He was a part of the exchange program before he graduated. And I'll bet you anything you're not some boring kid who stays home every night, doing his homework into the wee hours of the morning, studying for the algebra test next week.”

 

“You sound so sure of yourself. Why's that?”

 

“For one thing, you're Japanese, yet I have yet to see any European or American kid with hair as red as yours or eyes a dead ringer for Sea Rose Green! And I don't get the vibe that you're the type of person to dye your hair.”

 

Shuichi laughed, “Sea rose green?”

 

Eris crossed her arms indignantly, “Yes, it's what you get when you put a thin layer of silver over green acrylic paint.” She stated this matter of factly and huffed.

 

He continued to smile, “You must be an artist. You talk like one. It's cute.”

 

Hints of pink appeared in her cheeks. “Nuh uh! No more talk about me. It's Shuichi time now.”

 

Shuichi laid back with slow grace and mused over this. Eris tried not to, but ended up watching his eyes slowly take in his surroundings, like he was thinking quickly but not trying to show it. She grinned.

 

Ah, I see what you're doing. Alright, you wanna play it your way? Fine by me Fox Boy!

 

“So, any brothers? Sisters? Psychotic uncle Louis?”

 

Those cool emeralds came back to rest on her slate blue gaze. “Yes, I have a little brother.”

 

“Ah, now we're getting somewhere! See? This isn't so hard now is it? What about friends? D'you have annoying but loveable people hanging around you like Alex and me, or are you an anti-social hermit like moi on bad days?”

 

The corners of his mouth twitched, and he ran a hand through his hair. Eris nearly fell out of her chair.

 

DAMN he's sexy when he does that…

 

“Oh come on, you're clever looking, it can't be that hard of a question.”

 

“Hm? Oh, sorry, I was thinking about something. Yes, I have many friends. Some are more…are stranger than you would expect.”

 

“Let me guess, one's a loud mouth idiot, and another is a tough talking gel head with a mushy heart. Then there's the bubbly one you can't seem to get rid of, the almost normal one, then the quiet lovable one who never has any idea what's really going on, and finally the one no one can relate to, only talks when it's important or to point out something stupid you did, and generally freaks everyone else out.”

 

Eris tapped her bottom lip with her index finger, innocently staring at the motionless ceiling fan. Shrugging, she beamed at a bewildered Shuichi and got up to stretch her limbs.

 

“Of course that was a shot in the dark, but hey, you gotta make up something interesting when talking to a wall. You hungry? I'm starving. Let's see what the old lady left us to raid.”

 

She grabbed him by the wrist and tugged him into the kitchen like a little kid, then went straight for the fridge handle, wrenching it open. The bottles on the inside door shelf rattled as she shifted and poked through the uninteresting contents.

 

“Hmph…healthy food! Blech! Not good this time of day.”

 

She slammed the door shut and attacked the freezer next.

 

“Hewwo Mr. Freezer! Anything tasty in thy frozen depths this fine afternoon? No? Yes? PIZZA!! Awesome.”

 

She could feel those eyes trying to burrow into the back of her head. Trying not to crack, she ignored it and thrust a couple frozen pizzas into his hands.

 

“Please tell me you've had pizza before?”

 

“Erm…”

 

“WHAT?! Oh my, we have work to do on you. Let's see, what was the first pizza I had? Ah! The classic! Pepperoni and extra, extra cheese!”

 

She relieved him of the frozen pies, threw one back in the freezer and flung the other like a Frisbee onto the counter top as she preheated the stove.

 

“You're in luck too, it's stuffed crust! I wonder if we have any breadsticks…?”

 

Back to furrowing around the freezer, Eris wondered how long it would be before her big mouth would let the cat out of the bag. Her inner voice was freaking out, no stranger to being paranoid. She was a teenager after all. A pimple on the nose and all hell breaks loose.

 

He knows something's up now, way to go dimwit!

 

Indeed, you'd have to be an idiot not to suspect that Eris…knew certain things. And Shuichi was a most certainly not an idiot.

 

But being clever and crafty has its drawbacks. Neither one of them would admit what was really going on. Eris busied herself with the food as Shuichi stood back, ever the pondering quiet figure, pretending to be an ignorant exchange student.

 

The oven timer dinged. The hand-me-down china plates passed out and the pizza cut. Eris watched for Shuichi's reaction to his first bite of pepperoni pizza. She wasn't disappointed.

 

His eyes lit up like a child in a candy store! Less than a minute later he was on his third slice with Eris still on her first. Not that the pizzas were all that big in the first place.

 

She laughed and ripped a chunk out of her own slice. “Good?”

 

“Oh yes! Wait, you've got-”

 

“Eh?”

 

“There's cheese hanging from your chin.”

 

“Ah!” she wiped at her face franticly, but this was some stubborn cheese.

 

Shuichi snorted, “Here, let me get it. You're just smudging it everywhere.”

 

He took up a napkin, leaned over the table, and gently wiped the stringy substance away. Eris sat stock still, watching him do this with wide eyes.

 

Once gone, he smiled and brushed his fingers over her chin. Luckily, Eris was a master of controlling her body, and he didn't notice the shiver run up her spine. Unfortunately, a deep tinge of pink escaped her clutches and decided to say hello to the world on her cheeks.

 

“Thanks.”

 

“No problem.”

 

She cleared her voice, then stood up and walked back over to the fridge. “How about some pop?”

 

“Pop?”

 

“Ok, does `soda' ring a bell?”

 

“Oh! Sure, what do you have?”

 

“Uhh…Mt. Dew, a few Cokes, a lemonade or two, and Dr. Pepper.”

 

“Coke is fine.”

 

“Coke it is! Here, catch!”

 

It was a good thing Shuichi had great reflexes.

 

Eris sat back down, cracked open her own Dew and held it up. Grinning, Shuichi did the same.

 

“Cheers. This might be so bad after all.”

 

Like it COULD be. Shit, he's looking at me again…