Hei woke up several hours later with a pounding headache. He got up with a start after reaching for his alcohol flask and finding nothing, and jumped off the couch. "Damned cop," he muttered.

A knock at the door set him even more on edge and he threw it open, ready to take down an entire army of annoyances. "What?" he growled angrily, then saw that it was Misaki, returning after a day of letting him be.

"I hope I'm not intruding, but-" Her voice cut off suddenly as her eyes widened in surprise. The apartment was, for lack of a better word, clean. There wasn't even a speck of dust on the dresser.

"You really did it," she breathed. Blinking and coming back to her original purpose, she continued talking to Hei. "I'm here for dinner, as we arranged. Did you buy groceries, or do we need take-out for tonight? I won't take that every week, but being that it's your first day back in the realm of the living and all, I won't mind if you need to get outside food," she said, her voice once again even.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Hei's expression softened as he took in the image of the awed policewoman. Even though he might dislike her mildly, she was still helping him, and that at least deserved dinner and a polite attitude. "We're going to have to get take-out tonight because I didn't exactly have time to cook," he said, gesturing around his spotless home.

"Of course!" Misaki smiled, and she rummaged through her wallet for her favorite take-out place's phone number. Dialling, she ordered enough for fifteen people and waited as the man on the phone wrote down her choices. "Thank you," she said, and then hung up.

"They'll deliver, but it'll take some time. Is that okay?" she said. It wasn't really a question, and Hei knew it. Misaki just wanted to put on the same polite airs as him, and both of them knew it.

"Would you like to sit down?" Hei asked, gesturing to the couch, "I would offer you a glass of wine or something, but..."

"That's okay, really," Misaki replied, blushing slightly and collapsing into the seat. It was her own fault that he was out of alcohol, but she supposed that the merits of draining it all had been enough to outweigh its repercussions in this awkward moment.

"So, how have you been in the past several hours?" Hei said, trying to start a conversation. There wasn't much to talk about, anyway. They'd seen each other just that morning.

"Um, fine. My new job is less-than-entertaining, though. Not that finding and taking down contractors was the funnest of jobs, either, but at least it was interesting, yaknow? And now I feel like my life is nothing but common robberies and there's just this never-ending mountain of paperwork to go with it." She sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. "Oh, I didn't mean to dump all that on you, really! I just needed to get that off my chest, I suppose," she continued, laughing lightly.

"No, it's okay. I get it. If the Syndicate had taken me off of Reaper duty for a while, I couldn't stand it. Just sitting there doing nothing...that isn't really my idea of a great job either," Hei replied. It struck him now that he and the policewoman were really just two sides of the same coin-he was the Black Reaper, and she was the cop trying to track him down. Neither of them could stand to just stay and watch something unfold-they had to be apart of the action. What an intriguing pair of people to be eating dinner together, he supposed. The strongest contractor in the world and the best cop in Japan. The notion was almost laughable, in his opinion. In fact, it was so ridiculous an idea to him that he let out a small chuckle.

"What's so funny?" Misaki asked, confused.

"It's just, I'm the goddamned Black Reaper, and you're a cop, and we're sitting here chatting about our lives like good friends. If someone else were to be watching, what would they say?" Hei was laughing loudly now; it was probably the first time he'd smiled since...well, since Yin, really.

"I'm pretty sure they'd think we were either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. I'd say we're a bit of both," Misaki replied, smiling. It was good to see Hei happy, she supposed.

A/N: Hi. I totally got lazy on this story, OOPS. Well, here's chapter 2. Please review-they mean a lot! I'm working on another story right now, and that's my first priority, but I will update this one slowly but surely :)

Don't forget to review!