This was actually written a year and nine days ago. I wrote it the Valentine's before I joined and didn't want to post it until it was semi-close to Valentine's. I forgot that I hadn't gotten it up and didn't post it on Valentines because it slipped my mind. Happy (late) Valentine's Day, y'all!

Disclaimer: Riichiro Inagaki and Yusuke Murata own it, I read it and write fan fiction. Who has the better deal?

Beep!

BEEP!

The alarm got louder as Tai Sen ignored the small electrical device and was posed with two options...

1) Get up and get ready for school... or

2) Break the alarm clock, screw school and go back to sleep.

She sighed for a second as the alarm got even louder. "Okay, okay... fine!" She growled and slammed her hand on the alarm, almost breaking it. "I'm awake, dammit!" She said when it gave off one more beep that rivaled the previous three. She groaned and rolled over, trying to sleep again.

BEEEEEEP!!!

"Don't make me break you!" She picked up the alarm and was about to throw it at the door, but set it back down when she saw who was standing there. It turns out the source of the last beep was not, in fact, her alarm clock. A blonde male by the name of Hiruma Yoichi, joy...

"I highly doubt you can break me." He said and put his cell phone back up, no doubt what he'd used to make her wake up.

"Haven't you heard of knocking?" She asked heatedly and pulled her covers up to cover her tank top and boxers that she slept in.

"Do you think I have?" He replied smartly with a sneer.

"I wouldn't know, you seem smart but you act like a dumb-ass." She stated, yawning. In her waking moments she must have forgotten who she was talking to.

"What'd you say?" Hiruma asked, a hostile note in his voice as he pulled a black book from his pocket.

"Oi, I said you're a... da moose... yeah, it's slang for... the man... yeah..."

"And you're full of bull shit... just like your poker hands that you played a couple of weeks ago." He smirked at her shocked face.

"What the... how do you even know that I played poker a few weeks ago?" She swallowed, looking from side to side, wondering why she didn't deny it. "Uh... that's not what I... oh dear."

"You sound old when you say that." Hiruma commented and tossed her a jumper that painters usually wear.

"What are you roping me into this time?" Tai asked looking at the light blue fabric suspiciously.

"Come down stairs when you've put it on." He ignored her question and walked out of her room. She heard his feet tap the steps, going downstairs, and sighed. Sliding out of bed and pulling the jumper on.

"I'm not sure I want to know... last time I almost got shot by a police man." She muttered as she adjusted the shoulder straps over her t-shirt. She'd also pulled some jeans on before putting it on.

Swiping her mid-back length red hair into a messy pony-tail, she brushed her teeth, and took her sweet time pulling her sneakers on.

"You're getting slow, maybe I should just make you start practicing with the Football Team." Hiruma commented as Tai slid into a chair across from him at the table. A granola bar was sitting there and she ate it in a few bites. Hiruma had his feet on the table, he didn't even bother to take his shoes off at the door, and was polishing a gun with the front two legs of the chair in the air while the other two were on the ground.

"No thanks... what's with the painter-jumper?" She asked once she'd swallowed the breakfast bar.

Hiruma smirked and looked at her, putting his feet down and letting the front legs of the chair slam into the linoleum of her dining room floor. "What do you think painters usually do?" He asked and clicked the revolver he was cleaning's cylinder back in.

"... paint?" She guessed and he smiled at her.

"See? Wasn't that hard was it?" He spun the cylinder around and let it click back into place before firing the gun at her chair leg through the table. "Now let's go!" He said as she landed on the ground with a yell. One of the legs of the chair was broken and there was a hole in her table. "Up, damn lazy-ass!" He shot at her again and she jumped up, running out to do whatever the hell he told her to do.

.::The Next Day::.

'I'm so dead!' Tai thought and sighed on her way to school. "Heheh... but it was fun to make Hiruma turn literally red." She mused on her 'colorful' actions the previous day and couldn't help laughing again. That is until a demonic presence loomed behind her and she winced before pointing at a random person who had just thrown a baseball through a window. "Haha, that was hilarious." She bit her bottom lip when she felt a thin, long hand close around her shoulder tightly, hitting a pressure point with quick accuracy.

"Good morning, fucking lazy ass." Hiruma said and she smiled slightly, knowing she was going to pay for what she'd done. She turned slightly to look at him and snickered slightly.

"Ow! No really, that one kid who just threw a baseball through the window is hilarious!" She pleaded for him to stop squeezing her shoulder and trying not to laugh at the same time.

"You are full of bull shit." Hiruma glared at her menacingly. She gave him a mask of fear and pain to hide her urge to laugh.

"... yeah, knew you wouldn't get the paint out of your gorgeous blond locks." She joked, her shoulder was throbbing and he was moving his thumb to a new pressure point that would make her arm numb for the rest of the day when a girl with shoulder length brown hair and blue eyes, that were full of motherly protection for those around her, was suddenly between them.

"Hiruma-kun, let her go!" Mamori Anezaki, Tai was glad that Hiruma's worst pain in the ass had arrived. His face reflected annoyance and anger at being interrupted in the middle of his punishment and Mamori swatted his hand away to release Tai's shoulder. "You go on Tai-chan... I'll deal with him."

"Ah, Anezaki-san, I can 'deal' with him. It's oka-"

"It most certainly is not!" She exclaimed and turned so that she could face Tai.

'Dammit, I don't want a lecture!' Tai whined in her head, but kept her face unreadable. "It's okay, I've been his slave for a loooooong time... I can handle it." She smiled and pushed Mamori's shoulder slightly, indicating that she could move out of the way.

"... Hiruma-kun, what's in your hair?" Mamori asked, reaching her hand up reflexively to try and get the red streaks of paint from his hair. He hit her hand away and glared at Tai.

"What? You hit me with the stuff too!" She suddenly started defending herself, she'd accidentally splashed a bit of paint on Hiruma and he dumped a whole bucket on her, from there it progressed to an all out paint fight and Hiruma had started using a paintball gun on Tai in the end.

"I'm not arguing with you about it, it's your fault, you pay." Hiruma said and walked toward the club house with his book bag slung over his shoulder.

Tai followed him without him even having to tell her to.

Mamori looked sadly after them and sighed, much as she despised Hiruma, she trusted Tai's judgment, turning to go back to her group of friends she heard Hiruma's vicious yelling from inside the club house, as well as explosions. She could see the run-down shed shaking and sighed before joining in on her friend's conversation.

.::In the Club With Tai and Hiruma::.

"Ow..." Tai plopped down on the floor, cradling her arm. It was slightly burnt and red with irritation. "You just had to use the flamethrower?" She sighed and leaned back against the wall behind her back.

"Why shouldn't I have?" He replied with a devilish sneer, he was leaning his weight on a bazooka that was almost as tall as him, his hand was relaxed on the handle and his other hand rested on his opposite hip from the bazooka.

"... good question, so good in fact that I can't find a good enough answer." She said in a matter of fact tone. He took a step toward her but she didn't flinch like many would have, just looked up at him with a blank face, her hand rubbing her arm tenderly. He suddenly reached his right hand behind his back and she looked down, expecting it to be another gun. Hearing him blow a bubble and a 'chk' sound, she waited for him to start shooting again. Instead he bent down grabbed her arm roughly with his left hand examined it for a second before popping the gum.

"You need to learn when acting like a smart-aleck will get you hurt and when it won't." He commented, bringing up his right hand to reveal a bottle of 'BurnEZ', cap already off.

'The chk sound was him uncapping some BurnEZ? Okay... I've heard him load and cock his guns way too much lately I guess.' Tai thought and smiled slightly when the burning in her arm started to fade with the spraying of the medicine. "It doesn't always get me in trouble?" She asked when he started wrapping some gauze around her arm.

"Has it in the past thirty seconds?" His grey-green eyes flicked up to her light brown and then back to her arm. He tugged the bandages roughly, suddenly and she winced. "See what you made me do, damn lazy ass?" He asked and she rolled her eyes when he stated, "you made my hand twitch with you're dumb ass questions."

"I seem to have it out for myself a lot lately, ne?" She smiled a little and tucked her feet under her without moving her arm from it's position in the quarter back's hand.

He tied off the bandage and just 'hn'ed while looking down at her. She suddenly noticed that he was oddly close to her and she decided to ignore it, seeing as Hiruma had a general problem with personal space.

"Uh, thanks for fixing my arm." She said, looking at the bandage. A much better job than she could have done at home or in the nurse's office. "... what are you going to do to me now?" She asked, looking up from her arm to find that he was less than an inch from the end of her nose. Blood pounded into her cheeks and she moved her head back quickly, hitting it against the wall with a 'bang!' "OW!" She whined, lurching back forward, bumping noses with Hiruma, who moved back slightly with a small combination of a frown and smirk.

"You need to not give yourself a concussion if I was nice enough to not give you one." He commented, rubbing his nose slightly.

"Well if you wouldn't invade my personal space, then I wouldn't have had that problem." She replied, rubbing the tender spot on the back of her head.

"Don't blame shit that I finally didn't do on me." Hiruma said, standing with the help of her head.

"Why do you used my head as a help up?" She looked up once he'd removed his hand from her head and looked back down at her.

"Who's the slave here?"

"... me?"

"Yes, and who's the unquestionable master?"

"... God?"

"..." he pulled a blank face on her and she stared back with the best mimicking face that she could make without a mirror.

"Oh, we're not talking about religion are we? Uh... you, Hiruma-sama." She grabbed his hand and he, on reflex more likely than not, gripped her hand back briefly, but just before he let go again she was on her feet, having used him to get up.

"Damn straight I am... and who said you could use me to get back up?" He blinked at her, narrowing his eyes slightly.

"Sorry, Hiruma-sama..." she finally quit joking around and such and became his obedient slave again, something she faded in and out of regularly.

"... Class is going to start soon, wouldn't want to be blamed for you being late, now would I?" Hiruma asked, leaning back against the leg of the single flipped table.

"No, Hiruma-sama." She flashed him a smile before grabbing her bag, that was dropped near the door.

"Damn lazy ass." Hiruma caught her attention with his nickname for her and she turned from the doorway. "What's this about me having 'gorgeous blonde locks'?" He smirked and saw her face turn slightly red before walking out. Hiruma smirked, remembering her blushing when she'd looked up at him when he'd been invading her 'personal space', and from when he'd asked her about her previous comment. "Personal space, huh?" He cackled at his respective thoughts, which were quite diabolical. "If she would quit being so easy to get stuff on..." flipping his book to Tai Sen's page, he scribbled something and snapped it shut, leaving the club just as the bell rang and walking to class with a new stick of gum in his mouth.

.::Next Day, February 13, Day before St. Valentine's Day::.

"Hey, Valentine's is tomorrow, waddya get me?" An excited blonde girl asked her oh-so-perfect boyfriend.

"Oh, uh... it's a surprise, babe!" The young man scratched his head nervously, as he walked hand in hand with his girlfriend. Or maybe he wasn't as perfect as everyone thought. This was only one of the many conversations at the exact moment when the entire male race on the planet stops... looks at the calendar, and freaks out about not remembering Valentine's Day. (Discluding Hiruma-kun of course...)

Tai yawned from her spot in a tree in the park, she took a picture of the guy for Hiruma to ID and scribbled down some stuff on a notepad about him forgetting, Hiruma was honestly a genius when he told her to go climb a tree in the park and start listening when she asked how he finds his information, and to get him some too.

"It was like a friend or parent asking you to get ice-cream for them too when you ask them where the ice-cream place is..." she muttered lazily to herself and stretched out on her tree limb. She'd filled two pages already on people, taken about a hundred pictures on the digital camera she'd stolen from Hiruma. 'Hell, he has a camera phone... he needs a picture he can use that.' She'd thought when she took it. "Or maybe he knows and just doesn't care..." she sighed and looked around for another person to follow. She felt the tree wobble as something crashed into it and fell off the limb, hitting the ground hard on her butt.

"Ow! Who or what the he-" she stopped short. "Oh, hey..." she smiled up at the spiky blonde hair that was blocking the sun, she didn't actually need to see his face to know who it was.

"C'mon fucking lazy ass you've been at this all day." He said with an irritated tone.

"I got two pages... and about a hundred pictures, considering I have no flipping clue who these idiots are." She leaned against the trunk of the tree and smiled at Kurita and Musashi who were standing not too far off. "Hey, guys." She waved slightly.

"Hiruma! You never told me that someone was in the tree!" Kurita gasped and, belaying his weight and size, was kneeling next to her in a few seconds.

"Like he'd have told you anyway... you did exactly what he wanted you to, Kurita." Musashi said with his hands in his pockets, as if he were bored, a football was under one arm, with shoe scuffs on it that meant they were playing before Hiruma decided to come check on his favorite slave. (Note: Favorite is said sarcastically.)

"True, Gen-san." Tai nodded and tossed her notebook and the camera to Hiruma.

"Glad you didn't break the camera." Hiruma said, looking over it before flipping it on and looking through the pictures. "Ken Lito, Yusuke Kopilo, Kazuma Haruko..." he started naming the people in the pictures, with a different name for each one. "And how am I supposed to match these people with their info?" He asked, trying to find a reason not to be satisfied with her work.

"Open the note book." She said and waved off Kurita who was asking if she was hurt from the fall with a silent 'no, but thanks, talking with the devil here.'

He complied and grinned that evil grin that sent shivers up her spine, she hated the way that smirk fit his personality... and usually the things that resulted from it. "This is nice," he said, glad that she put the picture's number by the threat. "You can go do whatever you do now." He was already pulling out his laptop and sitting down in the shade, leaning against the side of the tree that was perpendicular to her shoulder, and plugging the camera in.

"Hey, Gen-san, want to play pass-back-and-forth?" She asked, noticing that he had a football tucked under his arm for the first time.

"Sure." He nodded and tossed her the ball half-heartedly. She caught it easily. She threw it back, getting a mediocre spiral on the throw and he caught it. "No bad for a girl." He said and threw it back in a more practiced spiral that didn't wobble from side to side like hers.

"Not bad for a kicker." She returned and threw it back a little easier this time. Soon they were making each other run to the left and right to catch the ball, also going forward, jumping or backwards. Kurita watched in amusement and pretty soon, Hiruma finished his threat work and closed his eyes, 'relaxing' against the tree, seeming to not care about the girl and kicker who were steadily picking up the pace of the game they'd started.

"You're not going to catch that one!" Musashi said with a confidant grin as she tried to backpedal to catch the ball that was over her head, slowly going towards the ground. "... Tai-chan, watch out!" Musashi watched in numb disbelief as Tai, not paying attention to where she was going, for one, and for two: clumsy as heck, caught her heel on a root and her rear plunking down on Hiruma's lap. Her hands snapped up suddenly and she went backwards, her back hitting the ground and her t-shirt under her light jacket coming up slightly.

"Caught it!" She beamed, sitting up and looking at the ball of leather in her hands.

"Get. Off. Now!" Hiruma snapped in her ear. She flushed, realizing that she hadn't fallen on grass.

"What the hell?!" She jumped, turning to face whatever had just startled her... and ended up smacking the side of her face into Hiruma's jaw. Tai heard laughter from Musashi, Kurita was trying not to laugh right along with him by asking if they were okay.

"Argh, get off me!" Hiruma pushed her off his lap, both rubbing their own abused left cheek.

"Your cheek bone is pointy!" She commented, screwing up her mouth and touching her cheek gently.

"So? Your butt is large and you are heavy."

"Not my fault you're a skinny-ass dumb blonde!" She retorted smartly, or not so smart as to say that to the devil's face. Hiruma glared at her and started pulling out a gun.

"Did she just call Hiruma-kun...?" Kurita trailed off, his jaw slack and his eyes wide.

"... a dumb blonde..." Musashi finished the sentence and smirked as Tai suddenly frowned, noticing her mistake. "Yeah."

"No! Hiruma-sama, I wasn't thinking!" She winced when he drew a 9mm hand gun.

"When do you ever?" He slid a magazine in and snapped the sliding bar back with a practiced proficiency. "Rhetorical question, fucking lazy-ass." He rolled his eyes sarcastically when she started thinking about it.

"... I said I was sorry." She whined. Just yesterday she was embarrassed as a tomato because he'd been in her personal bubble, and seconds ago she'd been sitting on him, crowding his bubble, funny how things work out, ne?

"Sorry's not good enough." He stood and she scooted back away from him.

"Does he sound like an abusive husband from one of those cheap movies to you, too?" Musashi suddenly asked Kurita. The roly-poley Center Line-man nodded his head with a small smile at Musashi's logic. Tai smiled, despite her predicament.

"What can I do to get out of getting hurt?" She asked this question for what had to have been the hundredth time since New Year, not even that many days had passed since Thanksgiving, and here they were in February; now you know how much trouble, Sen Tai really is.

"Hmm..." Hiruma thought about it for a second. "Nope, I don't think there is anything." He smirked at her, watching her think. "Oh, be careful, such strain might make your brain explode."

"... yeah, well... uhm... uh... hey, that's mean!" Tai said with a frown. Hiruma's smirk slipped into a smile momentarily before he recovered it. "... did you just smile?" She asked, she'd noticed the change, not expecting Musashi or Kurita to seeing as he was facing her and not them.

"... what do you mean?" He asked blankly, twirling the gun on his index finger.

"... nothing I guess." She shook her head and sighed. "So, what's my punishment?"

"... I'll think of it when I have to. Just another thing you owe me."

"Another? Damn..." Tai sighed. "Ah, well I have to get home, thanks for adding onto my tab instead of giving me more bruises... mom's starting to worry." She waved, turning toward her house. "Later."

The three boys looked after her, the two darker haired ones looked from each other then to Hiruma, who just watched her leave.

"D'you think...?" Musashi looked to Kurita when the line-man spoke. Kurita was looking at Hiruma thoughtfully, and Musashi figured that they might be wondering the same thing.

"No, I don't think so." Musashi shook his head, discarding the idea and tossing the football into the air. "It's Hiruma, Kurita-kun... he views stuff like that as weakness." The lineman's face fell slightly but brightened again when Hiruma turned toward them.

"Stop talking about me behind my back, it's annoying." Hiruma turned with a bored frown. "Let's get some more practice in!" He shot at them both and they started jogging as he herded them in his desired direction by shooting his 9mm near their feet.

.::With Tai As She's Walking Home::.

Tai climbed the fence that separated the back of one restaurant's alley from another and dropped to the ground. 'But seriously, Hiruma can't smile... he can make something that looks like a smile but has Arrogance, Deceit, Sarcasm, Hate, Anger... possibly but unlikely Pain behind it... but a nice smile, like he thought it was funny, or something.' She rolled her thoughts around in her head and sighed. "... makes me wanna do something nice..." She muttered and let herself into her house. "...for Hiruma. I want to see him smile again."

"Who, dear?" Sai Sen, her mother, asked as she had heard her daughter muttering.

"Eh, nothing, Ma." She waved off her mother's question and headed to her room. Her mother looked after her with a sigh, shaking her head, she hated that answer.

"But what can make the guy smile... me being stupid I guess is why he smiled in the first place..." she sighed and lay back on her bed. "... I got it!" She sat up suddenly and slapped her fist into her hand.

.::Valentine's Day::.

Hiruma walked in to change for practice the next morning at 1:30 AM. He figured it was better to get there before Kurita and Musashi to get some extra practice in and possibly set up early. A feeling came over him like he was being watched, but, being the un-paranoid guy he was, ignored it. He pulled on his uniform shirt and was about to change into his practice pants when he noticed an oval-shaped box on the bench that he must have, somehow, overlooked.

"What idiot left their girlfriends candy on the stupid bench?" Hiruma muttered and picked up the box. If he looked at it in the light (which he'd not turned on in the first place) he saw that it was camouflage patterned instead of the traditional red or pink or some other lovey-dovey color that usually decorated the Valentine's boxes; yes he knew the holiday, best damn place to get dirt on people. It was also not really oval at all, but more of an egg shaped, or a football... there were even black stripes going down the middle of it for the laces. It was wrapped in the store plastic, and had a card attached to the back. He plucked it off the back and read:

"Demon's can be loved too you know, ain't you ever read/seen Inuyasha Demon Diary or YuyuHakusho?" the next paragraph read: "I got up at frickin' early in the morning for this, smile or I'll damn you."

Hiruma smiled against his wishes at the last sentence and he heard someone move behind the door of the club.

"And what would you have done if I'd just ignored it and went on changing?" He asked with a smirk in the direction of the movement.

"I would have thought of something else or run away like the devil were on my heels... oh, wait... he would be." Tai stepped out of the shadows behind the door of the club. "Kind of thought you'd notice it right off, but... yeah, guess you didn't."

"Why chocolate? You know I hate sweets." He hadn't opened it, but could smell the scent of cocoa.

"Who said they were sweet? All you know is that they're chocolate." She said with a smile.

"... so they're sugar-free." He said and opened the package with a small movement of his hand. He looked up to see her nod.

"I have diabetic family, you know that... mom knew where they did special boxes and sugar-free stuff so-" she was cut off with Hiruma putting a piece in her mouth when she wasn't paying attention. She chewed it slowly and swallowed finally. "What, wanted to make sure it wasn't poisoned?" She asked finally after a while of him watching her in silence. He'd taken a step toward her even though he'd have been able to reach her mouth with his hand from where he previously was.

"Never know what you'll do to get out of slavery." He smirked and pressed his lips to hers suddenly. Tai's eyes widened a bit and Hiruma smirked against her lips when he saw that he'd surprised her; even though her skin was tanned from being in the sun a lot and it was dark in the club, she was blushing, putting his right hand on her left shoulder, he walked her backwards. His left arm brushed her waist as he reached behind her and slid the club door open, backed her out and broke away.

"The chocolate's pretty good, but the kiss needs work." He smirked and slid the door shut in her face.

Tai finally shut her jaw, turned away from the club and started walking away, she felt the heat drain away from her face. She swallowed trying to get some of the chocolate that was still at the back of her throat down.

"What the hell was that...?" She touched her lips lightly and looked back at the club, Hiruma had just come out with a basket of Footballs and was heading toward the field. 'I think I'll pester him about it later...' she smiled and yawned as she found a suitable tree, climbed into a lofty branch and faded into the foliage in her camo pants and jacket as she slept, no one could find her when she slept but one person, and he was one-hundred yards away, throwing Footballs at a slab of wood, thinking about one word that stood out from the card...

'Love?' Hiruma threw a perfect spiral to Rice-Man.

'Weakness when translated...' said a voice in his head.

'...then maybe I'm weak.'