And that, as they say, was that.

Oh, I caught Cop Number Two trailing me a few times around town, but I never heard a breath about the vaguest possibility of me getting arrested.  You know for a (completely unreformed) former street punk, ex-thief, and now murderer, I have a remarkably clean record.  Before, that was mostly due to Cynthia Crawford; now I have Yami and Seto to thank... whether they want me to or not.

We're all adjusting as best we can. The brat and I briefly kicked around the idea of moving back to the apartment. Treeboy was the one to nip that one in the bud, though I will admit he had a good point:  who knew whether or not word had gotten around to all the people Oyaji hired yet that he and Amelda were dead, so the reward on my life was useless.  Personally, I think he just enjoys having all of us around. He's miserable unless he has lots of people to be worried sick over.  I can relate.

Apparently in all the mess between our return from Tokyo and the cops showing up, Jounouchi-kitty got three new kitties of his own.  I completely missed the introductions  (What can I say?  Yami and I managed to turn up half an hour to ourselves.  We took advantage of it.), so I've dubbed them Larry, Curly, and Moe.  I'm told they hate the names, especially since I'm far from the only one calling them that.  I'm sure that's the case.  I'm positive I don't care.

Kitty and Ishtar have apparently started to take up residence in the boathouse.  Who knew?  I mean, I for one had no clue there was even a lake on the property, much less a house attached to it.  Seth assured me it's another of Gouza-baka's additions... because everyone knows how much vampires love sunrise walks on the lakeshore.  Have I mentioned how much I detest that man?  If Treeboy hadn't offed him, I might have tried to.

As much as it galls me to admit, though, Seto did have a point about Oyaji's assassins.  There were a few more attacks in the weeks and months after the 'burglary gone wrong' that killed him, bringing the total number to seventeen, eighteen if you count Takeshi.  At least he kept the 'I told you' looks to an absolute minimum, possibly because none came too close.  It might have had something to do with me threatening to plant him on the lake shore at dawn, though.  Maybe.  Really, we get along so well.

Another thing I hate to admit:  apparently I've become rather well-known.  Something about multiple assassination attempts in broad daylight in public and being seen about town with Mutou Yami seems to do that to a person.  Well, notoriety is far from the best thing for my career, so it looks like my hiatus has become my retirement, one that almost definitely will be permanent.  But  I'm trying hard not to let it get me down.  We've all been brainstorming (because apparently, although I was trying hard not to be miserable, I was failing), and a few suggestions came up that might be able to live with.  Jounouchi-kitty suggested I might see about getting hired testing people's security; I think if I do that and do it at night that Mokuba wants to tag along.  It was Seto's fed-up suggestion that I put my... talents to use and starting putting some of the local spirits to rest.  So either a "security consultant" or an exorcist of sorts.  Either sounds promising.

Yuugi's still alive and kicking - and sleeping with my little brother.  Yeah, I knew it was coming, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.  We still haven't figured out what I did or how I did it to bring him back - or even if I could do it again - but he is alive.  Thanks to that little fact, he and Yami have to go visit the Old Man every weekend and out to dinner with him once a week.  The brat's been with them once or twice, and Yami's still trying to get me to attend.  I haven't yet.

Mahaado's still working on figuring out Yami's powers.  He's seen every ghost and spirit that I have lately, a couple of which he's been able to physically touch, something that personally I strive to utterly avoid doing.  Mahaado's frustrated, Mom and the pixie are stumped, and Cynthia has professed to have run out of ideas.  I'm still curious, of course, but we're coming to accept it.  All we know is:  it concerns the dead; it might well involve magic; and - according to Mana, so there's no knowing with that source - it is neither good nor evil nor neutral, neither black nor white nor that nebulous grey that people like animators claim.  It just is, in other words.  Hence is why I'm still quite curious.  I'm learning to live with it though.  It's part of Yami, and since I rather like having him around, I put up with his mysteries.

And yes, we're still together.  We've even given up pretending to have separate bedrooms.  Yeah, it gets a bit lonely on the weekends, but that's what the living room sofa is for.  It's not perfect, not by any stretch.  It should be a given that two people as different as us will fight and disagree.  We have a 'don't go to bed angry' rule, though.  It works for us.  And everyone else knows to stay the hell out of the way when we are fighting.  Like I said, it works.

All in all, life's been pretty good lately.  I haven't heard that voice since that day in Tokyo.  No one's tried to kill me in a while.  Treeboy's even been in a fairly decent mood, for him, which probably means he hasn't had a Gouza-baka's memories attack in a bit.  There has been some strange letters lately, but Seth insists they're cranks so we're all writing them off as such.

Besides, life is good:  I've been assassin-free for six months now, unless you count the one that lives with us.

20 March 2006

FINISHED!! At long last, I'm finished!  No one has any idea how glad this makes me.

I'm planning on starting on Automatic Paranoia in the very near future, like in the next week or so.  It will be a slightly different style than this story and Color of Life, so I'm not sure what I can promise about updating speed, but I'm going to try to give it my utmost attention.

I also have a quick question to ask my readers:
Is the username throwing people off? Might that be contributing to the lack of reading and/or reviews? I've been Eternal SailorM for nearly 10 years in fanfiction, but only the last four of them I've been writing shounen-ai/yaoi and shoujo-ai/yuri. Does anyone think a name change might help, something less 'Sailormoon'-ish?