11/10/00- Neon's taken up painting pottery at a local craft store. So far, she's churned out a few vases she's thrown, glazed, and painted herself. They look all right, but I like to tease her anyways about them. She's awfully self-conscious about it, so I stopped. But as long as she has fun, I'm all for it. Maybe Raiha and I will join the class too, just to embarrass her. 

11/01/00- Neon had a hangover this morning from last night. I had a stomachache from too much leftover candy. Raiha makes good chicken soup. Kurei made himself scarce.

10/31/00- We bought an amazingly hefty amount of candy for trick-or-treaters. All the good stuff, too. The funny thing is, though, we live in the middle of nowhere and no one came by. So we had an amazingly hefty amount of candy left by the end of the night. We went to a costume party at a bar, the three of us. Raiha dressed as a ninja; I dressed up in my trump card armor; Neon dressed up as a pirate. She told Raiha and myself that we were cheating. No one else knew that, though, and were really impressed. Kurei preferred to stay home that night. He said the loud noise gave him a headache the last time he tried something like that with us.

10/19/00- Kurei and Neon had tickets for a hockey game. Amazingly enough, Raiha and I managed to scrounge seats right behind them. We--okay, I-- pelted Neon with popcorn. She tried to remain freezingly aloof. Kurei was out sans-mask, and looking relatively normal. He was wearing some sort of hockey jersey belonging to one of the American teams. It turns out, Raiha said, that when Kurei was younger, Tsukino-san used to take him ice skating and he got really good. Kurei was never involved with actual ice hockey, per se, but he certainly had a talent for skating on the ice. Funny, how a man with fire powers can be just as at home on frozen water. Granted, it's a cold flame, but still...

10/13/00- Found ourselves at Tokyo Disneyland today. Again, no luck. We couldn't be there just for the rides-- although, I assure you, we did quite a few of those while we were at it, not to mention quite a lot of standing-in-line. I got my picture taken with Dale (a very large chipmunk); and then the three of us had a photo op with Minnie Mouse. The son of some drug dealer somehow managed to get himself stranded on the top of the Cinderella castle tower, and it took a great deal of maneuvering and cranes and whatnot to get him down. Funny thing is, the poor guy's terrified of heights. Some phobia, I think it is. I wonder how he got up there... funny, no one noticed. We stayed that evening to catch the Parade o'Lights, and then headed home.

9/22/00- Neon's been hitting Ebay again. She got a bunch of Darkwing Duck stickers in the mail today... I think it's some American cartoon from a few years back. That, and a metal Carebears lunchbox. She said it was her paycheck, and she could spend it how she very well pleased. Raiha piped up that he'd bought some Roman coins not too long ago. I didn't know he had a coin collection... but now that you mention it, he seems like that kind of guy. It gave me an inkling of what he'd like for his birthday, though.

9/15/00- Found a Bocci Ball set. We shamed Kurei into joining us. Wow, I wish Koganei was still with us... it would be a heckuvalot easier to get two measly teams of two that way, than it would be to convince Kurei to play a game like that. What am I saying, it's easier to pull teeth out of a camel than it would be to convince Kurei. But he seems to be lightening up (periodically) so he joined us. He's a great shot, and the lawn at the mansion has an excellent roll to it. Raiha and I against Neon and Kurei-- we'd have stomped them, if it wasn't for Kurei's carrying their team. So in the end, we were pretty evenly matched. A fun time was had by all.

9/04/00- Neon had a relaxing afternoon in the greenhouse, snipping and trimming and thinning and repotting. Raiha cleaned the pool today-- we won't have many more chances to use it for the rest of this year. I went through the library and dusted books. Especially the ones in high, hard-to-reach spots. Boring, domestic, ordinary... a nice change from hunting down Underworld bosses and getting involved in Kurei's shady deals. But nothing that I'd want to spend my whole life doing... still, a break from the norm is always welcome. I enjoy the slow parts of my life just as much as the fast and frentic ones-- that's a good way to be.

8/26/00- Neon and I were shopping for Raiha-- we had mentioned we'd be in a certain area of Tokyo, and he wanted some shirts and other boring things. So we picked up his things there. To kill time before we caught our connecting train, we popped over to the Botanical Garden and had a good time meandering around among the flowers and trees. Neon's a sucker for plants, especially roses of any kind. I hear from the others that Kurenai was a rose afficionado, too... I asked Raiha later if he thought that perhaps Kurei liked Neon because she reminded him of Kurenai. Raiha shook his head and said that Kurenai had been a much kinder, gentler person than Neon was. I suggested that maybe Neon was kind and gentle inside-- she's good at taking care of people and pretends to be a lot more heartless than she really is. Raiha shook his head and said it was something else... you had to have known Kurenai when she was alive. I felt rather badly that I'd missed out on her-- Kurenai sounded like a really great person.

8/18/00- Neon and I were assigned to a task which we cleared up pretty quickly. We were scheduled to stay in town an extra day for a follow-up assignment the next evening, so we decided to hit the Sakura Springs Water Park. Neon has a love for the boogie-board that you'd never suspect! We had a blast inner-tubing and water-sliding and everything else. Ahhhhh... it's amazing. I bet other assassin groups don't have half the fun and frivolity our happy little family manages to eke out in our existence. We enjoy the summer while it lasts... goodness knows it'll get cold, wet, and snowy before we know it.

8/05/00- We three were volunteered this week over at a local children's museum. I think Kurei is keeping up part of the philanthropic front of the Kokom Co, and sent us'ms over to the museum as part of the public-service illusion. Raiha had a blast demonstrating light and electricity. Neon taught kids about sounds and sound waves. I showed them some demos about simple machines, mass, and matter. How... ironic. Yet thoroughly enjoyable. The kids for the most part were really eager to learn-- and not surprisingly, the three of us were in our respective elements. Literally.

7/29/00- Today, Neon, Raiha, and I went to the Tokyo Zoo for a little outing. Well, okay... there was a bit of business involved, and we got to disguise ourselves in blaring Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts and cameras. I was pleased to see the tigers, and Neon was enamored with the penguins, and Raiha just likes fuzzy things in general, although I suspect he has a soft spot in his heart for the pandas. They're a little to lazy for me, though, and they tend to just sit and eat and they don't even do it in public. Raiha countered by telling me that the tigers just sat and didn't even eat in public-- they eat in a private enclosure. I offered to vault in there and prove that they could do a lot more than that, but Neon told me no, I'd blow our cover, and it was hard enough to keep the Taishaku Kaiten disguised, let alone go off and tease wild animals. So I pretended to sulk, but that's okay. I'm not so stupid. It's not that I couldn't take one of those little beasties on... blowing our cover, I mean. Interestingly enough, a high-ranking member of the Yazuka found his way into the polar bear tank and had to be fished out. He sustained serious injuries to his legs before they could rescue him, and the water was pretty cold [although welcome, I'm sure, in the heat of July]... so between a good case of pneumonia and polar bear attack, he's in the hospital now. The next time something happens, it might have more permanent consequences... Gee, I wonder how that happened. Ya gotta be careful in those places.

7/20/00- Neon was going to the library. She really loves those pink paperbacks... ehh, they're all the same. Woman hates man, man hates woman but is secretly intrigued by her, they fall in love, something happens, man loses woman, they triumph over their situation to get back together again. End of story. But they leave poor Neon all wobbly-eyed. I tell her that the cover art's all right, but inside, there's nothing but cheese. Neon reminded me of my own writing attempts... I said there's a difference between common cheese and cheese at its finest. We went back and forth for quite a while over that one. I ended up going to the library with her and browsed around the childrens' books. By the time Neon finished swapping out her books for a stack of new romances, I had a small swarm of children around my feet and I was reading "The Berenstein Bears and Too Much Junk Food" to them. The children thought I was so kakkoi! How perceptive of them! The librarians kept shooting me odd looks... I don't think they liked it that I wore my baseball cap inside. Better that than my fighting getup, though...

7/12/00- Raiha and I had a rousing game of cribbage this evening. We were bored; the game had been sitting undisturbed for ages on the closet shelf-- we thought what the hey, why not dust it off and give it shot? Fifteen two, fifteen four, pair of six..! I skunked him once, but he got two really great hands in a row. We played 7 games before Kurei came in and gave us something else to keep us busy. Pooh. Raiha was one game up (4-3) but I had a feeling it was going to be my lucky night if only... if only... if only we hadn't been torn from our frivolity to go do the dishes. So *that's* what we've been demoted to... domestic help. I thought that's what some of us got promoted *from*...

7/03/00- Neon, Kurei, Raiha and I went to the symphony last night. We always get season tickets... I got to dress up. Whee! The charm was on! You have no idea how handsome I truly am until you've seen me dressed to kill in a tux. Err... actually, I usually dress to kill in my usual outfit... but you know what I mean. Anyhow, somehow, Neon still managed to remain glacial to my amazing kakkoiness. But I can tell... she's on the verge of cracking and capitulating. She knows deep down inside... she just can't reconcile herself to following the crowd and the fact that she's fallen in love with the same guy thousands of other women are drooling after. Anyhow, there were some really catchy pieces by Bartok and Chopin... we had a terrific evening. It was a pleasant time.

6/25/00- Raiha and I went to the movies and saw "Gladiator". Cool movie. Great costuming... but not as good as my outfit. Granted, though, their Roman garb is pretty dated, whereas my amazingly cool clothes are timelessly classic. Raiha's timelessly classic, too, in a dated kind of way, though. But I'm too kind to tell him that... for some reason, girls seem to like ninjas. Don't know why. They should like jokers more... ninjas are so... dark. Mysterious. Deadly. Bloodthirsty. Jokers have a sense of humor... haha, laughter, merriment, all that good stuff. So why don't I attract more girls? Wahhh...

6/18/00- Sat and played "Diablo" on the computer all day on the 'Net. Provoking many Unwanted Comments from Neon-han, but that's okay. ^_^ But, ugh, I loathe those PK's... I'd love to hunt down some of those player-killers with my Taishaku Kaiten...

6/14/00- I was flipping through my scrapbook this morning, and my eyes fell on one of the clippings. It was from a few years back and read, "Asanuma Suzuko of Osaka to marry Shirai Toyozo of Hiroshima". It pretty much ruined my day... funny, how I still can't throw some things out. :o( But I kind of avoided Neon the whole day... I wasn't feeling very playful.

6/11/00- Drove Neon crazy today dropping hints around Raiha and Kurei that we'd played a different kind of poker the other day in the car... heehee! Poor Neon's face was as red as her hair! Not to mention, I've got a new bump on my head where I distinctly remember having lacked bumps yesterday... @_@ Oi! Such violence!

6/10/00- Neon and I were driving back from a mission, and it started raining really badly. It got sooooo bad, I finally pulled over to the side of the road, and we waited the storm out. And you know it's a bad storm when I, despite the utmost supreme confidence in my driving capabilities, decide I have to pull over. *grin* I guess it's because I know there are a lot of bakas out on the road who don't share my exquisite capabilities. Anyhow, I had a deck of cards in the glove compartment, and we had a bag of pretzels in the back seat, and so we managed to have several rounds of five-card stud. Although I kept eating my chips... er... pretzels... er... winnings.

6/5/00- Neon was interested in taking a swing dancing class over at the local community college. She loooooves dancing, in case you didn't know. She never gets the chance to, though. Kurei isn't much for that sort of thing, and Raiha's so busy, what with being Kurei's right-hand man. So it looks like I'll be her partner for the sessions. The way she put it was, "I guess I'll have to settle for you, then, Joker-san." What she meant to say was, "How horribly clever of me! Kurei will never suspect our blossoming relationship... I'll be able to spend additional time with you in close proximity... and we can take our time about coming home afterwards, ne?" Women... you have to know how to look past what they say and know what they mean.

6/2/00- Neon released me from the chore of cutting out squares for her. I don't know why... perhaps it was something I said?

6/1/00- Neon has decided to take up sewing again. I think she wants to make a quilt. Somehow, I got conned into accompanying her to the fabric store. I suggested we try something with chartreuse and teal, but Neon wasn't particularly enthralled with that idea. It looks like it will be in red and blue. And guess who gets to help her cut squares out. *massive sigh* But only because I'm a nice guy... and only because I know she enjoys my presence so much. I'm sure she's getting all wobbly-eyed now, just thinking of the hours we can spend in such close proximity to each other... That's Neon for you. Such a romantic!

5/24/00- We all trooped out to visit the museum today. Actually, we had heard that there were some madougu on display. Raiha, Neon, and I checked out the place... turns out our sources were wrong. They weren't madougu at all, just some interestingly-made jewelry. Still, we got to go to the gift shop. I bought myself a little plastic tiger and spent the trip home annoying Neon with it.

5/20/00- Another week of Neon's hopeless pursuit of me. *sigh* Poor woman just can't take 'no' for an answer... not that I blame her. Ahem. It's the fangs... it's gotta be the fangs. I try explaining to her that I have to be available to my fans... she just doesn't understand. And so she tries to drown her sorrows with Kurei. But her heart is always pining for me. Such is the hopelessly incurable fate of so many besotted women... and one or two besotted guys... around the world. You have no idea how it hurts me, knowing I'm the cause of such hopeless mass suffering. It can be difficult to sleep at night, you know. Such is the price of fame.

5/14/00- Post-vacation blues... back on the schedule... we worked hard today. Sundry & various members of the Underground were giving us grief, so Neon and I went in and told them very politely what was what. No more problems from that end for a while, I hope. Went off to a corner store and bought this cute little squirt gun. On the subway on the way home, I snarled for Neon to "stick 'em up" and I squirted her. Needless to say, she was not amused, and I've got a bump on my head that will last me for the rest of the week. @_@ Ended up giving the squirt gun to some little kid at the subway. He looked very grateful for the toy. I hope he has much more receptive friends to goof off with.

5/12/00- Last day of our little vacation. We decided to rent some movies and have a mini-pizza party. Whooo, that didn't go very well at first. Raiha wanted Italian sausage. Refer back to the earlier comment about Raiha being a sucker for Italian-anything. Kurei wanted plain cheese pizza. I wanted the pepperoni-mushrooms-sausage-Canadian bacon-olives-and-double-cheese, but Neon didn't even want pizza; she wanted to go to a seafood restaraunt. I threatened to buy a pineapple pizza and hide it in her room, so it smelled up the place... she sulked and agreed to go along with the pizza-party idea. We ended up going with one cheese pizza and one Italian sausage/pepperoni pizza. Raiha's allergic to mushrooms. Next, we had to figure out our viewing pleasure for the evening. Neon wanted to watch The Governess, some mushy chick-flick. Kurei wanted to watch Blood Dolls. Go figure. Raiha was more interested in having an Indiana Jones marathon, and I felt like A Night at the Opera. You gotta love those Marx brothers! In the end, we rented Blood Dolls and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Time well spent, ne?

5/11/00- Had another great day of R&R! Raiha, Neon, and I convinced Kurei to play paintball with us. It was a blast and a half, with Neon and myself versus Raiha and Kurei. Neon's a darn good shot, and I'm glad she was on my team! Even though she's easy to ruffle, and I love annoying the heck out of her, Neon's a terrific woman. But don't tell her I think that. She might admit that even though I can be obnoxious and mean, she likes being around me, too. Oops-- cross that out. She was reading over my shoulder and said, quote, "No chance of that."

5/9/00- Neon and Kurei arrived at the Resort today. We had a great time at the beach and went snorkeling. Kurei's like a fish in water. Neon's better at looking cute and sunning on the shore. So Kurei, Raiha, and I went snorkeling around the reefs and had a blast, and Kurenai caught up on her reading and had a blast, and all-in-all, we had a great day. It's been so stressful recently, with this, that, and the other going on, we need a few days to unwind. We even made homemade ice cream. I wanted to do chocolate (my favorite), but Kurei's got this weird thing for peppermint.

5/5/00- We're going on the vacation soon; Raiha and I were sent ahead to check out one of the properties and make sure it was A-OK for Kurei and Neon when they arrive. I wanted to surprise 'em and redecorate Kurei's room in pink satin hearts, but for some reason, Raiha objected to my wonderful idea. *sigh*�They never let me have any fun...

5/3/00- Played Monopoly with Kurei, Raiha, and Neon to pass the evening. Wild and crazy night, ne?�Kurei has to get the railroads, or else he's not happy. Raiha likes to be the banker, and Neon will throw fits if she doesn't get to be the little car. Just as fine with me-- I�prefer the horsie myself. And I'm a sucker for the dark purple and light blue properties on that first row there. Raiha was a bum and wouldn't sell me Oriental Avenue. That really cramped my plans for establishing the Joker Hilton.

4/28/00- Raiha, Neon, and I went to a karaoke bar. Raiha had a little too much sake, poor guy. Although he does a fabulous Kurei impersonation when he's a little tipsy... *snerk* So it's probably just as well that Kurei didn't come along with us; he said something about business. All work and no play makes Kurei a dull guy-- we'll have to force him to come with us sometime. He's got a great singing voice, BTW. If you're ever in a situation, ask him to sing that song "Monster Mash" for you.

4/25/00- Neon and I had to go visit one of Kurei's "business partners" who wasn't handing over Kurei's share of the revenue. We fixed that. There shouldn't be any more problems from that quarter for a long while... To reward ourselves for a job well-done, we're going to arrange a holiday for ourselves sometime soon. Kurei and Raiha need one, too. We took Raiha out to an Italian restraunt and told him about our plans. He agreed. Raiha's a sucker for Italian food...

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