Good Morning Escalation
Settling down after years of fighting the supernatural took some time to get used to. But now that the New York Kagekidan (Or Combat Revue as they preferred to call it) was united, Ogami and everyone else could finally relax. Of course, this period of peace meant one thing: Going to Paris for bimonthly visits to check on the Paris Kagekidan. Of course, it wasn't just for them, but also for a certain Erica Fontaine. She had confessed her love for Ogami during his first stay in Paris for half a year, but it wasn't until both the Teito and Paris Kagekidans teamed up to defeat Okubo Nagayashu that Ogami decided to truly accept Erica's feelings.
Of course, when Ogami and Erica saw each other during these visits, they did things couples normally did: Ate out together, took walks at the park, admired the view of the Seine, that sort of stuff. But, the thing about Erica was that she wanted to be as close to Ogami as she could (So she could count her blessings, she explained to Ogami one time), so this would mean that Erica would skip sleeping at the convent in favor of staying over at Ogami's. Naturally, Ogami didn't mind this, as Erica was very pleasant to be around, but the problem started to arise the morning after she stayed the night there…
Ogami's eyes were closed, but he was awake. Even through his closed eyelids, he could feel the sun's rays shine down upon him. Oddly enough, he didn't feel his own ray of sunshine's presence next to him. His thoughts were immediately answered as he suddenly heard the shaking of maracas to his right.
"Ohayo, ohayo, bonjour! Ohayo, ohayo, bonjour!"
Ogami opened his eyes and looked towards the direction of the noise. Surely enough, Erica was there, performing her Good Morning Dance for him. Ogami had to wonder how she could be this much of a morning person.
"Mr. Ogami! Mr. Ogami!"
She saw that he was awake and shot a wink his way accompanied by her bright smile. That was the thing about Erica: It never mattered when it was, her smile would always warm Ogami's heart.
And so, this was how most of their mornings together began: Erica would always wake up before Ogami, get dressed, and perform her Good Morning Dance for him to wake him up. Despite how early she would awaken him, Ogami got used to this. What he couldn't get used to was the variations Erica would sometimes add to her Good Morning Dance.
"Ohayo, ohayo, bonjour!"
This morning, the lyrics were the same as usual, except this time Erica substituted the maracas in place of a tambourine. Ogami noticed right away that the tambourine certainly woke him up more roughly than the maracas. Erica beating her hand against it, combined with shaking it woke up Ogami faster than the maracas.
Then, the morning after that, Ogami was woken up by a slightly screechy sound. He turned and saw that Erica was blowing into a harmonica, accompanied by her doing some twirls.
"Spin around, spin around! Bonjour, bonjour!"
Ogami had to admit mentally that Erica was certainly getting creative. But, he realized, a bit too creative. The morning after that, Ogami was blasted awake by a noise he was all too familiar with during his time as an ensign.
"Rise and shine, Mr. Ogami!" Erica said to him, removing her mouth from the trumpet.
How many of these instruments does she have?
Eventually, Ogami decided that he had to put his foot down. But he realized that this would cause another problem: Erica seemed to enjoy waking him up, so saying that he didn't like her playing instruments for him early in the morning to her face probably wasn't a good idea. So for now, he would subtly tell her that she should slow things down when it came to the instruments.
"Wouldn't you rather be back in bed, Erica?" Ogami asked her after she woke him up one morning using a triangle.
"Back in bed? But it's a new day! We don't want to waste the little time we have together!" She replied.
Ogami didn't want to start an argument, so he dropped the subject. This went on and on until one day, Ogami decided that, for certain, he had enough.
"Come on! Up and at em', Mr. Ogami!" Erica said to him in between beatings of a marching drum.
Ogami groaned and turned the other direction, covering himself with the blankets. Erica noticed this and removed the drum from her neck, sitting on the bed.
"Mr. Ogami, are you feeling alright?"
"It's nothing, Erica, it's just…" Ogami sighed as he struggled to find the words. "...I've got a bit of a headache today."
"A headache?! That's not good! I'll get some herbs from Hanabi so-"
"No, it's nothing medical. It's because…"
Ogami turned to face Erica, who was looking at Ogami with a face of genuine concern. Knowing that he had to face the music (Pun unintended, that Gemini girl Shinjiro talked about in his letters was starting to rub off on him), Ogami sighed and focused his gaze on Erica.
"It's because of you. Well, not you yourself, your dances for me."
Erica's eyes widened with shock, and then she averted her gaze, visibly hurt.
"Oh, I had no idea you felt that way about my Good Morning Dances, Mr. Ogami…" It hurt too much to see Erica like this, but it couldn't be helped.
"Well, I still enjoy your dances with your maracas, it's just that you're going overboard with all of the other instruments."
Erica glanced back at Ogami.
"Do you really mean it?"
"One hundred percent. I actually admire you for having the energy to dance for me so early in the morning. It's just that you should keep some of that energy to yourself."
Her smile returning to her face, Erica nodded at Ogami.
"That settles it, then! No more variety! I'm going to dance for Mr. Ogami using maracas and maracas alone!"
Ogami let out a sigh of relief. That went better than expected.
"But, for now…"
Erica put the rest of her body onto the bed and snuggled up besides Ogami.
"If you really have a headache, Mr. Ogami, then I think I'll just stay here with you."
"Mmm…"
Ogami was starting to get a bit drowsy again, despite the morning sun. Before he could close his eyes, though, he heard Erica speak up again.
"And also, I'm actually a bit glad that you want me to stop using other instruments."
"Why's that?"
"Well, the truth is...I was running out of instruments, so I was bound to start getting repetitive sometime."
Ogami chuckled a bit as he wrapped an arm around Erica, stroking her chestnut hair.
"Well, variation has it's upsides, certainly. For one, variation allows us to stay like this compared to other days."
"Mmm…"
His words fell on deaf ears as Erica dozed off. Ogami evened out the comforter a bit before joining Erica in the land of sleep.
~Fin~