DISCLAIMER: You still don't get it? Okay, one more time. This is your brain ~shows them an ordinary egg~ This is your brain on FY ~shows them a brightly colored easter egg~ This is your brain on FY when you think I own FY ~shows them a brightly colored omelet~ Any questions?
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I wrote this in a burst of energy tonight (August 16th), under three hours. I haven't done that in a long time, and I'd forgotten how fun it was.
This fic's short for me, and depending on your perception can either be taken as an (unplanned) companion piece to my old story "Who Are You?", which is what I'd probably say it was even though you DON'T have to read WAY to understand this, or just another fic written in kind of the same style. I'd forgotten how much fun it was to get in children's heads. Hope you like this meager offering from a horrible writer ^_~
And yep, I use Hou Jun instead of the much more popular Houjun. At least on my DVDs, his name in the subtitles is spelled out with the space, so that's what stuck in my head. Don't let it bother you too much.
Note added 9-29: Thanks for the rake over the coals, Chao-chan ^_~ I think I fixed everything.
There couldn't possibly be a more horrible day to little Hou Jun's way of thinking. It was raining to the point where his mother wouldn't let him go outside to play, but not storming. It was just a steady, depressing rain that made him sigh as he stared out the window at it, head propped in his open hands and brown eyes focused on the clouds. "But why, Mommy?"
Ri-san didn't look up from the pile of sheets she was folding. "What, dear?"
"Why can't I go outside? It's not raining all that hard!" He turned to look at her with a pitiful, pleading expression on his seven-year-old face, his lower lip turned out in a pout.
His mother sighed and shook her head. "It's too wet honey, you'll just catch cold. There are plenty of things for you to do inside, occupy yourself here for awhile. Why don't you try reading a book? You love books."
It was true, he did love books, but right then he wanted to go outside. He didn't want to be stuck inside on a day that by all rights should have been beautiful and sunny. He and Hikou had a fort to build after all, in the big oak tree just outside town, to defend themselves from any yucky disgusting annoying stupid girls. They'd already carried all the branches and cord they'd need for materials out there. What if it all got swept away? There wouldn't be any way for them to defend themselves until they gathered all the materials again! "But Mommy-"
"No buts, Hou Jun," she said firmly. "Now go read your book."
He sighed again in a deliberately tragic manner as he thought about the great injustice he was suffering. Climbing out of the window seat was hard, as his body wanted to be as close to the outside as it could if it couldn't really be outside. He raced to his room and pulled the book he'd been reading before bed last night off his rumpled blankets, sprinting back to the window and clambering back into the seat. His mother simply sighed at the laundry he'd trampled in his mad dash and began to fold it again.
The book was actually interesting, and much harder than he usually attempted, so it maybe wasn't quite as hard to get into the story as he thought it would be. It was all about their god Suzaku and his three brothers, Genbu, Byakko, and Seiryu, and the creator Taiitsukun, and how they'd all created the world together before time began and how each of the brother gods had then created his own empire where he was worshipped. It was a very old book, as it had belonged to Hou Jun's father and grandfather before him, and it was nearly coming unbound. It had been a birthday present not two weeks before, when he turned seven whole years old. He was much smarter than the average seven-year-old and he knew it, but he tried not to show it off. He played with Hikou and his other friends as much as possible, enjoying being outdoors and watching nature. He was quieter than the others as well, but that didn't bother him. It was just the way he was.
But at the same time, as good as the book was, he wanted to be outside!
A quick, light knock on their thick wooden door reached his ears, and he was on his feet and racing to the door before his mother could get out of her chair. (She was moving a little slowly because she was pregnant again. He hoped it was a boy.) Hou Jun yanked the door open, looking up, expecting to see a grown-up. Instead, there was nothing there.
"Excuse me," a small voice said in front of him, accompanied by a sneeze.
Hou Jun looked down. A small girl stood there, almost impossible to see through the coats and capes and blankets she had wrapped about her, all of which were drenched with the still-chilly rainwater. He jumped back. GIRL! GIRL! ICKY YUCKY GIRRRRRRRRLLLLL!!!!!
"Oh no, what is it dear?" his mother asked, coming up behind him. Hou Jun scrambled behind her for protection from Girl Diseases. His mother ignored him and knelt to pull back the girl's hood, made of a fold of blanket. "What's wrong?"
The girl sneezed again as a messy ponytail flopped out of the blanket fold and into her face. "We're new here, and we were going to our house, and the cart got suck and the wheel broke! Mama and Papa are trying to get it out, but I'm no good for this and they told me to go get help. Can you help us, please?"
"Why, of course we can! Come in and stay here, warm up, you'll get sick staying in those wet things." Pregnant or not, Ri-san could still pull blankets off fast. She had lots of practice with Hou Jun refusing to get up in the mornings. The girl was spun out of her wrappings, looking dazed. Ri-san then pushed her over to sit on the floor in front of the fire, pouring a cup of tea from the convenient teapot set next to her laundry and pushing it into her hands. Then she rushed off to find her husband.
During all this Hou Jun had silently crept back to the window seat and crawled in it again, slumping as low as he could and holding the book as close as he could to his face to make himself look either busy or invisible. His previously overwhelming desire to go outside was replaced with overwhelming fear and disgust that THERE WAS A GIRL IN HIS HOUSE IN THE VERY SAME ROOM WITH HIM! Oh, yuckyuckyuckyuckyuckyuckyuck-
"What are you reading?" her voice asked, scaring him so much he yelped and jumped and threw the book in the air. It fell to the floor with a clatter as he landed on his stomach on the window seat, the air knocked out of him suddenly.
"Don't DO that!" he panted, reaching for the almost-priceless book.
"I'm sorry," she said politely. "I just wanted to know what you were reading."
"A book," he said sullenly as he turned over onto his back again, once again holding the book in front of his face and trying to make himself focus on the characters before him. Maybe if I ignore her she'll disappear…
"What book?" He nearly shrieked; she was much closer than she'd been just seconds ago. He hadn't heard her pad over in his determined ignoring of the situation; she'd taken off her shoes when his mother whisked her inside.
Speaking of his parents, at that moment they both ran into the room from the back of the house, a coil of rope over his mother's shoulder and his father holding a spare wagon wheel from their stores. It would probably be too big, but it would suit the family until they bought a new one of their own. "Now you two stay here and play nice," Hou Jun's father said as he hurriedly leaned the wheel against the wall and tried to pull on his rain gear. "And don't open the door unless it's us!"
"Dear, let's go!" His mother tugged on his father's arm until he lifted the wheel again, hooking it over one shoulder. Then they both ran out into the mud and rain.
In his indignation at being left alone with a girl, Hou Jun could only stare at the door with his jaw dropped.
"I'd be careful if I were you," the girl said in a voice he found very annoyingly know-it-all-ish. "You look like a bug could fly right in your mouth and you wouldn't notice."
Hou Jun clamped his jaw shut with an audible clack of teeth, wincing as the loose one dug into his gum a bit. "No I don't."
"You did." She watched him for a minute, and he once again tried to bury himself under his book, actually trying to read and make himself forget that she was right there! When he didn't respond after a few moments, she tried again to get him to talk. "My name is Kouran, who are you?"
"Hou Jun," he mumbled quickly, hoping it would shut her up.
It didn't. She giggled. She had the nerve to giggle in his house! "I like that name. What book are you reading, Hou Jun?"
In response he pulled the book farther over to cover his face, exposing the title at the same time so she could read it without him having to say anything.
She didn't respond, and curiosity and nervousness got the better of him after about two seconds and he glanced over to see what she was doing. Her face was framed by her hair that was coming out of its ponytail, falling in gray-blue strands that were actually fairly close to his own light blue. She even had bangs, but not exactly like his. Her eyes were narrowed to peer at the characters and her mouth had pursed up a little in concentration.
He blinked. "Can't you read it?" he asked in surprise. It had never occurred to him that this girl - Kouran, he guessed - wouldn't be able to read as easily as he did.
"I know one or two of the characters…" she answered sheepishly, lowering her head. "I'm only siiiiiiix," she said in a very plaintive, drawn-out tone. "And I'm a girl, you know they don't teach girls as much."
"That's horrible," he said with emphasis. He sat up, almost tossing the book aside as he peered at this person that couldn't read. True, he wasn't all that good himself yet, but he knew the characters; he just needed practice. Even Hikou and their other friends knew most of the characters. Not to know any of them, except maybe one or two… that was terrible. "Why don't you learn?"
"There's no time! And Papa said it wasn't val-u-able to teach girls," Kouran said sadly, tripping over the hard word. "He said we'll never do anything except keep house."
Hou Jun had heard that kind of talk before, from some of the shopkeepers in town and at least one local farmer. It wasn't meant to be mean, it was just how a lot of people thought. He might not like icky disgusting girls, but he knew enough grown-up girls to know that usually those not-meaning-to-be-mean people were wrong. He'd somehow forgotten that the person in front of him was one of those icky disgusting girls in the face of this emergency; nothing was worse than not knowing things. He liked knowing things. He liked having others know things, too. So there was something he could do right now. "Maybe I can teach you."
She slowly looked up, revealing deep purple eyes. "Really?" she asked slightly in awe. "Really?" He nodded. "Really? Really? Really really really-"
"Really, okay, really!" he yelled to cut her off. "I'll try. I don't know how well I can teach, but I am seven." His chest puffed out with pride at his old age. "I have to know more than you. You're only six."
"What's wrong with six?" she asked stubbornly, planting her hands on her hips. "Seven's ollllllllllllllllld! You're gonna go all gray and have to walk with a cane!"
"Am not!"
"Yes you are! Yes you are! You're an old man!"
"Well you're a baby!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
She stuck her tongue out.
He stuck his tongue out.
This girl wasn't as bad as most. Maybe - only maybe - he'd let her look at the fort when he and Hikou built it.
AUTHOR'S NOTES II: This actually happened because I went and, out of boredom and danger of forgetting the story, read WAY again earlier. I couldn't seem to get in a "writing mood" and so was perusing my older stuff, feeling nostalgic, when I got hit with the idea to do a Chichiri/Kouran story the way I did the Mitsukake/Shoka one. In other words, write something cute ^_^ I can't help but think this is just plain cute, which is such a departure for me it feels weird. But fun, too. I am going to be corny now: hope you liked it! Jaaaaaaa~!