Roma, California, USA
A car door slammed, heels clicked angrily against the pavement, and the scowl across the raven-haired woman's face, fiery eyes hidden behind sunglasses but nonetheless terrifying, made it clear that she meant business. Mizuko Okurimono threw open the door to the front office of the high school so forcefully that she created a gust of wind. Her eyes fell on a group of seven teenagers, all with various bruises and scrapes, slouching laziy in a row of chairs. That is, until they felt the chill of her gaze. Instantly, all seven of them-four boys and three girls-straightened up in their seats. Mizuko fiercly tore the sunglasses from her eyes and glared vehemently at the group before her. "Not a word." her ice blue hues seemed to threaten as she winded past them into the principal's office.
"Mizuko," her older sister Sachiko had called in her calm, sing-song manner as the head of green hair poked its way into Mizuko's home office. "Sister, that was the high school that just called. You need to go pick up the kids."
The woman looked up from her files, bewildered. Why did she need to go pick them up? That was Sachiko's job. And was it really-? No, it was barely one in the afternoon. Brow furrowed, Mizuko questiond her sister. "Is it an early release?" She glanced at her calendar, littered with scribbled soccer games, dance recitals, doctor appointments, school plays, and the like. "And why do I have to go, Sachiko? Can't you see I'm swamped?"
"Oh, the kids got in a bit of a fight at school during lunch with some other kids, and they're much more likely to take you seriously than myself." the hazel-eyed woman said nonchalantly with a smile before disappearing out of sight.
Mizuko merely sat dumbfounded, the information seeming to be having trouble processing. Like a bat out of hell, she stormed out of the house, roared down the streets to the high school, and there she stood. She may have been a lawyer, but there was no negotiating anything less than expulsion for the seven teenagers out in the front office for the damage they had done, and minutes later, she had them pilinginto the black sedan and headed home,
She allowed them to get cleaned up and bandaged. Luckily there were no broken bones or anything that required serious medical attention, though with what could have happened, a broken bone would have been a lesser problem. Mizuko stood in the living room, arms crossed and foot tapping impatiently against the floor as the seven of them slowly filtered in and took seats on the couches and floor. Joining them in the background, Sachiko and their cousin Ryuu stood to observe. None of the teenagers dared to be the first to initiate eye contact with their furious aunt.
"How?" she demanded in that quiet, serious tone that would scare a confession out of anyone. "How does a group of teenagers-related teenagers-who even live in the same house-all get expelled on the same day?" When none of them met her gaze or spoke a word, she continued with her interrogation. Their silence wasn't a united front, but just sheer fear. "Who started it?"
In an instant, six fingers pointed simultaneously to a raven-haired girl with a cut on her cheek and a bruise on her forehead. She muttered a sarcastic thanks before looking up through her dark lashes at Mizuko. She had guts, Mizuko knew. She could see it in the chocolate brown eyes that attempted to courageously defy her. Throwing her blue eyes toward the ceiling, Mizuko gave a huff. "Of course." she said shortly. It had to be Kokoro. She gently massaged the side of her temple as she felt an oncoming migraine. "Well?" she irately questioned.
Kokoro, a sophomore at sixteen, pursed her lips as she contemplated her explanation. With a gulp of air, she opened her mouth. "Well, do you wanna know who started the fight or which one of us was in it first, 'cause-..."
"Don't play like it makes a difference, Kokoro." Mizuko hotly interrupted her niece. "Either way, the answer is you." She didn't like getting after any of them, but when it had to be done, Mizuko was the only one they would undoubtedly take seriously. Especially Kokoro, who was so often the rebel and loner of the group at school. And even thought it made her heart drop to see her niece sitting beaten and bruised on the floor, averting her gaze and lips in a disgruntled pout, it was hard for Mizuko to go easy on the girl-seeing as this wouldn't be the first time Kokoro had gotten herself into a courtyard brawl. But this time she had dragged everyone else in with her.
"She didn't ask us to join in." one of the boys, Leo, spoke up as if reading Mizuko's thoughts, blue eyes glistening courageously before he winced as he moved the ice pack that was matting his golden hair. He hissed, leaning back onto the couch and supporting his arm along the length of the seat. "She didn't have to. We all jumped in ourselves."
"Leo," Mizuko sighed, looking sympathetically at her nephew. She always admired his courage, but he really disappointed this time around. "You of all people, you were supposed to graduate this year. Now you're expelled." The boy, the oldest and natural leader of them, merely shrugged. Mizuko hung her head for a moment before turning to her cousin standing in the corner of the room. "Ryuu, would you please talk some sense into them?"
Leaning against the wall, Ryuu chuckled. He smiled genuinely at his cousin. "Mizuko, what would you expect?" He swept a glance over the children who had all craned their necks to look at him for his verdict. He grinned. "They're Okurimonos. You fight one of us, you fight all of us." He looked to Kokoro and gave her a quick wink, watching a grin spread across her face.
Mizuko pinched the bridge of her nose. Sure, it was nice to see the seven of them band together to stick up for one of their own when they so often fought each other instead-even Ariel jumped in to help Kokoro, despite their usual disdain for each other (Mizuko stole a glance at the petite redhead who took a split lip for a cousin she would probably be screaming at later that night). Still, at what risk? Didn't they realize what could've happened? Expulsion, sure, but what if a girl had been pushed on Leo or Jon, or Kohaku or Kippei? Or if a boy happened to grab Torrence, Kokoro, or Ariel the wrong way, trying to pull them off someone else? Didn't they think of that before they rushed in?
Mizuko looked at each one of them, internally coming to agreement with what Ryuu had said. Maybe they had thought about it, and maybe it hadn't mattered to them then. What did matter to them, at that moment in time, was that one of their own needed them.
Ariel sat on the loveseat, wimpering as she struggled to untangle her auburn hair from the rat's nest that had resulted from the fight. With her hair in a mess and her lip cut open, she looked horrible, but somehow that hadn't mattered to her during the fight. Ariel, who, on principle, was the polar opposite of Kokoro, and so usually her worst enemy. She was a regular spitfire, the Aries, and part of what led her to jump into the brawl was her usually dormant sense of adventure. Still, selfish Ariel, who usually thought of no one but herself, took it upon herself to help the same cousin she berated regularly. She seemed to have no qualms with getting expelled for her cousin-right now, anyway. Once the reality hit her that she would no longer see all her friends every day, she would probably argue with Kokoro as usual that it was all her fault.
Torrence nursed a sprained wrist as she sat beside Leo, her dirty blonde hair in no better shape than Ariel's. It was hardly a mystery why she was so quick to defend her family. Torrence was always reliable. If her family needed her, she was there, ready to do whatever needed to be done. Even wrestle her own friend to the ground for saying something demeaning about her relatives. She always meant well. It was part of her warmhearted Taurus nature. And it didn't matter if it was her best friend that was mouthing off, family always came first to Torrence.
Then there was Kokoro, sitting on the floor with her battle scars on her face, flexing her bruised knuckles. She had started the school fight of the century by knocking a guy square in the face. Rumor had it that she made a couple of teeth fly in the process. Probably because he said something that pissed her off, and, as usual, she overreacted. The Cancer naturally had a tendency to be overemotional and moody so that it didn't take much to set her off. Her physical outburst started a chain that soon had everyone sitting in the school courtyard for lunch entangled in some sort of altercation-almost every one of them having an Okurimono involved.
Leo-faithful, courageous Leo-usually stayed out of the way of Kokoro's battles, always confident that his cousin knew how to take care of herself. Still, there was no doubt that before Mizuko made her way to the school, Leo was the first to get on Kokoro's case, as he usually did in his patronizing manner. It wasn't until he saw Torrence had jumped into the fight that he joined to help his third cousin, resulting in a blow to the head that luckily didn't cause a concussion, and a few other bruises along his body. Then he found himself going straight into another struggle once Ariel, his baby sister, had charged into her own fight.
Kippei sat on the floor next to Kokoro, the least beaten, his brown eyes flitting around the room, trying to land anywhere but on his older sister beside him, looking as though the inches of space between them was not enough. Mizuko recognized that uncomfortable look on the boy's face. He was keeping something about what had happened. Something that made him unable to look at his own sister. And that's when the woman realized what had really happened. True, maybe Kokoro had started the fight by hitting the guy, but for what reason? Because the compulsive Scorpio had done something that grabbed the wrong kind of attention from an upperclassman twice his size, and his protective sister swept in. And now he was letting her take the blame for everything, for which he felt guilty.
Kohaku, a smart but careless boy, joined as soon as he caught wind of the fight, mostly to help his family, but also just for fun. He was a free spirit, the Sagittarius, always looking for some sort of adventure. He had a good bruise or two from his tussle, but he came out with the same good-humored grin that he probably had going in. Anything to be a part of a little trouble.
Jon was the last of the seven for Mizuko to set her gaze on, sitting against the foot of the couch. He was the quietest of the group, but the most practical, and careful. He had been kicking a soccer ball with his buddies around the courtyard when he saw Kokoro land a punch on the guy's face, and knew what could happen when he got back up and went after his third cousin, what could go wrong if he happened to grab her a certain way. The usually disciplined Capricorn was the first to join Kokoro, if only to save her when their classmate came charging at her. With that, Jon got his share of bruises, a sprained shoulder, and a few cuts.
At a loss of what else to say, the woman exhaled a heavy sigh and shook her head. "You're dismissed." she said calmly. "We'll discuss punishments later." She watched as the seven teenagers wordlessly left the room, knowing better than to start up any sort of argument with their aunt. Mizuko lifted her arm to glance at her watch. Hinako and Takeru would be getting out of school soon. "Sachiko?" she called, and without needing to say anything more, her sister left and the sound of the car engine was heard just a few moments later. The raven-haired woman fell onto a chair with a groan.
"Sister," Sachiko called sweetly, quietly entering her younger sister's office, right when she knew Mizuko would be done working for the day. "A word?"
"Yeah?" Mizuko responded exhaustedly, looking up at her older sister with tired eyes. After everything with the kids, she had gone straight back to work, though her mind had still been working a thousand miles a minute trying to figure out what was to be done about them.
Sachiko sat in a cushioned bench next to the door, leaning back against the wall and crossing one slender leg over the other. Her clothes were splattered with dry paint, though it wouldn't have been the first time she accidentally stained a piece of furniture with paint on her clothes that she didn't realize was still wet. "I know you've been thinking about what we're gonna do about the kids, and I think I've come up with an idea."
Cautious, Mizuko tilted her head, raising a brow. "I'm listening." she cooly responded, lacing her fingers on her desk before her.
Sachiko twirled a strand of her emerald hair around an index finger. She gave a soft sigh, knowing right off the bat that her sister wouldn't outright agree with her idea. "Let's take them home for a while."
"You mean to their parents?" Mizuko furrowed a brow. "Sachiko, we all agreed that it was best if all twelve of us stayed together. Not all of them have such great relationships with their parents, or have their parents at all. What are you thinking-?"
"No, imouto." Sachiko interrupted her softly. "Home. Katei."
Mizuko was only a baby when they moved to America, soon after the tragic construction accident that took their father's life. Their mother decided they needed a new start. Packing up her five children-three older boys and her two girls-Okurimono Asuka traveled to California and began a new life there. Their involvement in the family secret was well known, with Sachiko and Mizuko heading the new generation. Their cousin Ryuu soon joined them, followed by the children.
Leo was the first, born to Sachiko's oldest brother. The curse was of no surprise to the father, but completely overwhelmed the mother. Though Helena adored her son, her disdain for the family curse created tension when Ariel was born three years later.
Torrence was the daughter of one of Sachiko's second cousins from her father's side, whose parents had migrated to America long before.
Jon, Kohaku, Hinako, and Takeru were children of various cousins.
Kokoro was born to another one of Sachiko's brothers, and a young Japanese woman who attended a nearby boarding school and was every bit the rebel their daughter would grow to be. Kippei was born two years later.
More than a year before, Sachiko decided it would be best if all of the cursed family members lived in one household. The reason she gave was so that it would be easier to keep an eye on everyone, but the truth was that Sachiko knew that many of the relationships between the cursed and their parents were less than ideal. So they all moved into one big house.
Mizuko stared blankly at her green-haired sister. "They get expelled," she said slowly. "And we take them on a trip to Japan? No, absolutely not. I do not see how that is punishment."
"Well," Sachiko rose to her feet, smoothing out the billowy skirt that fell to her ankles. There was a smile playing on her lips. "That's too bad. Because I'm your older sister and the appointed leader of this family. And I say pack your bags, call your partners, and tell them you will be taking some personal family time to rediscover your roots."
And with that, the hazel-eyed woman skipped out with a smile on her face. True, maybe it wasn't an ideal punishment for seven teenagers that had caused a huge fight at school and got expelled for it, but what better timing? Sachiko had educated them on their background as much as she could, but there was only so much that they could learn from her. It would be nice for them to see for themselves where they came from.
It would be nice for all of them, she mentally concluded as she made her way to their rooms to share the news. Who knew what they might find there.