Okay, I have a problem. I looooove writing about Gravitation, but once the muse is gone, it's difficult to get it to come back to me. Luckily, as opposed to all of my other fics, this one is mostly written out. ^^ A thousand pardons for my long absence, but I promise to keep this and my other fics updated now. I hope you enjoy this one, and if you do (or don't), I would certainly like to hear it. Thanks again! –TBB
Disclaimerrrr!: I don't own Gravitation. Only Dagger and Hachiko.
Chapter One—An Unwilling Host
Aaahhh, Tokyo. A city bustling with tourists and natives alike. Stepping into the airport, I took a deep breath, more than happy to be home. After spending six years studying in America, returning home sent a sharp tingle through my spine that I couldn't quite get over. At my side stood my roommate, and she gazed out at the airport so filled with people, sparkling for no good reason. As usual. Sango Savino, known to me as Hachiko, was my best friend, but sometimes…
"Hachi, why the hell am I carrying your crap?" I glared at her as she ignored me, spinning around the airport like a force of mass destruction, her short, chocolate-cherry braid flailing wildly behind her, knocking old poor, little, old ladies off of their wrinkled feet. "Quit spinning already and carry your own trunks!" She didn't respond; she only kept giggling and pointing out every strange-looking person she saw.
"Daggy-chan, look!" she exclaimed, pointing to a teen with a brightly colored mohawk and his girlfriend, whose hair was a mixture of blues, greys, and blacks. "A tropical fish and his mate!"
"Sango!" I snapped, dropping one of her many trunks onto the shiny, silver floor.
"Daggy-chan!" she wailed at me and turned away from the poor, unsuspecting civilians. When she saw her trunk on the ground, she fell over and assumed the fetal position. "You're such a bully!"
"What do you think you're doing, lying on the floor like that? Get up, you bum!" I mumbled as the people filing in from their planes stepped on her instead of around her. I couldn't blame them; if I saw that idiot on the ground, I'd probably step on her as well.
"The basic instructions—stop, drop, and roll!" she answered simply, as though this made sense (at least she had two of the steps down…). She sat up when I began to unlock one of her suitcases, a panicked look on her face. "Hey…hey! What do you think you're doing?
"I'm going to see what you have in this stupid thing!" I snapped, kicking at the trunk. I could have been mistaken, but I didn't recall her owning enough personal items that she needed four trunks to fit them in. Most of our stuff was being shipped over, and we were only supposed to be carrying what was necessary. How were four trunks necessary?
When I kicked the trunk, it popped open abruptly. I peered inside, imagining the suitcase to be stacked with random, purple items (she was famous for hoarding anything purple), but I found, instead, one book. One book, sitting by itself in the bottom of the trunk. I picked up the novel, holding it out of her reach as I thoroughly examined it.
"An entire suitcase for one book? What the hell, Hachi?"
"It's Eiri Yuki's new novel!" Sango cried, floods of water streaming from her eyes and forming puddles at her sides. I muttered apologies to people as they slipped, falling into each other and threatening with lawsuits. "Don't you understand? I couldn't put it in the suitcase with all the other Eiri Yuki books. They'd be mean to it and tease it and call it names and refuse to let it play any reindeer games… The only solution was to put it in a suitcase by itself."
"You do realize you're talking about books, right?" I mumbled, a sweat drop forming on my temple.
She stole the book from me, hugging it tightly to her breast. "it's very special to me. I bought it with my own money in America, and I'm going to buy one here in Japan! I have one coming in Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Swedish, French, Spanish, and German coming in the mail!" She blinked happily up at me, blue eyes shimmering with joy between her perfectly parted, chin-length bangs.
I raised an eyebrow. "You said you bought these with your own money?"
"Of course, Daggy-chan!"
"So that's where my credit card went…"
"Details, details…" She waved her hand absently through the air and shrugged her slim shoulders. How I survived six years with her was beyond me.
I thieved the book back again from her, my light brown eyes giving her the glare that earned me my nickname. While she pouted, I glanced down at the book, my eyes taking in the golden, italic letters spinning brilliant English words, lingering on the author's name. "Eiri Yuki, huh?"
"YES!" Sango snatched the book from me and cuddled it again.
"Why haven't you ever let me read any of your Eiri Yuki novels?"
"BECAUSE YUKI IS ALL MINE! MINE, YOU GOT IT? MIIIIIIIINE!" Foaming at the mouth, she grabbed my shoulders and shook me ferociously. "If you touch him, I'll kill you! Got it memorized, punk?"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." I shoved her off, knowing full well that she would never kill me. She would wander around like a lost puppy and find some way to resurrect me. My luck, I would end up coming back to life as a hunchback. I'd be forced to live the rest of my miserable days alone in a bell tower, with only Hachi to bring me food and company….The idea made me shudder.
"Can we go now? Or should I leave you alone with your paper boyfriend?" I asked with another kick toward her precious cargo of Eiri Yuki books.
"DON'T KICK THEM LIKE THAT!" She shrieked, swinging around her empty suitcase like a baseball bat.
I rubbed at my temple and glared at her. "I'LL KICK WHATEVER THE HELL I WANT TO KICK, INCLUDING YOUR STUPID EIRI YUKI BOOKS!" At this point, the majority of the airport had stopped moving about to watch us act like morons and scream at each other.
"DAGGY-CHAAAAAAN! STOP BEING SUCH A BIG OLD BULLYYYYYYY!" Tears from her eyes sprayed in all directions again, soaking the nearest pedestrians.
"I'M NOT BEING A BULLY; I'M BEING REALISTIC!"
"Excuse me, is one of you called Sasami?"
We stopped yelling at each other long enough to take in the timid man who had the guts to approach us. He was thin, dressed in a perfectly ironed suit, with black hair and round glasses. I figured he was either important or obsessively neat. Or both. I scrunched up my nose, concerned by his sudden presence.
"That's me, " I reluctantly admitted. "You're not going to sing to me, are you?"
"Oh, dear, no!" The man shook his head fervently, mortified by the mere notion.
Sango bent down by my ear, whispering loudly, "Where did he come from, Daggy-chan? Who is he?"
"Forgive me!" The man urgently bowed. He struck me as the kind of man who cries as random, makes tea even when nobody wants it, and dives out of first-story windows as a suicide attempt.
"Does he have back problems?" Sango added, peering at the floor for some miraculous thing that this stranger obviously must be staring at.
"My name is Mr. Sakano," he explained hurriedly. "I've been sent by Tohma Seguchi to pick up Miss Sasami Uesegi and deliver her to N-G." The mention of a title before my name caused a dark raincloud to form above my head, thunder rumbling as my blond hair was drenched.
"HAHA! Daggy-chan? A miss? That's hilarious!" Sango fell back onto the floor, rolling around the airport and knocking over the old ladies, who were just now getting to their feet, like bowling pins. "That's the funniest thing I've heard all day!"
I tried my best to ignore the idiot as she raved on. "Why didn't President Seguchi come get me himself?"
"His hands were tied," Sakano said nervously. "He asks that you don't be angry with him." His voice trembled, as though afraid I might take my rage out on him. After all, Mr. Sakano was no Tohma Seguchi.
"Angry at Tohma? Never." I smiled at the thought of seeing him again.
"Wait a minute!" Sango spun around to face me, her eyes wide in complete terror. "We've been roommates for six years, Dagger. Why didn't you tell me that you know President Tohma Seguchi personally?" Because the idea might make her faint?
"It never came up?" I supplied as an answer. "Who else would send me expensive presents during Christmas and my birthday? Certainly not my brother. I know Tohma for personal reasons; nothing to make a big deal out of." I chuckled at the idea of my brother ever sending me even a Christmas card. He cared; he just had a difficult time of showing it.
Sakano saved me from further explanation, and I made a mental note to send him a nice fruit basket later and a heartfelt card for such a tremendous deed. "Ah! We must be going! Um…Dagger"—he tried out my nickname with severe caution—"would your friend like to come along too?" Okay, that's it, pal! No fruit basket for you! And you can forget about getting a heartfelt card!
"Of course I'll come! Daggy-chan and I are a full package deal!" Sango was already sitting in Sakano's car, quite happily bouncing and barfing rainbows from her mouth and ears.
"How did she know which car was mine?" Sakano asked, absolutely mortified beyond all reason in the United States and Puerto Rico.
"You could call it intuition," I said, shrugging lightly, "or maybe, it's because of the ID hanging from your rearview mirror? I'd go with option one." Yeees, give him a reason not to sleep at night. I took the seat beside Sango, who was now sparkling at random again and continuously cuddling her novel.
Once Sakano climbed in the passenger's side of his own car, I knew something was wrong. Could he drive without a steering wheel? Did he have super awesome telekinetic powers? Was a toddler who also happened to be the ruler of Spirit World sitting in the driver's seat, and we had just failed to notice?
Find out next time on Yu Yu Hakusho! Whoops, wrong anime. xD Still, that's it for now. I hope you enjoyed it. Please review! The more reviews I get, the sooner I'll update. Promise! I just realized we never got to the host portion of the chapter…. We never even left the airport! Um….Okay, love you all! –TBB