In which a frightful event interrupts a late night study session
The scream tore suddenly in the quiet of Hikaru's room, piercing her ears and leaving her heart racing. Of course that was the exact night before her finals, and it was bad enough that Umi-chan and Fuu-chan weren't at home. But even without thinking, the redhead had already sprung to her feet and started running towards the hall.
The apartment next door was usually quiet. Eerily so. Even Fuu-chan seemed a bit cautious around it. There lived two – maybe three – guys in number 1B, this all the neighbors were reasonably sure about, but they worked odd hours so nobody really saw them around.
Still, Hikaru pounded on the door, trying not to raise her voice too loudly while asking if they needed help – it was late, and she knew the couple on the 3rd floor just recently had a baby (who was really cute, and so pink!).
The door burst open, and her heart went wild again, body taking a defensive stance. The pale face that not-so-quite greeted her fixed a stare on her (he was pretty!).
"S- s… ugh" he tried, voice breaking.
"I'm sorry, is there anything I can help you with?"
He shakily pointed behind.
"Uh, excuse me then." she entered, cautiously, and crossed the hall. He was right behind her, so she figured the trouble was in the living room (it was really funny how their apartment had the same configuration, yet seemed completely different!).
"T-there" he kept pointing, and her gaze went to a coffee table full of devices (quite like Fuu-chan in her studying sprees! Papers and machines spread all around her reach).
"Oh, you little thing! How did you get in there?" she actually laughed, and went slowly in the direction of the unruly tanuki, who threw her a guilty look while holding a shiny new iphone.
Her neighbor stood at the entrance of the room, as quiet as possible, while she managed to fetch the animal, convince it to let go of the phone, and turned to the veranda.
"Um, excuse me, I'll just…", she motioned her head towards the door, and after his nod struggled a bit to open it, letting the tanuki go, and closing it.
"Well…"
"Thank you!", he almost yelled, but looked a thousand times more relieved. "I'm really sorry to have disturbed you, miss, but I frankly didn't know what to do. Aren't you- I mean I thought it was going to bite me and what if, what if!"
She giggled. "Why do you have food on your veranda?"
"I- oh, that… Lantis leaves it there. For the birds. And the cats?"
Right! She knew someone was tending to them, they seemed so docile now!
"Well, then might be more careful with your windows. They're attracted to food – and apparently new Apple devices too!"
He chuckled at that, and she was relieved that the tension left his body completely now.
"I'm sorry, this is all wrong." he cleared his throat, "My name is Eagle Vision, and what would I call my savior?"
oOo
AN: Hello again! This one was inspired by a series of AU prompts on tumblr, namely: "I live next door and I heard screaming so I came over thinking someone was getting murdered and now we're both trying to get the spider out of your apartment" AU. It's been a while since I've shared an AU with DelirousMess about the girls sharing an apartment in Tokyo, so this was the setting for this story to unfold.