Aware that Daniel didn't know which flight they were there for, Mr Miyagi looked up at the arrivals board after looking at his watch for what seemed to be the hundredth time in the space of five minutes and smiled when he saw that the status of the flight had changed from "Landed" to "Processing."
He knew that this was a good sign. It meant that someone from the flight had arrived at Customs. Hopefully, it meant that their guests wouldn't be too far away.
He recalled the day that he had received the letter from Yukie. She had sent it registered and the postal worker had pronounced his surname wrong - something he was well and truly used to. He didn't bother to correct them as he signed for the letter and looked it over before thanking the postal worker and walked towards the door that led to the backyard and Daniel's guestroom.
He knew that Daniel wouldn't surface for a while yet, as it was only just after 9:30am. He wouldn't go into the guestroom to wake Daniel up - he had made that mistake only once and had promptly learned from it - but he would go into the backyard and read the letter there. The sun was out, it was already very warm so he figured why not?
Sitting down, Mr Miyagi looked at the envelope long and hard before opening it, almost afraid to open it. Seeing that it was Yukie's handwriting on the envelope, he knew that she had written the letter but he couldn't help but wonder if the letter bore bad news. As he had thought, Yukie had written the letter in Japanese. He read it carefully once before letting Yukie's news sink in, reading the letter again and looking up at the guestroom. He made an executive decision regarding the news in the letter and carefully folded it up before placing it in the envelope. He wanted to have a think about how to word his reply to Yukie.
In due course, Mr Miyagi replied to Yukie, thanking her for the letter. He had let her know that he would be there at the airport and that Daniel would be also. He had decided that he wouldn't tell Daniel the news just yet. Daniel needed some happiness in his life and Mr Miyagi thought that this would be just the thing to get Daniel out of the funk he had been in.
Now that Mr Miyagi could really sit down and think about it, Daniel had been in the funk ever since they had returned from Okinawa. Despite some of the things that had happened while they were there, Mr Miyagi knew that Daniel had enjoyed his time there and that he wasn't really too keen on leaving.
Casting a glance at Daniel, Mr Miyagi saw that he was scratching his left hand with his right and that his attention was seemingly devoted to the simple task. Daniel's body language told Mr Miyagi that he would rather be anywhere else but the airport. He smiled to himself before scanning the sea of people in front of the two of them, trying to see if he could recognise anyone heading their way. He did reason to himself that they probably would still be waiting a while due to the number of flights arriving and the number of people that would be on them. Perhaps Daniel was bored and wanted out of the airport as soon as possible.
He looked back up at the arrivals board before scanning the sea of people again. Daniel, meanwhile, had stopped the scratching of his left hand to look at Mr Miyagi and saw a small smile on his mentor's face. It was then that Daniel realised that Mr Miyagi knew who they were there to meet and that it was intended to be a surprise for him. His mind went blank when he tried to think of just who they would be meeting. He just hoped that it wasn't anyone who he disliked and vice versa.
The sea of people thinned out somewhat and finally, Mr Miyagi saw someone that he recognised. The small smile that was on his face grew bigger and he walked over to where Daniel stood, nudging him a little.
"Come, Daniel-san. Guests are here."
Dutifully, Daniel followed Mr Miyagi, mulling over his words. Their guests were there? Guests meant more than one person, right? Daniel tried to convince himself that he had misheard Mr Miyagi - that he had said their guest was there. There was no way they would be meeting more than one person. Right?
All around them, there were people greeting people they knew in various ways and Daniel felt that he was a bit out of place, knowing that he didn't look too happy. Hell, he didn't even want to be at the airport.
Daniel watched as Mr Miyagi raised his hand in greeting - he obviously saw someone he recognised. That made him scan the crowd to see if he could recognise anyone but he initially couldn't. Screwing up his face a little, Daniel looked at the red mark that he had scratched onto his left hand for a few seconds before looking up to scan the crowd again. This time, he thought he recognised someone and he found himself screwing up his face again to try and get a better glimpse, to try and figure out if it was just his mind playing tricks on him or if he really did see someone he knew.
A couple of seconds later, Daniel realised that his mind wasn't playing tricks on him.
He could clearly see Yukie approaching them, her usual beaming smile planted firmly on her face. He found himself following Mr Miyagi's actions by raising his own hand in greeting, know that the screwed up look that had been on his face was replaced by one of genuine surprise and Yukie nodded as she acknowledged it. As he started to bring his hand down, Daniel stopped.
Mr Miyagi had said guests. More than one person. He couldn't see anyone else that he recognised. Surely, Mr Miyagi was pulling his leg. His heart sank a little. Daniel ended up looking at the red mark he had scratched onto his left hand, knowing that his ever-changing body language told everyone that he wasn't happy at all.
Suddenly, he saw a pair of shoes in his line of sight that partly threw him for a loop.
Daniel looked at the shoes for several seconds and determined that he didn't recognise them at all. They were definitely too small to belong to a guy so that ruled out Sato being their other guest. The shoes were too dainty. Too girly even.
Daniel was about to tell the owner of the shoes to take a hike when a sixth sense told him not to. That little voice inside his head told him to look up and Daniel found that he was glad he hadn't acted upon his first instinct when he did look up. He wouldn't have forgiven himself for a very long time if he had done so.