Chapter Three - Brand Naru Day
HINATA-SOU, EARLY 1990'S
Once upon a time, there was a very serious girl and another very serious girl---who was very serious about never being serious at all.
One was quite intent on her studies, yet also allowed time for dreams and intangibles, this including a promise she wasn't even really sure she made with someone she simply could not remember. She sometimes felt bad about this, because what she could remember of it included that the one she'd made the promise with had been really nice to her when she was in a bad way. But that was the past, and both the promise and her studies pointed to the same future: Tokyo University, called the Harvard or Oxford of Japan, often called by its nickname of Todai.
One was quite the social creature, and her dreams were of yen—or dollars, pounds, marks, francs—tangibles that could be spent. If Madonna had meant a certain song sarcastically, this girl was one of those who took it to heart. She saw nothing wrong with this, and made no apologies for it. Her goals included such things as good food, good sake and lots of guys with big—well big *everything* except guts—and if they had enough dough, the gut thing could be graded on a curve. She did treasure her friends, and she knew she could be and often was a primeval pain in the ass. Her solution was to care about the people she cared about while caring nothing about what they thought of what she did. She had once tried to be cognizant of such things, but she had become one of those nervous wrecks unable to tie their shoelaces and basically apologizing for breathing.
Either improbably or predictably, these two had become fast friends when they had moved into a hotel turned into a girls' dormitory. This wonderful dichotomy, this comic union of opposites, this alignment of opposing magnetic poles is important to note, because the first girl was about to beat the living snot out of the second one.
"Konno-San, you got me in trouble again!"
"Errr—yeah. But, if you really think about it, if not for me, you'd never get in trouble at all."
"Well, I guess you have a point---no you don't! Why do I even bother trying to prevent you from trying to pull your crazy crap? All that happens is, I get in trouble with Grandma and Haruka-San, and then my parents when they call up."
"Maybe you aren't really trying to prevent me—maybe you're just going along for the ride, and using my behavior as cover so you can break out of the box you've built around you."
"Konno-San, why is it that the more outlandish and ridiculous things you say, the crazier the next thing you say always is?"
Mitsune Konno now wished she had gotten a few more drinks in her before a fuming Haruka had dragged them both back by their ears, complaining that a baby cousin whose diapers she had changed had given her less crap. Dealing with her uptight pal would likely drive a monk to the hard stuff.
"I like to build on my previous work, Naru-chan. And for the last time, call me Mitsune. I only put the –Chan on your name at your insistence."
"I don't know. That's awfully familiar, don't you think?"
The sly girl sensed her opening, and for good and ill, it would be something she could never turn down.
"We're friends, aren't we? You moved in this place to be near me. Naru, we're like two sides of the same coin. Night and day. Chaos and Order. Yin and Yang…"
Mitsune pressed up against a stunned Naru, and began to rub just a bit. She moved to slowly caress Naru's hair.
"…Male and Female. I've kept it hidden my entire life, Naru. But my feelings for you won't let me anymore. Everything reminds me of you—except you."
Naru felt her heart race, and could barely stutter a response.
"Y-you-you're a---you have a—aaaa—"
Mitsune pulled away and pointed at her skirt.
"My parents really wanted a girl. It's a lie I've had to live. But for a treasure as priceless as you, Narusegawa-Dono, I must reveal who and what I truly am."
"Price—less? Me?"
She sauntered back up and got close to the shaking Naru.
"Everything about you is priceless. But what's most priceless of all…"
As Naru froze in terror and anticipation of possible seduction or even violation, Mitsune whispered in her ear.
"…what's most priceless of all is the look on your face as you fell for this."
Mitsune pulled back, almost losing her breath as she all but horse-laughed.
"I mean, we've bathed together in the onsen! I must have bent over in front of you how many times? If I had a thing, don't you think you would have spotted it out by now?"
One girl was in her glory, having pulled off the joke of several lifetimes. Another blew off her calm studious demeanor and formed a fist, leaping onto her friend's back, punching her in the head as she screamed.
"I-HAVE-HAD-ENOUGH-OF-YOU!!!"
"OW! Hey! Hey! That hurts! Hey! You're like—OW!—freakishly strong! C'mon, Naru! It was just a—OWWW!!"
Fearing that she might actually hurt her, Naru got off, shaking her head as a stunned Mitsune lay back in bed.
"I just can't take you seriously, can I? I mean, for anything. Anything at all."
The look on Mitsune Konno's face went past the mock-hurt one she was capable of instantly adopting. It was neither as smooth nor as steady as her practiced one, which told Naru Narusegawa that it was very likely real.
"It was just a joke. I'm sorry I tried to break up your planned-out existence. I'm sorry you don't have a sense of humor."
Mitsune turned away on the futon, which led a Naru half-certain she was again being set up to give in and embrace her from behind.
"I do enjoy being here with you, Mitsune-Chan. You make it fun. But it's like you never know when to stop. Even without you around, I know I have to stop studying eventually, and I've seen Haruka-Ryobo go without smokes when she's been through a pack too quickly. There is such a thing as self-restraint, you know."
"Stop, Naru."
"You're still upset?"
Mitsune turned around and looked at her.
"No. But you're making me hard."
Naru's eyes rolled. Mitsune shrugged.
"Like my folks always said – Mitsune is a Kitsune!"
Naru's rage was spent for then, and she prepared to turn in.
"Problem is, foxes get killed by farmers, and turned into fur coats. That could even happen to a fox spirit, if she goes too far. Still waters run deep, 'Kitsune' Konno—and there won't always be someone there to pull you out—if you know what I'm talking about."
Mitsune prepared to turn in as well. She knew that on that night, there would be no sneaking past both Grandma and Haruka.
"Naru, do you have any porn?"
"Of course not!"
"Damn. We need a guy around here. Guys always have a porn stash you can raid."
"We don't need a guy, and you are changing the subject."
"Meh—I say, just smile for a while and let's get jolly—life shouldn't be so melancholy. Just enjoy the good times while we can."
"That's as empty a philosophy as I ever heard."
"Well, I beg your pardon. Night, Naru."
"Night, *Kitsune*."
When the lights were off, Naru proved herself to be neither so trusting nor so uptight as her friend believed. Mitsune felt something, then yelped.
"Hey! I SAID it was a joke!"
"Just making sure."
----------------
HINATA SOU, 2001
"Is anything wrong?"
After their last and wildest session, she lay on her stomach. Trying to lie on her backside might prove difficult at that point.
"Yes. You are a monster who violated an innocent young girl in the sickest way possible."
"Even though that same young girl rolled around with her back to me, backside in the air, screaming 'Man Up and just do it---I can take it if you can'?"
Naru managed to turn on her side, still feeling the effects of what she had in fact demanded.
"Welll—I never said I didn't enjoy it."
Keitaro embraced her from behind for the first time in hours without trying to start something.
"Then what's wrong?"
"Why aren't you apologizing, like usual?"
"Because I finally realized you have never been shy about letting me know your moods. Because with us, there will always be a later we can hash things out."
"Keitaro, I don't want to hate her—any of them."
She gently nudged him off and looked at him, ironically affording him a view that, mere months before, would have brought about a flurry of punches and cries for help.
"But in this case, 'Oh Well, That's Just Us' isn't gonna cut it. I don't expect a hands-and-knees apology. But no guy—even you—justifies screwing around with a sister's dream. I was off balance the entire time I was in Molmol, and the people I count on to help me back up were instead spinning me around and shoving me back down."
Keitaro hated hearing this, and he hated even more seeing her like this, so he tried to take that anger apart piece by piece. Mutsumi had been with them the whole time, so he skipped her.
"Motoko?"
"Offered up a partial apology, promised to explain more. Good enough to take the edge off."
A few hours before, in her room, a girl who felt she was not yet a woman heard a dear friend in theory become one—and a lot more than just once. She was a warrior born, and yet she felt not bold at all.
*Well, at least this time she's not grabbing it, thinking it's soap or a washcloth.*
She tried to think of other things than the motions and laughter tearing through the walls of their home. But the light noises downstairs in the kitchen told her Shinobu had likely been awakened by the sounds of her dream dying on the vine, just as Motoko had by the sounds of her sister's deflowering, prior to fleeing to the Sou.
*You made Shinobu cry, Urashima. Then again, Heaven Help Me, that doesn't seem that hard to do. This won't be your last heart-break, Maehara-Chan—and at least it as by a man who really does hold you in the highest—well, nearly the highest regard and affection.*
The lack of any noise from Su's habitat-like room had to say it all.
*Try and sleep outside your machines' world, my little heart. Have those things you strap to your head and hands stunted your dreaming? Is that why you failed to understand why your friends might be so upset at your behavior in Molmol? I must intervene on your behalf. Yet I am a commoner speaking to a queen. If you choose your rights to ignore my lessons over the love everyone here holds for you, then I fear for us on every level.*
The ornate bottle had been repackaged for shipping back to the Aoyama family shrine. It would not decorate the walls of the one who had emptied its entire precious contents.
*You are not without any conscience and you are not truly cruel, Konno-San. Yet how many times have I had to tell outsiders exactly that? What kind of pass have we come to that we are mooning over one we had dismissed and severely underestimated, while being forced to consider the removal of not one but two sisters?*
Taking sand to blade, Motoko tried like hell to purify herself as well as her sword.
-------------------
"Kanako?"
"Is Crazy."
The Hawaiian Islands Costume Play festival was in full swing. Awards had been given out to a series of brilliant participants. One had gone as legendary racing character Go Mifune, and had easily affected both the voices of the native Katsuji Mori and the American Peter Fernandez when the character was renamed *Speed Racer*. Another had gone as shocking breakthrough character Lucy The Horned Girl, her flesh-colored outfit so well-made that the judges had to check to be sure she wasn't really nude. Three girls had stolen the show as Legion Of Super-Heroes' veteran Triplicate Girl, with two vanishing and reappearing as though by magic. When no less than King Ghidorah appeared, it nearly caused a panic. Scale aside, the people inside had done a master's job at bringing the perennial dakaiju to life. It sneered at several delighted children, and finally at one old woman who was less than impressed.
"Did you never stop and consider that your brother has always been able to see through your disguises, because in his mind, your brother is all he will ever be?"
A dejected girl slid out of the large costume, and the whispers across the convention said the unbelievable, that she had been in every costume that had cleaned out the major awards.
"Yeah. She is. Shinobu?"
It wasn't always a bad thing to be awoken early, she thought, as she diced vegetables as they had never been diced before. She wanted to try a recipe for beef barley soup Sempai had obtained for her from a fancy American restaurant, and now seemed the time to make her first attempt.
The fine powder that had once been the ingredients told her that just maybe she was distracted.
*Couldn't they have rented a room somewhere?*
**Baka! This is a hotel, after all, and he owns it now. Those are both your Sempais. Be happy for them, for they have earned this. Did he ever lead you on? Did it ever really seem like he would choose someone besides her?**
*He had to know how I felt.*
**Then why did you need to confess? You are angry at a man who treated you with kindness and respect. You are angry with the women who you regard as a role model. You are angry with the woman and the girl you wish you were as bold as---**
The second voice in Shinobu's head stopped, then picked up again.
**---okay, those two have been pure assholes and have it coming. But you went along with them, having been burned how many times? Don't let your delight in how free they are keep getting in the way of keeping them from dancing on your feet. You keep this rage in, Maehara, and you will end up like that bespectacled girl on the MTV cartoon.**
*What do I do? What would you have me do?*
**Destroy them all. Make all the Humans pay, for keeping you from your one true love, merely because of your horns.**
*Wha-aa—ut?*
**Just kidding. That speech was meant for another young unrequited. All jokes aside, make this the day. Even if you fall flat on your face, make all of them aware of the way you feel, and how maybe they should have been more aware of it to begin with.**
*I will—and I think I better hit the couch for a while.*
And somewhere across the multiverse of infinite possibilities, an angry young demigod was told by her inner voice to cook up a nice meal for her housemates.
Not that this has anything to do with the residents of the Hinata-Sou
"Shinobu is crazy in love with you, and never shy about wearing it on her sleeve. Part of me wants to slap her for listening to anything Su and Kitsune said, but I've been where she was. Plus, while the rest of you were asleep on the plane back, she tried to apologize for the stunt at Todai being her fault. She thought they were going down so she could confess to you. Like there was anyone who really needed to know where she stood."
"Huh. Even I got her, mostly. Until Molmol, I didn't realize how it was tearing her apart-or really, that I was the sort of guy who could place a girl as cute and sweet as her in that position."
She hit him in the arm.
"Baka! A girl doesn't get over her Sempai."
He made a fist and slowly shoved her in the arm with it.
"Oh?! Should I worry? Should Auntie?"
She lay back, and did a stretch that made the blood vessels in his nose take notice, as they had not for a few months.
"Always."
-----------------
"You called them this early—or late?"
Haruka shrugged.
"Once a House-Moth—errr-Monitor, always one. I only got Shinobu, about to go back to bed. There were—Heh—loud boisterous noises in the background. Squeals and moans of pleasure."
Seta smiled as well, but then seemed torn.
"I hope it goes alright for her. The boy has determination, but often no technique, when approaching new things."
Haruka lit a cigarette, sensing that Sarah was soon to show her American side as regarded attitudes toward tobacco.
"I wouldn't worry. After all---"
She puffed deeply.
"I liked his technique just fine."
Seta began to chuckle along with her, until both heard a noise from the next room.
"Eeeewwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!"
Then came the inevitable, synchronized response:
"Go to sleep, Sarah!"
"Yeah, right—with that nightmare image burned into my tender brain."
Keitaro went for broke.
"Su?"
Her lovely face shifted.
"I want to feel the same way I do about Shinobu. I try to shrug it all off and say that we did have fun, and I guess we did—but that fun was after, and in retrospect. During it, I began to be terrified that they'd all lost their minds."
She sat up, and brought her legs to her chest.
"How could she do all that? It's one thing to bounce around, be a bit annoying to a lot annoying, and make efforts to help that make a crazy situation crazier—I mean, none of us are going to be casting the first stone on that one."
She hadn't even realized the cameras were recording all that time. Her video log had been a casualty of her short attention span, and recessed as they were, they had been missed by both herself and the saboteur.
"Oh, No! Please…that can't be true."
Kaolla Su now wished that they had been destroyed as well. It wasn't just who she saw spreading the magnets.
"She's smiling…and muttering."
Was she possessed by the spirits of the annex, or maybe the ancient Molmolian thief? Hadn't Sarah mentioned something about that?
"Shinobu, why?"
Everything was so right now, wasn't it? Her Japanese Onii and Onee Chans were together and happy, just like her Molmolian ones, and hadn't they all had fun in Molmol? Weren't they happy that their dear friend was a secret princess? She also realized that Shinobu hadn't been the only one acting strangely since they got back. They had all been talking with one another, except for Kitsune, who she had meant to tell about a bottle Su saw her take from Motoko's room, but a cardinal she saw outside pulled her attention away. In any event, they had not been talking with her.
"Even Motoko."
The world outside the real world, where there always seemed to be a dozen reasons why you can't tell the people you love that you do, and so many other reasons why you can't just demonstrate that love (just why couldn't Keitaro be all of theirs?), once again overwhelmed the mind of a girl capable of out-thinking most models of modern physics theory.
"If even Motoko won't tell me something…"
She drifted off to sleep, ironically finding the noises of lovemaking a comfort like unto a lullaby.
Keitaro concurred without comment or nod as Naru kept on.
"But she kidnapped us both—was ready to peel you like a grape—used her army to hunt all of us around perdition's flame---"
She lost her train of thought, and he picked up.
"She said she 'just wanted' to have both me and Motoko forever, and bring the Sou over to Molmol—it's not like she doesn't care about the rules, so much as she still doesn't get the vast majority of them. She's so bright, it's hard to realize that, and she's so sweet, it's hard to see her as a spoiled brat. I don't even think she is, but all I could think while she was taking down my underwear was that at some point, every kid needs to be told a real 'No', and I don't think she ever has."
"Oh—that's all you were thinking, as the pretty young princess prepared to give you mouth-to-not-mouth?"
Her smile told him he was safe.
"She's as cute as she can be—but the unreality of all that was going on and her casual attitude towards it all was a hell of a focusing device. Naru, give Motoko and me a chance to straighten her out. Now that we finally know her level of disconnect, I think we can drill past all those layers of 'do what you want'."
"Without crushing her spirit?"
He put a hand on her shoulder.
"She called me Onii-Chan in her sleep. It may be the fight of our lives, but we can get through to her before someone of harsher intent and manners has the chance. Kaolla Su is a pain worth having around."
That left one name.
"Kitsune."
At that, Naru actually began to tear up.
*Strong Sake.*
She had no idea. The elixir she had all but chugged was made by a vintner said by some to have an ancestor who brewed the mead that kept Amaterasu The Sun from going back to her cave too often.
*Got really snookered. Have to get some more of that from Motoko.*
Motoko indeed had something to give her, but to paraphrase Bela Lugosi, it was to not to be paid in wine.
*Uh-oh—smells good. What are you cooking up, Shinobu?*
Not breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack. Shinobu was contemplating Kitsune's desserts. Maybe with Kitsune herself as an ingredient.
*Su—wanted to know if somebody was in her room. Heh—don't we all wish—almost all. There was someone—but that show about the four grandmothers talking sex and food was on, so just lock your door next time, kid.*
Kaolla Su was not angry with Kitsune, a fact in which she was possibly unique. That said, she did have a rude surprise waiting for her one-time mercenary commander of forces.
*Use my bonus—to get some mileage on Mutsumi. Then again, saw a picture of Sarah's Mom. May have to go all-out in the boob wars.*
Mutsumi, who was calmly walking to a coastal train station, had no worries at all. One, she could almost sense that her beloved childhood playmates had begun to play in earnest. Two—women in her family had a habit of increasing bust size well into their 50's without a hint of sagging and not much wrinkling, to hear her grandmother's 18-year-old boyfriend tell it.
*Did those two finally stop? Hey, wait—did I do something to them last night? Maybe I peed on the floor outside their room? Something like that. Can't think right now. But I know it must have been a good one. But---maybe they don't need to loosen up anymore. Maybe they don't need old Kit--*
The thought was terminated and she began to have an odd dream where she deliberately exposed her chest to Keitaro. It had to be a dream, because he didn't fly apart when she did.
She was about to have *one of those days*, magnified by enormous psychological and karmic payback. For then and there, the trickster-goddess of the Hinata-Sou slept it off and muttered.
"Why is it always the right one? Nothing wrong with the left one."
-----------------
"I love Kitsune. I know that without her, I would have vegetated in my room, and either studied myself blind or to death. You wouldn't have had any worries about beatings—I'dve never noticed you if you –well, if you took by force what I gave you last night. Where you were just a little while ago is where I had my head."
She closed her eyes, and tried to avoid letting those tears out.
"But it's always been a debt here, a broken promise there, a boy stolen this day, a boy she felt didn't make the cut turned away without telling me the next day, a prank that gets us both in trouble followed up by a prank that just makes me look foolish. Not to mention the countless times she's gotten blasted and done that stupid 'pick a favorite' thing—or just forced me to drag her sorry ass back to the Sou."
She opened them and looked him in the eye.
"I always accepted her explanations that it was to keep things from getting boring, and to shake things up in a society where the rules always have ten reasons why you can't do anything. Believe me, if anyone had ever said the things I'm saying, I would have defended her tooth and nail—in fact I have. She loves life and living it, and it can be infectious. I know she also loves money, and since it can make life easier, I never really faulted her for it."
They drew closer together.
"Now, though? This wasn't just some boy she tried to steal—and not even because she fell for him. She stood literally blocking the doorway to a dream I'd told her about till she was ready to faint if I did it even one more time. Then, she either used a girl who didn't know better or threw in with a tyrant to hold me against my will—no mention of a game, and no actions to cause me to believe it was just a game. Now, I can't help but feel the crazy greedy idiot who couldn't get that a rope can burn through a shirt and that a whip doesn't care if you meant to crack it near someone without hitting them---"
She finally began to cry.
"---I can't help but feel that, once and for all, this was her true face!"
He let her tears flow, and when they had reached a natural break, he spoke.
"Then you have to confront her. Don't let her shrug it off, or use any defense until you get what you want from her. I don't envy you trying. From losing jobs because of her to attempts to pay rent through boob-grabs to being sometimes four months out on her rent—she's only three right now—to pranks galore, she can be a trip."
"She's been a friend, but she's also been a boil on my butt for a lot longer than you've been around."
"Then lance that boil. Either she can once and for all get why you're upset, or at least figure out that you're upset, or---"
He let the other option go. Banishing one of their friends from their lives was all but unthinkable.
"Well, I have to see her this morning anyway. She borrowed my digital camera while in Toudai, and I need it to take pictures of my classroom to try and figure out the seating arrangements before term begins."
"Okay. Are we on for tonight?"
An option offered up by mistake in Molmol had been offered again—and this time, taken.
"Mutsumi should be back from seeing her family by Five this afternoon. You still have to talk to Shinobu. God---I really don't want to leave your side."
"You? I feel like we just got here after waiting an eternity. Hey? Can I say something to Shinobu? It's kind of over the line, but I hate having her in so much doubt."
He whispered it, even though they were alone, and she now found this caution adorable.
"You better say it to her, pal. If anyone ever needed to hear it said outright, it's her."
They kissed deeply, and then made for the washroom together to save time as well as not part until they had to. Keitaro headed downstairs to talk to a Shinobu who he would, by day's end, understand better than ever. Naru made for Kitsune's room to retrieve a camera that had more than just coastlines and relics recorded on it. It was the break of day, and it would be a breaking day.
