My Angel: Returning to Hinata Sou

11:00 am March 25, 2001

Keitaro slid the front door open, a foreboding feeling in his chest, suspecting there would be four faces waiting for him just opposite the portal. Considering the day was a Sunday, he was rather surprised when he discovered the foyer was as empty as when he had left five hours earlier. "That's weird," he mumbled.

"Where is everyone?" Naru asked as she slid through the doorway behind Keitaro.

Keitaro shook his head. "I have no idea. But it's better this way."

"Why do you say that?" Naru inquired.

Keitaro moved towards the stairs, speaking quietly. "You said you wanted to keep this a secret, right? I'm not usually out and about this time of day. If anyone saw me right now, it would just invite a bunch of questions."

Hearing Naru sigh and grumble behind him, Keitaro turned and saw her shaking her head and rubbing her temples. "Has it really gotten so bad that you aren't even talking with anyone anymore?" Keitaro failed to answer. Instead, he sheepishly hung his head. "So it's worse than I thought."

"I'm sorry," Keitaro replied.

"Who are you talking to?" A voice suddenly asked behind him.

Keitaro's heart leapt through his chest and he whirled around to greet the sudden intruder. "Aunt Haruka!"

Haruka tapped Keitaro on the crown of his head with the rolled up newspaper she held in her hand. "Haruka-san, if you please. Whenever are you going to learn?"

Keitaro performed his trademarked nervous chuckle while scratching the back of his head. "Sorry about that. I'll learn eventually."

Haruka folded her arms across her chest and peered at Keitaro quizzically. "So?"

"So what?"

"Who were you talking to?" Haruka asked with a minor inflection in her normally monotone voice, hinting to Keitaro that he had best answer the question.

"You weren't talking to anyone," Naru answered for him.

Keitaro flinched his head in Naru's direction to shoo her off. "I wasn't talking to anyone," he answered simply.

Haruka squinted her eyes at her nephew. "You just said, 'I'm sorry'. You said that to no one?"

"Did I say that?" Keitaro asked, gazing at the ceiling, acting as oblivious as he possibly could.

Naru groaned out loud. He was still the worst liar in the world. But, by some miracle, Haruka seemed to buy the ruse. "I guess not," she flatly stated, pulling a cigarette from her apron pocket. "I just finished draining the hot spring. Would you be a dear and brush down the walls for me? I need to open up the teahouse."

"Sure, I suppose I could," Keitaro quickly answered.

Haruka furrowed her brow ever so slightly, appearing surprised by Keitaro's response. "Are you feeling okay today?" Haruka asked him.

"Yeah, I feel fine. Why do you ask?"

Haruka twitched her mouth and shrugged. "No particular reason. I'm going to head out now."

"I'll see you later, Au-er Haruka-san."

Haruka huffed, then smiled. "That's better."

Keitaro watched his aunt leave, and when he could no longer hear the sound of her footfalls, he exhaled sharply, his shoulders sagging. "That was too close. You might have warned me, Narusegawa!"

"My bad," Naru replied with a fake smile. "She just appeared out of no where. There was no time to warn you."

"Well, let's hope nothing like that happens again soon. I don't think my heart could take it," Keitaro said, trudging up the stairs. Unsure if anyone else was home, regretting not asking Haruka if that were the case, Keitaro moved as silently as possible, sneaking down the second floor hallway towards his room. Naru walked past him without a care in the world, and he smirked at her blithe attitude.

Keitaro breathed a sigh of relief when he slid his door completely shut behind him, relaxing in the relative safety of his room. "Well, I have to admit that I'm a little impressed," Naru said, nodding her head as she glanced about Keitaro's room. "I expected the place to be a certifiable pig sty, but you've actually managed to keep the place looking pretty spiffy."

Keitaro laughed softly. If only she knew, but he did not feel the need to elaborate for her. "Do you want to sit down?" Keitaro asked, but when Naru gave him a strange look, he instantly realized his folly. "Well, that was a stupid question, wasn't it?"

Naru shook her head. "Don't worry about it. I'd have asked the same thing. More importantly, aren't you nervous?"

"About what?"

Naru gave him a sly look. "About having a girl in your room?"

Keitaro suppressed a laugh. "Is this a trick question?"

"So," Naru asked as she turned away from Keitaro, changing the subject entirely, "what are we going to do now?"

Keitaro simpered. After asking such a loaded question, she goes and flips the script on him. What was she expecting him to say? That he had not had any sort of female companionship since she passed? Truth be told, there was no reason for him to feel nervous, since she still did not feel real to him. But he would not dare openly admit his doubts. If he were wrong, the consequences would be disastrous. "I was under the impression that you were going to tell me," he responded, letting Naru off the proverbial hook.

Pondering over the situation, Naru asked, "Well, what is it that you normally do around this time of day?"

Keitaro moved over to his desk and took a seat, plopping down onto his chair with a hefty sigh. Looking down at the floor, he said, "Nothing."

"Nothing?"

Keitaro shook his head. "I try to sleep because I can't at night, but I usually end up just tossing and turning. So I get up and get my lunch from the kitchen that Shinobu leaves for me every day. After that, I can usually sleep for a few hours, then I get up and watch the sunset."

"So you don't leave this room." Though what Naru said was a statement and not a question, feeling more pitiful than he had in quite some time, Keitaro nodded his head anyway. Gazing upwards, Naru asked the ceiling, "What have I gotten myself into?"

After a moment of silence, Keitaro's face lit up with a flash of insight. "Well, there's one thing that will get me out of the room, at least." Answering Naru's quizzical look, Keitaro said, "The hot spring, remember?"

"Oh, yeah, that sounds like a good idea, so let's get to it!"

Keitaro scratched at his cheek sheepishly. "There's one problem, though." Naru furrowed her brow at him. "I need to change clothes." Naru shook her head at him, obviously not understanding his point. Keitaro's shoulders slumped and he sighed heavily. "Would you mind stepping outside for a second?"

Naru laughed, slapping her hand against her thigh. "I wondered how you'd react to that. I guess there's still hope for you yet."

"Hope for what?" Keitaro asked.

Naru waved her hand dismissively. "You don't need to worry about that right now." Giving him a barely perceptible wink, Naru turned and vanished through his door, seeping through the wood panel like water through a sponge. Keitaro stood in awe of what he just witnessed, until Naru's voice spurred him back to reality. "Hurry it up in there, will ya? It's not nice to keep a lady waiting, you know."

As he hastily changed his clothes, Keitaro wondered idly with some amusement as to when Naru became a lady.

12:42pm March 25, 2001

Keitaro panted heavily as he labored with the push broom. It had been far too long since he had done this and, though he was initially quite confident he could finish within an hour, he greatly underestimated how out of shape he had become. The noontime sun beat down on his back, his sweat soaked shirt doing little to abate its furious heat.

"I don't remember you looking this pathetic since you first moved in," Naru said, shaking her head in disgust for at least the twentieth time since Keitaro began his work.

Keitaro paused for a moment, considering hurling the broom in her general direction and storming off, but, realizing that would accomplish nothing, he decided to continue his work. "Why don't you do something to help?"

"Like what, yell at the dirt and the muck to get off the rocks?" Naru asked.

Keitaro chuckled. "Sure, why not?"

After a few more minutes of work, Keitaro took a break, sitting on the pool's edge, letting his legs dangle into the hole. "You know, you might look like hell, but I'm willing to bet you're happier when you're working," Naru said.

Keitaro took a long pull from his large cup of water, shrugging his shoulders. "I don't know, I suppose you might be right."

"Whatever made you stop in the first place?" Naru asked him.

Keitaro smiled wistfully. "Too many painful memories, I guess. I tried. Really, I did. But things got too hard. When Aunt Haruka found me crying my eyes out while polishing the floor one day, she told me to take a break, so I did."

"How long was the break?"

"Going on a year and a half," Keitaro said, turning to look at Naru's surprised face. "I just can't get back in the saddle, I guess."

"What about right now? You seem to be doing okay sweeping up."

Keitaro smiled. "I can't explain it. I usually want to just run away when it comes to doing chores, but I feel pretty calm right now."

Naru folded her arms smugly with a huge grin on her face. "See? I'm already helping."

Keitaro shook his head. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, okay? What about you, though? How do you feel being back here after two years?"

Naru looked around and pursed her lips. "I don't know what to think. I still haven't seen anyone, so it doesn't really feel real yet."

Taking another sip from his water cup, Keitaro wondered aloud, "Where is everyone, anyway?"

2:16pm March 25, 2001

"I'm worried about that boy," Haruka said to her only guest currently in the teashop, wiping down the table the pair currently occupied with her bar cloth.

A guest…Konno Mitsune would be considered more than a guest at this point; she was more a part-time employee, picking up shifts that Haruka could not cover due to her managerial duties in the building just up the adjacent hill. But as of that very moment, she was not on the clock, thus technically she was a guest.

Kitsune flipped her much longer hair over her right shoulder and took a sip from the teacup laying before her. "Did something strange happen?" There was no need for Kitsune to ask to whom Haruka was referring. Whenever she used the term 'boy' or 'him' or any other similar third person masculine pronoun, it was obvious she was referring to Keitaro.

Kitsune had somehow or another fallen into the role of advisor for Haruka, the pair relaying information to one another regarding the other tenants in the house. It was a natural fit for the fox-faced woman, considering she had the most knowledge about the ins, outs and goings-on inside the building than any of the others might have. It also helped that she had a certain natural penchant for gossip.

As it turned out, working for Haruka with both information and occasionally elbow grease in the teahouse agreed with Kitsune. She might not have realized it at the time, but getting her feet wet in the working world was a healthy coping mechanism for her. She understood and recognized soon after Naru's death her own mortality and she realized she could no longer afford to skate along as if her life had no consequence. She sobered up (mostly), repaired the most strained of her relationships with old friends and family, and started working on her writing on a more regular basis. Her columns were picked up infrequently, but not so long between that she was destitute. Throw in working for Haruka, and she had not been late on a rent payment in over a year.

"Well, firstly he was actually up and about this morning," Haruka began. She took Kitsune's eyebrows disappearing into her bangs as acknowledgement of her surprise, so she continued. "Yeah, he went out today, it seems. I've no idea where and why, but there was no mistaking it."

"Wow," Kitsune replied, letting the information sink in. Without much else to say, she motioned for Haruka to continue. "There was something else, right?"

"Yeah, well, I saw him in the foyer as I was about to leave, and if I'm not mistaken, I could have sworn he was talking to someone, but there was no one there. The last thing he said was, 'I'm sorry'."

"Cell phone, perhaps?" Kitsune asked.

Haruka shook her head and retrieved her pack of cigarettes from her pocket. "He wasn't holding his phone."

Kitsune pondered for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe he was just talking to himself and just to afraid to admit it to you. I did the same thing for while and had a few close calls myself. It was no less embarrassing the last time than the first."

Haruka nodded her head. It seemed plausible enough. Grievers were known to talk aloud as a part of the healing process. "But that wasn't the only thing. He actually agreed to help with some of the chores around the inn."

Kitsune's eyes opened wide in response. "You're right, something is definitely going on."

Lighting her cigarette and taking a long drag, Haruka said, "Any guesses you have would be as good as mine."

Kitsune sighed, a pensive look on her face as she absentmindedly played with a strand of her hair. "Why today, of all days, I wonder?" Haruka shook her head in reply. "Was there anything special about today? What's the date?"

"The twenty-fifth, I believe," Haruka said, taking a sip of her tea. She paused, holding the cup halfway between her lips and the table when she saw Kitsune's face fall, her hand that was playing with her hair dropping to her side. "What is it?"

"I'm such an idiot," Kitsune muttered inwardly. "I know what it is," she said more loudly for Haruka's benefit.

"Care to enlighten me?" Haruka asked, squinting at her counterpart.

"There's only one reason he would have gone out today…and that is…"

A/N: Again, not much to say this time other than I hope you all are enjoying the story so far and I hope to have the next chapter up in a jiffy. Stay tuned!