A/N: I know it's been a while since I updated! It was hard to figure out how to start the chapter haha and anyway, if you like the story, please let me know what you think? I get so nervous when I don't hear from anyone lol. Thank you very much for taking time to read this! i love you very much!

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Chapter 4

Relocation

"What are you doing right now?" Is the way Mitsuki answers when Akihito holds the phone to his ear. His eyebrows raise in surprise - it is a rare occasion when Mitsuki opens a conversation with him without teasing him as an introduction. Her voice sounds stressed, maybe even anxious, and it immediately causes a knot to form in his chest. Mirai looks on with wide eyes, studying his expression, her shoulder pressed to his.

"Why?" he says with a fair amount of confusion. "What's wrong?" That unsure lilt in her voice is not to be taken lightly. Kuriyama-san shifts beside him, leaning to get closer to the earpiece. He flashes a quick, unsteady smile her way before pressing the speaker button on his phone, allowing both of them to hear Mitsuki on the other end of the line.

The Nase girl hesitates. "Nothing's wrong."

"You don't sound so convinced," he replies. Mirai fidgets nervously beside him, sparing him a glasses-less glance that is just as uneasy as he feels.

"There is just something that my brother and I think you need to know," Mitsuki informs him after another pause. "You're alone, right?"

"Kuriyama-san is here," he says immediately.

"Oh, that's good," she answers with sincerity. "That saves trouble, then. Hello, Kuriyama-san."

"Hi, Mitsuki-senpai," Mirai replies, her voice squeaking slightly at the end. Her heat melts into him, making it hard to focus on the phone call, no matter how strange Mitsuki sounds over the line. Groaning inwardly at his excitable hormones, he pretends not to notice when the bespectacled beauty links her fingers through his over the back of his hand where it rests on the bed. "What did you have to tell Kanbara-senpai?"

Mitsuki wastes no time in diving into the matter; she's right, after all, Akihito needs to know this. "My brother and I think you might be in trouble with the Society."

It had only been a week since Mirai had returned to him - to them, all of them - but this wasn't as alarming as he thought it might be, in those nights he used to lay awake thinking about the monster inside of him. It's not really a surprise that the Society is wary of him - and that Miroku Fujima was indeed working under their orders. That's the only explanation for this, right? They're lying about that man to maintain face with the community of Spirit World Warriors in this area, Akihito realizes with bitterness. He wonders if Mirai's reappearance has made them restless.

"I see," he says after a moment of connecting those dots.

Mirai is still confused though, and her voice becomes tight and anxious. "What kind of trouble?"

Hiroomi's voice is the one that comes through the line this time. "The man after Akkey all those months ago was working for the Society. Because Miroku Fujima failed and ran away, I get the feeling that they'll try to obtain Akkey again."

Mirai goes silent, so Akihito squeezes her hand and replies, "Makes sense."

"We won't let that happen," Hiroomi says, in a softer voice, one that suddenly sounds very tired. "Of course. You're our responsibility. Even though the Calm has passed and you are invulnerable again, I would suggest being on your guard and trying your best to avoid being alone for extended periods of time. Mitsuki and I will get a room ready so that you can stay here until we can figure out what we are going to do about the Society."

As much as living with the Nases does not appeal to him, Akihito can't argue that it's the best chance he has at protecting others. If the Society got their hands on him, he isn't sure what they'd use him for, or what they'd do to him, but he doesn't have a doubt in his mind: someone would end up hurt. And he'll do everything he can to prevent that from ever happening.

"Thanks," Akihito murmurs. "I'll stay with Kuriyama-san tonight, to be on the safe side." After all, no one could protect him better than her with her blood swords anyway.

"You will?" she says, raising an eyebrow at him.

Hiroomi sounds as though he approves. "Good. We'll have a car by to pick up anything you want to pack around noon tomorrow." He hangs up on Akihito without so much as a goodbye, but that's how it's always been between them anyway. With a sigh, Akihito leans forward and places his phone on his night stand, a part of him wishing he'd never answered the call in the first place. The atmosphere between him and Mirai is tense now, colored with her anxiety, the nervous creases in her forehead.

"You don't mind spending the night, right?" he asks, turning to look at her.

She shakes her head immediately. "Of course not." He watches as she bites her lip and stares down at her lap, playing with her fingers. Pushing away the fear that touching her will make her disappear, he places a hand over hers and her eyes, wide and honey-colored, dart up to meet his softened gaze.

He allows himself to smile, willing the tension in the air to fade away. "Don't worry so much. We'll be okay."

She notes that he says 'we' instead of 'I' and her heart aches. "What makes you so sure?"

Akihito comes back to her side and presses his back to the wall, his shoulder against hers. He can feel her eyes on him as he tries to figure out how to word it right. "All I know is that, as long as we are together, we'll be okay." His hand works its way in between both of hers and she clasps onto it tightly. The place where her white bandage meets his skin his rough, but her fingers are soft, and the sliver of her ring is cold where it presses into him.

She nods at his words and brings the tangle of their hands to her mouth, brushes her lips softly over his knuckles, as if she has never considered the fact that his hands have been claws drenched in blood before. He shivers and leans a little closer to her, smelling her shampoo suddenly and his heart is so overcome with her that he can't imagine anyone loving someone as much as he loves her.

"I'll protect you," she whispers after a quiet moment.

The last time she protected him, he lost her for almost a whole half a year, but despite that, he smiles at the burning determination in her voice. So unlike the Kuriyama-san he met back in the spring. She's so much more confident in herself, so much more forgiving of who she is, and he is so glad that she accepts every part of herself, because he is in love with all of her.

"Yes," he says ducking his head so that he can kiss her temple, her eyebrow, the bridge of her nose. "But let's keep the disappearing acts to a minimum, alright?"

She looks up at him, dropping their hands back into her lap, almost incredulous. "Did you just joke about that?"

He laughs as he extracts his hand from her hold and uses it to brush the hair back from her face. "Let's just focus on right now," he says as he slowly inclines his head. "Everything else can wait."

She rubs her bandaged hand back and forth gently over his raised forearm, her fingers curling into his wrist as he moves his hand down to her neck and tilts her head back. His eyebrows crease in sudden confusion and then he's smiling at her.

"You're crying again," he tells her, running his other hand along a newly tear-stained cheek.

Her lower lip trembles as she reaches up to wipe the tears away with the back of her hand, averting her gaze to his chest, forcing a smile. "I'm so happy. I just. . .I missed you a lot, A-Akihito."

She hasn't once mentioned what her days were like Beyond the Boundary, but they couldn't have been easy. Isolated there, with only a cheap imitation of him that couldn't even respond to her. It must have been hard, far harder than anything he dealt with in her absence. Tentatively, he reaches for her and rests his mouth between her eyes. "I missed you, too." More than I ever want to remember, he thinks painfully, pushing away every lonely second of the past two months before the tears can form.

She kisses him abruptly, severing all his thoughts so that the only thing he is sure about is Mirai. There is something decidedly more desperate about her mouth - it's still clumsy, but determined and rough despite how soft her lips are. Her brash fingers knot themselves in the cowlicks of his hair and pull him so that she is horizontal on the bed and he covers her chest with his. He hovers over her with his forearms supporting most of his weight as his eyes slide closed and he smiles widely against her mouth.

She kicks something when she begins to pull her knees up and Akihito breaks away marginally even though her hands are already pulling him back, her breath hot and wanting against his mouth.

"Come back," she breathes.

"You just kicked your glasses off the bed, Mirai," he tells her as she manages to press her lips against the corner of his mouth, her tongue running over his skin.

She continues to assault his mouth, feeling his resistance melt with every passing second. "If you are going to choose my glasses over me right now," she pants, "then maybe I need to reevaluate my choices."

He laughs heartily though a pained part of him strains to place her glasses safely on the end table. Still, when she slips her tongue against his mouth he begins to wonder what could ever be more important than kissing Mirai.

::::

Sakura is making her nervous. The Inami girl sits beside Mirai on railing outside of Akihito's apartment, the car the Nase siblings sent for him rumbling on the street. The two girls can hear the half-youmu boy as he flounders around his living space in search of the last few important items he'll need. Sakura keeps eyeing Mirai, and the bespectacled girl can't stop blushing.

"What?" she finally asks, turning to look at her friend.

"Did you sleep with Kanbara?" Sakura questions bluntly, her violet eyes boring into Mirai's. The spirit world warrior immediately turns red to the roots of her hair, gaping at Sakura with wide eyes.

"N-n-n-no!" she exclaims, trembling with embarrassment, hands wringing in the ends of her scarf. "Of c-c-course n-not! S-S-S-Senpai only k-kissed me!"

Sakura nods once, appeased. "It's about time."

"S-S-Sakura!"

"Time for what?" Akihito asks. He emerges from his apartment with his duffle bag slung over his shoulder, his hair looking ruffled and Mirai thinks it's unfair that someone so irritating can be so cute. The boy always had the best (or worst) timing, depending on the situation.

Sakura slides from the railing and fixes her coat. "Time for you and me to have a talk."

Akihito gives her an easy smile and agrees to meet Sakura later after settling in at the Nase manor, completely oblivious to Mirai's frantic and flustered facial expressions.

"I'm going to meet Ai-chan for lunch," Sakura says. "I expect a call later, Kanbara."

He nods at her as Mirai slips from the railing herself, steadying her feet against the concrete, slippery with slush from the salt and the snow. "Sure, Inami-san," Akihito replies graciously. The brown-haired girl gracefully descends the stairs and continues her trek onto the Shindous' shop. He turns to Mirai and raises an eyebrow at her as he motions for her to start down the staircase. "What was that all about?"

Her blush still hasn't faded, but her face feels hot again. "I-I'm n-n-not quite sure," she replies uneasily, positive that Sakura is going to utterly embarrass her with whatever it is she wants to talk to Akihito about.

"Alright." He opens the back door of the waiting car and throws his bag inside. "You sure you want to come?"

She scoffs at him and slides in. "I happen to like Mitsuki-senpai and Hiroomi-senpai."

Akihito grins because he's glad. "Fine." He slips in after her and shuts the door behind him. Both Mirai and Akihito thank the driver with gracious bows of the head as the woman pulls the vehicle away from the snowy curb and begins the drive to the Nase manor. Akihito takes his bespectacled beauty's mitten-clothed hand into his and rests it on his lap, smiling into his own scarf.