DISCLAIMER: If Kaze-chan owned Fushigi Yugi, she wouldn't have to do her own laundry. As she is currently in the middle of doing her own laundry, she must not own Fushigi Yugi. Get it?
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I've had this one done for awhile, but then I got stuck while writing 10 (I was trying to get ahead -_-() ) and I decided not to post this until I'd gotten over the proverbial speed bump... Speed HILL is more like it. I finally got over the mini-writer's block and worked it out, so here's 9 for y'all to enjoy ~_~
Thank you Ryn for sharing that incredibly incredibly amusing picture with me! ~_~ I can't wait 'til I can see that for myself, I'll probably burst out laughing right in the middle of the store (which I do a lot anyways, so maybe it won't be that abnormal ~_~). Also thank you for that info on Suba-chan, where'd you find it? You are Officially Cool ~_~
I wanted to get this one up before I left - yes, left, I'm taking off for a few days with my Drama buddies, we're all going to a conference where we get to do nothing but watch plays and attend classes in different aspects of theatre and act as crazy as we all are... ahh, heaven ~_~ So... please excuse me if there are any typos, I'll fix them when I come back! It'll just be a couple days, but you're always exhausted afterwards.
Well, anyway, hope you like it! Yeah yeah, stop being cliche Kaze-chan...
Oh yeah, Obligatory Dedication this time is for Rabbit. ~_~ For ~fill in blank here Rabbit~!
The sky above us was pitch black, but nearly covered with small points of twinkling light. Almost every star was clearly visible to us as we'd left the lights of the city behind hours ago, heading northeast, in the direction of Kutou and hopefully Taheiji's camp and skirting the great mass of the desert that occupied most of eastern Sairou. We hadn't stopped until the moon was hanging high in the sky, nearly at its peak, trusting to our powers to keep us safe if we were attacked by bandits or soldiers. Fortunately we hadn't seen anyone else. But that didn't mean there wasn't someone or several someones out there, and we'd developed a round of watch shifts.
It had been at least an hour since we'd stopped and I was more or less comfortably settled in the same type of blanket-bed we'd made ourselves when we were searching for Toroki, but I hadn't been able to get to sleep. Occasionally I would begin to drift off, but then a movement from one of my companions, a twig snapping in the fire, or something else I couldn't identify would haul me back to wakefulness. I knew the best way to find sleep was to stop looking for it, so I rolled over on my back, facing the stars, watching them calmly. Was it true what some said about them - did they really tell the future? If they did, did mere mortals know how to read it right? My own future was influenced by those stars, and the futures of those around me, but what about the normal people? Did they have any idea what the stars held for them?
"You're contemplative tonight." It was a quiet voice, so unlike his normal one. "Still can't sleep in the great outdoors, I see."
"No." I sighed. It wasn't all together unpleasant, talking to him like this, but was it going to be a pattern? "I forgot you were on guard duty."
He didn't move, resting his back against a tree trunk. Soon the forests would dwindle as we got closer and closer to the mountain range that formed our eastern border, the terrain would grow rockier, the winds would pick up. We would all miss the trees and the steadiness they provided. "You can take your turn if you want."
Since I didn't think I'd be going to sleep soon, I struggled out of my blanket and went to sit next to him. He'd found a good spot to watch from, where the open areas leading into the little clearing we'd selected for our camp were visible. But as I settled down he made no move to the warmth of his own temporary bed.
I didn't want to be rude, but after a few minutes of us sitting there in silence, broken only by the crackling of the fire and the sounds of sleep from the other seishi, it began to feel the tiniest bit uncomfortable. There were too many things that could happen in the dark that I could think of, some I didn't want to dwell on and others I surprisingly did. It seemed I was making it all up in my own mind, because he neither moved nor spoke, just stared at the leaping fire.
"Umm… you can go to sleep, if you want," I hesitantly offered.
"It's all right, I wouldn't be able to sleep either."
I sighed. So much for that idea. "Where do you think Suzuno is?"
"I don't really know," he replied honestly, a slight tremor of worry for our miko in his own voice. "Hopefully she really is in Taheiji's camp, but he's a brilliant strategist. If he knows who he has, if he does have her, he'd make sure to put her somewhere we wouldn't think of looking. But at the same time he'd want to keep her under as much guard as possible, and he'd want to keep his soldiers near himself, so he could also have her right under his nose." He shifted slightly, adjusting his leaning position against the rough bark. "The Miko have some sort of ability of their own, and he probably knows it. That could also be a factor."
I smiled a bit. "You sound like Toroki, you know that?"
"Remind me never to again."
"I actually think it kind of suits you. You sure act like you are sometimes, but you're really not stupid." I glanced over at the newest and youngest of us, huddled unconsciously close to Toroki and Tatara, as if for protection. Once again I felt a fresh surge of guilt at taking him from his home and family, even though in the end it had been his decision to come.
"I think I'll take that as a compliment." He followed my gaze, nodding a bit when it landed on Kokie. "Why didn't you tell us?" I looked at him, confusion plain on my face. "About him." He gestured in the boy's direction.
"I only found out about him today, when I was out with Inoue. It's her brother, you know that."
"Yeah, but if you'd told us it would've-"
"No, it wouldn't have." I cut into his speech sharply. "I made a promise to him not to try and 'recruit' him again except in extreme circumstances, which we do have now, yes. And he said I could tell you all about him. But when I got back I found turmoil and a missing miko and there didn't seem to be a good place to slip in 'Oh, by the way, I found another seishi and nearly collapsed again.'"
"You nearly collapsed again?" he asked, reproach plain in his voice.
I groaned a bit. And we were on the verge of getting along for an hour. "Don't you start acting like Inoue, I've had enough worry over me for one day."
"You overdid it again." It wasn't a question. He completely ignored my statement. "We've told you not to do too much at once."
"I didn't ask for him to pop up this afternoon!" He shushed me a bit, gesturing at the others. I guiltily lowered my voice, rebuking myself for almost disturbing their, well, not exactly sound sleep. "I couldn't help it."
"Yeah yeah, that's what they always say. Come here." And before I could ask him who they were or why they always said that he'd grabbed my wrist and pulled me - not painfully, or I would've hit him again - closer to him for an inspection. His earrings, which I'd never seen him without, glinted the same color as his eyes in the firelight, the latter searching me over clinically and impersonally as a doctor. I kept silent, knowing he didn't mean any harm and certain my protests would wake the others. After a few minutes he nodded to himself and let me go.
I was more confused than ever. This was yet another side of Tokaki that I hadn't seen, and he'd presented me with several already: the elder brother figure, the lech, the worrier, the concerned friend, the fierce fighter, the somewhat-raging maniac, the idiot who didn't think before he spoke, and now this strange detachment. Which was the real him? Were they all him? Was I as confusing as he was? "Tokaki?"
"Hai?"
"Can I ask you a question?"
"You just did."
I rolled my eyes. "Don't get cute now."
He laughed a bit. "Go right ahead if you want to ask another."
"Why do you worry about me so much?"
I expected a quick, blithe, teasing answer like he'd given me several times before on other topics, but he didn't say anything. Didn't even look at me. "Tokaki?"
"I should've thought it was obvious why."
I sighed. "Not to me, it's not. Just tell me, all right?"
"Do you really want to know?"
"I wouldn't be asking if I didn't, would I?"
"I guess you wouldn't, it's not the way you do things." He turned slightly, rotating until he faced me, tiny little fires dancing in his eyes and making his irises glow copper. The flames picked out red highlights in his light hair, and at that moment he appeared as some mythical being of nature, a fire sprite perhaps, that had come to our country looking for something… or someone…
In the dreamlike atmosphere provided by the fire, the darkness, the trees, the stars overhead, and a sudden feeling of isolation from everyone else but him nothing seemed real, not him nor I nor the ground beneath our bodies.
And suddenly…
I couldn't think.
His lips were against mine, soft as I'd never thought them to be, loving and caressing and everything I would have never associated with him and I was too startled to pull away. His hands came up, slowly, to rest themselves gently on my shoulders, pulling me ever so slightly closer to him, and I gave in, closing my own eyes and abandoning myself to feel alone. It was… it was…
It was over.
I blinked my eyes open and he was staring at me, arms held tightly to his sides, eyes unnaturally wide. I could feel the blush rushing through my cheeks and quickly looked at the ground, pulling my knees up to my chin in an almost defensive posture. He mumbled something that sounded like "I'm going to bed," but I couldn't be sure. He quickly stood up and almost ran from that place next to the tree where I still sat, lying down hurriedly and pulling his blanket over his head.
What had… what had that been about?
I decided, as I sat up during my hour-long watch and as I lay awake after waking Toroki to take my place, to not mention anything about it, treat him any differently, or even think about it again. He was simply the most frustrating man I knew, and… last night… couldn't have been anything more than tricks played on my delusional mind by the atmosphere and maybe even Tokaki himself.
But maybe that hadn't been Tokaki. Maybe it was some sort of weird thing taking Tokaki's shape.
Hey! Maybe he'd been possessed!
No, that was idiotic. But how else did you explain it?!
The next day was overcast. There'd probably be rain, which would also become more and more scarce as we neared the desert, and we silently cursed for not thinking of bringing along anything to protect ourselves as we rode. Riding wet is not a fun experience, unless you're the type that actually goes for it. But there weren't that many people I knew who'd have fun on a horse in the rain.
The rain held off while we quickly ate and packed, looking at a map Ebizo had kindly provided for us as a reference. We'd left the area of the villages that surrounded the capital the day before, but Sairou was a large empire and the capital was located more in the west than the middle of the country because of the desert. The route we'd be taking was the quickest we could plot, but going around the desert would take time. At one point Kokie innocently asked why Tokaki couldn't just take us around it by his teleportation, and he'd received a gruff, noncommittal answer back which Tatara gently reprimanded Tokaki for. I shook my head and stayed out of it.
We'd have one more day of trees before they gave way to the plants that managed to grow in the rocky terrain of the north. If it rained we could always take shelter under them and keep off the worst of the water, but as we cantered along, the horses hooves tramping the green grass below in almost perfect, hollow rhythm, the clouds stayed shut. In truth I would have preferred rain, just to get it over with and see the sun again, while we still had the chance for shelter. But Byakko or whichever god it was refused to acknowledge even that simple request.
Somehow I ended up at the back of the pack, riding next to Kokie. The other three were strung out in front of us, occasionally arguing about whether we were going the right way or not, completely ignoring our presence. I had a feeling that they still didn't know what to make of this new seishi, as sudden a surprise as he'd been.
"Having fun yet, Kokie?" I called across to him, raising my voice so it pierced through the wind our speed generated.
He turned as much as he could in his saddle and yelled back "Do you want an honest answer?"
"Hai- whoa!" I slowed Sora quickly as the three in front suddenly pulled in their reins, a more relaxed pace needed to navigate the mess of bushes that had appeared between the trees up ahead. We didn't need a horse-to-horse collision at all.
Next to me Kokie also reined in his horse, sticking beside me as he had been, I remembered once I'd put my mind to it, pretty much all morning. The brief thought that I might be substituting for Inoue crossed my mind, but I didn't really care if I was or not. It was kind of nice to be depended on for something. "To tell the truth," he began in his normal voice now that we no longer needed to shout, "I'm not sure."
I blinked curiously at him, tilting my head slightly to the side, something I did occasionally that my mother said made me look like a cat. "Really? Why not?"
It's not really hard to tell when a young teenage boy is uncomfortable, at least not for me. And now it was written all over Kokie's face. "It's… well…" He gestured up ahead with the hand wrapped in his reins at the three older men.
I glanced at them, then nodded. "I see… Don't worry, they'll get used to you. They're just kinda ticked that I didn't tell them about you before we showed up at your house last night."
He grumbled a bit under his breath and I couldn't catch his meaning, but I let him be for a little while as we negotiated the bushes. They were very thick and obviously not tread much, and it was up to Tatara's horse to push a path through them for the rest of us to follow.
I threw a look at Toroki as we rode, wondering how he was keeping up. I was a bit envious when I saw he seemed to be doing better than me. He had special tack for his horse that he could sit comfortably in, and the horse itself was exceptionally well trained. It always seemed to know what he wanted it to do, and I briefly wondered if he had a rapport with animals as part of his seishi powers.
The day wore on in much the same way the morning did. The threatening clouds kept silent, and the birds and other forest creatures kept inside because of the approach of inclement weather or the intruders in their homes, we knew not which. Tokaki and I barely looked at each other and never spoke, he still riding with Tatara and Toroki and I with Kokie, but there seemed to be a tension that nothing would get rid of. Small talk was reduced to nothing at times as the others caught the feeling from us, and once I caught Tatara look surreptitiously back in my direction, as if he knew that at least part of it was because of me. I could only stare ahead.
We were starting to consider finding a place to stop and sleep for the night, having managed to forget to plan our route so that it intersected inhabited areas where we could find an inn or tavern, when Toroki held up his hand, pulling his horse to a stop. We all came to a halt beside him or behind him, watching him curiously.
"I sense…" His voice was that of the old sage again, the voice he seemed to assume when using his powers. "I sense a massive pool of ill-feeling…"
"Which way?" Tatara asked mutely.
Toroki turned his head to "look" over each shoulder, making a chill run down my spine at how empty that normally cheerful face appeared. He really was a different person when his symbol appeared. "That way," he motioned, and his horse pranced a bit, trying to follow his hand, but he held it in check.
Tokaki swore under his breath. "East. Should've known. Can you tell how far they are?"
The younger boy "watched" the direction they were coming from for another moment, then faced front again and wrapped the reins tightly around his hands. "They're coming. Go. Now."
The cold, concise manner in which he delivered news of our upcoming battle lit us as if we'd been thrown in a fire. We kicked our horses up to the highest speed they'd go and plunged through the trees and bushes, Toroki yelling over the noise. "They're trying to outrun us and cut us off in front! They want to ambush us! We can't get away from this, we need to find a spot we can fight from! They know where we are, they'll come after us if we turn around!"
"WHOA!" Tatara turned sharply left and his horse reared on its hind legs, nearly throwing him off. His connection with plants seemed to provide him with extra help as he began galloping in that direction, shouting back over his shoulder. "The trees say there's a clearing over here! Quick! It's big enough for us but they can't get that many in there!" We unquestioningly followed him.
After a few minutes that seemed like eternity we arrived in his clearing, jumping off our horses and preparing as well as we could to fight. Those of us who used weapons (Toroki and myself) unstrapped them from our saddle packs and sent our horses into the woods, the other three following, hopefully out of danger. Tokaki hurriedly teleported Toroki to sit on a high, sturdy tree branch, hopefully giving him room to fire without worrying about hitting one of us and get him out of the way of everyone else. Kokie stood silently by, slowly going whiter and whiter at the thought of what was probably his first fight. I loosened up by taking a couple of practice swings with my staff at a nearby tree, even in these somewhat urgent circumstances finding myself pretending it was Tokaki's head. Tatara quickly grew his vine whip, glancing around uneasily, cautiously. Tokaki simply stood and waited.
"They're here."
There was a minute of absolute silence before all hell broke loose. Darkly clothed shapes seemed to appear out of nowhere as Tokaki did effortlessly, falling on us two or three to a seishi and ripping our attention away from our comrades. I was allowed a moment before they attacked to wonder how in the hell they had snuck up on us - if you could call it that, with Toroki's warning - without us seeing them, and then the first Kutou sword I'd ever seen was swinging at my head. I ducked and prayed to Byakko to keep all of us safe and let my self-defense instincts kick in overtime as I blocked the sword and knocked it away from my body. There were three men there, all of them swinging various sharply honed weapons which could probably cleave me in half if I let them, but I wasn't about to give them a chance at it. The restricted space I'd claimed prevented more than two of them from attacking at a time, and I managed to hold them off as they swung repeatedly, slicing twigs and leaves from nearby trees and bushes, once even catching a few strands of my hair.
The clearing was in an uproar, battle shouts and clanging of weapons, the crack of Tatara's whip, the whizzing sounds of not only Toroki's bow but those of Kutou archers as well. I couldn't see my fellow seishi but once or twice, when the men I was against shifted their positions and revealed a glimpse of the open area beyond. As such I had no idea that Toroki was having problems as the enemy archers took refuge behind trees, that Kokie was indeed holding his own, and possibly even having fun, as he bent the enemies' swords like paper and seemed to make anything metal they were wearing shrink, that Tatara was holding back his three easily with the whip and was sneakily growing vines behind them to entangle their legs and entire bodies, that Tokaki, who had the most men on him, was actually having a bit of trouble.
I could only concentrate on the three in front of me, getting more and more annoyed at these supposedly infamous Kutou assassins who couldn't even managed to kill one barely trained girl. Then there was an extra burst of strength in my arms and back and I wrenched the sword out of one man's hands and sent it flying with the end of the staff, not pausing in my advantage and quickly walloping him hard across the temple. He fell and lay still, and I felt a momentary triumph, but the other two, no longer needing to worry about cramped space, doubled their own attacks. I tried desperately to keep up and fell back to the defense, as that was all I was able to do under the onslaught.
"Subaru!" I couldn't take the time to identify the voice, but one of the men suddenly pitched forward, falling heavily on me and pinning me to the ground, the staff being knocked out of my hands and landing about five feet away, out of my reach. I couldn't move the much heavier man off me as my arms were also rather awkwardly pinned, but I could see a familiar arrow sticking out of his back and silently blessed Toroki for his timely assistance. Then a shadow fell over my face and I looked up to see the last man I'd been fighting standing over me, his sword raised, a sadistic grin on his face.
"Boss said that if even one of you was dead it'd be over. So you're the one." The sword came down quickly, slicing the air in its path with an audible whish.
"Subaru!"
"Subaru!"
"Subaru!"
"Subaru-san!"
THUCK.
"GET AWAY FROM HER!"
Tokaki appeared out of nowhere and smashed the assassin in the head with a fist as hard as brick, raging as a man possessed, then grabbed the dead man and in a sudden burst of strength picked him bodily off me and threw him away. I bit my lip, vowing not to cry out, but his actions had driven the assassin's blade deeper into my shoulder than it had gone when I'd twisted out of the way the first time. It hurt. It really hurt. But I was a seishi, I wouldn't be weak or show weakness, even though I could feel the tears of pain that I refused to let go welling up in my eyes.
It was only a few moments more until the rest of them were finished. Tatara quickly tied up his three with the vines, Kokie helped direct Toroki's arrows to the other assassins hidden in the bushes and trees. Tokaki had managed to take care of his batch before I got hurt, using pressure points on a couple of them, knocking another out, breaking the last one's neck. Most of the attackers were dead. Good riddance.
Tokaki quickly knelt next to me and tried, honestly tried to pull the sword out of my shoulder and the ground it was embedded in gently, but it still hurt and I couldn't stop a quick cry of pain as he wrenched it out of the soil, grating it against my collarbone. It felt like that had been broken under the force of the blow as well, and I couldn't really move my left arm; probably some nerves and tendons had been severed. I was in bad shape, felt it, and probably looked it.
"Subaru! Gods, someone get a bandage or something, anything! Subaru!" Tokaki was still next to me, more anxious than I'd ever seen him, white with fear. "Oh gods, why you? Why not me?" I yelped again as he touched my shoulder, and he quickly retracted his hand, still watching me anxiously.
"Don't move her!" Toroki called from the safety of his tree. "You'll only make it worse! And get me down from here!"
"Obey the boy, why don't you?" Tatara said to Tokaki as he knelt on my other, uninjured side, a cloth and a bottle of water in his hands. Tokaki gave him a dark glare but disappeared into the tree, grabbed Toroki, and appeared on the ground again, running back to resume his place next to me. Tatara apologized quietly if what he was going to do was painful, then poured water out of the bottle and onto the wound, trying to clean it. It stung and made me clench my teeth, but if it would help I would put up with it forever. I dimly saw Kokie approach our little group, leading Toroki, a wide-eyed look on his face. I tried to smile reassuringly, but my face screwed up in pain again as Tatara began pulling my bloody clothes away from my shoulder.
"Ne!" Tokaki smacked Tatara's hand away abruptly. "You can't do that!"
"And why not?" I wondered if I'd ever heard Tatara cross before, thought I probably had, but not to that extent.
"She's… well, a she!"
I groaned. Of all the times to be worried about decency!
"And we have no doctor! That needs to be treated and bandaged!" I could almost hear the glare in his voice. "You certainly don't seem to care at other times, so hold your mouth now and let me do this!"
"This is different! If anyone's gonna do this, I will!"
I shot another glance at Toroki and Kokie. Kokie obviously didn't know what was going on, but Toroki looked more and more exasperated. Just like me.
"Oh, back up!" I shouted, flinging out my good arm in their directions and surpressing a fresh wince of pain. They rapidly moved out of the way of my flailing limb and I glared daggers at them. "Stay there you idiots. I'll do something about it."
"What the… Oh no," Tokaki protested, somehow knowing what I was talking about. "Not that. You'll pass out again!"
"At this rate I will anyway, and at least this way I'll be healthy! Now shut up and let me concentrate!"
He shut up with much berating from the others and questions about what I was going to do.
I shut them all out of my mind, calling on my powers, trying to remember the exact words. Last time I'd tried this I'd only felt woozy, and I hadn't had my full seishi powers; maybe this time it wouldn't be so bad. But then again, last time I hadn't lost vast amounts of blood either…
I closed my eyes, focused on myself, and said quietly under my breath "Time turn back on the body of myself to this point of yesterday."
I could hear a whooshing sound, the only way I could think of to describe it was as a wind blowing backwards. The pain in my shoulder, which had been throbbing as the blood flowed out of me, suddenly disappeared. I turned my head to the side and saw… nothing. Only my torn clothes and the furrow in the ground remained to tell that something had happened to me. There was no blood, no cut. I tried to move my arm and found it in perfect working order. My collarbone felt fine, and I hesitantly sat up.
And was nearly killed again as a runaway stampede slammed into me, knocking me to the ground again. It seemed my ribs would crack under the force of Tokaki's hug, and it also seemed like he'd never let go.
Not if I had my say in it.
"Get OFF me!" I pushed him back as forcefully as possible and sat up again, shaky, trembling. I was healed, yes, but now I was as weak as a newborn kitten. I made myself focus on each of them in turn, seeing their expressions of worry and hope. I smiled unsteadily at each of them. "Daijobu," I said. "Are they all gone?"
Tatara nodded. "They're dead, unconscious, or tied up. We won't be having problems with this batch any more."
"Good," I sighed, then lay down again, closing my eyes. "I just… can I go to sleep for awhile?"
I squawked tiredly as two arms slid themselves under me and lifted my body off the comfortable grass. "It'd be better not to stay here tonight. Others might come looking for them." Tokaki had gone back to being sensible, thank Byakko. "And it's… not really a great sight. Tatara, can you find us another place to stop?"
"I can try. Let's go get the horses." I couldn't see him through the blackness of my eyelids, but somehow I felt his worried gaze on me. "I'll get yours as well."
"Arigato."
"Come on you two." Three pairs of feet began to head away from us, crunching small twigs and fallen leaves, their clothing making rustling whispers as it brushed against bushes and trees.
The warm person carrying me began to walk, jostling me slightly with each step, but consciously trying not to. I felt I could go to sleep there and then, but was determined to hold out until we came to our actual campsite and I could have as proper a bed as we could make out here. He leaned back against something, sending a slight jolt through both of us, then slowly and carefully sat down, propping me up with one arm. I was too tired to try and look around or converse so I just sat there, barely realizing I was in effect sitting on him, and he wasn't keeping me there. Well that was just fine, I was actually getting comfortable.
"Baka Subaru…" he whispered with surprising feeling, making his voice seem like it was wound tightly as an invisible cord. Warm fingers touched my cheek and stroked it gently, trailing over my entire face, and I was too weak to raise protests… and surprisingly I scarcely wanted to. "Baka Suba-chan."
Then the echoes of stamping hooves once again penetrated my thoughts and he stood as painstakingly as he'd sat, and I was handed to someone else for a short time - most likely Tatara. Tack clanked and jingled as someone mounted, then I was again passed around, up this time, and made to sit across a horse, leaning back into the person behind me, his arm around my waist to keep me from falling off. Then the entire company went away at a walk from the scene of the encounter.
Awhile later the men decided we'd gone far enough to be at least mostly out of the way of any scout parties sent to look for our recent acquaintances and we stopped for the night. After a few minutes of murmuring and low talk I was again handed down, but this time I was laid on a blanket that had been spread on the ground and another was draped over me. I felt slight tremors as someone else sat down next to me, and I finally drifted into renewing sleep.
AUTHOR'S NOTES II: Quick thing: I'm not just torturing poor Suba-chan! I really, seriously sit here and think it out when I decide to have something happen to a character. I think about the strengths and weaknesses of each character and figure out which of them it would be most likely to happen to. And with the way I've written this, a lot of times it's Subaru, simply because she seems to be... not the weakest (DEFINITELY not), but the worst one defensively. So I'm not just doing it to be cruel to her! I love my Suba-chan too much! ~huuuugs Suba-chan~
And the romance aspect... here's my thinking: "It had to happen sometime." Pre-ordained couple, can't do much about it. It's still pretty fun to write, though ~_~
~goes back to reading Dave Barry~
