Disclaimed.
Finding Mikan
Chapter Ten: All Pawns on the Same Chessboard
By early July, it had become a custom for Hotaru to take to the streets in the hours immediately following the orangey dawn and before the searing noon. Summer brought with it hoards of tourists, rowdy young delinquents, and little children running about neither giggling nor screaming but a shrill mixture of both. About her everywhere was the buzz of livelihood, even from the few animals that had grown accustomed to the city's sulfuric haze. As she descried each of them, Hotaru thought of the time that had been taken away from her.
In the presence of someone so bitter, it seemed borderline criminal for them to be living in such bliss. Indeed, the younger generation was rather frivolous and inattentive, for many of them failed to notice the empire of tangerines entirely.
Hotaru did not.
Specifically, she took note of all the dynamics of the graffiti: the location, quantity, geometry, position, and a billion other details that any normal person would never have thought twice about. There was a certain pattern to the appearances, not unlike an intricate algorism, but also one that could be solved. After all, certain tangerines had irrefutable resemblances and eminent differences from other tangerines. It made sense, Hotaru reasoned, seeing as even a cloning Alice could not manage to decorate such a giant premise as Tokyo.
But she was sure that every picture was a duplicate of one or a small handful of artists' work. Once, identical images appeared in two different places of the city at two different times. The first tangerine was rounder and brighter in colour. The second had sharper highlights. By running through the images of every single tangerine, she was able to determine which person painted where.
Exactly sixty two artists were at work, each managing a distinct area of Tokyo whether it be rich, poor, or insignificant. They were responsible for the repainting of tangerines that were worn away or manually cleaned. Most likely, the person had an assigned number of tangerines to maintain in their area at all times. That would explain why there were dozens and dozens of them in the populated, middle-class neighbourhoods but very little in the dirty ghettos or well-maintained rich, private areas.
It was all part of a conspiracy to root the tangerines in the back of the citizens' minds, so that they were there but not really there at the same time. A subliminal message.
By the way the two ladies casually pushed a baby stroller past a vandalized building, Natsume's tactics were working. They never even spared a second glance at the image. They never even questioned it. The tangerine was something completely natural, completely mundane to them, like a mailbox or even a tree.
Hotaru strolled closer to examine it. The picture here, like others on the same block, was very elaborately painted. Since all tangerines were drawn with spray paint, most artists either left off with speckled ends or blended colours to make it look a little smoother. The lines on this piece of art were sharp and neatly finished. Not to mention that there were a few Sakura twigs that could not be painted with anything other than the smooth bristles of a paintbrush. Only a perfectionist would carry around sleek brushes for touch-ups.
The lingering smell of wet paint was still attached to the picture. She wiped the wall with her finger; it was dry. She then scratched at the paint and found that it came off quite readily but did not crack. The picture was freshly painted. It would not even be that big of a stretch to say that it had been done within the past hour or two.
"Hotaru-chan!"
At the familiar voice, her head perked. She turned her head left and right, surveying her surroundings for the owner of the voice. Finding nothing, the inventor turned back to the picture only to find her face shadowed by a towering figure. She finally spotted her—no, him—behind her just as he held out two hands in a feeble attempt to cover her eyes.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing." Rui Amane broke out into an innocent smile as he stuffed his gloved hands back into the pockets of a large, loose vest. It was almost too obvious. No one wore gloves in the scorching heat of July.
Well, well, it looked like the artist found her instead.
"What are you doing out and about around these parts?" he asked with a smile, holding an arm out in the direction that Hotaru had been walking towards.
"Ah," she told him, "well I was decidedly bored with the limited uses of my apartment and opted for bit of exploring instead. Instead of buying a map, I figured why should I not make one for myself? That way I would know which paths to avoid and which to drive through when I am in the mood for something delightful or scenic. If you think about it, it helps actually knowing the blueprints of a city if I am going to stay in the city."
Rui's laugh was like the jingling of chimes. "How interesting! I was just doing some exploring myself!"
Hotaru turned to him with knitted eyebrows. "But you should already know the area like the back of your hand if you draw tangerines for Hyuuga on a daily basis."
"What are you talkin—"
"You're wearing gloves," she pointed out flatly.
Rui tried to hide his dumbfound. His eyebrows shot up in feigned confusion and befuddlement. Hotaru's eyes flickered from his left hand to his right hand and finally back to his face. She raised both of her eyebrows ever so subtly in a questioning manner and proceeded to stare him down until he relented.
After some time the tall man broke, tilting his head to the sky. "Ah, damn. So it was the gloves that gave me away."
He drew both hands from his pockets and slid the garments off, revealing hands stained in all sorts of different reds, oranges, pinks, and yellows. Dried paint fell out of the gloves as he shook them and stretched their fingers. After flapping the gloves some more to fling out the flakes, Rui poured sanitizer on his hands and donned the gloves once more.
"I get new pairs every single month," he explained when Hotaru shot him a look that clearly asked him why he went through all that trouble, "but I don't have to buy them. That's the upside of owning a convenient store. I love mooching off of my stock."
She shrugged, more interested in the giant piece of art. She recognized it to be one of the more popular pictures, along with all other pictures that contained both tangerines and cherry blossoms. "Do you come to paint tangerines every day?"
"Mostly during the night," he divulged. "Sometimes during the day, yeah. A lot of teens hang out at these parts. They don't mind me painting as long as I talk to them and let them take pictures."
"Ever got caught?"
"Do street painters ever get caught?" asked Rui, winking with a toothy smile. "I get away with a lot of things as long as I time and place them properly. Obviously four to ten evening and six to ten morning are huge no-nos. If it's quiet, I can sneak in a tangerine or two from noon to three, mostly in the wintertime. Any time from two to five in the morning is ideal."
"In the night you do not get full effects of the art."
Rui pointed a finger heavenward and exclaimed, "you're right! Which is why I prefer to draw mine in the daylight. I'm just sneaky like that. I'll let you in on a secret: my criminal record has yet to be blemished!"
These summer days were mediocre and trivial. The hot weather set a thin, invisible blanket of irk and boredom over everyone. The only bustling places were the malls and tourist sites. Otherwise, productivity was down by quite a margin. Even Hotaru had been getting less business offers per day, though it was unsure whether it was that or the persistence of those companies beginning to wear off.
For the first time in a long time, Hotaru felt like venturing outside of the great city. Anywhere rural would suffice, even if it was merely Nagoya. Yes, she would definitely go to Nagoya again before the end of July, as soon as Hayate brought back word from Alice Academy. Pleasant thoughts swirled around in Hotaru's mind as she twisted the handle to her apartment.
Her entrance was greeted with the wide-spread arms. "Imai-san! Welcome back!"
That voice. That abhorrent, detestable voice.
Again, his appearance changed, this time into a more casual T-shirt and cargo pants. His blue eyes twinkled with detested mirth and his gray hair, significantly shorter, stuck up until the ends.
She was unsure whether it was the sight of him that set her off or the fact that after their less than cordial parting he simply lounged in her apartment as if he had always belonged there. Hotaru did not remember welcoming him to stretch his long legs across her couch. She was actually too beside herself with anger to do anything but prevent herself from going absolutely ballistic.
And how did he get into her apartment in the first place? She knew the government had their shadowy, underhanded methods, but she never expected them to go that far.
Hotaru closed the doorknob, shooting menacingly, "are you attempting to threaten me with your presence?"
Chiaki chuckled and only when he started repetitively tapping his palm with a parcel did Hotaru notice that he had been holding it all along. She was so focused on the man's face that she did not see anything else, could not see anything else. Quickly, Hotaru scrutinized the room to see if anything had changed. Thankfully, things looked exactly the same as they had before she left earlier this morning.
Her eyes drifted back to the man with great vehemence as he began making his way to her. Hotaru strode towards him at equal pacing. He would not get the best of her.
"No, no," he reassured in an absolutely slimy voice. "I just thought that I should drop by for a little visit."
"Well I see that ARC has shown you straight into my home."
"No, no," he told her again. "I showed myself into your apartment. ARC just had a little issue they wanted to sort out with you." He slapped the parcel against his palm loudly just once more. "So, as usual, I'm sent here like the lapdog that I am."
If a lapdog was able to threaten her with his presence alone…
"You have the courtesy of a gentleman," she retorted dryly. "I cannot imagine any other reason for you to be so intrusive other than as a means of intimidation. I have yet to break any of the 'liberal' rules that you set for me so you cannot be here for that either. I strongly suggest you state what you want so that we can sort it out and you can leave, the quicker the better. Personally, I really, really do not feel like seeing you right now. Or ever."
Chiaki H. raised both of his hands into the air flippantly. "Hey, don't shoot the messenger!"
With a sarcastic smile, Hotaru made sure his eyes lingered on her hand as she reached into her purse to pull out a spray bottle. Her arm hung loosely at her side while her fingers clutched the bottle tightly and readily. Chiaki smiled, shaking his head to himself pleasantly as if amused by her unnecessary measures.
"This is hardly a joking matter," she hissed, scowling and directing the opening of the bottle at him.
The fake air of politeness hanging in the air disappeared quicker than a snap of the fingers. Smiling Chiaki was arrogant and annoying, but unsmiling Chiaki was absolutely daunting. Upon hardening, the bright face revealed intimidating lines and shadows that were not there mere moments before. His eyes thinned and focused in a stare with degrees of intensity Hotaru could not fathom. More frightening was the fact that his line of sight did not lead to her face but straight to the opening of the pepper spray bottle and the shifting of her index finger right on top of the button.
"This isn't on your list of purchased items, and neither is that," he warned, pointing to Hotaru's shelves upon shelves of stacked bottles of pepper spray and sleeping gas, "which can only mean that you purchased these by illegal means."
"Hey, Miss Imai—Hotaru, from hereon out we're no longer student and teacher, so if you ever find yourself in a tight spot, don't ever hesitate to call me for help."
She narrowed her eyes. "Why? I am from Irving Academy. You hate Irving Academy. I thought you would tell me to cease all contact after you leave."
"Well, I do," he told her, a contemplative thumb pressing up on the underside of his chin, "but despite all the hardships, some things are still worth looking back on. I guess it's because I think of you more as a friend than a pupil."
Hotaru scowled at Chiaki. "I need not explain the extent of my network to the likes of you."
He shook his head, unimpressed but also somewhat pained as if he did not want to be there dealing with her—or was it some other purpose? The mask he had put on revealed too little for Hotaru to decipher, not that it mattered. Chiaki seemed like a man who was much too ambitious to be contained within ARC. And she was very sure that she had no wish to be informed of his ulterior motives.
All Hotaru wanted was for him to leave her alone.
Half draped by bangs, his sharp, deep blue eyes rolled up to meet hers in a way that made her stomach lurch. "I should detain you on behalf of ARC. To think that even in your predicament you still find ways for them to punish yourself further. Please, Imai, it would be better for both of us if you just kept your mouth shut like an obedient pet."
He walked over to her table and slapped down the envelope forcefully, spilling all the contents until they were sprawled out on top of the glass surface. Chiaki turned, one hand on the table and another on his hip. His glazed beckoned—no, forcibly pulled her closer, until she could fully see the contents he presented her taunting her in their full glory. Hotaru looked up at him and saw that the tips of his smile were curled up in a gloat.
Her face was stony except for the occasional eye twitch that allowed him a glimpse into the chaotic ball of emotions clashing inside of her. Disappointment. Anger. Frustration. Despair. Only pride and poise, two elements she had been trained to display throughout her life, triumphed above them all and saved her from losing face.
"For someone as uncaring as you, it's really surprising to find that you actually do care about someone," he mused. "I have no idea how you got your letter into the academy, but fortunately it was intercepted before it ever reached Masachika. Else there would have been graver consequences."
"Masachika-san is not someone I am concerned about."
"No," agreed Chiaki, whose eyes softened in sure pity, "but there are three or four things that do concern you. Your nephew for one. If someone were to happen to him as punishment for what you did… Well ARC doesn't like touching young children so he's safe for the moment. But they have no qualms about your well-being or the well-being of your family. And while they can't touch American citizens, they certainly have no qualms about disconnecting you completely from that country."
The moment Hotaru opened her mouth, she realized that she was so enraged it was hard to see what was right in front of her. After quickly reassessing the situation, she clamped her two lips shut again. If there was one useful lesson she took with her from Irving Academy, it was to never let emotions govern her mind, especially in such a critical situation.
He smirked, "what's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"
"I never did like you," growled Hotaru vehemently.
"That's understandable," his reply came surprisingly soft, "but hopefully what I'm about to do will make you dislike me less."
Hotaru doubted it.
"All you have to do is relay one message to Imai Subaru and I will forgo the opportunity to snitch your unlawful habits to ARC. In fact, I will even write a report to convince them how harmless your interests have been for the past few months."
At the mention of her brother, the anger stirred inside Hotaru settled into an alarming calm akin to the eye of a hurricane. Her mouth widened ever so slightly at Chiaki's familiar utterance of his name. Now that was a thought. Her own brother fraternizing with the enemy. She inwardly grimaced at how little she actually knew about Subaru and how little she impacted his life in comparison to the tight grip he had on hers.
"What is the message?"
Chiaki's lips pressed tightly as he turned away from her to the fluttering curtains. His hands busied themselves with gathering up the papers of a letter that had agonized her for days on end, a letter that meant absolutely nothing now. In the stuffy silence, his demand reverberated throughout all the empty rooms save Hikaru's.
"Tell him 'she is waiting.'"
He offered no further explanation. Nor did he elaborate on who the "she" was so Subaru must have had dealings with Chiaki and this mysterious woman in the past. Hotaru did not know the nature of the affairs, but they appeared to be grave if the subject itself had Chiaki's hands clamping her table until his fingers turned white.
"Fine."
He made no visible reaction at first. Gradually, the fingers loosened to seal the envelope once more, diligent and precise as if they were never trembling. Now satisfied, his face lost its sharpness to become numb and blasé. Jadedly, he reiterated ARC's warnings a second time in a more perfunctory replay of their first meeting.
Hotaru found it ridiculous.
"Enough with the dawdling. I know that you want to threaten me with ARC, but what does ARC want to threaten me with?"
He paused and stared at her blankly. Hotaru tried to figure out what was going through the messenger's head and whether he was trying to unnerve her by keeping her in suspense. Inherently a normal person would have been intimidated by an organization that hunted down and killed at their convenience. But Hotaru was not a normal person. And Chiaki had no way of knowing how much of ARC's reputation actually reached her ears.
"Weren't you listening?" he finally admonished. "They're letting you off with a warning."
"Oh, so they are not blacklisting me."
His eyebrows lifted infinitesimally in a slightly amused but mostly questioning manner. "And why would ARC blacklist you?" he asked slowly.
"Oh," deadpanned Hotaru. "I apologize. I just thought ARC was full of over-patriotic and sadistic bigots. They have a bit of a bad reputation from past assassinations."
Chiaki closed his eyes and sighed as if she just asked him to dumb down an entire university level lecture of quantum physics. "That is a misconception on your part. Yes, ARC did kill many people. No, they did not enjoy it. It had to be done because of the rebels' extremity. ARC wasn't let off easily for that. In fact, they were criticized by enough countries to realize that if they're going to do an execution they better shut it up. It's not likely to happen again. There are other ways to deal with the unwanted, like for example having someone else do the dirty work."
His feral smile sent a shiver down her back.
"You want me to kill someone for you?"
"Detain," he euphemized.
"Who?"
"Sakura Mikan."
Hotaru waited for the impact to come. It never did. Save for the crazy curiosity he aroused, she was oddly fine with the fact that her former best friend was now sought by one of the most pesky organizations in the world. The one fleeting thought she had laced with any kind of emotion was, well, Hyuuga is not going to like this.
"Sakura-san. A Stealing Alice is really that much of a menace to ARC's operations?"
He shrugged. "They named a name. I reiterated that name."
"And what will ARC do if I refuse?"
"Imai, for the umpteenth time, I am not ARC," he retorted impatiently. "I have no idea what the organization wants. I told you to seek them out should you have any questions, concerns or complaints." He took a step closer and pointed his finger at her forehead. "Look, do you think I am in for all of this for fun? Do you think it's reverent for me to be running around kissing loafers for my job? I should be the one with that shelf of pepper spray," he barked, pointing heatedly. "The only reason I'm doing this is because my wife—"
His eyes widened and he suddenly fell silent just as her finger clamped down on the button.
Whatever method he used to get into her apartment had failed to save him. The spray shot directly into his eyes as he swiveled his body to mitigate the pungency. In seconds, he was on his knees, suffering from the sting of pepper in his eyes, nose and mouth. Hotaru would have liked to gloat in the sight of the hated man coughing and wheezing in front of her, but she herself was suffering from the effects of the double-edged weapon.
Her nose and mouth burned. Her eyes burned. Tears trailed out uncontrollably. She clamped one hand over her mouth tightly while breathing through it, screening out as much powder as she could. Still, it was of little use.
She only barely prevented herself from sneezing.
In one last attempt to demean the man, Hotaru chucked the bottle at his face as she stumbled her way to the door. There were two different thumps behind her as an indication of her accuracy. She smiled as she shut herself out in the hallway and inhaled the sweet, clean air. The inventor grinned at her hands. She always knew that practicing the calculation of horizontal trajectory of any given mass in less than ten seconds would come in handy some day.
But damn, that was a mess of an apartment she had on her hands. Subaru would not be impressed.
"Hotaru-san!" a voice cried gleefully. "You called me!"
Had she not gone through a whole half hour's mental preparation for this, Hotaru's poise might have slipped. As it was, a small scowl was already beginning to form on her face. She repeated to herself for the umpteenth time that it was okay. Dealing with Hayate was necessary if she were to dispose of Chiaki's body and question him later on.
But first, to grill him for his abysmally disappointing failure. "Why did you disobey my orders?"
He paused. "Your orders?"
There was no tolerance in her chastisement, "I specifically told you to deliver the letter directly to Masachika-san. I told you not to let it fall into the hands of a government personnel. Can you take three guesses who is in my apartment right now?"
"Uh—"
"And if you actually do take three guesses, the next time I see you I will castrate you slowly and painfully on the spot."
He was silenced thereafter.
Hotaru's fingers tapped against her Blackberry in annoyance. "Come and clean up your mess."
"Uh—whaa?"
"Did you not hear a word of what I just said?" muttered Hotaru in an eerily soft tone. There was a body and a potentially enraged brother she had to deal with. She was far too tired to be open and brash about anything. "A government personnel barged into my apartment with the letters and demands from ARC. Is it not your fault I am in this situation? I have already knocked him out for you. You know where I live. Come and take the body somewhere, anywhere. I do not care. Just dispose of him and remove him from my sight."
When Hayate burst out of the elevator he was all sunshine as opposed to Hotaru's thunderclouds. He skipped merrily to her side with a stupid, blanked out smile on his face, a telltale expression of his unreliability. After one look at him, Hotaru wondered how she ever entrusted this man with such an important task.
"What happened?" he chirped. "What do I need to do?"
"Dispose of him," she hissed, pointing to the door. "I hope you brought a Teleport Alice with you because you will need one."
Hayate blinked sheepishly. "Uh," he said, scratching the back of his neck, "yeah, I always bring one around with me… Wait! How did you know—"
"Just take him from my sight!" she ordered, wringing open the door and shoving him straight into the crime scene.
What greeted them, however, shocked and puzzled both of them, Hotaru especially. Why, her apartment looked just fine! Hotaru was infuriated. The table was clean, the floor was clean, the couch was clean. Heck, even the air was clean. And Chiaki was nowhere to be seen.
She ran to the middle of the living room for a wider perusal of her surroundings. Her apartment was in exact the same state she had left it this morning, before she encountered Rui. Ignoring the completely befuddled Hayate, Hotaru frenziedly ran around the rooms, looking under all the cupboards and sinks, inside all the closets and pantries only to find nothing and become even more alarmed. Everything was untouched. Even Hikaru's room was empty and left exactly as it had been since Subaru came; in fact, the sheets were beginning to collect dust.
Where is he? she thought frantically, running back to the living room. Where did he go?
"What's wrong? Your apartment's the same. Everything's fine!" assured Hayate.
"No it is not!"
He escaped. How?
It was a pressing, nail-bitingly nervous question in desperate need of an answer. Because if someone like Chiaki was able to enter and exit Hotaru's apartment at will so easily… Hotaru did not even want to think of the possibilities that opened for him and for ARC. She would never get another night's sleep again.
In vain, Hotaru ransacked her apartment for tiny clues of where Chiaki had gone. Even if she had a small idea what he was capable with, it could make a great difference in the grand scheme of things.
"Whoa, is that your brother when he was young?"
In midst of lifting up her sofa cushion, Hotaru paused and snapped her head over to the direction of Hayate's astounded exclamation. "What?" she demanded, all but pushing him away from the object of his attention.
One of Naomi's picture frames, one that had previously adorned Hikaru's preschool picture, now held a full fledged seven-year-old in an all too familiar white collar, black shirt, plaid pant uniform. Hikaru Imai stood in the shade of the giant Sakura tree, staring into the lens with apathetic eyes. One of his arms grabbed at the bark while the other hung limply at his side. He was now tall enough to reach the first knot of the tree.
Hotaru clutched the frame tightly, frowning and enunciating strenuously, "I seriously need a vacation."
"Really?" She had not expected a reply for a sentence that was directed to herself. Though it was Hayate, after all. Hotaru should have expected it. "That's great! I was actually going to call you tomorrow for this thing…" An unsightly blush was creeping over his cheeks. "Um, how could you like to go on a cruise with me—a-and the Alices—next weekend…"
In his outstretched hand was a single boarding ticket to Lady Sakura of the renown Nakamura Cruise Company with her name on it.
Ack, okay this is mediocre. Chiaki's personality is a hassle to manage, although in my opinion he's one of the best antagonists I've ever made. Oh, and a little question: are the little flashbacks too abrupt? Should I take them out completely?
Please alert, fave, review!
-IndigoGrapefruit