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Of Galge and Imaginary Friends

Chapter 9

Last time in Of Galge and Imaginary Friends…

Still, first Miki, and now Inori and Tsukasa. "What's happening?" Kanata asked, her tone one usually found on a frightened primary school girl, which made sense, in a way; despite having existed in some form for nearly forty years, she still looked very young.

The worried look stayed on the ghost's face as she continued as she voiced her true concern. "Why is it happening only now?"

Kagami -FS02-

The news that the rest of the Hiiragi family had begun to notice Kanata worried Kagami, though she didn't know whether it was due to the habit of keeping the blue-haired woman secret or the twintailed girl's the loneliness she would undoubtedly feel if the ghost disappeared (The first one! Definitely the first one!).

Of course, she didn't show any of this on her face. She was an older sister, after all, so it just wasn't proper to display anything but a detached and unconcerned persona in the face of trouble; that Kanata still hadn't told her what a tsundere didn't factor in.

Nope, not at all.

Kagami, though, became more than a little annoyed at the constant muttering coming from the self-declared ghost. Not that this was unusual in the slightest, as it seemed Kanata had forgotten long ago how to think quietly, but the quick, panicked tone used by the blue-haired woman was surprisingly grating, especially since its topic hadn't changed for the past fourteen hours-presumably, of course, since, by three in the morning, Kagami had given up trying to drown her constant companion out, hit her harder than usual, and buried her ears under her pillow (Now my right hand hurts, too!).

In the morning, after the long-haired Hiiragi daughter slept through her alarm for the first time in over a year, Kanata wringed her hands almost constantly and fled at the slightest hint of anybody glancing in her direction; eventually, she simply elected to wait outside while Kagami dragged her twin out of her nest of pandas and frogs, with a very strange panda-frog hybrid presiding from the actual bed (Why does she even have that thing, anyway?).

The lingering hope in the twintailed miko's heart that Kanata had been mistaken about the others' sudden spiritual perceptibility, briefly nurtured by her sister not noticing the ghost when the twins walked out the door, vanished as Tsukasa decided it was best to mention, as part of her apology to Kagami for sleeping in the middle of the floor, "I'm sorry, Onee-chan! I guess I thought I needed sleep after thinking I saw Kona-chan…"

Dammit…

Kagami's day only went downhill from there.

The mutterings of her companion spirit, which had ceased having anything to do with her previous favorite topic, eating, followed the twintailed girl through the commute to school and even the classes, a quite (very) distracting phenomenon for the haunted miko. Furthermore, Tsukasa had somehow gotten the tune Konata had been singing the day before stuck in her head, which only served to remind the slightly older twin that neither of the (supposed) mother-daughter duo had told her what a tsundere was (Not to mention that the stupid song is in my head now, too…).

And, despite all efforts, Kagami couldn't think of a good argument against Kanata's ghosthood.

This led the lavender-haired teenager straight into a very bad mood, and her classmates noticed immediately. Both Misao and Ayano fled at the sight of her, which basically forced the miko to eat with her sister. Of course, she normally wouldn't mind, except that she wanted to spend at least a little time with her long-time acquaintances (and nowhere near that otaku).

Nearly everybody in the sparsely packed classroom appeared scared for their life when the door revealed its opener's expression. Even Miyuki flinched at the angry look on Kagami's face as she joined the group for lunch, Kanata following invisibly with a visage showing longing (I'll have to ask about that later).

Then again, Konata simply waved joyfully, licked the chocolate from the large (Head?) end of the cornet, and hummed the same song as before, blissfully unaware of her incoming punishment.

Whack!

"Omph!"

…What? Oh, there's food in her mouth. "That's for not telling me what a tsundere is yet," justified Kagami, a tone of indifference in her voice despite the bulging vein on her forehead.

Then again, this was (Supposedly!) Kanata's daughter; unsurprisingly, she responded as her mother would: in a teasing manner. "Kagami said she wasn't interested, yet she keeps asking. I wonder what it means…"

"Shut up and tell me before I rip your colon out through your mouth."

Tsukasa gasped, as Kagami only made such disturbing comments when she was having a bad day, but the other corporeal table members could not know that. However, before Konata could be warned not to continue, the youngest Hiiragi was drawn into a detailed explanation of why, exactly, the colon couldn't be orally removed without using sophisticated tools.

The long- and blue-haired girl addressed her long- and lavender-haired counterpart's statement by performing some sort of interpretive dance, moving efficiently and quickly enough that she managed to cartwheel over the teacher's resting body before anybody could tell her to stop (Which isn't that surprising considering how quickly she beat that guy yesterday).

"What the hell are you doing?"

More strange movements.

"…I will kick you if this is because I said, 'Shut up and tell me.'"

Konata froze, before frantically making gestures that might be considered apologetic had she not somehow ended up with a foot in Kagami's lap and her face upside down in Miyuki's chest.

Thwhack!

"Gah!"

At this point, Kagami had gotten angry enough that only their table's four and the teacher remained in the room, though the snores now rising from Kuroi-sensei's general direction revealed why she hadn't fled in fear. "Tell. Me. Now."

Tanned skin paled dramatically and, choco cornet forgotten, Konata adopted a strange expression that combined "scared," "thoughtful," and what Kagami thought was-and hoped was not-"turned on." She absently noted that Miyuki was still discussing colons with her sister (How much information does she have stuck in that head of hers?).

Finally, after a brief (unnecessarily extended) wait, Konata answered the question. "Remember what you said yesterday?" The glare she got in return didn't seem to phase the otaku at all, but it was apparently meant to be a rhetorical question. "Even though you said, 'Answer the question!' angrily, your eyes just before were rather vulnerable-though your actual expression hid it well." The last part was tacked on in a low, muttering voice, as if the girl was rather put out with Kagami's superb poker face. "A basic definition of tsundere is that you have a violent, abrasive shell surrounding a sweet, easily embarrassed core that you try to hide. You'll have to wait for the summer course to learn more-I can't just give out free lessons beforehand, you know."

Konata's tone went from serious, to imitating Kagami's voice nearly perfectly (There's no way that's possible…), to reaching something that Kagami wished were teasing but was, perhaps, the most seriously toned part of the entire statement.

Honestly, the twintailed girl had no idea what to attack first-the tsundere definition, the galge class (It's just a joke, right?), or the tiny teenager's head, so-

Whack!

"Ow!"

"Don't force people to enroll in such shady classes without their permission after saying strange things!"

-she just did all of the above.

"It doesn't make any sense," was the conversation starter after Kagami closed her final textbook (At least wait for me to put them away!).

After a few seconds of silence, the miko responded, "Don't make ambiguous statements like that without explaining them, too."

Whatever it was bothered the girl-bound spirit immensely; a deep sadness played around Kanata's eyes, which, as they had all day, glanced around fearfully. "Why did your family see me-and only after nearly fourteen years-while my own daughter can't? For…whoever she worships with that thing around her neck's sake, I shoved her out my-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" a rather flushed Kagami interrupted. "I-is that really the way to talk about your own daughter?"

"You only stutter when you're embarrassed, Kaga-chan," came a halfhearted and obviously automatic reply that concerned its target more than it annoyed her; the ghost never gave up on a teasing opportunity. She sighed when there was no response (She wants me to respond…). "It's…I guess I regret not being there for her…"

Realizing that there were still textbooks to pack, Kagami started on that task (definately not to avoid her eyes). "I'm sure your husband has taken good care of her," was the nonchalant statement from the twintailed girl.

She noticed her mistake during a short pause in which she could practically hear the slightly smug look pulling itself onto Kanata's face. However, when she spoke, an underlying tone of stress still made itself heard. "So you admit that I'm real?"

Wincing, Kagami decided to backpedal a little. "How'd you reach that conclusion?"

"You said, 'your husband.'"

"No, I said, 'her father.'"

"No, you didn't, and how do you explain my concern?"

"You're a good person?" Despite all of her efforts, Kagami's counter still sounded a little like a question; her adversary's smug look ever-so-slightly intensified before it vanished altogether, wholly replaced by the previous anxious one.

"I just don't understand it," she said, hopelessness in her voice again as if the verbal sparring match had not occurred.

Silence reigned in the bedroom as Kagami finished storing her books; she used these seconds to come up with her answer. Finally, she said, "You've been floating around here for most of my life. It's no surprise that somebody noticed you."

"I don't float," Kanata said immediately and arrogantly, as if moving like other ghosts was beneath her. Kagami, though she wouldn't admit it out loud, found herself rather pleased that the worry and sadness from before was mostly faded from her obvious topic change. "I am a respectable spirit who uses her legs."

"Which means you can't float."

"I can too."

"Then get that novel for me."

"I am not your servant!" the royalty-impersonating woman continued. "That is your place! Fetch me that book, you-"

Whack!

"Ow!"

"I'm not your servant either, stupid gho-imaginary friend."

Kanata's face showed glee at Kagami's slip of the tongue (Stupid, stupid, stupid!), but it, too, vanished. This time, however, surprise took its place. "That…that can't be right…" she muttered, staring at her hands as if they hadn't been a part of her body for decades.

"What?" Kagami questioned, doing her best to keep her concern from tainting her voice.

"Tingly."

One word was all it took for the twintailed miko to understand. The unusual pair had discussed the strange "energy" that Kanata claimed allowed her to spend a small section of time away from her worldly tether, Kagami. At one point, Kanata had postponed one of her scheduled visits to her family's house, normally taken every three weeks, and the "energy" had built up over the extra week. The resulting feeling had been described as "tingly," too.

For whatever reason, in less than two weeks, the ghost went from having to practically hug Kagami to not lose "energy" to having more than she ever needed.

"What is happening?" Kanata asked for the second night in a row. No answer came.

AN: Kagami -FS02-: complete!

Well, these last couple of chapters have highlighted a major flaw in my writing style for this 'fic. So far, I basically have most of the major events thought out and written in my head, but nothing that happens between them, the events leading up to them, or the order in which they happen. So, while I have a general idea of where this is going, I still have to figure out how to get there…and I have no GPS.

Anyway, thank you so much for the many reviews, comments, favorites, and follows so far! Here's a preview for the next chapter, Chapter 10, Konata -FS02-:

Next time, in Of Galge and Imaginary Friends, Kagami is missing!

'"Tsukasa," said Konata in the most serious voice she could muster, "I'm going to find Kagami. If I don't come back, tell my father that he's the most despicable type of person for me." I don't take kindly to people messing with my game.'