Chapter 10

La Justice Part Two

Minato sighed, patting Chihiro's long, silky brown hair as the timid treasurer pounded on Minato's door repeatedly in vain. The poor girl trembled and a tear leaked out from the corner of her eye. It was cute, Minato admitted. But their current predicament was not the right call to compliment a girl now, apparently.

The two were locked. In his room. Alone together.

And Minako's booming laughter from the other side of the door made it worser.

"Woot! Go on baby brother, continue the crusade!" followed by a long string of encouraging words that would make a harlot blush.

"No! Let me out, Minako-Senpai!" she panicked.

Chihiro yelped when he touched her shoulder and Minato held up his hands in a placating motion, trusting Chihiro's judgment that he wouldn't do anything. Minato was traumatized enough by Mitsuru's means of asserting orderly behaviour that he wouldn't risk his life on the line. Again.

Besides, Chihiro was one of the people whose trust he valued. Knowing that Chihiro has a phobia for men yet she willingly visited him, in his room, right after Minako gave her a call that he was sick made it worthier. In the beginning of their relationship, it took him a good half of a month just to get her to talk with him and they had gone a long way to get to the point of visiting casually.

"You're safe with me," he rasped, tucking brown hair to her ear. The tips of Chihiro's ears went red mysteriously. Hmm...

"Either way, we still have to wait until my evil twin from hell got bored and turn over the key-" Chihiro chuckled.

"-So let's not waste our breath and relax." The Treasurer nodded, hiding a laugh with the back of her hand and sat on the only chair of the room. Her presence of mind apparently returned and Minato felt humbled by the display of trust. A feather-light feeling caressed his chest and he could feel the link that connected them through his mind. The Justice rotated calmly.

Minato piled up the pillows to create a makeshift fort around his bed. "This is my area. You may not pass this point, young lady."

Peals of laughter filled the room and Chihiro wiped her eyes, "No, hahaha. Sorry for panicking earlier, Minato-san. I... trust you," the last syllable was said in a soft voice that Minato might not heard it if only they weren't alone.

"...Thank you," the heartfelt genuineness startled Chihiro and she looked away from the blue-haired senior's warm molten grey eyes. There was too much truth injected within those words.

SIlence passed between them for a moment and Chihiro scrambled for something to do when she remembered something she bought in the used book store. Minato watched her with curious eyes as she presented a manga book to him.

"I don't know if you remember, but this manga was done by the same artist who drew the illustration collection I wanted back in the used book store," she explained as Minato's long fingers turned the thin paper sheet by sheet.

Minato mused, "This is the first shoujo manga I read,"

"Really? I thought you're the type that reads anything, Minato-san."

"True, I am. But this really is the my first read of a shoujo manga." His eyebrow rose, "The boobs are bi-"

"Hwaaa! Don't say it out loud with me here!" Chihiro yelled as she cupped her ears. Minato howled out a laugh but was interrupted by his incessant cough. He snickered as Chihiro pouted.

Minato closed the manga book and turned to Chihiro's direction. He scratched his left cheek, "Well, do you want to know why Minako said 'continue the crusade'?"

Chihiro blushed like a ripe tomato, "W-why t-then?"

Minato smiled, expecting Chihiro's reaction. But the actual history was much different from what she visioned, probably. He decided to be as honest as he can. Then, Minato inhaled and exhaled, throwing his mind back to a particular remembrance and warping it in pretty words.

Entrusting a piece of their past in Chihiro's hands, disguised as a fairytale.

"There was a book we read once, it was a picture book for children," Minato started and Chihiro's attention focused on him. Minato coughed once to his hand, sounding so serious that Chihiro chuckled.

"So, once upon a time the world began with two opposing forces," Chihiro smiled, wondering why the beginning sounded so cliché.

"Born in the axis of the world, Darkness and Light co-existed together, watching over the world for centuries and arrived in a country which was littered by death and fire. The people of the country disappeared one another after Darkness and Light resided over them, so the people-" his throat constricted.

"-prayed for Darkness and Light to be casted away and fearing the rage of the people, Darkness and Light left the country. They eventually found another country, but the cycle repeated for every few centuries."

Chihiro frowned, "Aren't they lonely?"

"...Yes, they were lonely," Minato nodded, "Then, Darkness and Light grew tired and they promised one another. That they shall crusade the world together and made contract with as many humans as they could find,"

He shakily said the last few words. "So that even if one of them disappear, the other half would never be lonely again."

But then, he smiled. "In the final country they crusade to, in a country where the people was ravaged by humanity's bleakest despair, they accepted both deities as one and-"

Minato took another breath, "-the kindness of the people bloomed the true future, colouring the world. They tied Darkness and Light together..."

"...And changed the sorrowful end the story had into a tale of possibility." He finished.

Chihiro said nothing, did nothing and kept still long after Minato slept and Minako turned over the key, freeing her. She stopped near Minato's bed before she went home and adjusted his blanket while his twin grinned behind her shoulder. Minako apologized for her prank and told Chihiro to 'rotate the watchkeeper'.

Before she closed the door, she saw Minako coaxed her brother to wake up with caring gentleness and spoon-fed the chicken soup Shinjiro-senpai prepared.

As she landed her body in her single bed, Chihiro grasped a hand against her chest through the soft material of her pyjamas. She wanted the intensified feeling to settle down. It was piling up in the back of her heart.

A book, titled Shirokuro, authorized by a literature undergraduate student was published five years later.

Author Note:

Shirokuro (白黒) means Monochrome.