Chapter 9

Fuji was quite pleased to say that his Christmas was wonderful, in terms of family and such. Yuuta had been convinced to come home, and although he didn't know what method his mother used, he was to be staying for another week at home before he returned to the dorms. Perhaps it had to do with the pies they had after dinner every night? But since it was nee-san's pies, Fuji could eat them for as long as he wanted. They were just that delicious. It was no wonder that pies would be one of Yuuta's conditions of coming home.

His stomach was pleasantly full from dinner; he was curled up on one end of the couch, huddled under a small blanket. Yuuta was similarly curled up on the other end, TV remote in one hand as he flipped through channels in search of something interesting to watch. Their mother and older sister suddenly walked into the room, in which Yuuta surrendered his channel surfing and Fuji glanced up sleepily to the two female members of his family.

Fuji Yoshiko held a crisp, white envelope in her hand as she positioned herself on the overstuffed armchair next to the couch. Yumiko sat down between her brothers, flashing them a brilliant smile before focusing her attention on her mother. "Do you three have any plans for the New Year's?" Yoshiko started by asking her three children.

Fuji frowned thoughtfully. He had to admit, he had been planning a bit of a get-together with the rest of the regulars so that they could chill and do whatever it was that caught their interest on New Year's. But, now that he put a bit more serious thought into it, it would have been selfish of him to drag everyone away from their families. And, like Inui would be prone to state, the chance that he would succeed would be 4.75%. Being him, he would have loved the challenge of getting everyone to join him, but his mother looked quite expectantly at the three of them and he felt that lately, he had been spending quite a lot of time with his tennis friends (if he hadn't already been in the previous two years).

"I have nothing serious planned," he settled with. Yumiko nodded in agreement; she had no boyfriend to drag her off this year. The one she had had before had been… unfit for her, and after enduring for as long as he could handle, Fuji had disposed of him in his own sadistic tensai-like way.

"I've nothing planned, either," Yuuta piped up. "Did you want to do something, kaa-san?" As long as it didn't involve dragging him to the large department stores when they held their annual year-end sales, he was fine. He most certainly did not relish the thought of getting trampled in a shopping rush.

"Ah… about that," Yoshiko said brightly. Now she held out the envelope. "My company holds an annual New Year's celebration for all the staff and their families. I was hoping we could go; the CEO stated specifically that she would like to meet all three of you."

Here, Yumiko, Fuji, and Yuuta looked surprised. Them? Their mother's boss would like to see them? It was strange. Fuji was about to voice this out loud when his mother cut in to explain.

"The CEO's daughter goes to the same school as you, Syusuke," she stated. Her smile widened in a satisfied mother way. "I've heard some wonderful things from her about you. I'm very pleased to hear that." Fuji chuckled softly, almost in embarrassment. Ah, yes… most of the time mothers could be pleasantly cheerful with good work in school. While he was quite pleased with the praise himself, inside he wondered who this CEO's daughter was. And then he wondered how on earth they knew how he was doing in school. Or maybe that was what a woman's willpower could do. He had once read in one of Yumiko's books that it was quite powerful.

"A setup then, is it?" he teased. Yoshiko frowned slightly, although she couldn't help but chuckle a bit, while Yumiko elbowed him gently in the ribs. "Just kidding, just kidding," he amended. "It'd be cool to see what kind of place kaa-san works at. We've never been there, have we?"

Yumiko shook her head. "Not since kaa-san got the new job as secretary. I'm looking forward to it. What about you, Yuuta?" A muffled 'yes' came from the mass of blankets on the other end, signaling Yuuta's answer. "Well… it's late now," Yumiko murmured with a glance at the clock.

Yoshiko tucked the invitation back into its envelope and stood. "Indeed. Did you finish all of your homework from before break, Syusuke?" Yuuta was half-asleep, so she probably wouldn't get a coherent answer from her youngest. She'd ask him tomorrow, when he was more awake.

Fuji bobbed his head up and down. Most of his teachers had been nice. Only his Classics teacher had decided to pile homework on her class, but he had finished it already. "Is the sky clear tonight?" he suddenly asked.

Yoshiko looked up in surprise from where she was rearranging the blankets around Yuuta's body, having failed to rouse him from sleep and instead deciding to leave him on the couch for the night after she had seen that he was tucked snugly in. Yumiko was halfway out of the living room door, headed for the shower. She now paused and pivoted on her right foot to contemplate her brother and his newest request.

"Yes… I believe the skies are clear tonight," she said. "Why? Do you want to see constellations?"

Fuji gave another nod, stretching and then getting off of the couch. "Yeah," he murmured. "Just let me make a phone call." So saying, he padded past his sister into the hall.

Yumiko's worried voice called after him. "Isn't it a little late to be calling someone to go stargazing with you, Syusuke?" she asked, stepping into the hall, followed closely by Yoshiko. "And it's cold; surely you don't plan on staying outside and watching them. Your room has a skylight, doesn't it?" Of course she knew that his room had a skylight. "You could invite a few friend's over in the next few days and you can see from the skylight. It'll be much warmer."

Fuji smiled brightly, noting that his sister made some good points, although he was stubborn. "Tonight," he said matter-of-factly, picking up the phone from its cradle and dialing in a number.

Yoshiko placed a hand on her daughter's shoulder, giving a small shake of her head. Yumiko sighed in defeat; it looked like she would not be able to shake her brother's decision. She just hoped that whoever he was dialing didn't plan on getting to bed early tonight. When stargazing with Syusuke, he and whoever he dragged along with him usually didn't get back until around midnight.

"Dress warmly," Yoshiko cautioned. Fuji gave an obedient nod. "It's cold outside and I don't want you getting sick. And since you won't be moving much, wear a sweater under your jacket." Yumiko headed upstairs for her shower as she began making her way to the kitchen. Halfway there, she turned around to face him again. "Oh, and don't forget to bring a pair of gloves with you. Your hands will freeze if you don't."

Fuji fought back the amusement in his smile. Trust his mother to still treat him like a small child at times. "Hai, kaa-san," he replied, setting the phone to his ear as he waited for the person he dialed to pick up.

***

"Are you sure you don't want to go?"

Asa heaved a sigh, closing her Chemistry book, leaving the homework page half completed on her desk as she spun around in her chair to glower at her sisters. Both wore pleading expressions on their faces. Both had been asking the same exact question for a solid ten minutes.

"Are you absolutely, positively, sure you aren't going?"

She sighed again, shutting off her lamp. At this rate, Chemistry would have to wait until later. "I don't want to go," she said simply. "Of course, that leaves no doubt that I will be dragged by force over there, so yes, I'll be going. Whether I like it or not."

Both girls brightened up considerably, pouncing on her to give a hug and saying, "Thank you!" before, quite literally, dancing out her bedroom door. Giving the wall directly opposite her open door a scathing look, she stood and headed out of her room, shutting it quietly behind her with the intent of keeping her cat from wandering around. She had planned to give Seika a bath tonight, and her cat hated bathes. This meant that she needed to lock her fluffy companion up until she could guarantee at least an hour of having the bathroom all to herself, in which she could wrestle with the feline and hope to get some part of her fur clean.

Or… the entire bathroom would get wet. Usually, it was the latter of the two that was accomplished.

"Otou-san, Okaa-san, do I have to go?" she nearly whined as she entered the living room, flopping down onto the couch next to her father, who was deeply engrossed in a book of his. "I don't like social gatherings and it's too cold to do anything that even involves poking your head out the door." She hated winter, with all of its long nights and freezing snow, and the blizzards that obscured her view so that all she could see was a furiously moving wall of white.

She preferred spring, when it was warming up but still retained a slight chilliness. She enjoyed the spring rains and the blooming sakura blossoms. Summers got too hot for her likings. Fall was alright, but she didn't like them because they signified the coming winter.

Yes, she did hope spring came soon. Then she wouldn't be freezing half of the time, especially when she was walking to school.

Her father raised an eyebrow at her. "It's an annual thing," he began, frowning as he regarded his daughter with a critical eye. Then he grinned. "You should go! It'll be a fun experience and maybe you'll meet a few nice young men there!" Her head drooped in embarrassment, her shoulders hunched in defeat. There was no escaping anything when he breached the boyfriend subject or anything remotely related to it. Oh, why did she have to have such a person for a father?

"I don't want a boyfriend. I thought I've told you already at least a hundred times," she hissed through clenched teeth, fearful that Kurumi was hiding somewhere close by and listening, her 'Girl's Horoscope Book' close at hand. No, she most definitely did not want Kurumi to be entangled with whatever Kami-sama decided to chuck her way in terms of love and relationships and boys. That would prove… disastrous, seeing as one of Kurumi's newest hobbies was setting up dates for her school friends that were too shy to ask their crushes out. According to Narumi, she acted as a sort of matchmaker at times.

She shuddered inwardly. Scary, she thought, although she had to applaud Kurumi for her supposed matchmaking skills.

"I could implore Kurumi to lend us her skills. That will keep something to occupy your time with. I'm sure you won't be bored." She gaped at him. He must have been joking. He could only have been joking.

It would have been much easier for her to believe that if he didn't have such a serious expression on his face. Asa decided that now was a wonderful time to leave the room.

"I'll go… ah…" Her eyes turned towards the ceiling, as if the perfect excuse to leave was taped up there and all she had to do was read it. At that moment, the phone rang, its shrill ringing tones penetrating the otherwise quiet house. Instantly, she leapt up. "I'll get it!" she said hurriedly before fleeing the immediate vicinity. "Moshimoshi," she spoke into the receiving end of the phone. "This is the Ijuuin residence. Could I ask who is calling?"

"I'm sorry for the disturbance. Is it too late?"

An eerily familiar voice was on the other side of the line, and she blinked in surprise before the name registered in her mind. "Ah! Fuji-kun!" she exclaimed, and then paused, feeling a shiver cruise up and down her body as she pivoted slowly, phone tucked securely between her shoulder and her chin. Both her parents had an I-knew-it look on their faces as they regarded her from the entrance to the living room. She would have gladly moved places, except that their phone wasn't cordless and she couldn't unplug the thing and move at the same time, all the while maintaining a conversation. So she settled with a sulky glare.

On the other end, Fuji must have taken her silence for agreement that it was too late. "I'm sorry," he apologized, and she thought she detected a tinge of disappointment in his voice. "I didn't notice how late it was."

"Iie! It's not too late. Did you want something?" she asked, pointedly turning her back on her smirking father and starry-eyed mother and focusing her eyes on the wall. She had to wonder… they hadn't been assigned any English homework and Fuji normally only called occasionally to ask if he could borrow her dictionary.

"Do you have a couple hours to spare?"

His request caught her off guard, and she was silent for another few moments. "For what?" she asked cautiously.

A light chuckle came from him, and she wondered if she had done anything to anger him in the past three days. That was the only explanation she could come up with for him randomly calling her at a time like this. "Just dress warmly and be ready to leave your house. I'll be over to pick you up in five minutes. Ja!" There was silence, then the steady beeping as he hung up.

She had no choice but to put the phone back into its cradle, and her parents pounced on her like famished wolves who had found a defenseless deer. "Who was it?" her father demanded almost instantly. "Ah, Fuji-kun, was it? The boy with the brown hair and smiling face I met at the parking lot a few days before break?" She nodded, and her mother was suddenly there, demanding to know what he had wanted, to which she could only truthfully say that she didn't know, that he was coming to pick her up in five minutes.

"Aa-chan's never been on a date before," her father mused, frowning slightly. She flushed bright pink and left to dig out her coat and a pair of gloves. Fuji wasn't her boyfriend, and he most certainly was not asking her out on a date. There was simply no way Fuji could be her boyfriend, not when he had so many fangirls who nearly worshipped the ground he walked on. "Be good and don't embarrass yourself!" he called cheekily up the stairs.

In answer, she simply dumped a bottle of shampoo, a few catnip toys, and an assortment of brushes into his arms when she came back downstairs. "Seika needs a bath," she said bluntly. "Thanks." She didn't even bother to see his reaction as she went to the front door, although she could have sworn a predatory smile crossed his face. What a scary father…

The doorbell rang, and she opened the front door to find Fuji, all dressed to brave the cold December night, a long scarf wrapped snugly around his neck. "Saa… are you ready?" he asked lightly. He nodded hello to her father, who gave him a wave in acknowledgement before vanishing into the living room to continue reading his book, most likely planning on putting off Seika's bath until the last minute. Fuji then turned his gaze to her, scrutinizing her appearance. "We'll be walking for a while. Are you sure that's enough?"

"Hai. It can't be too cold outside, can it?" A note of anxiety had crept into her voice as she stepped outside. It's not too bad, she thought as she followed him down the walkway, pausing at the edge of the road to examine the empty street. "Where are we going?" she asked, genuinely curious.

"I'll tell you when we get there." He refused to surrender any more information, so she could only plod along after him as he began making his way down the silent streets.

***

As it turned out, her original opinion about it not being too cold was proved wrong after walking for ten minutes to Fuji's designated spot. The cold wing nipped at her nose and her cheeks, turning them into a pleasant shade of pink. Every few steps she's pause briefly and shiver. Perhaps she should have put on that extra sweater that was lying at the foot of her bed. Then maybe she wouldn't be feeling so miserable right now.

"We're here," Fuji announced. His verbal warning was the only thing that stopped her from running straight into him, as he had stopped and she had been too wrapped up in her own thoughts to notice. Now she took the time and glanced around at her surroundings.

The place wasn't anything particularly eye-catching. Under the light of a few lone streetlamps positioned by the side of the main road, she could see that they were on the grassy slopes of a river. Behind them, the slope went up to meet with the road. Few cars travelled it, so it was relatively quiet. Half of the area was shrouded in gentle black shadows, and having stopped moving, it seemed even colder here than on the trip.

"Have you ever gone stargazing?" Fuji asked innocently. He had moved so that he stood a little ways away from her, his head inclined to the sky as his eyes scanned the heavens. "You can see quite a lot of constellations in December. Have you ever seen Aries?"

She shook her head wordlessly, moving forward so that she stood next to her, tilting her head back to scan the stars as well. To her, they just looked like a scattered mess of tiny pinpricks of light. Frowning, her eyes roved from one star to another, trying and failing to find any grouping of stars that even vaguely resembled a constellation.

Something warm suddenly grabbed her hand, and her arm was raised upward so that it pointed at the sky. "See; right there," Fuji said patiently, controlling her hand and pointing it at a star. "See that big star right there? It's called Hamal, and it's in Aries' forehead." He then proceeded to use her hand and point to the rest of the stars that made up that constellation, until she had a slight picture of it in her mind.

"And over there is Perseus, a Greek hero," Fuji continued, the same patient tone in his voice. Not relinquishing his hold on her hand, he continued to use it to point at the stars. "Do you see it, now?" he asked, after he had helped her trace it. Her response was a barely audible "Ah," and he gave a satisfied nod, letting go of her hand to see if he could locate any more constellations.

"My favorite one is Pisces. It's a pity we can't see it in December." He let out a soft sigh. "A real pity… it was just out last month, too."

Asa furrowed her brow as she gazed upwards, her eyes tracing the stars that formed Aries. "Pisces is the Fishes, right?" she asked. A nod came from her companion as she tried to remember what some of the constellations looked like. She remembered reading a book on it once. "I suppose my favorite one would be…" she paused as she thought. "I suppose it would be the Phoenix. It looked nice in the book…" She trailed off, a thoughtful expression on her face. "I wonder when you can see that one…"

"That one's in November, as well."

"Ah… is it? I'd love to see it personally."

"It's actually not that bad of a constellation. A little tricky to find, though," Fuji murmured. "Aa-chan, may I ask something?"

"Go ahead."

"Why did your dad look so happy when I came over?" She swore there was a teasing note in his voice. He was laughing at her. Wonderful.

"Um… about that…" she sighed miserably, "I'd rather not get onto that topic," she finally admitted.

A few poorly muffled laughs came from the genius as he tucked his gloved hands into his pockets. "Your father wants you to get a boyfriend, doesn't he?"

She glared sideways at him. "What on earth gave you that idea?" she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. When she returned her gaze to the sky, her dark mood only darkened when she found that she had lost the position of Aries and Perseus. Was she such a bad student that she forgot things in the space of three minutes?

"Aries is right there." She jumped when Fuji's voice spoke in her ear and his arm suddenly appeared in her field of vision, pointing to a star. "Remember? That's Hamal, its forehead." He turned to look at her, noting her pink cheeks and that half-smile that was present on her face when she relocated the constellations. "You need to get out more in the winter," he stated quietly. "The cold makes you look nicer."

"Hmm…?" Startled, she turned her gaze to him, and he turned his away. His eyes were open in a mixture of puzzlement. He honestly had no idea why he had said it… it just, slipped out on its own accord.

The only problem was that Fuji didn't believe that things like that happened. He believed that conscious thought drew out every sentence that any person said.

So he would be lying to himself if he said that it had come out on its own.

Clearing his throat, he turned back to her, thankful that the lamplights weren't strong enough to reveal his face in stark clarity. "Saa… it's getting late. We should go back; do you have a curfew?"

She laughed lightly, seeming to have forgotten his previous statement, a fact of which he was glad. "If I had one, I wouldn't have been able to come in the first place," she said breezily, although she turned herself away from the river and started trudging up the slopes. Fuji followed after a few seconds of hesitation.

"Ne, Aa-chan," he mused when he had walked her to her doorway. She cocked her head at him, her hand pausing on the doorknob. "Thanks for coming with me. We should do it again, sometime, ne?"

She considered his offer for a minute before nodding, although looking very serious. "Kindly pick a warmer month, then, Fuji-kun," she stated. "Aries was wonderful, but it is freezing to stand in one spot for a long period of time."

"If you say so." He nodded goodbye and gave her a simple smile before heading off toward the warmth of his own home, and she let herself into her quiet house, mentally bracing herself for any onslaught that might come at her. None came, and she toed off her shoes before stepping into the front hall, shrugging out of her coat and hanging it up in the closet while tossing her gloves into the small box placed on the floor. Vaguely, she wondered if her father gave Seika the needed bath.

On the way to her room and her bed, she happened to glance at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks were still pink. It's from the cold, she said to herself fervently. It was from the cold; nothing more.

'You need to get out more in the winter. The cold makes you look nicer.'

Her cheeks flushed into a deeper shade of red and she practically flew into her room, shutting the door behind her and heaving a sigh, sinking down into a sitting position and drawing her knees up into her chest. Why do I care about it? He probably just thinks that my health is poor or something or that I'm too pale normally. Which it was, truly, but still…

A book was lying open on her desk, and when she straightened up and saw it, she automatically drew it towards her. To her dismay, it was a horoscope, but she decided to read it nonetheless. 'Your new year will be full with a myriad of conflicting feelings,' it read. She groaned to herself, rubbing her frigid hands together in an attempt to warm them.

"Sleep," she commanded to herself, finding a pair of pajamas and slipping out of her regular clothes to don the comfy sleepwear. "Sleep and think of it tomorrow." She climbed almost gratefully into her bed and snuggled down, drawing the covers tightly around her small self, wishing that her nest would warm up more quickly. Something fluffy nudged her leg as she started to slip off to sleep, and she concluded in what consciously awake part of her brain that it was Seika trying to make herself comfortable on the mattress without the fear of getting squished by her owner should said girl decide to toss and turn during the night.

For now, life was good. She didn't have to worry about boys named Fuji or strange sentences that could have multiple meanings. She didn't have to worry about horoscopes that predicted the coming year.

Life was good when you were falling asleep.