Sitting in the Shinozaki household's living room, Yoshiki took deep breaths like Hinoe instructed him to, however that wasn't the only reason the former blonde was breathing so heavily. Besides the fact that he was in extreme pain that seemed to only get worse, Ayumi was leaning over him in a very suggestive manner, although he knew it was needed to treat whatever spiritual poisoning he had. Next to him, Satoshi was holding his sister in an attempt to comfort her.
Truthfully speaking, he was beyond disturbed by what had happened in Mayu's apartment, but he wouldn't show it in front of everyone else. It wouldn't be fair of him to show his weakness when they all went through the same thing, or at least that's what he thought.
Ayumi finished her work and sat down on the other side of him, letting out a huge sigh of relief. "Thank goodness...you'll be alright, Kishinuma. The poisoning wasn't as serious as we thought. You should feel lucky."
Yoshiki grinned. "Yeah? I guess I should, huh? By the way, what is spiritual poisoning anyway?" Ayumi sat up and turned a bit to face him, and Satoshi looked in their direction as well out of curiosity.
"Well...it's basically like being infected with evil, in a way. Luckily, Suzumoto's hatred wasn't enough to do serious damage to your body." Ayumi stood up and walked out of the room, looking for her sister to let her know about Yoshiki.
His grin falling, Yoshiki frowned instead, his head still hurting a bit. "You sure you're alright?" He heard Satoshi say. "Yeah, just...I don't know. Hold on, I got to take this call, it's from work." Standing up, Yoshiki walked out of the room, but first stepping aside to let Naomi in.
Naomi sat down next to Satoshi and closed her eyes, leaning on his shoulders. Satoshi froze; he didn't know exactly how to respond to Naomi's forwardness. It was different, to say the least. "Naomi..." She wrapped her arm around his and pulled it close, ignoring the growing redness on his face. "Satoshi...when we got out, I...I wasn't sure if you had..."
Tears were threatening to spill at the corners of Naomi's eyes. Wordlessly, Satoshi put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her in for a tight hug.
"Naomi," he tilted her chin up at him, "I'm alright. I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere. It's okay, everything's over now." Giving her a soft smile, he waited until she returned it and held her against his chest.
Even though he was sure Naomi could hear his heart beating a thousand miles a second, he knew that there was no way he could stop it. They had already graduated from high school, but he hadn't confessed to her, telling himself that it was alright to wait because they still kept in touch and lived near each other. Satoshi knew that this was a pathetic attempt at hiding his cowardice, but he was fine with it since Naomi hadn't really shown much interest in him anyways.
"Am I interrupting something?" Satoshi looked up to see Seiko smiling suggestively. Naomi shot up from his arms and began fervently denying anything happening between the two of them, but it was clear that Seiko wasn't listening to her. She walked over and plopped herself right next to Naomi and threw her arm around the brunette's shoulders, grinning. "My dear Naomi, no need to fuss over it! I know what really going on~!" Still, Naomi shook her head.
Shaking his head at their antics, Satoshi walked out of the room to check up on Yoshiki. "Yoshiki?"
Standing near the front door, the former blond had a troubled look on his face, frowning at his phone, but he looked up when Satoshi called out to him. "Yeah?"
"Nothing really, just checking to see if you're alright since you know your head is messed up," he explained, leaning next to his friend on the wall.
"Oh, well I'm fine, thanks," Yoshiki replied. Satoshi watched him mess around with his phone for a bit before frowning and shoving it in his pocket. "So what was that phone call about?"
"Huh? Oh, I was asked to do an extra shift next week." He replied, still frowning. Satoshi raised an eyebrow. "Is that why you're frowning?" Eyes widening a little, Yoshiki wiped the frown off his face in favor of a blank stare.
"No...I got another phone call right after from Miki. She's just been having a few troubles with the apartment searching so I was thinking about letting her move in with me...but I don't know." Yoshiki ran his hand through his dark hair in frustration.
"That is a problem. Sorry, I don't really have advice for you. But for now, why don't we go back and sit down? I'm sure Shinozaki won't be too happy about you moving around so much," Satoshi grinned. Blushing at the mention of the short girl's name, Yoshiki followed Satoshi towards the living room and sat down on the couch, smiling at Naomi and Seiko's antics.
Hinoe shut the heavy book she was holding closed, sighing loudly as she did so. Misuto sat in the chair next to her's, sleeping quietly. They had started looking into the incident at Mayu's apartment the day after it had occurred, and that was a week ago. However, they hadn't been able to find anything very useful to their cause.
Suddenly, Misuto shot up from his seat and stood up. "Hinoe. Let's go," he grabbed her hand and began pulling her towards the door.
"Wh-What? Misuto, where are we going?" Hinoe questioned, but the man in front of her ignored her question in favor of throwing open the door and pushing Hinoe into his car.
As they began driving off, Misuto began explaining. "Listen, Hinoe, I thought about it and I have an idea about what set off that spiritual shit in that chick's apartment." He watched Hinoe frown for a moment.
"Don't curse like that," she hit his arm playfully. "Does your idea have anything to do with dimensions?" Silently, Misuto nodded. Hinoe's face turned grim at his confirmation; if the both of them were only able to come up with an idea about dimensions, then that meant...
"Misuto, I mean it this time when I ask you not to do anything rash. Don't do anything alone, please," she begged.
The car came to a stop and Misuto turned to face her. "I know that. Damn it, Hinoe, I already know that!" He watched her blue eyes widen in surprise and instantly regretted raising voice at her.
"Misuto, what's wrong?"
He shook his head at her. "It's nothing. Just...this time we might not be able to just decide that something is rash and not do it. Because maybe that's the right thing to do." He took a deep breath and started the car again, heading towards their destination. He hoped that Hinoe would take a hint and not try and further the conversation.
He didn't need her knowing about Heavenly Host, after all.
A/N: Aahh, it's been so long since I updated and I planned to do it before the end of 2014, but it's too late for that. Woops. Anyways, umm I wasn't entirely sure about this chapter...I had a bit of writer's block and had to come back and delete and rewrite things multiple times *sigh* so much work...But it IS finally here! And I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and are still reading the story because I will NOT be giving up on it. Like ever.
