CHAPTER ELEVEN


Souichi hadn't moved from the spot on the couch since that morning, not until he heard the door opening and the familiar voice of his little sister shout, "I'm hoooommmeee!"

He stood up as she came into the room, after discarding her shoes. He saw her blink at him.

"Welcome home Kanako..." but his voice was weary and cracked. Matsuda-san had tried her best to get him to eat something, and though he'd taken a nibble of two off a piece of toast, it had tasted like cardboard.

Kanako continued to stare at him wide-eye'd. She was quite an intuitive young lady. "Nii-san... is something wrong?"

The blond sighed as he sat back where he'd been, "You might...want to sit down..."

Kanako hearing that frowned and hesitantly sat down. She didn't like where this was heading, it meant something terrible had happened. However until she knew what there was nothing she could say or do to help her big brother Souichi. "What... is it?" her voice wobbled slightly.

"Morinaga's plane... yesterday it crashed."

Kanako's eyes widened in shock, "What!? I didn't know that. I had heard about a plane crashing, but Morinaga-san was on it?"

He could only manage to nod his head once. It was even difficult to talk about, but not as difficult as it would have been yesterday or even earlier that day.

"Is he okay?" The question his sister asked was the one he wanted to know the most, because there had been no body found, but the people had presumed him dead. Yet none of them on the plane had been doctors. They probably hadn't even taken the time to check his pulse, too worried about their own safety, acting like moronic cowards.

"Nii-san?" He heard his sisters voice again, this time with an anxcious inflection to it. Taking a deep breath he looked up from the floor into her eyes.

"I don't know Kanako." He watched her grow pale, he realized then that she'd been even more attached to Morinaga than he'd ever imagined, accepting him easily as part of their family. Yet to think of him as that himself, he didn't have time to dwell on that, so he pushed it to the back of his mind.

"Was he the one who..." her choked breath at even the possibility stopped her from finishing the question, but when he nodded she broke into a cry. "That's terrible!" Her eyes, Souichi noticed were turning red and tears began to fall unceremoniously down her face as she leaped up and wrapped her arms around him.

Souichi, "There might still be a chance that he's...still alive."

Kanako backed away a little and stared at her big brother, "Really?"

"They never found a body, and you've said before that he's skillful haven't you?" He didn't like to see his little sister cry, especially when it involved the possibility of someone who'd been a part of their lives for so long being gone -– forever.

Kanako took a deep breath and nodded, "That's right! He is skillful, he must have gotten himself to safety..." she tilted her head to one side, hand over her mouth, "but where?"

"That's the thing, no one knows, but I'm going to find out... somehow." He just needed to acquire the funds to go search himself. He had no faith in the search team what-so-ever, not after the flight tower and their pilots themselves had failed to keep everyone safe.

Kanako having that hope still in her heart was able to eat dinner later that night. While Souichi didn't eat nowhere near as much as usual, he did manage to get a few small portions down before having an early night at Matsuda-san's. She'd insisted on him staying there the night, and it had been easier, because if he went back to the apartment he'd feel doubly lonely.

He was too exhausted for more tears, to the point where he fell into a very deep sleep, far beyond the point where dreams or nightmares could reach him and for that he was thankful. In the morning he'd put in a leave of absence, he was sure the University would understand, though him doing so was very unusual, but this was a special case.


As the sunlight hit his eyes of the brunette laying in the hospital bed, he grunted as he went to turnover. However as he did so, he stilled as pain shot up through his leg. Gritting his teeth, he didn't dare move for several moments, before slowly shifting himself. He'd hit it against a bar, but just then a doctor came in to tell him he was going to be released shortly and that a couple police were outside the door to question him.

"Let them come in, I'll talk to them while you prepare the paperwork for my discharge... but is Junya Masaki okay?"

The doctor nodded, "He's fine." The doctor wouldn't reveal anything more than that, but it still offered Kunihiro relief.

As the doctor left the room, the police officers entered the room.

"You're Morinaga Kunihiro, correct?" Asked one of them, while the other held a clipboard and a pencil to note their conversation.

"Yes, that's me. Son of Morinaga Ichiro and Kunihko." They asked him what had happened the night before and he told him what he had seen. Three men had been carrying the body of Junya Masaki, and he'd noticed him struggle, but he was sure they'd either put something over his nose or had hit him to knock him out. It had been dark, but he'd at least seen their faces under the street light as he'd gotten closer. He tried to describe them in as good a detail as possible.

"Thank you for your time Morinaga. We'll be speaking with Junya as well so that we can make sure the person we caught fits both of your descriptions and if so hopefully he'll help us get the other two."

Kunihiro just nodded in response to that, "I hope so too." It was a lucky thing he thought, that after they'd left his discharge papers had gone through and he was walked out to a cab, after receiving crutches. They were slightly uncomfortable, but it wasn't like he didn't know how to use them, though it had been quite some time since he'd ever had a need for such things.

He gave the cab driver directions to the University that his brother had been attending before the incident, because he didn't know where else to find his Senpai that he was quite certain was his partner.

Stepping out of the cab, he looked around. Now he just had to figure out where he could find Tatsumi.