Hello everyone! ^^ It's whitedove (finally). Uhm, I'm pretty aware that a lot of people would like to throw a basket of gooshy tomatoes and, if you've watched the news, cantaloupes, at me. ^^; Ahahaha… Yes, so call me a liar if you will (since I said I'd be updating more frequently since the start of school). Forgive me! Anyhoo, I'm taking too much space, so here… oh, and I will continue the previous fluff later. Uh… I think fluffs are difficult…
And this is about Maiko and Hoshino when they first meet Anzu… it'll be in two parts, cuz it came out longer than I expected… ^^;;;
Chapter 13: Maiko Anzu
Maiko.
Maiko.
"Maiko, are you listening to me?"
The little girl with the amethyst eyes peeked through a curtain of dark hair and squinted at the woman who hovered above her with a pair of gleaming scissors. Maiko squinted at her in annoyance. "God, Mom!" she said, while wincing at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, "can we stop with these hair extensions? They're a pain in the butt." She puffed angrily at the strands tickling her nose.
Hotaru beared down and dropped the scissors on Maiko's head. It looked like an ordinary pair of scissors, but despite this, it sprouted tiny chrome legs and arms and crawled in and out of Maiko's hair and snipped away at an amazing speed.
Thin, dark slices and strands drifted to the floor as Maiko gripped the chair and bit her lip to prevent from crying out. While this was going on, Hotaru crossed her arms and leaned on the counter. She scrutinized Maiko severely.
"You're very bad at covering your trails," Hotaru said as the animated scissors hopped off Maiko's locks and folded itself by the sink. She smirked when Maiko hung her head, as she had a good idea what her mom was referring to. "Did you purposely army crawl under the fence just to get the previous extensions out?" Hotaru laughed ruefully as the shampoo cape around Maiko's neck untied and threw itself into the corner. "What lengths you go to escape this!"
The little girl furiously shook her head and snippets of hair showered the ground. "Ugh, Mom! You are so annoying! Can't you just leave me alone already? " she said in disgust as she slipped off the cushioned chair and slunk away to her bedroom.
"Call me whatever you'd like," Hotaru called back, not looking up from her cleaning of the hair on the ground. "Oh yes, don't forget that tomorrow is Mikan and Natsume's Christmas party. You must wear that dress I bought you last week!"
"Nooo!" her daughter yelled back. "I'm not going! And I don't want to wear that thing!"
"You have to!"
"I won't!"
"Yes, you will, because I will tie you to a chair and put it on you!"
"Well, then I'd use my Alice to manipulate you and get what I want! To not go to the party at all!"
"If that's the case, then I'd put my Alice-nullifying-ultra-shiny-and- mega-big helmet on you, and I'd change your extensions to platinum blonde and I might as well throw in some doll-like curls!"
There was a loud gasp from the other end of the hall. "You wouldn't!"
"Don't you know your own mother? Of course I would!"
"Noo!"
Hoshino kicked open his bedroom door with a bang. "Shuddap, you two!" He glared at Maiko, whose room was next to his. "Give in, Imouto! Sheesh, you can't beat Mom. Ever."
Maiko leapt on him like a ravenous wolf and beat him with her fists. "Don't call me Imouto, you pig face!" Hoshino yelled at Hotaru to do something while he fended off a vicious and nearly foaming little sister.
"Hey, stop it now! You need to act refined!" Hotaru scolded, grabbing Maiko by the hood of her baggy sweatshirt and lifting her up with surprising strength. While Maiko flailed and screeched in midair, Hotaru glanced at Hoshino and said calmly, "You should get stronger so you won't get repeatedly beat up by your sister…" Hoshino took this hardly and sat there speechless while Hotaru, with Maiko dangling from her right fist, glided down the hall and a set of steps.
Maiko was thrown onto the bar stool at the kitchen counter across from Hotaru's seat in front of the stainless steel sink. She glared at her mom from behind her newly trimmed bangs.
"So," her mom said as two cups of steaming maccha and a plate of rice crackers waddled and planted themselves before the two, "this Christmas party is very important to Okaa-san, okay? I want you to appear your best because Natsume and Mikan are two very good friends of mine."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Maiko mumbled with a mouthful of cracker. "You're weird. If they want to see me, they should just see the real me, not the me with.. With a weird dress on!" She shivered and swallowed down some hot tea.
Hotaru hit her daughter's head with a bundle of green bananas.
"Ow! That was mean, Mom!"
Hotaru ignored this and continued on with what she was saying. "I'm not sure if I told you this before, but my friends have a child about the same age as you and Hoshino, so I already made the decision that you would befriend them…"
"What! Mom, why?"
Hotaru smiled strangely and dipped a rice cracker into her tea until it got soft, then popped it into her mouth. "Hmm… just a thought. You'll understand when you meet them."
"Mom, them? What are you hiding?"
"Wow, I never thought that rice crackers and maccha went so perfectly together…"
"Hey, answer my freaking question!"
Snow sprinkled lightly from the gray, gray sky as Luca maneuvered the family car, a black SUV, out of the driveway which was slowly piling up with white fluffy snow, the kind that's perfect for making snowballs.
"Take that, yaaah!"
"Owch!" yelled Hoshino, bringing up his left arm in time to block the next round of icy balls. "Hey, that's cheating!" He quickly shoveled some wet snow into his bare, pink hands. "Come back here!"
Maiko dashed off and hid behind one of the pine trees and screamed when Hoshino pursued her, then they exchanged snow hurls and each kid was equally cold and wet, but it was a snowy Christmas, and that was what mattered the most.
Luca slammed the driver's side door of the still-running car. Hotaru appeared beside him from the passenger side. She shivered in a thick pea coat jacket and cream-colored crocheted scarf.
"Ahh, it's nice to be lively and young, isn't it, Hotaru?" Luca sighed, and a puff of steam bloomed around him from his mouth.
Hotaru lightly punched him and hid a grin with one mittened hand. "What, are you getting senile already, ya old man?"
Luca frowned and looked down at his wife. "Hey…" Obviously, the treatment of dominant female to lesser male runs in the family, as illustrated in Maiko's rule over Hoshino…
"Guys, the car's warm already!" Hotaru called. She waved at the kids with both arms.
Hoshino dropped the snow in his hand and picked off the crusted snow on his jacket sleeves. "Coming!" he yelled back. He began to hustle over to their parents.
His lovely sister eyed him evilly and managed to squeeze in another snowball as they were running back.
"Hey!"
"You love me!" Maiko laughed crazily when Hotaru whipped out some bathing towels and rubbed the two kids dry.
"Jeez, you two had a lot of fun, didn't you?"
Maiko and Hoshino laughed and began a poke war between them.
Luca got into the car and waited as Super Mom Hotaru helped the kids into the tall seats. The doors slammed and everyone was in. Some music, chosen by Hotaru, of course, began to play. The car trip to Natsume and Mikan's house began successfully!
While the car merged onto the highway, Hoshino patted the top of Maiko's head. "I forgot to say it, but you look pretty today."
Maiko stared at him. Then she bit his hand.
"Owch." Hoshino only winced. He was used to this kind of treatment.
She smoothed out the dress she was forced to don today of all days… It was a mint green, with plenty of black lace and ribbons, and it would look good on some of the girls she played with at grade school in her first grade class, Apple 3, but it appeared strange on herself... or so she thought. Maiko took off her black beret and breathed a sigh of relief since her head was overheating from the hot air blasting from the vents at the front of the car.
"Hoshino, I'm bored. Do something fun."
"Huh?"
"You need help back there?"
"No, I got it, Mom!"
"Maiko, yaah, why'd you bite me? Ahhh, look at it now, it's bleeding!"
"Nee, nee, make some Nintendo DSs and some Pokemon games or something!"
"Fine, geez.."
Hoshino lifted up the finger that balanced a delicate bead of scarlet blood. He then blew on it and out grew some DSs with games already inside them. The objects fell into Hoshino and Maiko's laps. Luca frowned.
"Oh guys, if you always do that, there's no point to Christmas," he complained. Hotaru laughed so hard. Maiko and Hoshino ignored his lengthy explanation of the meaning of exchanging gifts between people, and instead the two kids argued about who was going to catch the most Pokemon…
The car rolled to a stop at their destination: a decent sized creamy white house with a cute balcony and snow-dusted windows. Hotaru peeked at the kids in the back seat and she smiled at the picture they would make. Hoshino and Maiko were sleeping and using each other's shoulders as pillows. Hotaru smirked and one of her gadgets floated out of her pocket and snapped a quick photo. Luca looked at her questioningly and Hotaru giggled to herself.
"For blackmailing," she said with a devious gleam in her eyes. Luca face-palmed and felt pity for what was to come…
Luca lifted the drowsy kids out of the car into his arms and together the family of four walked up to the house. Hotaru pushed her finger onto the doorbell.
"You!" Mikan screeched when she saw who was standing at her doorstep. She glomped Hotaru and the two women fell to the ground and were covered in snow. Mikan began to cry tears of joy and tears of pain. "Owch, it hurts…" She sniffled and wiped her eyes. "Oh, it has been so long! Are these… your childrens?" Her mouth hung open as she gawked at little Hoshino and Maiko in Luca's embrace. "Waaa, they are so cute, oh.."
Hotaru lightly slapped Mikan's face with both hands. "Can we please, please, come in now? They're sleepy and we're cold." Luca laughed at this and waved at Natsume who hovered awkwardly in the kitchen with a very tall Tono and other old classmates.
Mikan's head bobbed as she let the family into their warm home full of laughter and food and friends. Some classmates yelled as they spotted the couple dusting snow off their shoes and pounced on them with bubbly remarks and large glasses of eggnog and ale and beer…
"So cute!" Sumire squeaked as she pinched Maiko's nose. Maiko looked at her sleepily and yawned widely. Everyone watched and aww'd at the two kids.
Mikan and Natsume tried to peek through the large crowd around Luca and the children. Hotaru helped herself to some piping hot chicken and watched as Luca was helplessly harassed by all the people. Natsume sighed and walked until he stood before a tiny girl and scooped her up into his arms. "Move aside, everyone," he said and the people split apart respectfully. He exchanged a grin with his daughter in his arms. "Say hi, will you?"
A pair of brown eyes stared at Maiko and Hoshino. "Hello," Anzu said shyly, and she buried her face into her dad's chest in embarrassment.
A general sound of "aww" rippled through the crowd, and then it quickly thinned and everyone resumed their previous spots, laughing and chatting loudly and happily.
"Thanks, man," breathed Luca, and he finally set down Maiko and Hoshino. His arms hurt… his kids were heavy now that they had grown so much, and he hadn't worked out in a long, long time, despite being slightly muscular.
"No problem…" his comrade sighed, and he scratched his head as he had woken up earlier than usual to power-clean the house and help out Mikan with the food.
Natsume and Luca stared at one another as if absorbing how much older they looked since they last met. Then they broke into simultaneous laughter.
Anzu was set gently on the ground and Natsume kneeled before her. "Go play with Luca-jiichan's kids, okay?" he whispered. "They look nice, what do you think?"
She smiled in reply, and two dimples appeared on her cherub face. Anzu chirped, "Yep, they look nice. Bye Papa!" And off she dashed off in the direction Maiko and Hoshino went.
Mikan joined Hotaru, who was in the process of devouring a plate loaded up with chicken, bread rolls, and miscellaneous foods. "Having fun?" she laughed as Hotaru shoveled food into her mouth. Her unladylike eating had still not changed since she married the delicate Luca. Hotaru leveled her eyes with Mikan's and she nodded.
"Yes, very much so," she said jauntily, and she tore a roll to pieces with just her teeth.
Christmas was just beginning that day.
It's finally done! Well, just this half... ^^; Argh. I'll make sure to type the next half some time... hahahaha.. ^^;;
I like this story line, so I won't abandon it and you guys won't be mad at me.. ToT
Anyhoo, I'd just like to say, if you peoples want some updates on how the story's going and extra important (not really) stuffs, then check out my profile. ^o^ Until next time, my hot char siu baos! X3