As I sat by the breakfast table I tried to remember what I had been dreaming of last night. Once every hour I had woken up with my heart beating rapidly, but I simply couldn't recall anything. After almost an hour, Kyouya came into the kitchen, looking a bit sleepily. "Did you stay up all night?" he asked casually, hiding every trace of worry, but I knew he did worry, since he adjusted his glasses, and I decided to forget the whole thing and smiled. "That's a way of saying it," I chuckled, and set a bowl of rice in front of him, just because I felt like doing so, and he looked at me strangely before shrugging his shoulders.
After finishing the meal I went to my room and looked over the plans one last time. I decided to put the pranks aside and try to draw something instead. Lately I hadn't really had much time to draw, and it was killing me. So, after getting all my pencils and paper I skipped out into the garden and sat down by a tree, but unfortunately some of the servants were working there, and I didn't want to trouble them. Besides I didn't really like to draw with so many people I knew around. Therefore I found it best to just walk around in town a bit, and perhaps go to a park later on.
On the way out of the gate I ran into Kyouya's youngest brother. "Oh, gomene," I said quickly, "my bad!" Behind his serious expression I could see a smile in his eyes as he was clearly amused by me. "No, not at all. Where are you going in such a hurry?" "I thought it would be nice to take a walk," I said cheerfully and he nodded, walking past me. I didn't quite get why he suddenly was so friendly with me and talked as much as he just did (a polite reply AND a question!), but after considering the possibilities, I dropped to the conclusion that he had finally decided to open up a bit more, and perhaps he started with me, since he knew that he could trust me. This thought made me really happy, and with one of the brightest smiles on my face I almost danced all the way to town. When I arrived to where there were more people I slowed my pace down a bit, and looked at the shop windows and drew little sketches of things and people I saw.
Then, after wandering around for almost half an hour I sat down on a bench underneath a tree and pulled my jacket tighter around me while watching everything happening around me. Over by a shop I saw a man dressed in the traditional Japanese clothing, and I got the idea of drawing a samurai under an autumn tree. Soon I was so focused on my drawing that I totally forgot about time and place, and I had no idea that by the time I finished I had been sitting there for two whole hours. So I just kept wandering until I stopped by a boutique with some amazing clothes, and what was so strange was that I thought I had seen them before. Curiously, I went though the doors, only to be astonished by all the clothes hanging around the walls, they were all so stylish and expensive-looking. I went over to a row of dresses with silver fabric, embroidered with shining pearls and thread in wonderful patterns.
"Can I help you… sir?" a lady behind me said, and when I turned around I could see she was clearly confused about my appearance. Then I remembered that since I did dress pretty much like a boy and had a short haircut, it might have been strange for her that I looked at dresses, and she couldn't tell my gender. I giggled slightly. "I'm sorry for bewildering you, but I am a miss," I said, trying to hit a relaxed tone so that the lady didn't get too embarrassed, but it didn't work well at all. She started to blush madly and stuttered. "It's all right, I like to be taken as a boy," I said reassuring, "Can you please tell me who designed these clothes?"
Just as she was about to answer, I heard someone talk loudly from the backroom, and in came no one else than Mrs. Hitachiin! "Did I just hear the voice of my great inspiration?" she squealed, and embraced me as she saw it was me, and started to ask all those questions about how I had been, and I replied and returned the questions. Then she presented me to the lady as the one who saved the autumn and winter fashion this year, while I tried to calm her down, but it was extremely hard. And to top it all, her sons just arrived and hugged me in a tight group hug.
When I close to suffocated, they stopped and Kaoru took his mother away from me, and Hikaru showed me around in the shop, and he confirmed that all of them were made from his mother's sketches from the day I had visited them the first time, and I felt quite proud by the fact that I was a part of this. Then my cell phone rang, and Hikaru let me go somewhere private to answer it, which was good since it was one of the members of the Dark Magic Club.
"Walker-sama, I just wanted to make sure you're ready for tomorrow?" "Hai, Nekozawa informed me of everything." "Good. Remember to wear something simple that you can change out of easily." "I understand." The girl in the other end chuckled excited and we both said goodbye. When I got out of the dressing room I had been in, I walked right into the twins, who looked at me suspiciously. Had they been listening? Dang! "Rosemary, is everything all right?" Kaoru asked worried. I nodded and smiled "hai", but the shock of them eavesdropping caused my voice not to sound trustworthy.
Luckily Kyouya called and ordered me to get home, so I managed to escape further questions by pretending that he was mad, and when the boys heard that they let you go at once as their mother had given you a nicely wrapped in present. A mad Kyouya was nothing to play with. It didn't take long to reach the Ootori Mansion and panting, I sat down by the quiet dinner table. Then I took a shower and went into my room.
Then I remembered my drawings, and pulled them out of my bag. The first ones were quite bad, proving that I hadn't been practicing for a while, but then the sketches got better, and finally I came to the samurai under the autumn tree. As I looked closer at the man standing there my eyes widened: I had drawn no one else than Mori!
