"For you acting as a meat-shield for 500 students... all they gave you was a picture in the newspaper and a handshake from the mayor?"
"Director Ryan was there too, from the CCG, since the men were apparently going vigilante for a Ghoul in the school. He shook my hand and made a joke about what I did." Tobias spared the front page image of his handshake with the mayor a glance before returning to searching his backpack for his homework.
"Still..." Alice pursed her lips. "You deserved more than that, in my opinion."
"Not all of the bullets hit my vest, you know." Tobias smirked. He may be bulletproof, but he was still able to feel where they struck him. "It's enough, based on what the humans interpreted to be truth."
"Well... if you put it that way..." Alice sighed. "Anyway, I'm doing the final arrangements on Wednesday for our vacation. Other than the two of us, it'll be Serenity, Rize, Kaneki, Tabitha, Hinami, and Dakota. Sounds good?"
"Dah, sounds good." Tobias extracted his homework and put the papers onto his desk. "Out of curiosity, do you have any sort of hunting weapons at that cabin?"
"No, legally can't do that. Have to bring them with me. Why?" Alice regarded her son shrewdly. "Unless you're planning to get a hunting license in... 5 days." Alice checked her phone for the date. "I don't have much faith in you, sorry."
"No, I was just curious. It's a weekend to relax, I'm not even bringing any of my guns." Tobias sat at his desk and began to twirl a pen in his left hand.
"Yeah... Canadian firearms laws are... strict." Alice nodded slowly. "Like, really, really strict."
"Well ain't that a bitch." Tobias commented as he stopped twirling the pen, catching it at the perfect moment to properly grip it for writing. "Oh well. How long are we staying?"
"Friday afternoon to Sunday evening. If all goes well, we'll be back by midnight that night." Alice replied. "We're driving this time. Nevada was on business, so we got the jet that time."
"Fair enough." Tobias nodded as he glanced at his homework. "Anything else before I start my homework?"
"Do it right." Alice winked cheekily as she left, bringing the newspaper with her.
The weekend didn't arrive fast enough. School dragged on for all four of the teens, even the fairly patient Kaneki was getting antsy by the end of the day. The moment the final bell rang, the four of them were among the first to leave their classrooms, packed their bags and returned home in record time.
Of course they had all packed for the trip, and had hunted on Thursday night, to stave off their hunger for human flesh. The only thing they had to wait for - which wasn't more than thirty minutes - was Serenity, who arrived with a smile plastered to her face.
"If we see one along the way, we need to go to a Tim Hortons. I haven't had their tea in years!"
"There's a freaking Tim's in like, every town or city in Canada!" Tabitha commented as she and Hinami - who'd gotten a ride with them from school - adjusted their backpacks on their shoulders. "We won't be hard pressed to find one, Serenity!"
"Hey, wait a second... where are the boys?" Alice walked up to look around for her two sons, but couldn't sense them or see them for some reason.
"I saw Tobias going inside a minute ago, and I don't recall seeing your other son... Kaneki?" Serenity had only met Kaneki once, so she took a moment to recall his name.
"I'll bet they're changing out of their suits." Rize commented from nearby, checking inside her purse for her phone, which was audibly vibrating. "Can't really see how that's a bad idea, myself."
"Well they'd better hurry up, I want to head back home!" Tabitha frowned at the delay, but the sound of Tobias' smartass comment came almost immediately.
"You are home, Mishka."
"I meant my home country!" Tabitha spun to see both of her brothers in casual clothes, much unlike the sharp suits they were usually seen wearing. Kaneki had khaki shorts and a grey t-shirt, whilst Tobias - unsurprisingly - was wearing black cargo pants and a black shirt that seemed to be a sleeveless high-collared straight jacket with three large belts running around his chest and stomach. Surprisingly, he also wasn't wearing his armoured sleeve, and his tattoo was openly displayed to all of them, including a smirking Serenity.
"There you are! Let's get going!" Tabitha bolted towards both boys and latched her hands around their wrists, dragging them towards the SUV, but was stopped by Dakota.
"We only have room for five. There's eight of us." Dakota commented. "And it doesn't seem like Master Tobias is riding his bike."
Tabitha took several seconds to gather the information she needed, and to drive the point home, Serenity held up her car keys.
"Where's your car, Serenity?"
"It's outside the gate. I just need to know the two people driving with me." Serenity smiled, since she already had an idea of the relationships between everyone. Tobias obviously had Rize, but it seemed the two youngest, Tabitha and the unfamiliar girl, were in some sort of relationship as well.
"More like... who get's there first." Alice smirked, because the next second, Hinami gave a surprised sound as she was dragged by the hand towards the gate by the super fast Tabitha in hopes to get there first.
Sliding to a halt on her heels, Tabitha turned to see that nobody had moved, meaning it had been a trick from Alice. "HEY! That wasn't funny!"
Alice and Tobias snickered at her shouts, but said nothing as Serenity winked at Alice before walking towards the two girls.
"Easy ladies, there's not enough room in my car for that." Serenity teased with a huge grin, winking secretively at Tabitha and Hinami. They both quickly realized that Serenity was joking about having sex, and went bright red. "Believe me, I've tried... More than once."
"Might want to share that story with a couple drinks once those two go to sleep." Alice smiled as she glanced pointedly at the two girls.
"Oh, most definitely..." Serenity grinned even wider. "I should mention that the legal drinking age in Canada is nineteen, not twenty-one like it is here."
Kaneki and Rize shared a curious glance, but it was Tobias that smiled for some reason, none of them saying anything.
Alice noticed him smiling, and recognized that type of smile almost instantly. He'd snuck the last of the vodka in his backpack.
"You planning to share the vodka again, Toby?" Alice spoke in Russian, which immediately wiped the smile from Tobias' face when he realized he'd been caught.
"Depends on what else there is to drink." Tobias replied cheekily. "How'd you know I have it?"
"Mom instincts." Alice smirked as she winked at him teasingly.
Hours later, at the border crossing facility.
"Could everyone please step out of the vehicles and into the building please?" The Canadian border police officer leaned over to check the number of people in the SUV while his partner checked Serenity's rather colourful Civic in the same fashion.
Alice pulled the SUV into the designated parking space and told everyone to follow her inside. Serenity and the girls quickly caught up to them and they all assembled in the building to be processed.
"Is everyone here? Good." Alice checked their group's numbers and approached the booking officer at the desk.
"Welcome to Canada, may I please see some photo ID from everyone please?" The officer slid a form towards Alice with a pen. "You are also required to declare any possessions on this form."
Alice indicated that everyone hand over their respective ID, and collected them by hand, but failed to notice that Tobias had handed over his gun license by mistake instead of his drivers license like he'd intended.
"Mr. Darkwood?" The officer quickly noticed the license and called him forward with a finger. "Do you currently have your firearms in your vehicle or on your person?"
"No, I do not." Tobias replied flatly.
"Do you have another form of ID?" The officer asked, sliding the plastic card towards him on the counter.
"Drivers license." Tobias accepted the card and replaced it with the one he'd originally intended to give.
The officer examined the license for a moment, then gave a nod as Alice finished writing the declaration form and returned it. "Excellent, now, how long will you be staying in Canada?"
"For the weekend." Alice replied, and Tobias immediately got the impression she'd gone through this process many times and knew what to do. He fell silent as Alice flawlessly provided the officer with the required details. Within minutes, they were back in the vehicles and passing through the border into Canada.
Alice turned the music they'd been listening to on the drive up back on, adjusting the volume slightly before saying to Tobias in Russian. "Accidentally gave me the wrong one, right?"
"Yeah, my bad." Tobias nodded as he put his earbuds back into his ears and unpaused the emulator on his phone, resuming his game he'd been playing. "Anyway, back to what I was doing..."
It wasn't unusual for Tobias to be quiet, but since he had something to do, it made sense for his attention to be focused elsewhere for the next several hours, even while everyone else was enjoying the rolling Canadian scenery outside the windows of the SUV.
Simply put... He had ass to kick in his game.
