Konnichiwa, Minna-san!
Here's the third of Yosei no Kissu. Just for you, from me! Any way, I have some exciting stories planned for the summer, I just have to get them down on computer. ^^ I do have one very large announcement I would like to make.
ANY ONE OUT THERE GOING TO ANIME CENTRAL 2003!?
I'll be heading over to Chicago on Saturday (May, 17th) for the last two days of this glorious convention, and if any one out there is going to it, I'll be more then happy to meet up with you! We can sit around and talk about Seiya and Usagi and Anime… and Bishies… Yeah… I like Bishies.
E-mail me if you are and we'll talk! Thanks a Bunch!
With Love: Xaph!
Enjoy the Chapter!
Yosei no Kissu – Chapter Three
Hard Feelings? Knock on Wood.
Seiya yawned heavily as he opened the door. Funny, it was unlocked. Usagi must have kept it unlocked when she was home.
"Okaeri!" He called out, tossing his keys on the coffee table as he plunked down on the couch. "Usagi-san! Can I talk to you now?"
He rolled his shoulders, trying to relieve stress. Vaguely he wondered if Usagi would rub his shoulders for him. Then he noticed that only silence welcomed him home. A slight tightening in Seiya's chest made him worry. He looked around and called out again.
"Okaeri! Usagi-san! Usagi-san!"
Again, silence. He snapped up on his feet, faster then he could have imagined.
"Damnit! I'm responsible for her!" Panic ripped through his veins like a shredder. Where could she be!? He began running through the house, checking every room and looking for her golden hair and strange clothes. Thoughts of worst-case scenarios ran though his head. What if something bad happened to her?
"Damnit… if Tsuki finds out I lost her fairy… she's gonna kill me!" Seiya breathed heavily as he glanced again downstairs.
"Come on, think, Seiya! What could have happened! She's bound to me… so she couldn't have run off… Maybe some one stole her! Maybe some one knew she was a fairy!" His voice rose in his fear. "Damnit! USAGI!"
"Ne?"
Seiya whipped around to stare into a pair of large, sapphire eyes.
"Usagi-san! Where were you? Why didn't you answer me? I thought something could have happened to you!" He scolded her firmly and watched as her expressions changed from confusion into guilt.
"Gomen-nasai, Seiya-sama…" She whispered, her eyes falling to the ground. "But I was with Oka-san…"
Seiya's face went white. "O… Oka-san…?"
"Awe, don't be so darn hard on her, Seiya. We had a hard day!"
He looked up into an exact match of his own eyes. "Oka-san…" he grumbled.
"Hai, Seiya?" She grinned almost malevolently. "What is with your hair! Don't you comb it! Straighten your tie! You look like a hoodlum!" She attacked with her comments as well as her hands and began to fiddle with her son and his appearance.
"Darnit, Mom. Get off me!" He stepped away. "I just got home from work. Do you have to be so critical?"
"Well, we just got home too! Why didn't you tell me you had a girlfriend! I'm so angry, letting poor Usagi tell me everything!"
His eyes widened at they shot to Usagi, vaguely noticing she had on a new dress. "Girlfriend? Tell you everything….?' He face faulted. "I can explain! Honestly, mother! She-"
"Well! I didn't know that you two were doing some hanky-panky! You even keep that from you mother too! I'm so hurt! Can't you trust me, Seiya!"
His eyes just narrowed at her. "No."
Oka-san then brushed past him in a huff. She situated herself on his sofa and pretended to be crying. "Is that anyway to treat a woman who gave you birth? Get me some tea! I need to drink my sorrows away!"
Seiya opened his mouth to speak, but Usagi beat him to his words.
"Hai, Oka-san." She bowed quickly then exited to the kitchen.
Oka-san smiled after her. "She is so obedient… now why she ever chose you as her boyfriend, I won't have the foggiest. Look at you! You're a mess!"
Seiya glared. "She's not my girlfr-" He paused for a moment to think. Usagi was going to be with him for a year, and Seiya certainly couldn't tell his mother that she was a fairy… why not let his mother believe the lies that she created?
"I know she is! Every time you get a new girlfriend you tell me the same old story, well this time I'm not believing it!"
Seiya blinked. "You never believed it before anyway."
"That, my son, is well beside the point."
"How so?" Seiya seethed.
"Because I say so!" Oka-san snipped angrily at him.
Seiya looked skeptically at his mother before snorting and turning away.
"Hmph!" Oka-san said, apparently ruffled by her son's words. "Well then! Maybe I'll just leave and never some back!" She stood up and glared her raven-haired son in the eyes that mimicked her own.
"Really!?" Seiya said, not bothering to hold back any excitement of the offer she had proposed. "That'd be the best gift you've ever given me!"
Oka-san's face turned red with anger as she glared and stuttered at her son. "Well! I am insulted! For that I'm coming over every night and re-teaching you your manners!"
Seiya's eyes rolled to the ceiling and he sighed in exasperation. "Mother, you've been telling me that every week… look at me! I'm still a twenty year-old brat."
"Fine!" Oka-san huffed as she stood up. She glared at her son angrily. "You can just continue to be the selfish little brat your father raised you to be!"
Seiya glared. "At least my father was with me."
There was a crackling, heavy silence.
"And not with shopping racks or bridge groups." He sneered at her.
Again the silence that you could cut…
"Speaking of which! You've made me late! You ungrateful boy, you!" She growled at him before blustering out of the house, not saying any more to her son.
Seiya didn't care anymore. She'd spent her life away from him, and when Seiya's father had died, it seemed only like the death was an excuse for her to get more clothes.
He hated it when she brought him up. He'd done everything he could for them, they always had a ton of money. And everything seemed happy, but after a while, it seemed as if money was the only thing keeping his mother and his father together.
Seiya sunk into the couch and felt a tightening in his throat. The tightening he got when he began to miss his father again.
"Seiya-sama?"
Seiya looked up into innocent eyes of blue. He felt his heart instantly become lighter, though he wasn't sure why. "Usagi-san, will you pour me some tea?"
"Hai, Seiya-sama…" She poured him some tea and handed it to him.
Seiya sighed deeply, then swallowed the warm liquid that made him feel better. It reminded him of his father…
Tears entered Seiya's eyes and he set the cup down.
She had to say something about his father? Was she even aware of how much it hurt to think about his lack in presence?
"Seiya-sama?"
Seiya looked into the eyes of Usagi and he forced a smile. "I'm okay."
"Iie… you're crying." She knelt at his feet and looked up into his eyes. "What is wrong, Seiya-sama?"
Seiya was instantly taken aback by her pure innocence. She didn't know anything about his feelings and why it was so hard for him to be the way he was.
"I… Usagi-san. I'm sorry. I'm not sure if I can answer that question." He said slowly, letting his head fall against the back of the couch.
"Hai, Seiya-sama…"
There was a long silence before Seiya spoke to Usagi again.
"I told you we'd talk about you and your duties when I got home, so let's talk." He sat up and looked her firmly in the eyes.
"First of all, never tell my mother that you are a fairy. Do I make myself clear?"
Usagi nodded. "Hai, Seiya-sama."
"Second…" His eyes scanned her face slowly. "…we have to decide what is good for you to do during the day…" He trailed off as he watched her large blue eyes blink at him with vacant question.
"What do you want to do?" He asked.
"That is for you to decide."
"I can't decide what you're good at!" Seiya felt so frustrated, was this girl really that innocent to the human world? Or was she just… a little worn at the tip? Not the brightest crayon in the crayon box?
"What I do and what I don't do is based on your wishes, Seiya-sama… it is you who is to tell me what to do."
Seiya sighed deeply. "Alright, we'll get some chores for you."
"I'd be careful with what you assign her, Seiya-san."
Seiya had never moved like he had in his life. In an instant he was up from the couch and standing in front of Usagi, protecting her from god-knows what.
"Oh, keep your shorts on! I'm not going to hurt you, I came to see Usagi."
"Mako-chan!" Usagi jumped up and went to hug her friend around the neck.
Makoto towered over Usagi, and almost came in height with Seiya. Her eyes were an amazing shade of emerald green, and her hair was the color of mahogany. She was clad in similar attire as Usagi was, but the things that awed Seiya the most, were her wings. The seemed to be living branches with many green leaves that coated the deep colored wood. It was almost as if she were a living, walking tree.
"Who are you?" Seiya asked as he eyed her with incredulity.
Makoto curtsied. "Makoto, Assistant Chief of Trees."
"You're a… a tree-fairy?"
"Hai. And I would like some tea. Usagi-san? Aren't you going to have your human get us some?" She bustled her way into the living room and sat down, looking at Seiya as if he should be the servant.
"Makoto, I'll get you some tea. Seiya-sama, would you like some more?" Usagi questioned.
"Anou… h-hai…" Seiya said as Makoto gave him a death stare.
Usagi bowed before leaving the room to get her two companions tea.
"Exactly why aren't you getting her tea?" Makoto questioned, looking Seiya up and down as if she were sizing him up for a fight.
"Because Usagi is my… my…" he searched frantically for the technical term that Tsuki had used.
"… my Wish-Giver."
Makoto's face when white instantly. "Your… your… what!?"
She was apparently not excited, nor thrilled by Usagi's new stature in the house of a human. Why would Usagi, who was born so high in the fairy world, be doing a first-class job? She was a fifth-class fairy, and one of the highest degree! Granted she may be a little ditzy and sometimes she could be too innocent for her own good, but she was not meant for a job like this!
"Why is she doing a first-class job?" Makoto glared at the human with anger raging in her emerald eyes.
"N-nani? Isn't first class… good?" Seiya asked, as her eyes began to spark with electric energy and this news.
"First-class is the lowest class in the fairy world! Usagi was born a fifth-class fairy! So why is she doing a job that is nothing more then a fairy concubine!" Makoto growled angrily.
"A… a what?" Seiya blinked. Usagi was a… a what?
Makoto rolled her eyes. "Stupid humans. What do you think a human male wishes for when he sees a pretty fairy, scantly clad fairy standing in his bedroom, telling him that she'll grant his every wish? Eggs and coffee!? I'm thinking… no! If you lay a finger on her in any way that isn't genuine, I swear I'll hunt you down and turn you into tree food!"
"Hey!" Seiya held up his hands in defense. "Tsuki, already told me that! She made it quite vivid what would happen to me. Besides it's not as if I wished for her!"
Makoto blinked, apparently in utter shock. "Tsuki sent Usagi here?"
"Hai. She dropped her off her self."
Seiya watched as Makoto's anger melted into shock, then surprise, then a just a mild surprise.
"Oh… well she must have a good reason…" Makoto said sinking back into her chair, still blinking heavily.
"Isn't that common?" Seiya asked carefully, not wanting to prompt her anger again. He'd seen it once and he didn't want to see it again.
"No," Makoto sated curtly. "It's one of the most uncommon things Tsuki can do to a fairy of high stature."
"Oh… why is that?" Seiya questioned again. He suddenly had a strange feeling of culture-shock. Now he knew what Usagi must feel like. He didn't understand a single thing about this world, much less the classes of fairies and what and what not they were allowed to do. Maybe being with Usagi was going to be harder then he first thought…
"Because! It's just not done! If a fairy of high stature is defiled… well it's not a pretty sight for the person who defiled her. But lower-class fairies were made for such jobs. To make love to certain people, so the higher class fairies are kept innocent until they are ready to bind." Makoto looked at him, raising her eyebrow. "Tsuki warned you about that, didn't she?"
Seiya could only shake his head while he was under her intense gaze. He had no idea what 'bind' meant, but he had a good idea not to ask.
"Hm… you haven't wished her to do anything unethical, Have you?" her gaze became so intense that Seiya hoped some divine intervention would come into the room at any moment, before he burst into spontaneous combustion.
"Ii…iie. She only came to me last night, and I had to go to work today." He said slowly.
Makoto's mouth dropped. "You went to … to work?"
Seiya was entirely confused at her reaction. Of course he went to work! How else was he going to pay the bills? And eat? Ya know he had to do that too.
"Of course…" Seiya asked in slight confusion. "Where else would I go?"
"But… but you have a Wish-Giver now! She can make you rich!" Makoto stared at him as if he had proclaimed himself king of the fairy world.
"I'm already well off, and working gives me something to do. Besides, I don't have any intention of abusing Usagi's powers like that." He shrugged a little as he explained his 'bizarre actions'.
Makoto stared at him for a long while, until Seiya began to squirm under her gaze.
"You're strange." She stated finally. "Very bizarre."
"Ahhh…" Seiya blushed.
"Gomen! I had to conjure up some more tea! Seiya-sama, you ran out of tea-bags." Usagi entered the room with a tray full of teas and cups. She set it down on the coffee table then situated herself politely on the floor as Seiya and Makoto poured themselves tea.
"So, Usagi. This man tell me you are his Wish-Giver." Makoto said between sips of her tea.
"Hai. It's my assignment to receive my wings…" Her eyes glazed over lightly as she began to dream slightly about the beautiful wings that she would one day own.
"Hmm…" Makoto took another sip of her tea as a comfortable silence settled on the three of them again. Finally Usagi spoke up.
"How are Minako and Ami?" She asked, eyes bright at the prospect of new news about her friends from her own world.
"Ami is good, she has new assignment in South American rainforest. And Minako is doing a petal-job back in the fairy world." Makoto said, smiling brightly at Usagi. A petal-job, was a job that didn't require any leave from the fairy world. Minako had a tendency to be even more ditzy then Usagi, so a petal-job would be one of the best, one where she could be under constant supervision.
"Really! Are they enjoying themselves?"
"Mm-hm. Minako really likes her assignment, and Ami is set to return to the fairy world soon."
"That's great!" Usagi seemed utterly thrilled at the idea that her friends were doing well without her, and Seiya had a slight feeling of remorse for Usagi. She was bound to him, and thus bound to the human world. She wouldn't be able to keep tabs on her friends and family as much as she would like. Seiya didn't want to cause pain or discord between anyone.
There was another silence before Seiya worked up the courage to ask Makoto a question.
"Makoto-san?"
"Hm?"
"How did you get your wings?"
A grin split her face from ear to ear. "I did six months worth of work in the African jungles after a fire. It turned out wonderfully and I was rewarded with my wings." She held her head high, in a very proud manner, which made Seiya have to hold in his laughter. Then he caught a look at Usagi, and his laughter quickly faded.
She was eyeing Makoto with a great deal of envy. She looked so jealous and so sad, that it pained Seiya. All she wanted were her wings, why was it such a big deal? Seiya hadn't even seen Makoto use her wings, and they didn't look as though she could fly with them, so why was getting one's wings so important?
"Usagi-chan," Makoto said suddenly, putting her tea down.
"Hai?"
"You know what I heard from Ami?" her eyes grew bright, and it took Seiya a second to remember what this look meant. Gossip. Makoto had new gossip. Seiya had to fight not to roll his eyes.
"No, what?" Usagi's eyes grew the same shimmer as Makoto.
"That Yaten is scouting Minako as a bind."
Usagi let out a shrill of excitement. "HONTO!? I always knew they would be bound!"
"Took him long enough is all I can say." Makoto snorted and Usagi giggled.
"Ah, come now, Makoto. They're both only 200, give them a chance." She said in a realistic voice.
"Hey, shouldn't you be looking for a bind?" Makoto looked slyly at her as Usagi's cheeks flared red.
"Iie! I don't even have my wings yet…"
"So? Minako-chan has only had hers for ten years!"
"That's ten years more then me. Anyway, Mako-chan. What about you? You're not bound." Usagi looked at her in a challenging way. Seiya could only stare dumbfounded at the two and their conversation. He understood little and fewer as the conversation continued.
"No, but I will be. That's why I'm here." She grinned in the direction of Usagi, as he mouth fell open in shock.
"To whom!?"
"Torako, you remember him from seedlings? He's assistant of warfare now." Makoto looked as though she could burst with pride.
"Anou… everyone is getting their wings and getting bound… here I am, sitting around waiting for everything…" Usagi sighed deeply. "I suppose that's how it's going to be. I'm too much of a klutz to get bound anyway… who would want me?"
"You never know Usagi, there are a lot of men who find you attractive and charming, you'll get bound someday." Makoto said reassuringly.
"You think so?"
"I know so!" Makoto smiled and stood up. "Now come give me a hug. I have to be in Europe in an hour."
Usagi stood up and gave her friend a big hug. "Fly safely, Mako-chan."
"And you keep happy, Usa-chan!"
The, with a small 'pop' and a flash of jade sparkles, Makoto disappeared.
Seiya looked at Usagi with question. "What does it mean to be 'bound'?"
"Married."
"Oh…" Seiya suddenly felt exhausted, and he looked at her in her little pink slip-dress before letting his eyes close.
Pink? Slip-dress?
"Usagi-san!? Where did you get those clothes!?" He asked suddenly.
"Oka-san, took me out shopping. She said I was dressed 'in rags'." She stood up and turned around in a small circle.
"I am going to shoot her." He turned around and by the door he say nearly five more bags, each one looking as though it were bursting with clothes. He glared at the bags, then at Usagi.
"You don't like it?" She questioned innocently.
Seiya was about to make a very rude comment, but then he actually looked at Usagi. She looked beautiful, innocent… like a human. For a sheer moment he kind of wanted to… hold her.
That was stupid! Why would he want to hold her? She was a burden to him, from lord knows where, and she was only causing disruption in his very ordered life. Disruption is bad!
"Usagi…" He looked at her exasperatedly, then sighed and shook his head. "Usagi, will you clean up the tea things? I'm going to take a bath then go to bed."
"Would you like me to bathe you?"
"GAH! No! Absolutely not!" Seiya blinked as both Tsuki's and Makoto's words echoed very clearly in his mind. "I'm just going to… to go bathe. By myself. And just… just take care of the tea things…"
She bowed. "Hai, Seiya-sama."
"Mm…"