Chapter 4: Visitors from the past

BUZZZZ. BUZZZZ.

Huh?! Who could be at the door so early this morning? I rolled over onto my side and grasped for the clock beside my bed. Picking it up I held it close to my face squinting through bleary eyes to focus on the two hands. 7:00. It's 7:00 on a Sunday morning. Who would be bothering me at 7:00 on a Sunday morning? I tossed the clock onto the floor and lay in bed pondering over whether or not I should get up. I think not.

"Whoever it is it's too early in the morning to get up for you!" I yelled.

I waited for a few seconds for a response. There was none. I pulled the comforter over my head and curled up into a warm little ball waiting for slumber to overtake me again.

BUZZZZ.BUUUZZZZ..

"Go away!"

BUUUUUUUUUUUUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

I opened my eyes wide and cursed whoever it was under breath. "Fine! I'm coming."

I had lost this battle with the cruel intruder stealing my precious sleep. I tossed the comforter off of myself feeling my body shiver at the sudden loss of my warm tent. I trudged over to the door and very grumpily swung it open.

In the doorway there was a boy leaning against the door. He looked a little run down and tired. Behind him there were a few large suitcases and boxes stacked up next to him. I didn't care who he was. All I knew at that moment was that I wanted to strangle him for making me get up.

"What do you want?!"

"Yo! Oneesan! Is that how you greet the brother you haven't seen in so long?"

"Sususmu?!"

My jaw dropped. He was so much different from the last time I had seen him. If I saw him on the street I wouldn't have recognized him as my brother. He had grown much taller probably as tall as Doumyouji. His skin was a light tan and all his baby fat had been replaced by lean muscle. He stood with an air of arrogance and maturity leaning against the doorway instead of the playful, slouching little boy who I remembered as my little brother. It had been so long since I had last seen him. Ever since Mama and Papa left for the fishing village I had only gotten a few letters and pictures from them documenting their progress. The last letter I remember receiving was a little before I wound up on the surprise round the world cruise. I lunged towards him and grabbed him into a big hug. When I finally released him from my monstrous hug I helped drag all his luggage and boxes into the apartment. Susumu looked around the room in surprise of how full it was already. I hadn't unpacked any of my own luggage yet and it practically filled up the entire living room. So, we just stacked all we could fit into piles in the corners. Finally, after all the strenuous moving we settled down to talk.

"What are you doing here?! Did Mama and Papa come with you? Are you all moving back?"

He raised his right eyebrow in confusion. "What do you mean? Didn't you get my letter?

"Letter? What letter? I just got back to Tokyo yesterday."

Susumu slapped his hand against his forehead. "I knew I should have called to make sure you knew I was coming. You were all over the place and it was so hard to reach you. We got all your letters while you were on your trip. You should have seen Mama's face when she saw in the photos in the paper about the girl who stopped the Doumyouji wedding and ran off on a round-the- world cruise."

I leaned back and laid down on the floor stretching out my body. I imagined the look on my mother's face with her mouth wide open and her hungry eyes calculating how her precious daughter would bring our family one step closer to a wealthy life. "Oh geez. She must have had a heart attack."

"Pretty much. She went around the entire village bragging about her new wealthy son-in-law. I tried to stop her, but you know how she is."

"I know. So why are you here anyway? What's with all the luggage?"

"I'm moving back for school."

I wrinkled my forehead in confusion. "What do you mean school? You still have one more year of junior high. You should be studying for the entrance exams this year. I thought Mama and Papa agreed that you would come back when you started high school?"

Susumu's eyes lit up like an excited little boy, but he tried to hide it folding his arms up against his chest. A cocky grin spread over his face. "I'm starting Eitoku this year with you?

"What?! How can that be possible?" At that point I jumped up and looked straight at him.

He let out a little laugh. "You really don't have any idea what is going on with me do you? While at the fishing village I placed ahead in my grade. I took advanced courses and managed to fit in the entrance exams. With all my work I got into Eitoku with a partial scholarship like you. You should have seen Mama's face when I told her the news. She fainted in the kitchen and when she finally woke up she had already calculated how to budget my tuition. I told her I could just go to another high school to save money, but Mama demanded that I come back here and attend with you. She said it would be a double blessing if both of us hook a rich person from Eitoku, but I just came because I wanted to come back to Tokyo."

I was amazed at who my little brother had become. Before he left with my parents, he was oblivious to the world always lost in thought daydreaming. Who knew that inside he was that intelligent. Mama and Papa had always put so much stress on me being the intelligent, responsible one that they overlooked Susumu. All along he never let any of us know how smart he was.

"Wow! My little brother is such a genius." I nudged his shoulder and shot him a wink. "Well, I didn't expect you to come back, but I think I can find some room for you somewhere. I'm just so proud of you!"

Susumu blushed at me pouring on all the compliments. I knew I was embarrassing him, but he's my little brother. I felt like such a proud mother.

We spent the rest of the day rearranging furniture and unpacking. We caught up with each other's lives laughing about our experiences. It was such an odd experience to see my brother for the first time for the man he was becoming. I wasn't talking to a child anymore, but someone I could relate to on a more mature level. By the end of the day, after a ton of lifting and some arguing over who would sleep where I laid in my futon with a smile on my face.

It was surprising that I was excited over the first day of school at Eitoku thinking about how different it would be this year. I have my little brother with me in the same school. Tomorrow I will apologize to Doumyouji and we could go back to being a normal, or whatever normal is for us. It's going to be a great year. I fell asleep that night to fall into a peaceful slumber dreaming about all the possibilities ahead.

The first day of school

The next morning Susumu walked beside me down the pathways of Eitoku. It was a new year, so all around us students were running around catching up with friends over how their summers were. The rich girls paraded around showing off their bronzed skin from vacationing on the beaches all over the world. I laughed at how silly life was around wealthy people. I turned to Susumu. He seemed completely unfazed by the people and things around him. He just walked with is head held high like he had always been in the school. I thought of my own first day at this strange school and remembered how scary it was, but Susumu was always different. He never had trouble fitting in really.

I decided that it be better to get it over with and find Doumyouji. It was still early and he must have been somewhere around school already terrorizing the new first years. They were like fresh meat. It was a good thing I left him a message this morning to meet me by the garden. I probably saved a lot of victims toady from his reign of terror. Better to have him in a good mood than a bad one.

I didn't want to leave Susumu alone on his first day, so I promised him after meeting him with Doumyouji I would show him around as it being one of my big sister responsibilities to look after him. Before we even got close I could hear Doumyouji ranting about me being late. Not wanting to make him any more aggravated than he already was I grabbed Susumu's hand and pulled him towards their direction. Akira and Soujiro were trying their best to calm his anger, but it seemed futile.

"Where were you?! Don't you have the courtesy to at least show up on time when you were the one who told me to come so early!"

"Sorry. I had some trouble getting out of the house on time." I looked at him with an apologetic look, but that jerk just looked away sulking.

"Makino. Thank god you're here! Tsukasa has been driving us mad screaming about where you were." Akira laughed.

"Yeah, he thought you got into some terrible accident or something. He wanted to start a search party." Soujiro questioningly eyed Susumu who was beside me. "Who's this?"

Doumyouji who I hadn't noticed until now was glaring at Susumu through the corner of his eye. I noticed his neck stiffening and quickly realized that I was still holding Susumu's hand. Doumyouji had only seen my little brother a few times and probably didn't recognize him. He had a bad memory when it came to people he didn't deem important. I pondered over waiting a little before telling him he was my little brother as a joke, but decided against it since he seemed pretty irate this morning. Knowing that he was going to explode in a few seconds, I quickly released Susumu's hand.

"Oh. I almost forgot. Soujiro and Akira I don't think you have met my little brother, Susumu. He just started at Eitoku. It took us a longer than I thought to get him registered. That's why we were so late."

Susumu politely bowed. "Nice to meet you."

I watched Doumyouji's eyes soften at the sound of the words "little brother". He seemed to relax his body a little, but still ignored me.

Soujiro and Akira seemed to sense the tension still in the air, so they each put one arm around Susumu's shoulder and began to walk off with him.

"Yo, Makino! I think you two need some time alone. We'll take good care of you little bro!" Akira smiled at me with his playboy charm oozing out of him.

"Hey, what do you mean take care? I don't like the sound of that. You better not pollute his mind with your bad influence!"

It was too late. The two playboys pretended that they didn't' hear anything and just lifted their hands to wave goodbye pulling Susumu along. I watched Susumu who seemed a little too happy to be taken under the wing of the two notorious playboys. I thought for a second of running after those three to make sure they didn't get into trouble, but was interrupted by Doumyouji's hand on my shoulder pulling me back.

"Leave them alone. Those two won't try to do anything with a scary sister like you."

I turned around him and shot him an innocent little smile. "I thought you were still smad at me."

He quickly remembered that he had been angry and pulled his hand away. He turned around with his back facing me. "So what did you want to tell me?"

I looked at his broad back and took in a deep breath to prepare myself for what I was about to do. "I feel bad about the other day. I was just so tired from the trip and you wouldn't listen. You know you can just drive me insane sometimes. You don't ask me what I want and just tell me what to do all the time. I hate it when you do that. Then there was the thing with Kazuya and your jealousy issues. You can just be so irritating. Sometimes I wonder why I'm with such a jealous idiot."

Doumyouji continued to stand with his back turned to me. I continued babbling, but he made no movements. He just stood perfectly still and silent. I started to wonder if he was even listening to me and was becoming a little annoyed by this.

"Hey! Were you even listening to me!?" I screamed at his turned back.

Doumyouji spun around quickly and grabbed me by the shoulders. 'What kind of apology was that?! You made me come here just so that you could insult me some more!"

I looked into his face, which had turned completely red. His mouth was clenched and the vein in his forehead protruded like it usually did when he was angry. It was a face I had seen all to many times. I looked down at the ground at my shoes not sure of what to do.

"What I was getting at was I'm sorry. I don't want to fight anymore." I looked up at his now softened eyes that could pierce right through me making me feel all warm inside. "I love you."

Doumyouji grabbed me into his arms pulling me close to his chest. I could hear the slow rhythmic thumping of his heart beat. It was soothing to just be in his arms like nothing else mattered. He pushed me away a little and arched his back lowering his head to bring his lips to mine.

"Not here! We're in school. People can see us!" I pushed him away and looked around to see if anyone had seen us.

"Who cares if people see us?! I'm your boyfriend and you shouldn't be embarrassed to do such things with me!" he bellowed.

I looked away and muttered, "I know, but I don't like to do such things in public."

Before I could say another word Doumyouji overpowered me. He pulled me towards him and kissed me tightly on the lips. I closed my eyes feeling his warm, gentle lips against mine and I just melted into him. It had been so long since I had felt this way when he kissed me. He made me feel more loved than I had ever felt by anyone. All that mattered in this perfect moment was that we loved each other.

He released me from our passionate kiss and just held me in his arms for awhile. I kept my eyes closed wanting to just remember how it felt like to be this way. I breathed in the smell of his body memorizing the touch of his hands around my waist, the sound of his heart, the warmth of his body pressed against mine. Opening my eyes I looked out over his shoulder. I blinked my eyes to make sure I was seeing correctly. He was wearing the Eitoku uniform and looked a little disheveled. He had jet black hair, but running throughout there were streaks of red. He looked so familiar. It couldn't be him though. I thought he wouldn't come back. Those piercing, cold eyes, I can recognize them from anywhere. Rui..

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Disclaimer: I do not own HYD or its characters cuz if I did I would be swimming in the moola right now.