Disclaimer: I don't own Flame of Recca or any of its characters. However, the lot of the Kirisawa family (save for Ganko and Fuuko) is of my creation. Any similarities with people, real or imaginary, are unintentional.
A/N:
*kh@y-ling leaps up and down in excitement* thank you for the ultra nice reviews! I really appreciate it! It makes me soo happy! And a happy kh@y keeps the writers block away.
A reviewer suggested that I break the story into smaller chapters so it wouldn't be boring, but I sorta plan to write a chapter for each day of their vacation…so consider this a warning…this is the longest chapter so far…
Oh, yeah, I'm not familiar with the Japanese language and names, so I took the names from previous animes that I watched. Don't even know what they mean, except for Eri which means queen. =)
*Thanks are due to Ranka who is now the official beta-reader of this fic. ~thank you, Ranka!~
Kindred Chapter 3: Terrible TuesdayHidden by the darkness, they didn't see five large, burly men. The men were now simultaneously running towards Fuuko.
Mikagami was too late.
The men had hurled themselves towards the slender girl, causing her to fall down beneath the large, manly bodies.
"Kirisawa!" Mikagami's hands itched for the ensui. Nevertheless, he faced off with Kirisawa's attackers, resolved to put them out with his bare hands if necessary.
The men started laughing at their deed.
"How dare you!" Kaoru growled beside Mikagami. He too was disgusted that these men seemed to draw amusement from a lady's pain, never mind that Fuuko wasn't technically a "lady."
To the duo's surprise, the mound of men that was on top of Fuuko was suddenly tossed upwards. A very angry Fuuko was left at their wake. Veins were popping everywhere in her face. She was shaking a closed fist at them.
Mikagami was relieved. He should've known that Kirisawa could take care of herself. Mikagami frowned at the realization. Did he actually feel relief that Kirisawa was alright?
"You!" Fuuko grated out. "How dare you."
Kaoru hid a grin. These men would surely get what was coming to them.
"How many times do I have to tell you?" Fuuko screamed at them. "I am too old for doggy-pile on the bandit and you're becoming too big for them!"
"Aw, Fuuko-neechan, we were just having a little fun," one of them protested.
The voice sounded to young to be a hardened criminal.
"You know them, Kirisawa?" Mikagami asked in irritation. And to think, for a moment there, she actually had him worried.
"You talking to me?" A chorus of young male voices asked.
"…"
Fuuko laughed out loud. "Maybe it's time you start calling me by my given name, Mi-chan. I forgot to tell you that everyone here is a Kirisawa."
One of Fuuko's attackers stepped forward. "Is he your boyfriend, neechan?"
Upon closer inspection, Mikagami realized that the group of men was actually a group of boys. They were probably Kaoru's age, if not older. However, almost all of them towered over Fuuko.
"He looks better than Recca-niisan."
"Well, I like Domon-niisan. He's fun."
"No, he is not my boyfriend. Neither are Recca and Domon." Fuuko replied irritably. "Now go back to the beach house and tell nana that me and Ganko had arrived. We'll just pick up our stuff."
The group of boys ran ahead, singing about their neechan's new boyfriend at the top of their lungs.
"Oi," Fuuko groaned. "I'll never hear the end of it,"
The four of them entered the brightly lit house. The moment Fuuko opened the door, a sea of people had rushed up to her and Ganko. There was a lot of squealing and kissing and hugging.
Mikagami was very uncomfortable by the time they were done.
"I never saw so much purple hair in my whole entire life," Mikagami heard Kaoru mumble.
Which was true. However the purple hair seem to be limited to the men…
"Oh, by the way, these are my friends, Kaoru and Mi-chan," Fuuko introduced.
"Hey, Kaoru," a chorus of voices replied. "Hey Mi-chan!"
Mikagami cringed. He wondered if he could get away with murdering Kiri—ahem!—Fuuko in front of her relatives. Mi-chan indeed.
He noticed that the half the people in the room were looking at him with a mischievously evil glint in their eyes. The other half was looking at him with suspicion and dislike.
"And guys, these are my relatives." Fuuko turned to Mikagami and Kaoru. "I could introduce them all to you, but you'll just forget their names anyway. Just call the old ones Kirisawa-san, the teenaged ones Kirisawa-kun or Kirisawa-niisan, and the young ones Kirisawa-chan. You can't go wrong with that."
"Fuu-chan, I resent the old comment!" A voice from the back piped out.
"Is he your boyfriend, Fuuko?"
"He is not," Fuuko vehemently denied.
"So, Fuu-chan, darling, when are you bringing home a nice man? I want a great-grandchild from my granddaughter, you know." An old, feminine voice called out.
"Nana!" Fuuko squealed as she ran towards the owner of the voice.
Fuuko's nana was a frail woman in her late seventies, and aging gracefully. She was smaller and thinner than her granddaughter. The two hugged.
"You keep bringing home men you deny to be your boyfriends," her nana continued as she broke from the hug. "At that rate, Ganko-chan would be giving me a great-grandchild before you do."
"Oh, not you too, nana," Fuuko groaned.
"Ganko-chan, how about a hug for nana?"
Obediently, Ganko stepped forward to give the old woman a hug and a kiss.
"Nana, these are my friends, Mi-chan and Kaoru-kun," Fuuko introduced. "Mi-chan, Kaoru, I'd like you to meet my grandmother, Eri Kirisawa."
Mi-chan and Kaoru bowed gracefully before the Kirisawa matriarch.
"Kirisawa-san," Mikagami acknowledged.
"Now, now," Eri waved them off. "None of those formalities. The two of you can call me nana just like everyone else." She frowned. "You'll find that in this family, such formalities are more trouble than they're worth. There's so many of us here. Don't even know half of them anymore,"
"Nana, you're rambling," Fuuko teased her grandmother.
"Fuu-chan, dinner's ready in the kitchen. We just ate right before you arrived." A female called out.
"And you're just in time to wash the dishes," a male in his late twenties with purple hair added.
"I am not washing the dishes!"
"Oh, don't worry about those," a female in her mid-fifties with long brown hair and green eyes, waved Mikagami away from the sink. "I'll take care of the dishes."
"It's no problem, Kirisawa-san," Mikagami told her. "I'm used to cleaning up after myself."
"You brought home a gem, Fuu-chan," the woman winked at Fuuko, who was still eating at the dining table.
Fuuko choked on the food she was swallowing. Ganko helpfully thumped her back.
Mikagami was firmly led away from the sink. Unused to being waited on, he reluctantly stepped aside and crossed his arms, and contented himself in watching his three companions eat.
"By the way, Aunty Rika, how's the sleeping arrangement?" Fuuko asked as she brought the used dishes to the sink, wanting to change the subject.
"I hope you don't mind, Fuu-chan, but we gave your dad's old room to Jin and Mikage," the woman, Rika, replied. "You know how much trouble their twins can get into,"
Fuuko grinned. "No prob."
"You and Ganko would share a room with nana," Rika told her. "Reiko and Aya would also be with you. Oh, and Yuri brought his girlfriend."
Fuuko choked on the water she was drinking. "Yuri's got a girlfriend?"
Rika grinned at her. "They set up two large tents on the beach for the boys. You don't mind sleeping in the tent, do you?" She asked Mikagami and Kaoru. "Good." She grinned at them. "Yuri!" She called out.
"Coming mom!" A voice replied.
A man in his early twenties with purple hair and green eyes walked in the kitchen with a blond woman in tow.
"This is my first-born, Yuri. Yuri, you've met Mikagami-san and Kaoru-san," Rika grinned.
"And this is my girlfriend, Ruriko,"
After the usual pleasantries, Rika-san turned to his son. "Please show Kaoru-san and Mikagami-san where they would sleep tonight. Fuu-chan and I would take care of Ruriko-san."
Mikagami found himself sharing the tent with Yuri, Yuri's three younger brothers, and their cousin named Sano.
Kaoru was in the other tent with boys his age (or as Sano had put it, those who aren't old enough to drink).
"So, you're not really interested in our Fuu-chan, are you?" Yuri's youngest brother, Junko, asked.
The moment he stepped inside the tent, the second brother, Miko, brought out sake and started pouring it for everyone.
"Oi, don't mind Junko, he's just drunk." Sano grinned at Mikagami. "He's not used to drinking, you know."
Kuno, the third brother, saw that Mikagami's glass was almost empty, so he poured more in. "Just don't break her heart, you know, or you'll have us Kirisawa men after you," he finished his statement by punching his fist in the air.
Mikagami, having just turned eighteen, was unused to drinking sessions. However, he found himself actually enjoying this one. He found out that chattering his brains out is a Kirisawa trait, so he barely has to add anything to the drunken conversation. All he had to do was to drink and listen.
"I think I like you better than Domon," Yuri admitted. "Domon was knocked out after his first glass of sake."
"Niisan, Domon was just fifteen when you gave him a glass of sake," Miko frowned. Mikagami learned that of his five companions, Miko could hold his drink the best.
"Oh, right," Yuri laughed. "But he looked older than me at that time. I thought he was twenty five or something,"
So far, he had met one grandmother, three uncles, three aunts, fourteen cousins, three cousins-in-law, four nephews and a niece, and still, no Fuuko came down for breakfast.
He sighed. He was thankful for his photographic memory. He never met so much people in his whole life.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kaoru playing beach volleyball with his tent-mates, the group of guys who had 'attacked' Fuuko last night. Ganko was making sand castles with the nephews and nieces, all of whom were around her age.
The funny thing about the Kirisawa clan, Fuuko was the only female in two generations. All of nana's five children were male. And with the exception of Fuuko, all of her grandchildren by consanguinity (by blood) are males. The only female blood relative (aside for Fuuko) is nine-year old Aya, the daughter of Jun, Eri's grandson from his first born, Saito (Saito and his wife were in a cruise in the Caribbean, so they were unable to attend the reunion).
"Mikagami-san," Miko approached him. "Care to join us in a family tradition?"
Behind Miko, Yuri, Kuno, Junko, and Sano were grinning at him mischievously.
Mikagami raised an eyebrow. "But if it's a family tradition…"
"It'll be fun." Yuri assured him.
"Let's go, or we'll be too late," Sano insisted.
Soon, Mikagami found himself in the room of the Kirisawa matriarch, where Fuuko was sleeping on an inflatable bed.
"Get her," Junko told Mikagami.
"…"
"Get her off the bed," Miko whispered, snickering.
Totally mystified, Mikagami scooped his former teammate in his arms.
Yuri swept all the bedclothes to their nana's bed while the four carried the inflatable bed out of the room.
"This would be fun," Kuno assured him.
Splash!
"You guys are way too old for this," a wet Fuuko grumbled, which earned a few snickers from the crowd.
"We just thought we would teach you a lesson about getting up early." Sano told her, but he was unable to keep a straight face.
The five of them had placed the inflatable bed on the water. Mikagami then laid Fuuko on the bed. Sano pushed the bed into the sea. When Fuuko turned in her sleep, she fell into the water, to everyone's amusement.
However, Fuuko was not amused.
Seated on a lounge chair and sipping his soda a few feet away from the crowd, Mikagami was enjoying the verbal sparring between the cousins. A wet hand then tugged at his shirt.
He looked down and saw a pair of soulful plum eyes, not unlike Fuuko's, staring at him.
"Hi," the little girl said. She was about Ganko's age. "My name is Aya. Ganko said you're her Tokiya-niisan. Is Fuu-neechan your girlfriend?" She asked solemnly with a toss of her blue-black hair.
"She's not," Mikagami replied.
"Can I be your girlfriend, then?" Aya asked.
"Aya-chan!" Gasped a woman with the same shade of hair as Aya. "Sorry, Mikagami-san,"
"But mommy, I want him as a boyfriend," Aya told her mother. "He's cute,"
"You would have to fight your Fuuko-nee for him," Aya's mom, whom Mikagami remembered as Reiko-san, said.
"Reiko-san, I assure you, Fuuko and I are nothing more than friends," Mikagami told her hastily.
"Oh, dear," Reiko colored a bit. "I'm afraid that that's not what's going around, especially when we saw you carrying her this morning,"
Mikagami winced. So the prank this morning was for his sake as well as Fuuko's. He can't believe he fell for it…
"Wow," Kaoru's eyes almost bulged out of its sockets.
"Ken-ken, don't let Yuri ran past you!"
"Hey, Miko, don't let Fuu-chan out of your sight!"
"Over here! I'm free!"
The Kirisawa teens were playing ultimate Frisbee. A crowd had begun to gather around the makeshift court, amazed by the speed and agility that they were displaying.
Mikgagami thought that they would put most of the UBS fighters to shame. Now he knows how Fuuko got to be so good in their fights. He had no doubt that given the proper training and a madogou, these people would give the Uruha a run for their money.
Yuri shook Ken, Rika's husband, free. He took advantage and threw the Frisbee towards Fuuko.
Fuuko faked to the left, leaving Miko in her wake. She jumped up, caught the Frisbee, and rolled to her right.
"Fuuko sandwich!" Miko suddenly yelled.
Almost immediately, all of his teammates swarmed towards Fuuko and buried her underneath them.
"Foul!" Yuri shouted with a laugh. "This is Ultimate Frisbee, not football."
The crowd laughed and clapped appreciatively at their antics.
"Guys, get off Fuu-chan!" Reiko shouted.
Reiko's husband, Jin, was the first to get off the pile. He then began pulling out his relatives.
Miko was the last one out. He helped Fuuko to her feet.
"I need a break!" Fuuko announced. "My bones won't be able to withstand this torture. Mi-chan, sub for me."
"…"
"Yeah, Mikagami-san," some of the guys encouraged him.
Soon, Mikagami found himself being dragged to the middle of the court.
"Kaoru, get in the game," Jin called out. "I need a break, too."
By the time the game was over, tons of girls were now watching and applauding the dashing Mikagami. They cheered when he scored and screamed themselves hoarse whenever he touched the Frisbee.
"I like playing with you, Mikagami," Miko told him as they were taking their water break.
"Yeah, our game never attracted this many pretty girls," Yuri added.
"I heard that," Ruriko mock-glared at him before bursting into giggles. Ruriko and Yuri then walked away, holding hands.
"Don't you just envy them?" Miko dramatically placed his hand over his heart and fluttered his eyes.
"Hi," three women about their age approached them.
"My name is Chiharu," the one in a flashy red bikini said, giving Mikagami a flirtatious grin. "These are my friends, Mimi and Fiji,"
"Hi!" Miko intercepted the ladies. "I'm Miko. This is my cousin's boyfriend, Tokiya."
Mikagami choked on the water he was drinking.
"Oh," the ladies were obviously disappointed.
"Nice meeting you then," Mimi said as the three began to walk away.
"Hey!" Miko called after them. "I'm still single and available! Ladies! Wait!"
"Here, have more noodles, Mikagami-san,"
"Try my special dessert, Kaoru!"
"You'll love these, Mi-chan,"
"Oh, the drinks are in the cooler, boys,"
"Have you eaten yet, Kaoru?"
Mikagami never had a more chaotic lunch in his entire life. People kept approaching him, getting more food for him, and asking him if he was liking the food.
Beside him, Kaoru looked as if he was in heaven.
Mikagami realized that like him, the younger boy had never had a family this big. He never had the chance to spend time with kids his own age. Never had a mother-figure fawning over him and asking him if he liked his food or if he would like more dessert.
"Hey, Kaoru, maybe after lunch you can show me how to defeat the stage master in your new game!" Hiroshi called out.
"No, he's teaching me how to fix the rubix cube." Jou argued.
And Kaoru was basking in all of the attention showered upon him.
"Hey, I thought we were going swimming after lunch!" Ganko protested.
"But it's bad to go into the water right after swimming, right mom?"
Now Mikagami knew why Ganko was desperate to go here. After loosing her mother and spending her time with her dolls in the Kouran Mansion, this must be a breath of fresh air for her.
He then realized that the Kirisawas were taking him and Kaoru in like they did with Ganko, with arms wide open, no questions asked.
Suddenly, he felt his appetite leave him. "Excuse me," he said as he hastily withdrew from the noisy kitchen.
"Hey, Mi-chan! Wait up!"
"Get lost, Kirisawa." Mikagami snapped at her.
Fuuko snorted as she made her way to the rocks Mikagami was perched on. "Why are you here, brooding alone?"
"None of your business."
"Actually, you are my business," Fuuko grimaced as she took a seat beside the silver-haired youth. "My nana saw you leave and told me, no, commanded me to bring you back immediately."
Mikagami ignored her as he stared into the sea.
"Oi, Mi-chan, what's your problem?"
You and your family, Mikagami wanted to say. He was beginning to get attached to them. But he knew that that would only give him pain. Come Saturday, they would all go home and they would forget about him. But he won't. No. That path would only lead to heartache. He mustn't get too close. He had to save his heart. No more pain…
"Mi-chan, you still there?"
Mikagami felt the purple-haired monkey poking him.
He shrugged her off.
"Go away, you monkey,"
Fuuko winced. "If my cousins hear you call me monkey, I'll never hear the end of it,"
"…"
"What's your problem?" Fuuko snapped at him. "You were fine this afternoon and all. Did Miko say something to upset you?"
"I told you, Kirisawa, get lost."
"Ooh, lover's quarrel!" Thirteen-year old Jou squealed.
They didn't notice that the adolescent brats (the same group of boys who 'welcomed' Fuuko on the first night) had followed the Fuuko and were eavesdropping in their conversation.
"Nana, they're just having a lover's quarrel!" Jou's youngest brother, Ukiya, called out as he ran back to the beach house.
"LQ! LQ! LQ!" Hiroshi, Yuuto, Aoshi, Jou, and Junie started chanting as they ran after Ukiya.
"You brats!" Fuuko yelled after them.
"Ne, neechan, are you really having a lover's quarrel?" Kaoru asked genkily, with both his hands behind his head.
"Argh!" Fuuko lunged at him, only to be held back by Mikagami, their position in the rocks being unstable that one wrong move would send them tumbling below.
Kaoru laughed, stuck out his tongue, and ran after his comrades.
"See what you did?" Fuuko whirled around to face Mikagami.
Mikagami didn't say anything.
"Now we have to go back and explain to them that we aren't having a lover's quarrel." Fuuko was grumbling as she grabbed Mikagami's hand and dragged him back to the house. "I mean, we aren't lovers at all."
Of course, when they arrived in the beach house holding hands, it set off new teasing and jokes, much to Fuuko's dismay.
The chants of LQ! LQ! had changed into singing—
Fuuko and Tokiya
Sitting on a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes love
Then comes marriageThen comes Fuuko
With a baby carriage.
That went on until well into the night.
~tbc
P.S.
OK, I know, I know. Fuuko should be calling her elder cousins niisan and stuff, but I'm fearing for my sanity. The number of people in this fic is confusing enough ^^;; Well…that's kinda my fault too. Ehehe.
