DISCLAIMER:
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Wheeeeeeewwwww... Long week. Long, hectic week. But I think a lot's gonna be better for me because of it. Things are much better with my fellow board members for one - it turns out a lot of people have been complaining to our sponser/teacher about how the others do things, and so she gave us all a collective talking-to on Friday. And it turns out I'm the only one there hasn't been a complaint against. Go me! I have people skills!
I have no time to do replies today, sorry! But Mikka-chan, here're your twins! Have fun!
NOTE I didn't have time to proofread either! O.O;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
Y'know, it really sucks having a brother five years younger than you and almost as tall… and his friends are taller than him! Reijirou thought to himself as the convertible whipped down the streets to Keisuke and Tetsuya's bookstore.
~ Neeee, don't complain, I'm shorter than you! ~
Yeah, but that's DIFFERENT!
~ How? ~
A hard elbow introduced itself to his ribs. "Na, Reijirou, ye're bein' really quiet t'day. Whatcha thinkin' about?"
"The unfairness of genes."
Gesshin looked at him blankly for a second, plainly not knowing what to make of that rather strange statement. Then he shrugged and settled back into his seat. "Whatever man. How much further t' this damn store?"
"Not much." He flicked on his left turn signal, checking in the review mirror to be sure that Chiaki, Suezo, and Risako, following them in Suezo's car, caught it. He was rewarded with the sight of Suezo's blinker also flickering, nodded to himself, and made the turn. "Couple more streets. Hey, boys, we're almost there!" he called to the backseat.
A cheer of joy went up in response. The three of them were having the time of their lives, driving too fast in an open convertible, and going to a (supposedly) cool bookstore. Without parents no less. The cacophony gradually settled down into what they were hoping to find there and how much they'd each finagled out of their parents to spend and if the "adults" might take them out for burgers or something later. Reijirou waited for it… "Aniki!" He knew it. "Aniki, after the bookstore, let's get something to eat! It's almost dinner time!"
Reijirou threw Gesshin a sidelong look, barely concealing his amusement. Gesshin didn't even bother to try hiding it, giving him a fanged grin back, a deliberately Tasuki-like look plastered on his face. Reijirou could hardly stop himself from bursting out in laughter. "We'll ask the others once we get there, but I don't see any problem with it. You'll have to pay for your own food though." He had to yell the last sentence over the resumed cheering from the backseat.
It was all getting together easier than he'd thought. The Aizawas had met him several times and so had no real problem with him taking their sons somewhere for the afternoon, even though a few people they didn't know would probably be going as well. A time had been picked (four, just like Chiaki had commanded), the twins had come home from school with Hajime, everyone had gathered, and they were off.
Risako originally wasn't going to come, as she didn't know Hajime (and therefore theoretically couldn't distract him as Gesshin could) but Gesshin was adamant about not being able to control both Hajime AND Chiaki, and anyway wouldn't they need him to help out with the summoning and everything? So Risako had reluctantly agreed to come along and take over Distraction Duty, as long as Tetsuya or Keisuke would help. She was trying to use the time in the car to find out more about Chiaki, and hopefully she would be able to do her job better.
"Hope they're ready fer this…" Reijirou heard Gesshin mutter under his breath. He nodded a little in response, then made the final turn onto the street where the store was located and began to look for a parking spot.
To his surprise, the street was not covered with cars, as the road outside the Seo household had been when they summoned Chichiri and Soi. There was only one that he thought he recognized, and one that looked slightly battered (but wasn't nearly as bad as the convertible) and he'd never seen before. Where was everyone else? After a second, he dismissed the thought from his mind. Fewer cars would help it look less like something unusual was going on, and the "uninitiated" would be less likely to suspect something. He parallel parked next to the sidewalk, behind the battered car, and turned off the engine as Suezo pulled in behind him.
Before he could say a word, the three ninth-graders piled out of the car and onto the sidewalk. Reijirou, Gesshin, and Suezo (who was in the process of getting out of his car) could only stare in wonder as the three landed in a tangled heap on the concrete, worked themselves apart with much vocalizing, then sprinted inside like their heels were on fire. The street seemed strangely silent, even with the noise of traffic from the busy freeways nearby, after the door swung shut.
There was a moment of quiet. "Well…" Suezo said suddenly, "glad to see that some of the youth of today still find books a good thing."
Reijirou grinned back at him and swung out of the car at a slower pace than Hajime, Katai, and Shirai had taken, Gesshin scrambling after him. Chiaki emerged from Suezo's car, shaking her head, and Risako followed, laughing. "Let's not keep the poor boys waiting, shall we?" She calmly grabbed Gesshin by the shirt and dragged him inside, despite his protests about being strangled and the like.
The interior of the store was just as comfortably shabby as it had been on Monday, except the area around the non-fiction standing shelves looked a lot cleaner. And neater. Reijirou resisted smirking as what was probably a warning ran though his head, courtesy of Nuriko. ~ Don't you say a word about that. ~
I wasn't going to.
"Reijirou! How are you?" The curtain behind the counter was pushed aside, and Tetsuya stepped out of the office, putting on his sunglasses. Reijirou briefly wondered if he had this obsession with his shades. "Risako, Gesshin, good to see you again."
"Hi Tetsuya."
"Yo."
"Aniki…" Hajime was looking up from the sci fi novel he'd grabbed almost as soon as he ran in the store, with a look of confusion on his face. Behind him, Katai and Shirai were also looking at him strangely. "You know the owner? And you guys, too?" he inquired, looking at Gesshin and Risako.
"Yeah, but I didn't know it when I came here. Guys, this is Kajiwara Tetsuya. Tetsuya, this is my sister Chiaki, my brother Hajime, Watari Suezo, and Aizawa Katai and Shirai." He made very sure to distinctly point to each twin as he named them so there would be no future confusions. The two were identical and almost impossible to tell apart, unless one knew them fairly well. The main difference was their style of dress, and Reijirou had made sure to key into the pattern as fast as possible.
"Nice meeting you all. Ne, Reijirou, can I talk to you for a second? And you, Gesshin."
~ This is it. Let's get going. ~
Yeah, let's get this over with. "Sure Tetsuya. Come on man." He grabbed Gesshin's arm and pulled him away from his conversation with Risako, following in Tetsuya's wake. Tetsuya headed back through the curtain. Reijirou and Gesshin paused at the counter to glance back into the store. Suezo and Chiaki had wandered into the nonfiction section together and were peering at something on one of the shelves, their arms linked at the elbow. The three boys were each situated at some place in the fiction section, perusing a book with fairly single-minded intensity. Risako gave them a discreet thumbs-up from her place by the door, and turned her attention back to watching them. They nodded back and ducked behind the counter, pushing aside the curtain and walking into what was possibly the messiest room they'd ever seen.
"Din' I jus' leave my place?" Gesshin asked, stunned.
It looked like a tornado had ripped through the office. Books were everywhere, littering the floor in an abstract pattern, some open, some closed, all old. Papers covered the double-sided desk so thickly that everything below them was obscured. There were a couple of bookshelves against one wall, and there was virtually nothing on them. Four dictionaries could be seen in various places, as well as several Japanese-to-various language books. There were even a couple of old scrolls.
Tetsuya looked back from across the room, his hand on the knob of a door that wasn't apparent when confronted with the sheer volume of mess. "What? Oh, yeah. Yui's always after us to clean this place up, but somehow we never have the time."
"What is all this stuff?"
"We also do a lot of translating, the shop itself doesn't end up making much money usually. That's most of what you see around here, various old or current projects." He waved a hand lazily to encompass the room, then turned the knob and swung the door open. "You coming or not?"
They scrambled around the desk after him.
The room the door opened onto was fairly large and had the distinct "warehouse" feel to it, even though the only things in there were a few boxes and a lot of chairs. Everyone was there, chatting easily in small groups: Miaka, Taka, Hokusai, Chichiri, Kadiri, Soi, Keisuke, Murai, Mitsukake, and Yui. Even Morin was there. Reijirou and Gesshin were both relieved to see her acting relaxed and friendly, talking with Mitsukake as if he were just another person. She'd been the worst to convince so far; if she was adapting well, then most or all of the others should also.
A general call of greeting went up as they entered, and they waved back, bracing themselves for the separation from their seishi. Once again Nuriko and Tasuki fell out of them gracefully, recovering their wits after a moment and joining into the general uproar. Gesshin was immediately claimed by Kadiri to help prove a point in her debate with Hokusai, and Reijirou wandered up to Miaka's group.
She turned and gave him a friendly hug as he stood next to her, which he returned. "Hi Reijirou. Where's Risako?"
"Performing her keeper duties. Hi Yui, hey Keisuke."
"Hey yourself. You two sure you're up for this today?" Keisuke glanced worriedly at his sister and their friend.
"Ohhhh, Nii-chan! You can be so exasperating!" Miaka huffed and rolled her eyes. "Everything went fine when Chichiri came, didn't it? Then it'll be even better now. You should only be worried about Yui-chan, she has TWO to do today."
Yui smiled in a placating manner. "Daijobu. I'll be fine. Something might happen, but Mitsukake is here. If I feel anything I'll let him know, all right?"
"All right…" Keisuke still looked kind of tense, but he plainly knew better than to continue with the subject. Yui could be more stubborn than Miaka at certain times. And besides, she was right.
"Well, I did my part. I got 'em here. Now you get to decide what to do with 'em." Reijirou grinned brightly. "What is the order of the day, anyway?"
Miaka giggled. "I think we're going to try Suezo first, give your brother more time to get absorbed in his reading. And Hokusai and Morin have to go soon, anyway." She leaned over and stage-whispered in his ear. "They're going to a romantic dinner! And a movie!"
Yui rolled her eyes. "Morin told us that in confidence, and this one goes and blabs it to anyone who walks in the door…"
"Well it's not like it's something to be ashamed of! They're so cute together! Anyway, are we ready for it?" Miaka bounced eagerly on the balls of her feet, looking for all the world as if she were fifteen again, not a grown up, mature mother and wife of a professor. "Reijirou-chan, can you go get him since he knows you?"
Reijirou grimaced at the nickname and silently wondered if she'd been conferring with Gesshin and/or Tasuki and/or Nuriko. But he chose to overlook it that time. "Sure, just keep the noise level down."
"Oh, don't worry," Keisuke put in. "This thing's built to withstand earthquakes. Nice, thick walls."
"And very thin doors." Reijirou grinned at the older man's eye-narrowing and made a quick escape.
He picked his way through the office, trying not to step on anything that looked important, and pushed aside the curtain between the back and the counter. He looked around casually, taking note of everyone else's positions. Hajime had grabbed a corner with a rickety chair in it and was getting further and further into his alien-blasting adventures; not the best literature in the world, but better than a lot of teenage boys. Shirai and Katai had found the used manga section and were each scanning various volumes for things they hadn't purchased for their collection. Risako was still near the door, where she could keep an eye open to her left and right at the same time. To his right Chiaki had found the science section and was leafing through an oversized paperback that looked something like a textbook. And beyond her… uh-oh.
Reijirou quietly went around the counter and approached Risako, getting a bit more worried when no way he turned his head would produce the emperor-incarnate. "Ne," he whispered quietly when he was close enough for her to hear him, "where's Hotohori?"
Risako grimaced and shook her head. "I don't know… he just said he'd be back in a few minutes and left in his car. He'll be back; your sister made him swear not to force all seven of us to stuff in your car."
"Shit…" he breathed. "They wanted to call him first. Hokusai and Morin have to leave soon."
"I don't see why it wouldn't work if they aren't here… maybe it's the proximity or something. Look, try to delay them, work with the twins for now, and when he gets back I'll put a leash on him."
Reijirou grinned impishly. "If Chiaki'll let you. She might get jealous, after all."
"Well what's she gonna do about it? Go after you or Gesshin in retaliation?" Risako also grinned, but a bit more wickedly.
Reijirou shuddered. "Lord, I hope not. All right, watch my siblings and I'll grab the twins." She nodded and he began to drift over in the Aizawas' direction, pretending to check out the shelves as he went.
"Ne, look!" Shirai was exclaiming quietly to his brother as he got near. "Look! He's gonna slice that monster up into a thousand pieces-"
"Hey you two." They spun to face him, the comic still dangling from Shirai's hand. Reijirou grinned when he saw the title. "That's a good one."
"Yeah!"
He reached over and casually plucked a magazine off the shelf. "If you like that, try this." Their eager hands grabbed for it, but he teasingly pulled it out of their reach - which was really hard, since they were barely shorter than he was. Damnit, he hated being small! But it was time to swing Operation Initiate into action… "Ne, Tetsuya found something back there he wants to show you, follow me."
"All right!" They chorused together, something they did surprisingly rarely.
"I'll get Hajime!" Katai took one step in that direction before Reijirou grabbed him by the back of his shirt.
"He can see later, right now he's flying a spaceship through a black hole or something. We probably won't be able to wake him up 'til we have to go." Reijirou tugged Katai jokingly in the direction of the counter by his shirt for a few feet before letting go, Shirai grinning at his brother's displeased expression and squawk of protest.
They filed through the curtain, the boys not being even slightly phased at the condition of the office (then again, they were typical teenage boys, Reijirou remembered). Reijirou braced himself slightly before setting his hand on the doorknob and turning it to the right, getting ready for whatever was coming up.
Thirty eyes of various colors turned in their direction as the light from the office spilled into the semi-dim warehouse room, some perched in folding chairs or sturdy boxes, some still standing and towering over the sitting ones. He stepped to the side, letting the audience get a good look at just who came in after him.
"Reijirou-san… who are all these people?" It was Katai; he typically sounded just a bit (but only a bit) more tremulous than his brother.
"What's up with this?" Shirai spoke up for himself, sounding the slightest fraction defensive. Almost like Suboshi…
One pair of blue eyes approached him: Kadiri. She glanced from him to the twins and back again, a confused expression on her face. "Where's Suezo?"
He shrugged in response. "Risako said he had to go somewhere, but he'd be back. Chiaki's still here, in any case."
She nodded, then inspected the twins contemplatively. She looked kind of weird, so Reijirou couldn't blame them when they began to back out of the door on some unspoken signal. But it had to happen, he didn't want THEIR deaths to be plaguing his mind like Adam's was. He put his strength to use and grabbed an arm of each and dragged them easily into the room, into the center of the gathering.
Neither one of the boys knew what was going on, and they just kept turning and searching for a person who was not staring them down. And was it just them, or did there seem to be more people in the room than there were a minute ago…?
Reijirou wandered off to the side, letting someone else deal with this for once. He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, looking in the group's direction but not really seeing it.
His vision sharpened again when he noted an approaching figure. He took in light blue hair, wild bangs, and a long piece of wood before his mind put the picture together to equal Chichiri. He nodded, and the monk nodded back, resting against the wall next to him and letting his staff lay against his body. "Getting a bit tired of this no da?"
"Not exactly getting tired… It's just…" He groped for words to try and explain himself. "It's kind of like… they're just kids. They're innocent. Why do they have to be mixed up in this? Why do we have to go after them like sharks?" He gestured at the others, who had the twins completely surrounded and were beginning the explanation. "I know they might not be prepared otherwise, but… it's like we're taking away something they'll never get back."
He was surprised, to say the least, when Chichiri nodded in understanding. "I know no da. But, if you think about it, every one of you is like that. There's no real way you can go back to your normal lives after this na no da." He turned to regard the younger boy seriously, his unmasked face holding only traces of sadness and regret. "You would be dead if we didn't. Still… none of you will ever be normal again."
It was all going according to plan. Good. It was also incredibly boring, especially as she had nothing to do except keep an eye on "the uninitiated" (whoever'd picked that term would be getting a piece of her mind soon, it was really stupid. But they were stuck with it) and that didn't even take much concentration. Shortly after Reijirou had headed back with the boys Suezo had returned, toting a cardboard multi-cup holder, in whose pockets rested plenty of caffeine for all those over sixteen. Risako had taken the unexpected cappuccino gratefully and sipped slowly, holding Reijirou's as well and smiling into the rim when Suezo explained to Chiaki he'd just had to have coffee.
Not much else was going on. Hajime hadn't looked up once, displaying quite a single-minded focus and evidence of exactly WHY he liked bookstores in the first place: more various-quality sci-fi to read. Chiaki and Suezo had separated a bit, each looking for specifics in their majors they needed, would need, or might need. While Chiaki seemed to be locked into one certain book in particular though, Suezo would move back and forth along the shelves and casually pull one down, opening it and murmuring a few sentences to himself in English that Risako could only half-understand.
She loved to listen to his voice, even if he wasn't exactly her type physically. She had a slight problem with dating guys who's hair was almost as long as hers, for one, although he definitely wasn't unattractive. His voice, though, now that was amazing… deep and melodious and rich. Her ideal guy would have that voice. Yeah…
Abruptly, Risako was snapped back to the present. The cloth hung in the doorway behind the counter was moving, being pushed aside by a moderate-sized hand, which was attached to an arm encased in a baggy gray sweatshirt. She dug around in her memory and decided it was Shirai; Katai had been sporting a T-shirt with the logo of one of the local baseball teams. She'd really been daydreaming for awhile if they were already coming out… they were, weren't they? The curtain had stopped while it still half-covered the door.
It fluttered again, as if in a breeze, and not three but five people emerged: Tetsuya, surprisingly enough, followed four people who looked exactly alike.
She had to work extremely hard to keep from staring. Except for the translucent nature of two of them, and the clothes that varied between all of them, all four were boys in their mid-teens with slightly-longish dark blond/light brown hair. As far as she could see, they all had the exact same shade of blue eyes as well. This was going to be confusing….
The two non-pale ones glanced back towards Tetsuya, a bit uncertainly, and he nodded minutely in response. With one last glance they began walking back in the direction of the fiction section, towards the Manga section, where the books and magazines they'd been inspecting still lay spread out. They each picked up one and began looking at it again, carefully turning the pages, trying to appear normal, but all too often their eyes would wander to their counterparts.
Amiboshi and Suboshi, meanwhile, had stopped behind the counter and were looking around in awe, as nearly every seishi had done after they got over the slight shock of having been called, meeting their modern selves, and being reunited with their miko and any other seishi. Risako briefly wondered if there'd been any renewal of past grudges between the Suzaku and Seiryu this time, as there had been when Soi was called, and if the Seiryu twins would accidentally destroy anything modern. Nearly everyone had innocently wanted to inspect things, and had nearly broken them into little bits. Kadiri's computer still hadn't completely recovered. Her musings were cut off, though, when Tetsuya waved his hand in her line of vision. "Earth to Risako," he said softly.
"Which one's which?" she murmured dazedly.
He muted his laughter and surreptitiously pointed to the pale twin - or were they quadruplets now? - in the sort of purple robe-type thing. "That's Amiboshi." A bit of close peering picked out a simple wooden flute with some strings tied at the end shoved through his belt. Tetsuya then nodded to the one in the orange and blue, with two balls with feathers on the end tied to his own belt. "And that's Suboshi. Meet the Seiryu twins. And come down before I have to pinch you."
She blinked and grinned sheepishly. "Sorry… how'd it go?"
"About as well as can be expected," he replied. Both of them unconsciously kept their voices low, trying to avoid anyone's hearing. "Yui's all right, although Mitsukake had to help her. No one attacked anyone else, although it was a near thing."
"Tasuki again?"
"Surprisingly, Taka. I guess his Tamahome memories overwhelmed him for a minute; in any case, it's good Nuriko was there."
"Yeah." Risako was infinitely glad she hadn't seen the horrible scene in Tamahome's home, when he, Nuriko, and Miaka had gone to extend Hotohori's offer of shelter to his family. The pictures in her mind were bad enough, especially of little Yuiren. "I don't really think I can blame him…"
"No one can, not even Soi or Amiboshi. But…" he held up a warning finger when she began to make another query, "in another unexpected turn, Suboshi begged his forgiveness."
Jaw drop.
"I'm serious." He shook his head slightly and grimaced, clearly conveying emotion even with his covered eyes. "Whatever the Seiryu went through after…wards, it must've been hell. But they're better for it."
She whistled softly through her teeth, a habit she'd been trying to break but was too preoccupied at that moment to remember not to do it. "I wonder what Nakago-"
"Yeah. Me too," Tetsuya cut her off. "I'm gonna go get Suezo. Hopefully we'll be done here soon." Risako nodded silently in agreement, and the older man worked his face into a light-hearted expression and approached his newest customer, who had moved into the Foreign Fiction section.
Risako could hear them plainly from her perch by the door. "You're Suezo, aren't you? Reijirou was telling me you're majoring in English."
Suezo gave him an easy smile, displaying the cover of the book currently in his hands - something she wouldn't've been able to read even if she was close enough. "I guess it sticks out. Is this one any good, do you know?"
Tetsuya glanced down and seemed to take in the strange words in a heartbeat. "That one! Yeah, that's definitely a good one. Tolkein's a wonderful author. You just have to be careful with the names, even in English they're a mouthful."
"Maybe I'll look up his others when I'm done with this, then." Suezo carefully laid it on the stack that was slowly forming in front of him.
"I'd definitely suggest it. Listen, there's something in the back you might be interested in, wanna take a look?"
"What is it?" Suezo gave the sunglasses a curious look as he began to gather up his selected books. "Can I pay for these?"
Tetsuya waved blithely, hiding his anxiousness with the gesture. "We do a lot of translating here, too, as our second business. I can't really bring most of the stuff out on the floor, but you might like seeing some of the things we work on." Risako could plainly see the look of Come on, agree already! Tetsuya was assuming in his stance, and privately wondered at how Suezo didn't.
The stack of books in his hand was thick, as it always was whenever he went in a bookstore. He just couldn't seem to stop buying books, on any number of subjects; they were definitely one of his vices. He always seemed to want to learn more, know more, understand more, and worked harder than those around him to accomplish it. He was smart, yes, but there were many smart people, and a lot were smarter than him. The difference between them and him was he seemed to comprehend things better, to take the information and make it a permanent part of his memory. And books were just one more step on the way.
That same sense that helped him in classes was now running full-gear. Something was definitely up. He'd left for his life-giving coffee, and when he'd returned the two young twins were nowhere to be seen and Risako-san hadn't moved at all. She hadn't moved since he'd gotten back, either, and seemed to be uninterested in the written material around her. Why did you go to a bookstore if you weren't going to look at books? It couldn't have been to keep Reijirou-san and Gesshin-san company; they were best friends and had been claimed by the owner - Tetsuya, wasn't it? - as soon as they'd set foot in the store. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen them since then, either.
But he'd put those curious questions aside and gotten to work scanning the shelves, being absorbed in looking for new titles he'd enjoy or could use in class. Reijirou-san had been right, this place did have unusual titles - and a lot bigger Foreign Fiction section than normal. He'd gravitated there easily, looking at works by Grisham, King, and other popular American and British authors, choosing a couple that looked interesting. But then Tetsuya-san had come, and when he looked up he could see the twins again (although not Reijirou-san or Gesshin-san), and neither one was acting normal. Yes, something was definitely going on.
He was careful not to show it, but he could easily decipher the anxiousness that was lurking in Tetsuya's manner. Add that to the list of strange incidents he'd been noticing since he'd returned. The man plainly wanted him to agree. Whatever was going on was about to fall on his head.
Against his better judgement, he decided to go. He could defend himself well enough to get away if there was something that wrong in the back, even though all his senses told him he wouldn't need to fight. And he could probably get out of anything else. Maybe Tetsuya-san just wanted to ask him a question out of the others' hearing; it wasn't that far-fetched a theory. Whatever reason, he would have sworn that, if he wasn't trying to be discreet, Tetsuya-san would have sighed heavily and wiped his forehead with relief. "Come on, Suezo-san, it's right back here."
"All right." Suezo collected his books, keeping a tight hold on them in the extremely off-chance that he'd need projectile weapons, and began following the older man behind the counter - the same place Reijirou-san and Gesshin-san had gone, he remembered as Tetsuya-san pushed aside the curtain.
The sheer chaos of the office beyond arrested him for a long moment. How could anyone possibly walk in there, much less work? How could anyone find anything when he or she wanted it? Tetsuya-san surpressed a laugh and steered him around the obstacle course like a professional race driver to a door in the opposite wall.
Suezo pulled himself away from wondering at the sheer volume of mess to contemplate the door. "It's not in this room?"
Tetsuya-san shook his head. "No, through here."
Suezo took a better grip on his books and opened the door, stepping through.
When his eyes adjusted, he nearly bolted once more. In that room were not only Reijirou-san and Gesshin-san, who he'd half-expected, but at least six other people. No, seven. No, eight. Yes, eight. He felt more than saw or heard Tetsuya close the door behind him and join the throng that was mostly staring him down; Reijirou-san was the only one of the eleven who wasn't watching him. There were four women, also. He had a strange feeling of déjà vu… had he seen one or most of these people before?
In fact… most - or all, he couldn't tell which - of those people were giving him the same feeling he'd gotten from Reijirou-san, Chiaki, Gesshin-san… the same feeling he got from himself and had for as long as he could remember. They were different, those people…
He stopped shrinking back against the door as he came to that realization, slowly standing upright and looking them straight in the eye, trying to find a clue as to why they affected him this way, until one of the women came forward. She was petite, more than half a foot shorter than him, with long, wavy brown hair that fell down her back and large, expressive green eyes. From her, he was getting a stronger feeling than anyone. Her face plainly conveyed her anxiety and worry, and once she glanced back over her shoulder at a man just slightly shorter than him, but definitely older, with blue hair. He nodded quietly, as did the blonde woman next to him, and the brunette turned back to him, resolute once more. She took a step, then another, bringing her to within three feet of him. "Hotohori…"
He started and blinked rapidly. Was she thinking he was someone else? Quick glances to his right and left showed him no one else who could be this "Hotohori" person, except Reijirou, who definitely was not named Hotohori. He looked back at her, confused, and surprised (to say the least) to see a smile dancing over her face. "I meant you. You're Hotohori."
He looked once more to his right, where Reijirou was, the one person he even semi-knew in this gathering. Maybe this was the answer for his questions… "Am I?" he asked calmly, not sure if he wanted to believe it or not.
Reijirou nodded grimly back, perfectly serious.
That strange name… and those feelings… "Finally…"
"Finally… what?"
"I think I'm going to know why we… don't belong."
Risako shifted in the chair she'd finally claimed five minutes after Tetsuya had taken Suezo back, checking her watch for what had to be the hundred billionth time and finding not even a minute had passed since she last checked it. She sighed and slumped forward, groaning slightly in annoyance. How long would they take? It had been twenty minutes all ready. Suezo must have taken it really hard, refused to believe, and they'd had to convince him, as they had everyone except… wait, strike that, everyone. Everyone had taken convincing. It was all too strange to be taken in immediately. Not that she could blame any of them. But couldn't they save on the time? It didn't take that long to do a summoning, once the incarnate was convinced to try it…
She stood and walked to the counter, bending over it to find a trash can and tossing her long-empty cappuccino cup into the bin. She performed another check as she returned to her seat: the twins had pried Hajime out of his book and were showing him manga (well, one was; they alternated watching Amiboshi and Suboshi, who were still looking around with interest, Amiboshi more than Suboshi), and Chiaki was engrossed in some biochemistry text or other. She eyed the books in the fiction section longingly; her own books were getting a bit tiring to read, as she'd read them repeatedly, some over many, many years. Maybe she was taking her job just a little too seriously… Her mind made up, she stood up resolutely and walked in the direction of Katai, Shirai, and Hajime.
She didn't make it.
The smoke was gone, Miaka was smiling widely, and Hotohori and Suezo were staring at each other as each seishi pair had before them. There always seemed to be needed a minute of Study-Each-Other time, and everyone respectfully kept their distance until the time was obviously over. Suezo wasn't as shocked as everyone before him had been; quite the contrary, he was watching Hotohori with as much interest as the former emperor was watching him, maybe even more. Miaka was all set to jump on Hotohori with a tight hug, when-
"RISAKO!!!!!!"
AUTHOR'S NOTES II: Dun dun DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNN......
I was gonna write a "suppliment" that dealt with the summonings and exactly what the hell went on with them, but I haven't had any time to do THAT either. Fortunately, I don't have so much writer's block any more! And I'm writing something ORIGINAL! Wow, what a concept, Kaze-chan and original. Who would've thought they'd go together?
Well, I still wanna write that, because I -know- there'll be questions about the summoning, but I might not get a chance to. Just keep an eye out for it in case it happens to pop up - I'll post it directly behind this chapter. See ya! ~glomps all and poofs~
