Author's note: Well, on to the eighth chapter! Wai! It's getting closer to done, though I must admit this isn't the coolest chapter in the world... It's got some important plot, though, like Ryuuen's mother being confrontational, and the introduction of yet another character I don't own, though I'm not saying which one, because it really spoils the end of the chapter.
Next chapter will probably be pretty short...but I'm not sure when I'll get it out, as I've been really busy recently, what with a new full time job...and a bit of an obession with video games, not to mention several other pieces of writing to work on, including my Gravitation fanfic (only 1 chapter so far), Bishounen R Us
DISCLAIMER: Nope, still don't own Fushigi Yuugi, or any of the characters from it...not even the one who shows up at the end of the chapter. Though, Himitsu and Devin still belong to me. ^_^
Chapter 8: hurry!
The first thing I did after making my realization was shake my head and try to convince myself that Sai wasn't in as much danger as I thought he was. He was Hotohori, a Suzaku shichiseishi just like myself. He was stronger than that, even if he didn't remember yet. I didn't think that he remembered, at least not everything. He would have seen through my lie if he had remembered. He would have recognized me for who I was, and he wouldn't have kept up the lie. But even without remembering, he would be fine. He had to be fine, because I wouldn't be fine if he wasn't.
I was still worried, though, and the second thing I did was panic. I bolted up from the seat and ran over to the table where the other three were sitting, still completely oblivious as to what had just happened. When I got to their table they all looked up at me with curious expressions on their faces. Of course, when they saw my own panic, those expressions turned worried.
"Is something wrong, Ryuuen?" Houjun asked me.
"Nakago was just here!" I exclaimed. That brought looks of shock and disbelief to Genrou and Taka's faces. Houjun just looked surprised. "He came to our table and made Devin leave with him. He walked right by your table on his way out. Didn't you see him?"
"He wouldn't have gotten outa here in once piece if I'd seen him," Genrou said, and Taka nodded in agreement.
"Did it ever occur to you that he might have changed since the last time we saw him, Tasuki?" Houjun asked, his voice soft. Genrou growled at the name, but then he shook his head vehemently.
"Nakago will always be a bastard," he said.
"He took Devin, Houjun," I said. "Devin didn't want to go, but he didn't want to put up a fight either. He threatened to take me instead, and Devin only went with him so he'd leave me alone. And he told me he has Sai and Miaka."
"Miaka is in Japan," Taka said. "He can't have her."
Genrou snorted. "This from the man who's been in and out of a book? You're willin' to believe that Suzaku and his buddies are real and that we're all reincarnations of great warriors, but you're not willin' to believe that Nakago can get his hands on Miaka just because she's halfway across the world?"
"I talked to her yesterday morning," Taka said.
"That doesn't mean much," Genrou said. "Do ya really wanna call his bluff?"
"It doesn't matter anyway," I snapped. "He has Sai!" I was starting to feel impatient. Nakago had Sai and Miaka, and he had just left with Devin, and all Taka and my stupid brother could do was sit there and argue about whether Nakago could have kidnapped Miaka! I felt like ripping something apart, and at the moment Genrou was looking like a very good target.
"Who is Sai?" Taka asked.
"That's the name his imperial prettiness goes by nowadays," Genrou said. "And are ya sure of that, Ryuuen?"
"Not completely," I said. "He just said that he had one of us, so I guess it could be Mitsukake or Chiriko, if they're around somewhere. But Sai's been missing; I told you that. And even if it's not Sai, we can't leave Mitsukake or Chiriko, and we definitely can't leave Devin. He went with Nakago to keep me safe."
"We can't do much about it anyway," Houjun said, and I turned to glare at him, even though I knew deep down inside that he was making sense. "We have no idea where he is or how to find him."
"But we have to do something!" I protested.
"Did he tell you anything else?" he asked me. "Like somewhere to meet him, or something you could do so he would release them?"
"He gave me a message to take to someone he called Devin's "dragon,"" I said. "But I don't know who that might be. The only dragon I can think of is Seiryuu, and I doubt Nakago needs me to take a message to his master."
"You said earlier that he is related to your teacher somehow, didn't you?" Houjun said.
"Yeah," I replied. "He's Himitsu-sensei's boyfriend."
"We should tell him about it, then," he said.
"We can't get another outsider involved in this, Chichiri," Taka said. "Having this Devin involved is already too much. What would we say to this teacher? He wouldn't believe the truth."
"He might," I said. "Devin believed everything I told him. He didn't have any sort of problem accepting the story. Besides, he seemed to recognize Suzaku and Seiryuu. I think they might already be involved."
As I finished talking, I realized that Genrou was staring at me with a dumbfounded expression. He looked like he was torn between calling me an idiot and screaming. The others didn't seem to have any problems, but Genrou did, and that worried me. "What?" I asked.
"Ya told him?" he asked in a choked tone. "About us? About the book and the gods?" I nodded. "What the hell did ya do somethin' stupid like that for?"
I looked down at the table and avoided looking at Genrou as I answered his question. I had momentarily asked myself the same question right after I started telling Devin the story, and I still hadn't come up with a reply that made sense. The closest I could get was to say that I trusted Devin, and that I didn't know why I trusted him, just that I did. I told Genrou this, and his expression grew angrier, rather than understanding or accepting.
"Ya idiot!" he exclaimed. "Ya barely know this guy, and here ya are, tellin' him yer crazy stories that ya couldn't even accept on yer own a few days ago! What would ya have done if he had decided that you're crazy and then convinced Himitsu-sensei that he's right? You're already on shaky ground with the fuckin' school because of the cross dressing thing. If one of the teachers starts worryin' about yer sanity it'll get ya stuck in an institution before ya know it!"
"Devin wouldn't do that," I shot back. "Even if he didn't believe me, he wouldn't try to make Himitsu-sensei think I'm crazy."
"How the fuck do ya know that? You've talked to the guy, what? Twice now? Is that supposed to make ya an expert on his behavior?"
"He just wouldn't," I said from between my teeth.
The problem was that I saw where Genrou was coming from. I really didn't know Devin much at all, and I had no real reason to trust him with the story of our past, especially not when that story involved Genrou and Houjun explaining things to me, making me believe it. But I still trusted Devin, even if I couldn't figure out why, and I couldn't think of any way to explain that trust to my over-protective brother. All I could do was get frustrated with him, which was how I felt at that moment.
"Bullshit," Genrou said.
I glared at him, but didn't dignify that with a response. Instead, I turned away from the table and started walking out of the restaurant, pulling my coat on as I did so. I did not want to continue the argument, since it would just make me more frustrated, and I would never be able to convince Genrou that Devin was to be trusted, because I couldn't explain it to myself. Rather than continue there, I decided to leave and go tell Himitsu-sensei what had happened, in hopes that he might be able to help. The worst that could happen would be that he would laugh at me and tell me to go home and stop making things up. At least, that's what I thought.
It wasn't until I stepped outside, into the cold, not yet officially winter, though it felt like winter, air and looked around at the snow that I remembered that Houjun had driven us to Perkins. I would either have to walk, through the snow, which I did not want to do, or wait for the others. And waiting meant I would have to face Genrou again. Shivering and pulling my coat tighter around my body, I turned back to the entrance, only to stop when I saw Taka step outside.
"You really think we should tell this teacher of yours, Nuriko?" he asked me.
I glared at him for just a moment. "Don't call me that," I muttered, before raising my voice to answer his question. "And yeah, I do. He has a right to know that someone like Nakago has his boyfriend, even if the story behind it is less than believable to him. And he might be able to help. You never know."
"Tasuki is worried about you," he said.
"I know," I said. "But I really do trust Devin, even if I'm not sure why I do. And I'm a big boy. I can take care of myself without having to have my big brother watching me every step of the way. He may not want to tell Himitsu-sensei, but I do. I trust him the same way I trust Devin, and I'm going to tell him about this whether Genrou wants me to or not."
"I'll give you a ride to wherever this teacher lives," he said. "Since the person who drove you here is currently trying to keep Tasuki from impulsively burning down the restaurant."
"He has his tessen here?" I asked. He nodded, and I grimaced. Then, I forced a smile, even though I really wasn't in any sort of happy mood at the moment. "Well, which car is yours?"
I didn't realize that I had absolutely no idea where Himitsu-sensei lived until we had already been driving for a couple of minutes. At the same time as I realized that, I remembered that Devin had said that Himitsu-sensei was not at home. Genrou would probably have decided to give up there, if only because he didn't want me getting Himitsu-sensei involved. But I didn't want to give up, not after I decided to do it, so I asked Taka to stop by home after I told him that I didn't really know where Himitsu-sensei lived.
My plan was very, very simple. We had a phonebook at home. All I was going to do was look up Himitsu-sensei in the phonebook. If he wasn't in there, I would try for Devin. I had to assume that Himitsu-sensei and Devin lived somewhere in the Appleton area, specifically in the region I could find in the phonebook. If they didn't, I was more or less out of luck finding them. Luckily for me, I was probably right, since I doubted Himitsu-sensei would like living too far away from the school.
Unfortunately, my plan didn't involve Mom being home early from work, and she was. I didn't notice it when we pulled into the driveway, even though her car was sitting there, and it shouldn't have been. I was too busy being preoccupied with thoughts of Sai (and Devin and Miaka, though they weren't quite as important at the time) in danger. I didn't actually notice that she was home until I got inside and found her sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee.
"Ryuuen, where have you been?" she asked me as soon as I burst through the side door. I immediately froze and stared at her, all thoughts of what I was about to do gone from my head. Taka probably would have run into me had he been running the same way I was. Luckily, he wasn't, because I didn't feel him slam into me from behind and knock me over.
"Mom..." I said before my brain actually started working and telling me what I should tell her. "Genrou and I went out for lunch. He wanted to cheer me up."
"Where is he?" she asked.
"He's with Houjun," I said. She gave me a look that clearly told me that she didn't know who Houjun was. "A friend. He drove us to Perkins, but something came up while we were at the restaurant, so I came back without them."
It continued like that for a few minutes. Mom kept asking me questions about what we'd been doing, why Genrou and Houjun "abandoned" me and left me to get back from Perkins on my own...things like that. I answered the questions for a while, until I realized that she suspected that the something that came up at the restaurant had something to do with my odd behavior recently, and that she wanted to have that talk that she had mentioned that morning right then. And if I didn't want to talk, she would drag it out of me, like it or not. I would have been glad to tell her what was going on, if I wasn't in such a hurry, so I finally flat out refused to answer a question.
"Mom, I'm kinda in a hurry right now," I said to her. "Can't we talk about this later? I really don't have time for it at the moment."
"No, Ryuuen," she replied. "We need to talk about it now. I want to know why one of my sons came home crying last night. Something is going on with you, and your brother as well, and I think as your mother I have a right to know what it is."
"I know," I said impatiently. "But not right now. Right now I need to get going. Every minute I stay here makes it that much more likely that Sai will be hurt, and I'm not going to let that happen!"
She went pale when I mentioned Sai possibly getting hurt, though I was pretty sure it wasn't because Sai might get hurt. "Ryuuen, are you involved in something dangerous?"
I nodded. She got a sad look on her face, but it only lasted a very brief moment. Then it was replaced by an angry look, and the exact same stubborn look that I had seen Genrou get when he didn't plan to be budged from what he wanted to do.
She stayed silent, though. After a few seconds, I went for the phonebook and started looking for Ryuujin. There were no Ryuujins at all, let alone Ryuujin, Himitsu, so I started looking for James. Finally, I found an address for Devin and wrote it down on a piece of scrap paper. Paper in hand, I started for the door, only to be stopped by Mom stepping right in front of me.
"You aren't going anywhere, young man," she said firmly. She couldn't actually stop me if I fought back, and I'm sure she realized that even without knowing about my abnormal strength. The problem was...I didn't want to fight back, because I might hurt her. I still wasn't used to my strength, which just meant that I would hurt her that much easier if I judged things wrong.
"Mom, get out of my way," I said, feeling more frustrated at that moment than I had in a very long time. "This is important. Sai is in trouble. So is Devin. And it's all my fault, so if there is any way I can help, I have to do it!"
"I am not letting you run off and get yourself hurt!" she exclaimed. "This isn't like you, Ryuuen, getting involved in dangerous things like this! Your brother, yes, but not you. Just stay here. We can call the police. They're better at handling dangerous situations than you are."
"The police can't help in this, Mom," I said. "They would just get themselves hurt, maybe killed."
"And you think my seventeen year old son can do better?" she shrieked.
"Yes, I do. Because if we can't do this, I'm not sure if anyone can. Please, Mom, just move. Don't make me force you to move."
She just stared at me and didn't say a word. She didn't move either. I let it stay like that for almost two whole minutes before I admitted to myself that she wasn't going to make life easy for me. Finally, I sighed, stepped up to Mom, and picked her up as if she weighed nothing. I never would have been able to do it without my Nuriko-strength, since she was actually bigger than I was (odd as that seemed to most of the people who knew me, and knew that I was male). I then turned around in place and put her back down on the other side of me.
"I'm sorry, Mom," I said, giving her a quick hug. "I'll be as careful as I possibly can, but this is something that I have to do. And I will explain it to you when I get back, I promise." I just had to hope that things wouldn't go like they had the last time I had faced one of Seiryuu's followers (while alive), so that I could actually carry out my promise. I couldn't let myself think that things might not go well, because I was too scared already.
Then I ran for the door before she could get in front of me again. I couldn't move very fast in the dress I was wearing, but at least Mom was still more than a little surprised by what I had just done. By the time she actually realized that I was leaving, I was already at the door, where Taka was waiting for me. I'm not sure why he didn't come in, since I invited him in when I went through the door, but he had decided to stay outside at the door while I searched for Himitsu-sensei's address. From the look on his face, though, he had heard at least some of my conversation with Mom through the screen window on the door.
"Come on," I said as I ran toward the car. "We need to get moving."
He didn't hurry to the car. He just started walking, and looked back at the house, where Mom had just reached the doorway and was calling for me to stop. I had to ignore her. If I went back and explained everything to her, it might be too late. Every moment I spent doing something else was one more moment Nakago might be using to do horrible things to Sai, and I just couldn't let that happen. Even then, it might already be too late.
"Your mother is worried about you," he said. "Are you just going to leave her like this?"
"She doesn't understand," I said. "She doesn't know what's going on. She doesn't know anything, and it would take too long to explain it. We need to hurry!"
I sat down in the car and waited impatiently for him, but he didn't come. At least, not right away. He stopped less than three feet away from the house, when my mother came running out of the house toward him. I didn't want to have to talk to her again, since I couldn't think of any easy way to explain things to her, so I had closed the door. Because of that, I couldn't hear what she said to Taka, or what he said back to her. All I know is that she didn't follow him to the car, and that Taka refused to tell me what had happened when he finally got in.
Once Taka started driving, we found out that Taka, who had been in Appleton only since the beginning of the school year, knew the area, and how to find a place just by the address and without a map, far better than I did, even though I had been living in the area since Mom, Genrou, and I had moved to the US. He actually had an idea of where the street that Devin's apartment was on was, while I had never even heard of it before. Still, it took us almost twenty minutes of driving around a couple neighborhoods before we found the right apartment complex and stopped. And I got more and more worried and frustrated the longer it took.
The moment Taka stopped the car and started to turn it off, I unbuckled my seat belt and dashed out of the car. I didn't bother to wait for him as I ran for the door. I wasn't really thinking about whether Taka would be able to follow me and find the right apartment or not. Even if I had, I'm not sure if I would have slowed down...I was too worried and sick of not being able to do anything that might help by that point to care if I left behind my fellow shichiseishi or not.
The elevator inside the building took to long to get down to the first floor, too long being a few seconds. I took the stairs instead, and I even managed to make it up two whole flights of stairs before I tripped over the bottom of my dress and fell. Luckily, that brought me back to my senses a little, and I took the other flight of stairs a little slower, though still at a run.
Himitsu-sensei and Devin lived in apartment 408. The stairs came out right next to it, so within seconds of getting up to the fourth floor, I was banging on the door, hoping that Himitsu-sensei was actually there. I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to tell him if, or when, he answered, but at least it was something I could do, since I had no idea how to go rescue Sai. I was still banging on the door, and getting no answer, when Taka finally came up the stairs.
"You could have waited for me," he said bitterly.
"No time," I replied, banging louder. I was actually a little surprised that no one from the other apartments was yelling at me for being so loud. I was starting to get even more frustrated, and I was about ten seconds away from starting to yell for Himitsu-sensei, since there was a small chance that he might not have heard my knocking.
Right before I started yelling, though, the elevator opened up just a few doors down from where we were standing. I stopped banging on the door just long enough to see who was in the elevator, and as soon as I the doors opened, I let my hand fall and rushed forward. The person stepping out of the elevator was Himitsu-sensei.
"Himitsu-sensei!" I exclaimed, and then the words just started coming out. "They have Devin! He shouldn't be involved, but he said he already is, and I couldn't stop Devin from going with Nakago. He did it so that he wouldn't take me, and I don't know what to do, but I thought you should know! And you probably won't believe me, but Nakago said that he has Miaka and Sai, and I have no idea what to do, but I don't want him to hurt Sai, and I'm just so frustrated!"
Right about then I ran out of breath and sort of collapsed right in front of Himitsu-sensei, who hadn't even gotten to take a step out of the elevator. When I looked up at him, he looked confused, but nowhere near as confused as I expected him to be. Besides, he looked more worried than confused, and that confused me, since I could barely make sense of what I had just said myself.
"I don't think I quite understood all of that, Ryuuen," Himitsu-sensei said. "Why don't you take a couple breaths, get up, and then you can try again, slower this time, somewhere other than the hallway?"
"We don't have time for that!" I exclaimed in protest as he offered his hand to help me up, though I took it anyway. "He has Sai!"
"Nuriko, we don't even know where they are," Taka said from behind me. I turned to glare at him, partly for calling me Nuriko again and partly for trying to make me slow down a little. I wanted to go save Sai right away, and I guess I had been hoping more than a little that Himitsu-sensei would somehow magically know what we were supposed to do.
"Yes, Ryuuen, let us settle down a little and get the facts straight first." This came from behind Himitsu-sensei, from another person, a man, in the elevator with him. Himitsu-sensei was right in front of him, so I hadn't even known he was there until that moment. But then, after he spoke up, Himitsu-sensei stepped aside and looked at him questioningly.
"Sensei?" he asked the man.
The man standing in the elevator behind Himitsu-sensei looked familiar, though I was sure I had never seen him before. And unlike Taka and Houjun, he wasn't another person who I had seen as Nuriko and then forgotten until just recently. I knew I had never seen him before.
He was kinda tall, though not as tall as Himitsu-sensei. I was sure I would have known if I had seen him before, just because I would have remembered his hair. It was bright red, not the same shade as Himitsu-sensei's hair, but still red. It was pretty short, and it stuck straight up, except for two pieces that hung down on either side of his face in front of his ears and two more pieces that kinda fell like bangs over his forehead. His eyes were red too, but he didn't look evil, like someone with red eyes would in any story. He looked kind, and beautiful.
To be completely honest with myself, he was probably the most beautiful man I had ever seen, and that includes Himitsu-sensei and Sai. The difference between him and Sai, though, was that this man was beautiful, but I knew the minute I saw him that I would never ever have a chance with him. Besides, just because he was beautiful didn't necessarily mean that I would give up Sai just to try to get him. Of course, like Sai and Himitsu-sensei, this man had the same sort of masculine feel to his beauty that made him unmistakably male, unlike me.
I sort of froze when I saw the man, even though I knew I had never met him before. I just couldn't shake the feeling that I recognized him from somewhere. It didn't help that it had almost sounded like he knew me when he spoke, though I had no idea how he could know me, since I didn't know him. By the time I got my brain working again (which didn't take long...), Taka had already spoken.
"Suzaku-sama..."