II. Arrival

Three boys stood in the middle of an open square at Aono Park, gazing out at the same spot in the distance with a grim, calculating silence. A few passers-by stared at them quizzically but were ignored.

Apart from the fact that they were gaping at a harmless old flagpole several meters away, they seemed perfectly normal. Were endearing, in fact.

Then finally, the littlest of them muttered "Bunta-niisan can't hit that pole at this distance."

"Yes I can," Marui Bunta, the tallest of the three, answered.

"No you can't." His youngest brother Hijiri was ever passionate about playing the devil's advocate. He feared for that one.

"Bunta-niisan can hit any pole at any distance," Yajiro put in matter-of-factly. He was a freshman middle schooler and he knew better about most things.

"Want I should go home and get his tennis gear so we can see?"

"Heck no. The concert's about to start." The ever-sensible Yajiro was the first to break off from the staredown with the flagpole.

Marui signaled for Hijiri to follow Yajiro as he walked off. He kept a steady pace behind his two younger brothers.

Yajiro had wanted to see the free concert at Aono Park that "every kid on the block" was going to, Hijiri had wanted to tag along, and their constant bugging had landed their eldest brother Bunta the tedious task of babysitter.

Marui resented the designation...but he had been hanging out at the tennis club after school too many times, and he had to admit, he needed to remind his little brothers that he existed. The winter break that started today was the perfect opportunity to do just that.

Suddenly Hijiri stopped in his tracks. Started gaping at something else. Marui hoped it wasn't another flagpole...

And was thankful to see that it wasn't. It was a bunch of grade-school girls huddled in a circle, giggling among themselves.

...Which was actually worse.

"That's Ruri-chan," Hijiri said beneath his breath. He was apparently staring at one grade-school girl in particular. "She's in my class..."

"Hijiri likes her," Yajiro took the trouble to say, as if Marui wouldn't have figured it out on his own.

The red-headed eldest gave Hijiri a gentle slap between the shoulder blades, pushing the boy in the direction of the group. Even if he had no idea which one of them Ruri-chan was. "Go on over and say hi."

"NO!! Are you crazy??" Hijiri ran back and put his eldest brother between him and the girls. As he hung back he peeked around Marui's sides at the group. "I'm just...going to stick around for a while, alright? It's okay to stick around, right?"

"Of course it is," Bunta answered affectionately, laying a hand on his brother's head. "It's called 'stalking' though..."

Hijiri batted his hand off in annoyance.

"Mou, niisan! The concert's about to start!" Yajiro planted his hands on his hips. "Hn. Do what you want. I'm going to find my friends."

And without further warning, Yajiro darted off.

"Na -- Oi! Yajiro! We can't leave Hijiri here!"

Marui glanced over at his other little brother, who was rooted to the spot, unable to take his eyes off the group of girls in the distance.

If Marui tried to pull him away by the arm, his arm would probably come off.

"She's so pretty..."

Marui sighed. At least he could trust Yajiro to find his way home in case they couldn't meet up again. But his parents would kill him if he let Hijiri out of his sight for even a second...

***********************

They drew attention as they passed: the tall dark-haired teenage boy wearing a baseball cap, pushing around a wheelchair on which sat another teenage boy, bundled up in so many layers of clothing. One couldn't keep one's eyes off his pretty face once it was noticed under the cloth.

The boy with the baseball cap pushed the wheelchair along at an unhurried pace. He kept his head down. One needed to be walking alongside him to notice that he was avoiding the more prominent bumps and cracks on the pavement.

His face was as unreadable as the other boy's.

The pair moved through the park slowly and silently. Neither was talking.

Then the one in the wheelchair said "It's unusually cold today, isn't it?"

"...Not too much," the boy with the baseball cap said.

"Oh?"

"..."

"..."

It always started like this.

Neither of them was an expert at self-expression, but unlike Yukimura, Sanada could get damn lousy at it.

"...Hey."

"What?"

"Thanks for taking me out today."

No response for a while. Then softly, "It was Renji's idea."

"Oh? Is he coming?"

"He said he was going to meet us here."

That made Yukimura smile. Though for some reason it made him sad as well.

"That would be nice," he remarked. "The three of us together...just like old times."

***********************

"I don't see why Okaa and Oyaji had to make us go here now," young Norimasa with the dyed blood-red hair sniffed. "Family bonding? At a park?? What the heck are those two old fogeys on?"

"Bite your tongue, Nori-kun," snapped older Keiko, who wore glasses and had done up her hair so neatly, one would think she was going to a job interview. "Okaasan and Otousan have a point. It would be nice to go out as a family once in a while."

"Ch. Of course you're taking their side. You always take their side, you old goody-goody..."

"Hey! I'm not trying to pick a fight with you! So shut it, just this once, okay??"

While his siblings bickered, Niou Masaharu stalked out of earshot.

No tricks needed to get out of this one.

He walked around until he found a relatively quiet spot... unpopulated, except for a small group of grade-school girls who were playing with pastel-colored gadgets while giggling quietly among themselves. They were easy to ignore.

He leaned back against the fence and drew out a relieved sigh.

This park had sentimental value for his parents. He wasn't sure if his siblings were paying attention when they talked about it once...

His dad, who was a nightclub magician, had been out jogging, and his mother, a lawyer, had been taking a random walk while going through casework. They had bumped into each other somewhere in this park and his mom had fallen in a bad way and broken her nose. His father had rushed her to the hospital in his arms.

It was frighteningly sweet. And bloody.

Right now his parents were off reliving old memories and getting all sappy on each other. Leaving their three children to spend their own quality time getting on each other's nerves, totally missing the point of the outing.

He made up his mind to rejoin his siblings in a few minutes, when he was sure they had cooled down. In the meantime, he realized that the girls' conspiratorial whispers had evolved into a sort of squealing.

What were they all excited about?

***********************

"KYAA! IT'S SONOMI-CHAN!"

Of course the girls' bright eyes were fixed on Sonomi-chan's older brother, not on Sonomi-chan herself.

...Not that Sonomi-chan minded. She seemed to enjoy her friends' fawning over her brother even more than her brother did.

"Sorry I'm late, minna," she said brightly. "I brought Hiroshi-oniisan, I hope it's all right..."

"OHAYO HIROSHI-SAAA~N."

Yagyuu bowed politely and spoke in a kind voice, "Ohayo minasan."

Sometimes (like now), that was all it took to send them swooning.

Yagyuu could never really understand his power over adolescent girls, but he had vowed never to take advantage of it. Some girls his age in Rikkai tended to behave like this around him, too.

While he liked the attention, he wished he had something else to divert him. Hopefully the music was going to be at least good. He wasn't a rock and roll man, but he welcomed the exposure.

He also wished he had brought his MD player. Or a book, at least.

He knew he had spent entirely too much time with them, but he suddenly missed his teammates at the tennis club.

***********************

Huh? What was all the noise about?

Marui looked over at the group of girls his brother had been ogling for the past few minutes. He saw something that broke through his boredom and made him crack a wide grin.

"Hey! It's Yagyuu!" he exclaimed. "What a surprise...Hijiri! Let's go say hi!"

Little Hijiri's eyes went wide as plates. He started sputtering out a protest, but didn't finish fast enough. His brother had already seized him by the wrist and was dragging him forward to where Ruri-chan and her friends stood.

There was no salvation in sight for Hijiri. Ruri-chan's perfect face loomed closer and closer before his eyes.

"It's too bad Yajiro isn't here," his brother was mumbling, from some other galaxy. "Come on, I'll introduce you..."



(to be continued)