Hiya guys! Sorry for the delay. First, life is 2 Fast 2 Furious for me. ^^
(I haven't seen the movie). Before you realize, a month has passed by
without me having enough inspiration for a new chappie. And, any
inspiration I had disappeared with my computer's hard drive, which died on
me. I actually had one and a half chapters already done..argh. And, I've
been in and out of a depression phase while I was gone. And that is not
because of Taming a Tiger and the hard drive that died. I haven't been
completely absent, though. I produced two songfics for Gundam Wing and one
angsty songfic for RK during the interval, I hope you'd look them up as
well. Anyways, here's the next chappie. Finished in two days after a
month hiatus.
...........
"Enishi-san?"
The snowhaired guest was thinking hard about what to say to the young lady beside him. She was eagerly waiting for a story of some sort. A story he did not know how to produce. It was true, he had read through the files, but they were files that she had probably seen herself.
"Enishi-san?"
He could not simply fabricate a story; she looked too smart and too informed for that. He might start a story, only to find he had wrongly pieced together his information. He was quite used to deceiving people, but he did not want to deceive the young lady.
"Enishi-san!" she called a little louder.
"What?" he snapped back.
"You've had that blind stare at me for such a long time, you know, Enishi-san?"
He shrugged it off, but sighed afterward. He still did not have a story for her. He looked at her jade eyes intently for a few moments. They looked very eager. More frightening for him, they seemed to beg him for reasons to make her even more proud of him than before. For being that ex- mafia boss he had read about in the files, going undercover? But what exactly had he done there that he could be proud of?
Maybe if he told her the truth, she might understand and help him out. He found strength in her eyes, and took a deep breath. "Mademoiselle----"
"It's Misao, Enishi-san!" she interrupted. "What's the matter with calling me Misao? It feels rather weird being called something foreign."
That was true, but somehow it did not feel right, yet, to him, to call her by her name. What if she just mistook him for someone else? What if HE mistook her for someone else? "Mademoiselle, I do have to tell you......I am sorry, but I cannot really remember you. They say, I was involved in an accident. I hit my head, I think, and I can't remember everything yet."
The young lady only grinned. "You must REALLY be tired from today, you're beginning to rant on me!" She patted her hands. "You can't say I didn't try, anyway. I'll let you get some sleep now; we can talk more tomorrow. Do you want to visit the temple tomorrow? Or the cemetery? Of course you want to see your sister's grave again?"
He absentmindedly opted for the temple. He wanted to avoid the crowds of Kyoto. He wanted to avoid the confusion of the world around him, to clear the confusion in his head.
She nodded, greeted him good night, and lay herself on a futon quite beside his.
When he found himself stuck in this situation, he thought it was a joke, and she would not follow through with staying with him for the night. Evidently, she was dead serious. Now, a woman was asleep almost beside him, short of being in the same bed with him.
Still, he found himself drawn to her. His eyes went through the curves of her body, as she slept on her side. His ears welcomed her slow and peaceful breathing. It took all of his decorum to keep his hands away from her long flowing hair. He had been in this situation before; but for the life of him, he was not sure if it was with her or with some other woman.
Who WAS this woman?!
His decency and slight fear of women got the better of him. He left the bedroom, and began to pace the garden of the inn. Eventually, he grabbed a coat and walked out to the deserted streets.
He walked to a few places he felt familiar with.
He first ended up at a large warehouse in the city. By reading the signs, he discovered that the warehouse was a factory, specializing in producing various metal parts. He found himself remembering that the north wing of the building contained the quality control section, the south wing the major manufacturing area, and the west wing his former managerial office. Probably still was his managerial office-he had to talk to the president of the company over the coming days, he promised himself.
How did he lose his position in the building again? Oh, yes. He did not resign, nor was he fired. One of his childhood acquaintances was his business partner, the one who actually ran the everyday work of the company. He remembered. He said he would be a spy for the government, and try to eliminate his branch of the Shanghai mafia. As a cover, he would also expand the metalworks company's distribution to also include exports to China.
As it was, the metalworks factory was a flourishing business when he left, a year ago by his vague estimate. From the looks of things, the business fared well even while he was gone. Two new small buildings were added to the complex. The buildings had a new coat of paint. He breathed a sigh of relief. Soon he would have a more stable source of income, instead of depending on others.
He walked on, in and out of the city streets. He remembered this street and that house, buildings he had seen as a boy. Buildings that reminded him of his childhood, as a fiery lad, angrily searching for the sister that suddenly left him. Streets and alleys covered with blood when he was much younger, some of that blood spilled by the man who supposedly killed his sister.
Then he remembered the events of the last few days. He had a pistol pointed at his long-time enemy. He was quite ready to kill him; and he would have been successful had not Seta intervened. Only to discover, hours later, that his hatred had been a long-standing mistake.
The blood in the surroundings in his head, and the guilt in his hands, made him walk faster and faster, back to the Aioya. But he could not go back to the young lady. He did not understand what she saw in him. He was a criminal. A converted one, but a criminal all the same. Now that he remembered it all again, he knew he had a past he would rather forget and would rather not tell her.
He knocked at the kitchen of the Aioya.
"Sir, you might be Misao's friend, but it's an hour past midnight!" the girl who answered him complained.
"Just get me a bottle of sake and I'll stop bothering you," he ordered.
The girl got it for him. He snatched a spare cup from one of the tables, walked out of the dining area and back into the garden.
He never liked sake much, but he had learned that it was safer than opium as a means of escape. And, computing total expenses, importing and delivering it into Shanghai was actually cheaper than feeding a drug habit. He made himself comfortable, sat where he had a full view of the garden, and took a first quick gulp.
"Couldn't sleep?" Shinomori interrupted him from behind.
"You could say that," he smirked back, and offered the bottle.
Shinomori declined with a wave of a hand. "I leave you to your problems. Good night." And he reentered the inn.
"Hey, you really should not have let her wait for me for a whole year, as she claims she has done," Enishi shook his head at himself, as he took another gulp. "You're a better man for that feisty lady."
"We already discussed this last year, Yukishiro. She decided. I respect her wishes. Now, good night." Shinomori emphasized his greeting, and left him.
"Suit yourself," he murmured, and poured himself another cup, as he drowned his memories of the bewildering past and present.
"Enishi-san...good morning, sleepyhead!" the young lady greeted him a few hours later. She shook him awake, leaned on a post of the garden veranda.
"Don't bother me, whoever you are," he grumbled. He had not downed a whole bottle of any alcoholic beverage for at least half a year. It sufficiently halted his confused memories, but now it gave him a horrible headache.
"We're going up to that temple, remember?" she kept shaking him.
"Sure, sure...now leave me alone," he murmured.
He had to recall quickly how he knew this woman. Before this infatuation of hers got any worse than it already was. She was all over him, and he did not know why. This was serious. If she was making a mistake, he had to be sure, he had to tell her, he had to get out of her life as soon as possible and leave her with the other fellow.
But in the meantime, he would favor her. He smoothed out his unruly snowy peaks and found his way to the bath house.
The trip to the little temple was uneventful. It was a regular sunny summer day. The pair was rather silent, though. The young lady thought he just wanted to admire the Kyoto scenery. He did not even notice the trees. He scanned through the files in his head, but still the pretty face beside him would not register.
She dropped him off at the main gate, and promised to come back for him. She had to return to the Aioya and help cook for lunch.
He was finally alone.
He walked around, and eventually found the main temple. He was aware that his sister's journal was kept in the place somewhere, but he did not want to bother with it just right now. He knew its contents by heart; by now he had remembered majority of it. He contented himself with just sitting in the main worship area, and to think things through again.
"Been a while since you've been here last, young man," an old man greeted from behind.
He looked around to see who addressed him. A man with a long beard, who wore very shabby clothes and broken spectacles. The man tried to look somewhat neat, but it was clear it had been some time since he had last bathed. In his hands he held a large and worn straw hat.
"Not much changed while you were away," the old man continued, and sat beside him. "Her spirit still lingers around here, as I suppose it lingers in you. She held no grudges against anyone, what a heart she had. Maybe she held a grudge on one man, but she forgave him in the end."
"Are you still talking to me?" Enishi asked, doubting the man's sanity.
"In case you've forgotten, the name's Oibore now, and we met a few years back. At least you've been in good places since that time." The old man smiled broadly at him. "How is the redhaired swordsman now?"
"Oh, Himura?" he entered the conversation quite naturally. "Has a wife and a little boy. He still lives in Tokyo. He has a good life there, by all accounts."
"So you have met him recently, I see. Have you forgiven him?"
"For nee-san? I....am....not sure," he replied. "Wait a minute, why am I talking to you like this?"
"Have you forgiven yourself?" the man ignored the question.
"Myself?" What kind of a question was this, coming from a man who looked like a beggar?
"Before you can truly forgive him, you have to forgive yourself."
"But-----"
"The past is past. There is nothing we can do to change it. What we can change is what we now think of ourselves and others, based on what we have learned from the past." The old man gave him a knowing look, and grew silent.
Enishi was silent himself. He was not sure why the man knew what he knew about him, but he was right. He was certain, he had heard this line of thinking before. He had met this man before, back when he was at his lowest in life, shortly after Himura won over him. The old man managed to get through to him when others could not, with the way he knew things but did not explain why he knew them.
"Well, son, I think I'm disturbing your meditation," the man called Oibore stood up to leave. "If you'd like to talk more, you know where to find me, just at the outskirts of town. You know me; I'm all talk, no personal action. But I do make a good consulting service, don't I?" he grinned.
Enishi could not help but smile at this. The old man was always rather eccentric. He let him take his leave.
Then he remembered suddenly.
"Father..." He called out to the old man.
The old man stopped in his tracks.
"Take care of yourself."
Oibore smiled warmly at Enishi. "Sure thing." He tipped his hat at him, and went on his way.
You have to forgive yourself.
The words rang in his head, long after the old man had left. But he had done too many things in his life. He could not forgive himself. He could not even forgive himself for the present. He had hurt Himura, he had hurt Kamiya by hurting Himura. And if he did not settle things in his brain, he could not forgive himself for hurting the young lady who kept tailing him.
The afternoon wore on, and the summer showers began to pour. First slowly, in trickles, then harder and faster, in furious sheets. He walked down the many steps of the temple slowly and carefully, not caring that he had no umbrella or overcoat.
By then, he was so immersed in his thoughts that he had forgotten about the young lady who promised to fetch him. He walked back to town by himself, the rain falling faster and harder, soaking his Western shirt and trousers. He passed a small liquor store, and bought a small bottle of the cheapest wine. He downed half, then continued walking. Such were the thoughts that tormented him, worse than all the financial situations he had ever encountered, that he desperately sought a way out from them.
Things, events, people and motives mixed in his head. Rapid and random thoughts filled his brain one after another, demanding attention and supremacy. His body no longer felt the rain pouring around him. His feet only instinctively knew the way back to the Aioya; he was no longer directing their steps. His feet just continued walking, until he was back in front of the familiar white signboard. He entered the inn, went up the stairs, and back into the room the young lady placed him in last night. He finished off the small wine bottle and hit it in the drawer. The new alcohol in his system only worsened the spinning of the room around him.
His head pounded hard, so hard that controlling the beats with his hands only made them worse. Faces came back and forth. Sister. Father. Battousai. Kamiya. Seta. Shinomori. Wu. Business associates. Mafia bosses. Enemies. Allies. The pretty young lady of his thoughts. The cheerful girl beside him last night. It was all turning into one confusing mess.
Maybe it would all stop if he closed his eyes for a few moments and thought things through logically, he reasoned. He would first arrange all these people in his head in chronological order. Then he would try to make sense of it all.
Thus, he leaned his back to the wall beside the paper door. And closed his eyes.
All went dark and blank.
............
Misao folded her umbrella and shook off the rainwater. Her face showed much concern as she entered the inn.
She addressed the cooks in the kitchen. "Hey, have you seen Enishi- san? He left the temple without me! I said I'd fetch him! Where could he have gone in this downpour?"
"Oh, your white-haired friend?" Omasu replied as she chopped. "He's been back for a while, sopping wet. He went to his room, I think, he hasn't come down yet."
"Thanks," Misao said, and rushed up the stairs.
She rapped on the door of his room. "Silly Enishi-san, why didn't you wait for me? I said I was coming back for you!"
No sarcastic or clueless reply.
"Oi, Enishi-san! You do have to explain yourself eventually! Watch out, I'm coming in!"
Still nothing. Her tone changed from teasing to anxious. "Are you mad at me or something, Enishi-san? I'd rather you tell me than keep it to yourself."
When even this did not get a reply from the inside, she opened the screen door herself. "Talk to me, please ---- Enishi ---- san?"
From just inside the screening, she found her white-haired friend slumped on the floor, eyes closed, clothes and hair completely soaked through. His head and hands were hot to the touch.
"Omasu! Get the doctor! Quick!"
............
Gimme a break, guys. Mafia bosses had better know their liquor, more or less.
Responses:
General to everybody: I've seen my unnatural share of amnesiacs in soaps and anime over the last few months that I was making this crazy story. ^^ Also, over the first semester I've managed to meet another classmate who shares my admiration for Enishi, and has read my fics. It's a small world.
CMS-Yeah, no change. Sorry. ^^
Firuze-nee-san-I'll think about it more rationally, about adding the Verne stuff, next chappie. Adventure? Coming, coming. You know I set up a LONG introduction. ^^
Jbramx2-Thanks for putting me in the faves list. Thanks for the compliments.
Sabbie-Sorry I took a while. Hope you're still doing well in school! I'll get back to the Vandread story over the sem break. I don't know what to do to BC yet, hihi. ^^
Mary Ann-Really? Thanks! I hope you liked this chappie.
Maeko-Nohara and Keisuke - The French-ness will only last for a little while longer. Actually posters are cheaper than manga in my place in the world. They're not exactly from Japan, but as long as I have Eni-chan guarding my refrigerator I don't care. ^^ Thanks for the comments!
JML-Hai. No more Sherlock. ^^ I really made Kenji call him "Eni-chan", meaning he's a friend more than a relative. Thanks for the Mandarin stuff.
Thanks for still reading my work, you guys! I'll see you all soon, hopefully.
...........
"Enishi-san?"
The snowhaired guest was thinking hard about what to say to the young lady beside him. She was eagerly waiting for a story of some sort. A story he did not know how to produce. It was true, he had read through the files, but they were files that she had probably seen herself.
"Enishi-san?"
He could not simply fabricate a story; she looked too smart and too informed for that. He might start a story, only to find he had wrongly pieced together his information. He was quite used to deceiving people, but he did not want to deceive the young lady.
"Enishi-san!" she called a little louder.
"What?" he snapped back.
"You've had that blind stare at me for such a long time, you know, Enishi-san?"
He shrugged it off, but sighed afterward. He still did not have a story for her. He looked at her jade eyes intently for a few moments. They looked very eager. More frightening for him, they seemed to beg him for reasons to make her even more proud of him than before. For being that ex- mafia boss he had read about in the files, going undercover? But what exactly had he done there that he could be proud of?
Maybe if he told her the truth, she might understand and help him out. He found strength in her eyes, and took a deep breath. "Mademoiselle----"
"It's Misao, Enishi-san!" she interrupted. "What's the matter with calling me Misao? It feels rather weird being called something foreign."
That was true, but somehow it did not feel right, yet, to him, to call her by her name. What if she just mistook him for someone else? What if HE mistook her for someone else? "Mademoiselle, I do have to tell you......I am sorry, but I cannot really remember you. They say, I was involved in an accident. I hit my head, I think, and I can't remember everything yet."
The young lady only grinned. "You must REALLY be tired from today, you're beginning to rant on me!" She patted her hands. "You can't say I didn't try, anyway. I'll let you get some sleep now; we can talk more tomorrow. Do you want to visit the temple tomorrow? Or the cemetery? Of course you want to see your sister's grave again?"
He absentmindedly opted for the temple. He wanted to avoid the crowds of Kyoto. He wanted to avoid the confusion of the world around him, to clear the confusion in his head.
She nodded, greeted him good night, and lay herself on a futon quite beside his.
When he found himself stuck in this situation, he thought it was a joke, and she would not follow through with staying with him for the night. Evidently, she was dead serious. Now, a woman was asleep almost beside him, short of being in the same bed with him.
Still, he found himself drawn to her. His eyes went through the curves of her body, as she slept on her side. His ears welcomed her slow and peaceful breathing. It took all of his decorum to keep his hands away from her long flowing hair. He had been in this situation before; but for the life of him, he was not sure if it was with her or with some other woman.
Who WAS this woman?!
His decency and slight fear of women got the better of him. He left the bedroom, and began to pace the garden of the inn. Eventually, he grabbed a coat and walked out to the deserted streets.
He walked to a few places he felt familiar with.
He first ended up at a large warehouse in the city. By reading the signs, he discovered that the warehouse was a factory, specializing in producing various metal parts. He found himself remembering that the north wing of the building contained the quality control section, the south wing the major manufacturing area, and the west wing his former managerial office. Probably still was his managerial office-he had to talk to the president of the company over the coming days, he promised himself.
How did he lose his position in the building again? Oh, yes. He did not resign, nor was he fired. One of his childhood acquaintances was his business partner, the one who actually ran the everyday work of the company. He remembered. He said he would be a spy for the government, and try to eliminate his branch of the Shanghai mafia. As a cover, he would also expand the metalworks company's distribution to also include exports to China.
As it was, the metalworks factory was a flourishing business when he left, a year ago by his vague estimate. From the looks of things, the business fared well even while he was gone. Two new small buildings were added to the complex. The buildings had a new coat of paint. He breathed a sigh of relief. Soon he would have a more stable source of income, instead of depending on others.
He walked on, in and out of the city streets. He remembered this street and that house, buildings he had seen as a boy. Buildings that reminded him of his childhood, as a fiery lad, angrily searching for the sister that suddenly left him. Streets and alleys covered with blood when he was much younger, some of that blood spilled by the man who supposedly killed his sister.
Then he remembered the events of the last few days. He had a pistol pointed at his long-time enemy. He was quite ready to kill him; and he would have been successful had not Seta intervened. Only to discover, hours later, that his hatred had been a long-standing mistake.
The blood in the surroundings in his head, and the guilt in his hands, made him walk faster and faster, back to the Aioya. But he could not go back to the young lady. He did not understand what she saw in him. He was a criminal. A converted one, but a criminal all the same. Now that he remembered it all again, he knew he had a past he would rather forget and would rather not tell her.
He knocked at the kitchen of the Aioya.
"Sir, you might be Misao's friend, but it's an hour past midnight!" the girl who answered him complained.
"Just get me a bottle of sake and I'll stop bothering you," he ordered.
The girl got it for him. He snatched a spare cup from one of the tables, walked out of the dining area and back into the garden.
He never liked sake much, but he had learned that it was safer than opium as a means of escape. And, computing total expenses, importing and delivering it into Shanghai was actually cheaper than feeding a drug habit. He made himself comfortable, sat where he had a full view of the garden, and took a first quick gulp.
"Couldn't sleep?" Shinomori interrupted him from behind.
"You could say that," he smirked back, and offered the bottle.
Shinomori declined with a wave of a hand. "I leave you to your problems. Good night." And he reentered the inn.
"Hey, you really should not have let her wait for me for a whole year, as she claims she has done," Enishi shook his head at himself, as he took another gulp. "You're a better man for that feisty lady."
"We already discussed this last year, Yukishiro. She decided. I respect her wishes. Now, good night." Shinomori emphasized his greeting, and left him.
"Suit yourself," he murmured, and poured himself another cup, as he drowned his memories of the bewildering past and present.
"Enishi-san...good morning, sleepyhead!" the young lady greeted him a few hours later. She shook him awake, leaned on a post of the garden veranda.
"Don't bother me, whoever you are," he grumbled. He had not downed a whole bottle of any alcoholic beverage for at least half a year. It sufficiently halted his confused memories, but now it gave him a horrible headache.
"We're going up to that temple, remember?" she kept shaking him.
"Sure, sure...now leave me alone," he murmured.
He had to recall quickly how he knew this woman. Before this infatuation of hers got any worse than it already was. She was all over him, and he did not know why. This was serious. If she was making a mistake, he had to be sure, he had to tell her, he had to get out of her life as soon as possible and leave her with the other fellow.
But in the meantime, he would favor her. He smoothed out his unruly snowy peaks and found his way to the bath house.
The trip to the little temple was uneventful. It was a regular sunny summer day. The pair was rather silent, though. The young lady thought he just wanted to admire the Kyoto scenery. He did not even notice the trees. He scanned through the files in his head, but still the pretty face beside him would not register.
She dropped him off at the main gate, and promised to come back for him. She had to return to the Aioya and help cook for lunch.
He was finally alone.
He walked around, and eventually found the main temple. He was aware that his sister's journal was kept in the place somewhere, but he did not want to bother with it just right now. He knew its contents by heart; by now he had remembered majority of it. He contented himself with just sitting in the main worship area, and to think things through again.
"Been a while since you've been here last, young man," an old man greeted from behind.
He looked around to see who addressed him. A man with a long beard, who wore very shabby clothes and broken spectacles. The man tried to look somewhat neat, but it was clear it had been some time since he had last bathed. In his hands he held a large and worn straw hat.
"Not much changed while you were away," the old man continued, and sat beside him. "Her spirit still lingers around here, as I suppose it lingers in you. She held no grudges against anyone, what a heart she had. Maybe she held a grudge on one man, but she forgave him in the end."
"Are you still talking to me?" Enishi asked, doubting the man's sanity.
"In case you've forgotten, the name's Oibore now, and we met a few years back. At least you've been in good places since that time." The old man smiled broadly at him. "How is the redhaired swordsman now?"
"Oh, Himura?" he entered the conversation quite naturally. "Has a wife and a little boy. He still lives in Tokyo. He has a good life there, by all accounts."
"So you have met him recently, I see. Have you forgiven him?"
"For nee-san? I....am....not sure," he replied. "Wait a minute, why am I talking to you like this?"
"Have you forgiven yourself?" the man ignored the question.
"Myself?" What kind of a question was this, coming from a man who looked like a beggar?
"Before you can truly forgive him, you have to forgive yourself."
"But-----"
"The past is past. There is nothing we can do to change it. What we can change is what we now think of ourselves and others, based on what we have learned from the past." The old man gave him a knowing look, and grew silent.
Enishi was silent himself. He was not sure why the man knew what he knew about him, but he was right. He was certain, he had heard this line of thinking before. He had met this man before, back when he was at his lowest in life, shortly after Himura won over him. The old man managed to get through to him when others could not, with the way he knew things but did not explain why he knew them.
"Well, son, I think I'm disturbing your meditation," the man called Oibore stood up to leave. "If you'd like to talk more, you know where to find me, just at the outskirts of town. You know me; I'm all talk, no personal action. But I do make a good consulting service, don't I?" he grinned.
Enishi could not help but smile at this. The old man was always rather eccentric. He let him take his leave.
Then he remembered suddenly.
"Father..." He called out to the old man.
The old man stopped in his tracks.
"Take care of yourself."
Oibore smiled warmly at Enishi. "Sure thing." He tipped his hat at him, and went on his way.
You have to forgive yourself.
The words rang in his head, long after the old man had left. But he had done too many things in his life. He could not forgive himself. He could not even forgive himself for the present. He had hurt Himura, he had hurt Kamiya by hurting Himura. And if he did not settle things in his brain, he could not forgive himself for hurting the young lady who kept tailing him.
The afternoon wore on, and the summer showers began to pour. First slowly, in trickles, then harder and faster, in furious sheets. He walked down the many steps of the temple slowly and carefully, not caring that he had no umbrella or overcoat.
By then, he was so immersed in his thoughts that he had forgotten about the young lady who promised to fetch him. He walked back to town by himself, the rain falling faster and harder, soaking his Western shirt and trousers. He passed a small liquor store, and bought a small bottle of the cheapest wine. He downed half, then continued walking. Such were the thoughts that tormented him, worse than all the financial situations he had ever encountered, that he desperately sought a way out from them.
Things, events, people and motives mixed in his head. Rapid and random thoughts filled his brain one after another, demanding attention and supremacy. His body no longer felt the rain pouring around him. His feet only instinctively knew the way back to the Aioya; he was no longer directing their steps. His feet just continued walking, until he was back in front of the familiar white signboard. He entered the inn, went up the stairs, and back into the room the young lady placed him in last night. He finished off the small wine bottle and hit it in the drawer. The new alcohol in his system only worsened the spinning of the room around him.
His head pounded hard, so hard that controlling the beats with his hands only made them worse. Faces came back and forth. Sister. Father. Battousai. Kamiya. Seta. Shinomori. Wu. Business associates. Mafia bosses. Enemies. Allies. The pretty young lady of his thoughts. The cheerful girl beside him last night. It was all turning into one confusing mess.
Maybe it would all stop if he closed his eyes for a few moments and thought things through logically, he reasoned. He would first arrange all these people in his head in chronological order. Then he would try to make sense of it all.
Thus, he leaned his back to the wall beside the paper door. And closed his eyes.
All went dark and blank.
............
Misao folded her umbrella and shook off the rainwater. Her face showed much concern as she entered the inn.
She addressed the cooks in the kitchen. "Hey, have you seen Enishi- san? He left the temple without me! I said I'd fetch him! Where could he have gone in this downpour?"
"Oh, your white-haired friend?" Omasu replied as she chopped. "He's been back for a while, sopping wet. He went to his room, I think, he hasn't come down yet."
"Thanks," Misao said, and rushed up the stairs.
She rapped on the door of his room. "Silly Enishi-san, why didn't you wait for me? I said I was coming back for you!"
No sarcastic or clueless reply.
"Oi, Enishi-san! You do have to explain yourself eventually! Watch out, I'm coming in!"
Still nothing. Her tone changed from teasing to anxious. "Are you mad at me or something, Enishi-san? I'd rather you tell me than keep it to yourself."
When even this did not get a reply from the inside, she opened the screen door herself. "Talk to me, please ---- Enishi ---- san?"
From just inside the screening, she found her white-haired friend slumped on the floor, eyes closed, clothes and hair completely soaked through. His head and hands were hot to the touch.
"Omasu! Get the doctor! Quick!"
............
Gimme a break, guys. Mafia bosses had better know their liquor, more or less.
Responses:
General to everybody: I've seen my unnatural share of amnesiacs in soaps and anime over the last few months that I was making this crazy story. ^^ Also, over the first semester I've managed to meet another classmate who shares my admiration for Enishi, and has read my fics. It's a small world.
CMS-Yeah, no change. Sorry. ^^
Firuze-nee-san-I'll think about it more rationally, about adding the Verne stuff, next chappie. Adventure? Coming, coming. You know I set up a LONG introduction. ^^
Jbramx2-Thanks for putting me in the faves list. Thanks for the compliments.
Sabbie-Sorry I took a while. Hope you're still doing well in school! I'll get back to the Vandread story over the sem break. I don't know what to do to BC yet, hihi. ^^
Mary Ann-Really? Thanks! I hope you liked this chappie.
Maeko-Nohara and Keisuke - The French-ness will only last for a little while longer. Actually posters are cheaper than manga in my place in the world. They're not exactly from Japan, but as long as I have Eni-chan guarding my refrigerator I don't care. ^^ Thanks for the comments!
JML-Hai. No more Sherlock. ^^ I really made Kenji call him "Eni-chan", meaning he's a friend more than a relative. Thanks for the Mandarin stuff.
Thanks for still reading my work, you guys! I'll see you all soon, hopefully.