The next day dawned bright, clear, and obscenely cheerful. Normally, this alone would have been enough to send Katsu, a committed twilight-person, back into his dark room, grumbling profanities and drinking strong tea while working on some project or another until the day darkened to something more decently gloomy. However, this was not a normal day, and Katsu was awake and functioning far earlier than was normal, or probably even healthy.
He'd never believed that it might feel so good to just tell someone. Katsu thought about that for a moment, then snorted softly. He'd never believed he'd ever tell anyone. But it did feel very good – quite remarkably so. His face was probably going to hurt in a little while, though, from all the smiling.
It was a beautiful day, too – odd that the weather would match his mood so perfectly. Katsu smiled more, and felt unused muscles stretch in his face. A whiff of scent caught his attention, and he turned around sharply. Yes, there it was again …
Katsu followed his nose to a tiny, secluded little store, almost hidden underneath the awnings on the side of the street. Obviously, it was not the appearance of the place that attracted most of its customers. Equally obvious was what did: daifukumochi, his favorite, arranged on pieces of rice paper, and the source of that mouth-watering scent that had drawn Katsu off the main street. As arrangements went, it wasn't the best, rating perhaps a six out of ten possible credits – but again, when one encountered digestible ecstasy, one did not complain because the ecstasy was not wrapped elaborately folded fancy paper and tied with a silk ribbon.
Katsu bought three, and mourned that his current search for living space insisted he could not buy any more. Katsu walked out of the dingy little alley, eating his treats at varying speeds: the first, he had inhaled; the second, he was eating at a more normal pace; the third, he intended to savor. He started walking down the street again, not specifically looking for anything, but generally keeping his eye out, for the instance that someone should, of a sudden, run out into the crowd, yelling his intention to sell a house. The second daifukumochi had been finished, and Katsu was licking a spot of sweet bean jam off of his finger before starting the third when he felt someone come up behind him.
"Katsu!"
He turned, looking for the voice, and found it to be belonging to a rather large, disreputable-looking man, whom Katsu had never seen before in his life. He opened his mouth to reply, but the large man continued on, talking over him.
"Oh, drunk again, Katsu? You shouldn't drink so much, you know." By now, the man had reached Katsu, and Katsu would have taken a step back (tried to), but the man draped a "companionable" arm around his shoulders that felt like nothing more than a vise.
"I'm not –" Katsu began to protest, beginning what he already knew would be a futile struggle to be free, when the man shifted just so, so that no one saw his next movement: a firmly ungentle tap to the base of Katsu's skull. Katus's eyes rolled back into his head, and he sagged limply against the man. To any observer (and there were some, but only a few), it would seem as though Katsu had passed out drunk in the middle of asserting that he was not – a common enough occurrence in this part of town that, of the few observers, most stopped paying attention at that point.
For the benefit of the very few left, the man said, with an audible mutter of "he's always doing this …" and made a show of draping Katsu's arm over his shoulders and half-carrying, half-dragging down the street. By the time he turned the corner, no one was paying either of them any attention whatsoever.
sigh Okay. This chapter took me forever to write, and in the end I didn't even write it. I wrote chapters 70 through 74, and then bumped them all down a number, so 70 became 69 and so on. And to think I could have done it so much earlier ……. I truly am sorry. ON THE POSITIVE SIDE, I can now give you an accurate countdown to the end. Let's see … right now, there are 18 chapters left.
Blah, Faery … I love you both for sticking with this and reviewing every chapter all the time. So much love for you both.
Shizukashin, you will be granted five dozen willing love slaves when I finally manage to take over the world.