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"Good afternoon, Nokoru san," spelled out the words on the screen where a report had been sitting. The blonde man had been so set on not paying attention to the screen or piles of paperwork, it took him a few moments to notice it. Eventually turning from the bright window, he started a bit at the message. "Remember me?"
He uselessly looked about the empty office before typing his reply. "Idomu san? Is that you?"
"Yes. How are you? I hope you don't mind me taking over your screen, but you didn't seem to be using it at the moment."
Nokoru let a smile reach his features. "I'm good, and I don't mind at all, though you could have called me versus breaking back into Clamp's computer systems. I'm sure it was harder this time around, we've upgraded several times since you were here last."
"I've upgraded, too, so it wasn't too hard to manage it." The words paused for a moment before they continued. "Besides, what fun is a phone when this way I get to see you?"
Again Nokoru smiled, this time wider as he looked up to the cameras above his office. "Yes," he replied, after waving at the cameras. "But we could hear each other over a phone, though certainly you could allow us to speak over this to each other." He'd lost touch with Idomu entirely a couple years ago and it was so good to "hear" from him even in type.
There was another pause in his answering but eventually it appeared. "I will have to see what I can do about that if I can talk to you again."
He made note of the odd statement but let it by. "That would be nice. So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this break in?" he asked with an easy laugh.
"Just wanted to see how you were; you don't have to worry about me crashing your systems again... Though if you'd like, I could shut down all the printers, effectively stopping the flow of paperwork..."
Now Nokoru laughed loudly and he shook a finger at one of the cameras. "Tisk tisk, that would cause so much trouble," he typed out.
"I could shut down the unessential parts of the systems entirely and give everyone a day off." Again Nokoru shook his head. "I'd leave the power to Gamera Hall and the subways I promise..."
"No."
"My, my... how disappointing, you've grown up."
Nokoru balked at the screen. "I have not!"
"I suppose being around Takamura san has effected you."
Now Nokoru was pouting. "I just don't want to bother anyone."
"I'm sure."
"I swear; I haven't gotten boring." He made a face at the cameras.
"Alright, alright, I give. So how have you been?"
Again Nokoru thought the shift was odd but he said nothing. "I've been good, the transition to rijichou was as easy as expected and Suoh and Akira have stayed with me, though Akira has a second job at a restaurant. I think he's staying here with us because he thinks he has to, to stay our friend, though I've assured him that things are otherwise. He's getting married soon and so is Suoh. Suoh's will be this summer and Akira's will be in the winter."
"Wonderful. That gives you enough time in-between for you to help out with them both."
Nokoru's smile broadened at the thought. "Oh, yes. They'll be beautiful. Suoh's is going to be at the Asaeda gardens and it will be completely traditional, of course."
"Of course," he echoed and Nokoru was about to happily ramble on about the flowers they had picked out when he realized he was being rude.
"I'm sorry, I'm going on about weddings months away and I haven't asked you how you've been."
The pause in the type was longer this time but it replied finally. "Busy. Feeling like a bit of a piece of hardware. I've been enlisted in a project of my family's so I don't have much free time."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Is the project at least interesting?"
Again a pause, this one longer still. "I'd rather be back in Europe at my piano, but I'll live." Nokoru started to reach for the keyboard but he continued. "I'm sorry I didn't write when you for so long, especially when you took the office of rijichou. I meant to but I've been too locked up in this before now."
Nokoru smiled up softly at a camera. "That's alright; it's good to hear from you anyway. I hope the project gets better for you."
"Thanks." Nokoru didn't like the tone of his words for some reason. It bothered him though he kept his worried frown to himself. "I'm sorry. I have to go. It was nice talking with you again." The words had barely sprung up before the monitor clicked back to the report he'd been "working" on.
"Idomu san?" he asked aloud to the monitor and looked up at the cameras. 'Gone...' He didn't like how suddenly he'd left. Whatever his family was working on was obviously very hush, hush. Surely his father would not appreciate Idomu speaking with a member of the Imonoyama group. Hopefully, he would be able to talk to him again soon.
Honestly, Nokoru was having trouble not grinning just from having spoken to him for the little bit that he had. He'd forgotten how much he liked talking to Idomu and how much he missed talking to him. The letters they'd exchanged over the few years had dwindled a bit before they stopped utterly barely two years ago, his last letter never returned. Nokoru supposed that Idomu had gotten too busy to reply and eventually he'd stopped watching the mail for his answer… mostly.
It was good to know that Idomu still thought of him. Idly he opened the lowest drawer on his new desk and removed a bit of the large stack of pages he'd been careful to move to his new office. Forgetting utterly about even feigning work, Nokoru sat back and thumbed through the section of letters from Idomu from far before with a gentle smile on his face.
Almost a week went by till Nokoru's screen went black again, with only white type across it. "Good afternoon, Nokoru san."
Nokoru let out an undignified squeal as he dropped back down in his seat (Akira's tea utterly forgotten). "It's Idomu," he explained to his friends so as to not look utterly insane as he waved at the cameras. "Good afternoon, Idomu san. How are you?"
As Suoh and Akira stepped over to his desk, Idomu answered. "I'm good, how are you? You look well." Another line popped up before he could reply. "As do you, Takamura san, Ijyuin san. I trust you all had fun at the fair?"
Suoh bristled behind him. "He was watching us…?"
"Suoh..." Nokoru began but text began to appear across the screen again.
"I'm sorry, Takamura san. I didn't mean to intrude, I was curious where Nokoru san was when he wasn't in his office."
They all blinked but Akira san asked, "He can hear us?"
"No, I haven't been able to arrange that yet, but I can read your lips from watching you."
"Oh, that makes sense," he said to himself. "I'd offer you some tea, Yuudaiji san if I could." He spoke clearly, turning to a camera and looked back to the screen quickly.
"Thank you for the thought." Again another line followed. "I don't suppose my word that this is utterly benign would ease you much, Takamura san?"
"Probably not," he stated flatly, crossing his arms.
Nokoru gave him a cross look before looking back to the screen. "Ah well," the words said. "I suppose that's for the best. I'd rather Nokoru san was protected by a raving paranoid than not."
Nokoru laughed. "Suoh's just cautious, or at least that's what he tells me," he typed. Reading lips could be flawed and he wanted to speak clearly to his old friend. Suoh huffed behind him.
"I'll bring your tea to your desk so you can keep talking," Akira said happily as he padded off for the tray.
"No, no, I didn't mean to interrupt your tea. I'll speak to you later."
Nokoru shook his head, letting Akira go. "Thank you, Akira san," he said aloud before he went back to typing. "Don't be foolish, who knows when you'll get another chance. I won't miss talking to you again for a cup of tea, even one of Akira's." Suoh huffed again and walked back down to the sofa.
"Thank you."
Nokoru shook his head. "Don't mention it. I guess what your family is working on is very serious for it to be so difficult for you to even talk to me. I looked around to see what the Yuudaiji group was working on and found nothing at all. Usually we would catch whispers."
Text sprung to the screen quickly. "Stay away from it." Nokoru started a bit at the harshness but the next line came up quickly after. "My apologies. I don't mean to make it sound as if I don't trust you with it. I know how honest you are. I only meant that I didn't want you getting involved. Even a careful look will catch eyes and attention will turn to me logically enough." Nokoru was about to respond, very sorry for having done something so foolish, but a last line came up before he could. "It would be bad if these discussions were found out."
"My deepest apologies, Idomu san. Of course you're right, that was childish of me," he typed with a sigh. He only hoped he hadn't already done the damage. "I was careful but of course you're right: there is no careful enough for something like this."
"No, you were curious, a natural reaction I should have anticipated. Don't apologize." The typed line was followed by another after a short pause. "Please, Nokoru san, promise me you won't go looking for me again."
"I promise. Don't worry about it another moment. I swear I'll be perfectly happy for the time that we can talk like this." Nokoru again got the twisted feeling that something was very wrong, but of course he was right. If their correspondence was found, Idomu could be cut off from talking to him utterly.
"Thank you," he replied. "So I saw you had particular fun trying to win goldfish for some of the girls."
Nokoru brightened immediately at the mention of the fair. "Oh yes! It was great fun, though I turned the task over to Suoh after a bit. I'm afraid it took me a half hour to win one," he typed with an embarrassed laugh. "Though Suoh had the ones for the other five girls on the first tries."
"Yes, that was amusing, though you got the ring toss on the first try."
Nokoru wished again that this was over a phone; so much inflection was lost with simple text. He shook his head, typing, "That was just a lucky shot."
"People say that 'luck' is simply a way for people to claim their victories without claiming their defeats, so how is it that with you its the opposite?"
Nokoru blinked a moment. "It was only luck. Such things just aren't my specialty, like the goldfish game."
"It seems to be a pattern with you, is all: if you succeed you were lucky and if you failed then it was you're failure." Again he blinked at the screen. Idomu san was always very direct but this statement cut home a bit too much. "It's enough to make a man worry." After the unsettling-ness of the first statement, the line after it swung him in an entirely different direction and suddenly Nokoru was trying to remember if the cameras were in color and if so was the heat he felt in his face visible to him?
"I'm fine, you don't have to worry." He tried his best to look convincing and steered the conversation elsewhere. "So, what have you been doing besides things I can't know about, surely you don't spend every waking moment toiling away."
"It certainly feels like it, but I find small things to amuse me. Reading makes up the vast majority of my pastime, which incidentally makes my fast reading very irritating. I finish them so quickly I'm beginning to fear running out."
Nokoru laughed lightly (causing his two companions to look up at him). "There are so many I don't think that's possible. What have you read recently?" It had been a good while since he'd taken time to read, always busy with some event or case or another.
"Hm. I finished off 'The Robot Chronicles' by Asimov 'Dune' by Frank Herbert last evening. I'm going back through the science fiction classics at the moment."
Nokoru nodded. Idomu san had a mind comparable to his own so he doubted the entire works of those would last him more than a couple weeks (if he read slowly). "What of your piano? Did they bring you one for there?"
The pause that followed was longer than Nokoru would have liked. "I'm afraid not. It's not possible at the moment."
"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to bring up something hurtful. Surely they could at least bring you a keyboard if not a proper piano."
Again a pause. "No, I'm afraid I'll have to be content with my books and talking to you." That second pause was enough to convince Nokoru not to pursue the topic but Idomu san switched the topic before he could. "So what great event are you working on now?"
Happily Nokoru went on to ramble on and on about the autumn ball that was planned for the university and high school divisions. The multi-colored paper decorations, the costumes, the live deer he had arranged to be there, even the catering: no detail was spared. They had just gotten through the new type of cookie that Akira had made the other day (and thus added to the plans for the ball), when the sudden words sprang up. "I have to go. It was good talking to you, again."
As before, the words had barely appeared before the screen flashed back to the facts and figures that had been there before. Nokoru sighed at the end of their talk and flexed his hands, finding them a bit sore after all that typing. Idly he glanced at the clock and jumped to see it was after six. He looked up to see that Akira was gone and Suoh was still doing work (though Nokoru couldn't image what Suoh could still be working on as they were normally out of the office by three thirty). Beside him his tea was cold and untouched. "Suoh, I'm very sorry to have kept you here so late; I didn't realize the time."
Suoh only nodded and signed a last sheet. "That's alright, I found things to keep me busy. Ijyuin san had to run home to cook supper. Honestly I fear for what those two women are going to do when he moves out."
Nokoru laughed, hiding his face behind his fan. "I have a feeling they'll live on take out and hire a cleaning service." Suoh nodded as Nokoru stepped down to him. "I didn't get a thing done today. I'm surprised you didn't pull out the plug to the computer," he stated, looking up at his towering bodyguard playfully.
"Eh," Suoh looked a little disgusted. "You seemed like you were enjoying yourself so much, I figured I'd let you continue. I'm just hoping you put forth effort tomorrow to catch up," he added sternly.
Nokoru laughed nervously. "Why, Suoh, are you insinuating that that I don't always put forth effort?"
"Yes," he replied as they walked out and Nokoru could do little but duck his head with an embarrassed smile on his lips.
"I have gotten better over the years..." he added quietly, but Suoh's only response was a huff.
Months passed in this state, with his screen randomly commandeered by his absent friend for sometimes brief moments and others hours. Not only were Idomu's messages becoming more frequent, usually once every two days at this point, but Nokoru had a sneaking suspicion that Idomu was in the Clamp system at times without talking to Nokoru. Nokoru had the distinct feeling of being watched at times, as did Suoh and Akira. It was a bright, early autumn day when his screen went black again. "Hello Nokoru san."
Even after so long he still jumped to the keyboard with a wide smile. None of Suoh's misgivings or even his own could dampen his happiness at seeing the plain white text. In a moment all concerns over the watched feeling was gone. "Hello Idomu san. How are you?"
"Good, and you?"
"I'm glad to hear that; I'm good, as well."
"I see you have enough paperwork to keep you company." Nokoru flinched a bit at the comment. "Did Suoh catch you doing something?"
Nokoru couldn't help but laugh out loud a bit at that. "Not that I know of but he's tricky sometimes." He sent that line over but the mention of Suoh brought back Suoh's worries. "Idomu san?"
"Yes?"
Nokoru paused a moment, seeking the right way to word it without making Idomu feel unwanted. "Have you been accessing our system times other then when you're talking to me? We've had the feeling of being watched and I wanted to be sure it was you."
There was a pause before the reply appeared. "Yes, that's me. I'm sorry to intrude. I don't mean to spy, it's just that my options are rather limited and sometimes its nice to look in on your bright office or even just look at other areas of the campus, not exclusively on you." The lines came up and were followed by a slower one. "It must have been disconcerting; please apologize to them for me. I'll stay outside when I don't want to announce myself."
"No, no!" he answered quickly. "You don't have to at all. It was just confusing." He followed that line with another question. "Why didn't you say hello when you came in, so to speak?"
"I didn't want to bother you. Your paperwork was really being ignored and I thought Suoh was going to take a fit." Nokoru laughed a little at that as the next line appeared. "I didn't want to monopolize your time."
He shook his head at the screen. "You don't have to worry about that. How about I promise to get my work done at the normal rate?" he was careful to add that qualifier. "And you just say when you're here, even if it's just a hello exchanged?"
"Deal."
They talked for a bit before Nokoru went back to an old subject. "Any luck so far as to us being able to actually talk to each other?" Nokoru didn't want him to take unnecessary risks for something so small but he wanted badly to hear his voice.
"I've been working on that actually." Nokoru's heart jumped at the very thought. "It still needs a lot of work, so I'm not saying it'll happen tomorrow, but with hope I'll have it in maybe a month."
"That's okay," he answered happily. "I can wait. Thank you for trying; I'm sorry if I've been a bother over it."
"I'd hardly call asking me once a month or so a bother. Don't worry about it. I'd love to hear you as well. It would make talking much easier."
They talked a bit more before Idomu said that Nokoru should get some work done, but that he'd stick around for a bit more. He conceded the point and went to work (though his eyes kept drifting to the screen to be sure that Idomu san hadn't said anything). All and all he got less done than usual and he began to see the logic in Idomu san saying nothing when he'd been there before, but... it was comforting to know he was there watching him, all the same.
"The winter formal should go off well, we've gotten a very popular singer for the music and..." Nokoru went on to describe the event in detail as he took "a break" to talk to him. Idomu san said he was nearly ready for them to talk to each other and Nokoru was exceptionally cheerful. One thing he regretted about their talks was that they were very one-sided. Even small, non-project talk about him was off limits, as it only seemed to depress Idomu san. Nokoru was beginning to wonder how long the Yuudaiji group meant to keep him on this mystery project… when the project became far more than an abstract thought for Nokoru. In mid conversation the screen flashed, but Nokoru thought nothing of it (Idomu san had had to leave without saying goodbye a few times) but instead of his normal screen appearing it was simply another black screen.
He was beginning to type when text came up. "Hello."
Nokoru's eyes narrowed at the solitary word. "Idomu san?"
"Idomu?" echoed the text, confirming his fears. "Is that its real name? Idomu." It then filled the screen with Idomu's name as if getting used to it before the screen went empty again.
"Who are you?" His pulse had shot up and he was feeling panicked, but he kept himself calm, figuring that whoever this was, they could see him, too, but the whoever didn't answer him, but rather went off on their own thoughts.
"Shame on 642, wandering out to look in on people like a peep." Nokoru began to reply but they continued. "Its keepers will be very displeased."
"Idomu didn't tell me anything! He doesn't need to be turned in! Please!" he begged. The way this person spoke was frightening and Nokoru could swear it had gotten colder, as if the chill was pouring from the monitor, spreading out across his desk and over the floor. Nokoru was genuinely frightened and that didn't happen often, and not only for Idomu and the consequences he had brought down on himself just to talk him, but also for himself from this... whoever it was. Yanking out the network cable to escape from it was sounding reasonable, but he didn't out of fear for Idomu. "Please don't turn him in!"
But the mystery typer continued on as if blind to Nokoru's pleads. "They'll cut his cables to the outside for this. Leave him in the empty dark for a bit." Nokoru tried to respond but they continued over him. "Thank you so much for luring it out."
"No!" he not only typed but shouted, drawing the eyes of his companions, but the typer blotted out his shout as the page filled with sixes, sixes from every language that Nokoru knew and some that he didn't, and as the lines scrolled up, Nokoru saw two gaps form in the sea of sixes. The holes closed off and moved up with the lines to take the form of two eyes. As they reached Nokoru's the scrolling stopped a moment before the tower next to his feet made a snapping sound of a small explosion right before a louder crack left his monitor and the screen exploded out at him.