Chapter 001
Two in One - Chapter 001
I do not own Love Hina.
No characters in this story are real. Any character not readily recognizable from LH belongs to me and can be used if my permission is gotten first.
This story is set at the end of Vol. 14 before the wedding.
2:30 pm
February 12, 2004
New York City
United States
A large room, the walls covered with shelves. Each shelf held boxes containing broken pottery, tablets, vases, and many other ancient artifacts from many parts of the world. In the center of the room, a brightly lit table, used as a workstation for attempts to piece together moments of the past into a whole.
Two young men stood on opposite sides of the table, each taking apparent pieces of trash, and reassembling these pieces into a whole. The end product being a piece of history, an object that could be only a few years old, or a few millennium old. Their job to piece the vale of time and attempt to identify the items they were working on.
One, with long brown hair reaching to the middle of his back, held in a ponytail by a leather thong. He stood five foot eight inches tall, his skin tone a light brown. If it were not the middle of winter and two foot of snow on the sidewalks out side, you would think he spent all his days in the sun. His name was José Kantee, a University of Mexico graduate student, twenty-six years old, here in the latter half of his second year of graduate studies.
His work-partner here in the Lab of Terrors, a Japanese student from Tokyo, here doing exchange studies. He had straight, full black hair, which he kept cut short. Five foot seven inches in height, with a well-developed, slight build of some one who worked for a living. Almond colored skin which due to the weather of the last several months, plus continuously working inside, was lighter than it normally was. His eyes, brown in color, showing sincerity and steadfastness at all times. The cast majority of the time projecting compassion, understanding, and patience. Also capable of showing a steele resolve and gritty determination to get through the worst of situations. He was also in the last year of his studies, though he was twenty-five years old, he was Keitaro Urashima.
Lifting up a completed, glazed decretive case, turning it in the light. "Kei, this is amazing work, off and on over six months I have tried to put this piece together. In just six hours, you have gotten it perfectly. I only discern the finest of lines, showing where the pieces fit together. I cannot find the vast majority of the cracks that I know are here. This is just amazing. Man, you have the 'Touch'; I wish I was half as good as you are at these jig-saw-puzzles." José said with wonder having watched a piece of history form before him from a pile of pottery shards as if by magic.
Scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. "He-he, my sensei's daughter would come in to our work lab and accidentally-on-purpose shift pieces I had just finished working on, from the table to the floor. The sudden stop upon falling to the floor normally would cause them to break. Then I would have to start all over, putting it back together." Keitaro said, slightly bowing his head in wonder at his memories of the first few years of being apprenticed to Seta. "So I got plenty of practice at putting artifacts back together."
José just shuck his head in wonder at the person before him, who was becoming a legend in the archeological circles, his mentor was already a legend whose stories had to have been exaggerated. "I am glad to have you working with me now. The last guy in here was a total klutz; he was tripping over his own feet some times."
Keitaro chuckled at the thought. "Oh, I can be a klutz also, but usually only when I am around the female persuasion. I had the worst luck; my clumsiness would put me in the worst of situations that my renters always saw in the most perverted light."
"Renters?" José asked, knowing that some thing good was coming to light.
Keitaro chuckled again, while reaching to the table to grab his soda, he continued. "Back home, before getting into Todai I inherited an Inn from my Grandmother. Except to find out when I got there that it had been turned into a girl's dormitory several years before."
José just looked at Keitaro in wonder, "Man that must have been great with all those babes around you all the time."
Keitaro shuddered at the memories of the first few years he was there. "Actually, it was horrid. They did not respect me at first. They had this mind-set that anything I did, had a perverted base thought. Therefore, any time my clumsiness would happen, when of them set me up, by their own actions, or something would happen which they perceived as perverted, they would hit or attack me. Even if I was not even there, they would find some convoluted reasoning to blame and attack me." With saying this Keitaro hung his head, shacking it in wonder, "it is a wonder that I am even alive."
"It couldn't have been that bad," José said.
Keitaro looks José straight in the eye and with all seriousness told him. "It is actually worse than you can think." A grimace comes to his face and his eyes glazes over at the memories. "Let's go grab some lunch and I will tell you what it was like."
"Cool I'm starved," said José.
Getting up, both headed out of the Lab. Passing into the main areas of the museum, they passed displays of the history of the world's past. They passed statues from Egypt, dinosaurs, and other animals that have not lived in millions of years. Both of them felt a feeling of accomplishment, seeing the people around them admiring the displays and learning about our world's past, it made all the had work and long ours of their chosen profession worth it.
Nearing the museum front entrance, Keitaro heard a voice call to him. "Hey part-timer, you been working hard?"
Keitaro and José stopped, a smile coming to Keitaro's face and a look of astonishment coming to José's face. Keitaro turned turn a tall oriental man dressed in a long white blazer with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. "Sensei, it is great to see you. Are you done with your presentations for the day?" asked Keitaro.
"Yes, I just wrapped up my last presentation," he said as he came over to Keitaro.
"José I would like you to meet my sensei, Noriyasu Seta."
6:45 am
February 13, 2004
Hinata House
Hinata, Japan
Two young ladies kneeled around a table sipping tea, welcoming in the morning. Looking out the large windows before them, seeing the garden like grounds in front of the Hinata House. For once, the weather was perfect for a winter day. There were so few clouds that they could see all the way to the ocean in the distance across the hills before them. In the far distance, the first hint of dawn was coloring the haze on the horizon a beautiful pink.
Both of them, as was everyone else in the house, were melancholy. However, times were better on the horizon.
Motoko Aoyama, twenty-two years old, long black hair, today wearing a conservative suit in black, a third year student at Tokyo University. Flushed in the face from her morning workout, thinking how good it would be to have her sparing partner back this summer. However, still, it was not the only thoughts she had about him, which made her flush into a light blush.
Naru Narusegawa, twenty-three years old,
Long chestnut colored hair, wearing her usual sweater and slacks. She was a forth year student at Tokyo University, her eyes looking to the distance seeing a brown-eyed man who was on the far side of the ocean from her, but would be back in a few months time. Not so strange, these tow ladies were thinking about the same man.
With a smile on her lips, Motoko said, "so, the pervert is finishing up his studies this spring and will be back this summer."
"Yes, he will," Naru, said with a blush and smile on her face. Not even recognizing what Motoko said as a try at an insult.
Noises from the kitchen could be heard, as the resident chef of Hinata could be heard making breakfast. Shinobu Maehara was a first year student now at Tokyo University having gotten in on her first try. She accredited this to her sempai's here at the house and her favorite sempai Keitaro.
Motoko still trying to get a response from Naru from her teasing suddenly stopped, feeling a felling of wrongness.
Naru suddenly dropped her teacup, it falling to the tabletop and shattering as she felt something wrong, the feeling seeming to pertain to Keitaro.
From the kitchen, a large crashing sound was heard as many some things hit the floor. The door flying open as Shinobu sprawled half out the door from the kitchen as she landed on the floor with a look of pain crossing her face.
"Something is badly wrong," said Motoko in a voice, dreading what it might be.
At the same time, Naru covered her face with her hands, "Keitaro, something has happened to Keitaro," she said in a sobbing voice.
A few minutes before in New York
"Sir, I am much honored to meet you. I have read much and followed your projects over the last several years," said José with awe in his voice.
"Well part-timer, you about ready to head home?" Seta asked Keitaro with a smile as he shacks José's hand.
Keitaro raises his hand to the back of his head and runs his hand through his hair. "Yes, I will be very glad to get back, though I still have this quarter and next to finish up my degree." He chuckled after saying that.
Seta just smiled at him, "I did not mean you finishing your degree, I was thinking of a certain lady that is waiting on you."
Keitaro starts to blush very hard at this jab at this life.
Seta smiled even bigger, "and a certain ceremony that will be happening as soon as we get home"
Now Keitaro was looking like he was about to faint from the blood loose since he was so embarrassed.
José smiled at his friend's discomfort, "and what type of ceremony are we talking about here? I don't think you would get embarrassed at the mention of your graduation," he said with a hint of mischievousness in his voice.
Seta just smiled even bigger at Keitaro's discomfort, "oh, hi did not tell you, he is getting married this summer, as soon as he gets back."
Keitaro could hardly even breathe at this point, Seta and José almost falling to the floor, laughing at the look on Keitaro's face.
Around them, people were looking at them funny and several of the armed police officers were scrawling at them.
José tried to straighten up at this point and compose him self. "Sir, would you like to join us for a late lunch and a few drinks?"
"That sounds like a good idea; maybe we can drag this one with us and make him pay." Seta said this and grabbed one side of Keitaro while José got the other side and they headed for the door out of the museum.
Going through the door and hitting the cold outside brought Keitaro back to his senses. "I can walk myself, you know."
"You can? It did not look that way to me. You must have overloaded at the thought of your fiancé," Seta said with a straight face.
The three of them headed down the stairs in front of the building. Stopping at the bottom, Keitaro turned back, looking at the ancient Mediterranean style building that had been his home away from home for the last year. The name across the top structure of the building in gothic lettering,
"Museum of Natural History."
"I will say that I will be glad to be going home for many reasons, Naru being the main reason, but I will miss this place," Keitaro said while turning back to them and heading down the street.
Keitaro and Seta suddenly stopped, looks of dread coming over their faces.
From in front of them, could be heard angry voices and shouts of alarm coming from a glass fronted building.
From behind, could be heard sirens closing in toward them. Heavy footfalls could be heard coming fast behind them.
Back in front of the, two men with sky mask and guns came out of the glass-fronted building.
Seta grabbed José and dived to the ground, Keitaro diving between José and the armed-masked men.
At this exact moment they found the sound behind them to be the police form the museum brings their guns to bear on the armed men and they bring their guns up.
Bullets started to fly between the two groups.
Keitaro was still in the air when the bullets flew. He felt several hard hits; he knew he was in trouble, because he could see that he had not even hit the ground yet. The poundings started in his leg and seemed to move up his body, until with the last hammering, everything went black.