Chapter 6
Fun and Games
"Thanks for letting me stay with you, guys." Jeremy's parents were still moving, but he had talked them out of taking him with them, somehow. "You don't know how much I appreciate it." They didn't.
Adain had gotten herself a dorm with only one bed, so therefore no one to clean up after and extra space to practice with her sword. (Also no one to scream when she took the blade out of the sheath which was hidden under her bed.) She had had to fix the room up a bit but not much.
She had just changed the curtains from pink to black, then moved the vanity to be next to the closet and hold all her junk (she didn't wear makeup, usually), switched the comforter from pink to silver, made black sheets for where there were none she had changed a lot of things from pink to black, silver or white.
She didn't like pink. (Can you tell?)
Yumi came up later that day and asked her how she remodeled so quickly. They told the guys where they could find her if she couldn't reach her cell, and dolled out her number to everyone who needed it.
Ulrich and Yumi and Adain stood in the clearing by the tunnel. Yumi had found a fan in the back of her closet and thought Adain might want to see it. Adain had grinned at the sight of it and asked if Yumi had ever played Fan Toss. The confused look Yumi gave her was enough to tell her that raven-head had never even heard of it.
"Gimme the fan." Yumi handed it to her. Ulrich watched intently.
"There are two ways of tossing a fan to someone in this game. One is to throw it closed like a boomerang." She demonstrated, throwing it by the little pin holding the wooden sticks together. "Another way is to throw it open, like you usually do, except softer." Again, she demonstrated, but this time for the benefit of Ulrich. "The game is supposed to be a battle strategy game to help with hand/eye coordination and speed, but the little girls just play it because it looks pretty. Oh! And the game is not made entirely up of throws. There are spins and flips and all sorts of tricks that are there to make the game harder."
"So it's kinda like Don't Drop the Dishes?"
"Yup! GO!"
Adain tossed the fan to Yumi who caught it perfectly on the little pin. She did a horrible dip-turn, but no one noticed but Adain. She tossed it back. Whipping it around both hands, tossing it in the air, spinning and catching it again was easy compared to what the Empresses Ladies did in their spare time.
Adain was in the middle of a double combo when Ulrich stepped in, caught the fan, and knocked Adain out of the field of concentration, which she and Yumi had developed around them in the past forty-five minutes they had been playing.
"It's fifteen till curfew guys." He reminded them. "We need to head back now." Yumi's eyes widened.
"We've been playing for that long?" Adain smiled at her shock.
"What'da ya know? Time really does fly when you're having fun. Again, tomorrow?"
"Sure! Hey Ulrich? Do you wanna play tomorrow?"
He shrugged, as if to say, 'Sure, why not? Just as long as you guys don't do anything to embarrass me.'