Disclaimer: Nope!
Author's Note: Happy Readings!
ooo
Touya wasn't naïve. He had been well aware of the oddities of sudden movement within the house. Naturally, he couldn't begin to fathom what the noises identified with, although he was positive it had something to do with Rinku, Chuu, and probably Jin. A few times he imagined he heard Shishiwakamaru and Suzuki, but it seemed highly unlikely that either of the two would participate in whatever games the other more outgoing inhabitants of the household had concocted in the desperate throws of boredom.
He sighed contentedly as he gently flipped the page of his book.
'Still,' he thought. 'I honestly wouldn't put anything past the lot of them.'
Touya enjoyed rainy days. To him, they seemed soft, like celestial satin-gloved hands reaching out to gently stroke his mood into calm, relaxed detachment. He found a certain poetic solitude in the lonely rumble of thunder and the hush of the rain as it strolled delightedly down the windowpanes. On the occasion, a tender little vein of lightning would unravel through the neutral pallet of the sky, and Touya found a certain amount of delight in observing the phenomenon. Other than that, though, he honestly enjoyed the numbness brought on by being stranded indoors. However, he understood that the numbness he indulged in translated as boredom to Jin and the others, and he accepted the fact. This was the cause of his sending his redheaded lover off to find some bit of entertainment to preoccupy his time with.
Touya loved and adored Jin to no end. He savored the wind master's very presence and found it almost intoxicating like the flavor of a very fine wine. Jin was unique and resilient; he sparked a multitude of feelings within Touya's small, lithe body. But Jin would always be somewhat hyperactive and would always crave activity that let him be physically astir.
Again, the ice master accepted and loved Jin for it, but it was definitely a place where their personalities endured a mild schism. Whereas Touya enjoyed physical exertion, he also found pleasure in curling up quietly with a book, and yes, he could do it for hours on end. Jin, although interested in his books for a period of time, would always inevitably become anxious for something else to do. So, in light of the knowledge, Touya had sent him off to find something that would make him happier . . . at least until he was finished with his novel.
He had a few more chapters to go and wasn't beyond admitting that he hoped for the rain to continue its march on the world for a few more days. A small, sardonic smirk tugged at the corners of his lips as he thought about what the storm's extended stay might do to the psyches of his friends.
Touya flipped another page and allowed his thoughts to peter off and become enraptured with the story. He was settled peacefully in his corner of the couch, ignoring the sounds that the others made and allowing himself to be swept away by the thickening plot.
It was in this moment, when Touya had voluntarily left his guard down, that a loud shout echoed from somewhere in the house, successfully startling the ice master. He looked up sharply from the book, glaring in the direction from whence the sound had originated. He had a lot of patience and wasn't particularly upset about being disturbed again, but he was becoming a little nervous. That enraged shout had most certainly come from Suzuki, proving his earlier suspicions true.
He rolled his eyes and grumbled slightly as he reluctantly shut his book, tucking it carefully under his arm, and rose from the sofa. If the other more troublesome ones had managed to somehow drag Suzuki and Shishi into their activities, Touya was certain catastrophe was in the making.
He glanced out the splattered window and begged the teary eyed heavens to grant him even more patience. He was just so certain that he was going to need it. His fingers played idly with the old, fraying cover of his literate companion as he headed into the hallway.
It was unusually dark in the hall and suddenly very quiet. He had expected the noise level to increase with his steady progression towards the living room, the only open door way in the hall that was allowing warm, unnatural light to spill on to the floor. Touya could only set a deliberate scowl on his pale features and continue toward the room. He was now not only concerned about the state of things but also suspicious of his friends.
His eyes narrowed when he approached the wide doorway leading into the living room. He was careful to stand just outside the line of light so that he could listen. There was no sound coming from the room at all, yet he was certain that his friends were in there.
Touya grunted a sigh of irritation and decided that it really wasn't worth all of the trouble to sneak around the facts. There was something going on, something potentially unhealthy for the house, and he needed to find out what it was. So, with deliberate steps, the ice master rounded the corner and stepped into the living room. He hadn't been sure what to expect, he hadn't a clue, but it was definitely not the colossal mess he walked into.
The usually passive expression on his face altered into a look of complete shock and relative terror at the state of things. The couch cushions were gone and both sides of the living room were covered with sheets, tape, and other odds and ends. The lovely hardwood floor was nothing but a sturdy mass of flour and, dare he note, batter of some kind, as well as cracked eggshells and slippery yokes. Globs of chocolate pudding, last night's dessert, trudged down the walls and left their slug-like trail to mar the painted walls. Sake bottles and soda cans lie in still piles like wounded soldiers on a battlefield.
'Patience,' thought Touya, his eyes still bugging at the room. 'SOMEBODY give me patience."
He took a deep, calming breath and gently set his book down on the coffee table in front of the bare couch. He then turned to regard those who he knew were hiding away in their little forts.
"I want everyone to come out here right now and explain to me how this happened, why this happened, and who is going to clean this up," he said.
He heard quiet mutterings from inside both fortresses and rolled his eyes. Suddenly, Rinku's brunette head popped out from under his respectful sheet and flashed him a grin. "Fight or be destroyed, mister," he uttered and disappeared once more.
Touya's eyebrow rose. Honestly, he would have found the statement humorous were the flour under his feet not a reminder of the chaos nestled in the living room of their house.
Instead of chuckling, as had been his first reaction, Touya opened his mouth to make another round of demands, but he didn't even get his first words out before Shishi suddenly yelled, "Target locked! Fire!"
Touya ducked out of instinct as two flour bombs and a couple of eggs flew over his head. He glared at Shishi, believing that the swordsman had intended him as the target, but was mildly surprised to find that the true target had been a very messy looking Jin.
The wind master stood shocked in place near the sofa, covered in flour and eggs, and Touya had to admit that he would've laughed at that as well if only he hadn't noticed the book in Jin's hands.
"Jin! Put that book back down before you get something on it," Touya shouted.
Touya's voice seemed to draw Jin out from his place of momentary shock, and he regarded his icy lover with a triumphant smirk. With a gleam in his eyes not completely uncommon, he darted back to his own fort where Touya heard him say, "Mission complete. I've got the hostage."
Indignance swelled within his pale, slight frame as he glared cold daggers at the sheets and blankets that formed Jin's hide-a-way and held his beloved book.
"This is ridiculous. Do not make me come in there and get it from you, Jin," he threatened.
"Oy! This fort is impenetrable. Ya can't get in here, no one can," quipped Chuu from inside the fort.
Touya scoffed. "Are you telling me you think that lame little blockade will keep you safe from me?"
There was a pause. "You will be punished for insulting our ways," cried Suzuki suddenly.
Touya's eyebrow once again rose upward, and this time he was unable to keep the smirk off of his sculpted features. However, the smile was short-lived as he observed Suzuki pop out from under the sheets, a large Tupperware container secured to his blonde head, and a bowl and wooden spoon in his hands.
"Hey, isn't that from my good Tupperware--" Touya started.
"Get down!" Rinku shouted from behind him.
The confused ice master whipped around just in time to be bodily tackled to the floor by the young boy.
"Pudding glob incoming!" Shouted Shishi.
Touya watched in horror as a chocolate clod of dark pudding splattered against the opposite wall.
"God damn it, Suzuki! What the hell do you think you're doing?" Touya yelled, raising his voice on a rare occasion.
Still on his back with Rinku on his stomach, Touya craned his head backward to gaze upside down at Shishi's grinning face.
"Surrender or the hostage gets it," he proclaimed before slipping under the sheets.
"Oh for God's sake," Touya muttered. "This is completely asinine."
"No kidding," Rinku agreed.
The young boy's voice called his attention, and he regarded the one on top of him with a scowl.
"That's why we've got to take them out. If they gain control of the government, society will crumble before our eyes," he explained.
Touya could only blink.
Shishi, who hadn't appeared yet, peeked out from under the bottom of the fort. "Plus, the bastards have taken a hostage. We need a man with good tactical methods and a strong constitution. It's a war zone out here, and things can get pretty gruesome," Shishi stated.
Touya blinked yet again. "You're kidding, right?"
Rinku, in the meantime, climbed off of him and stood up. He then held a hand down and Touya took it almost unconsciously and stood up.
"War is never a joke," Rinku supplied.
The former shinobi looked to Shishi in his wooden bowl and then back to Rinku in his pillow. Their serious expressions matched one another, as did the grin behind their eyes.
His backside was covered in flour from his contact with the floor and he must've landed in a puddle of egg entrails as well because he could feel the goop running down his right arm.
He sighed. "Thank you, but I do not believe I will be attending this little field trip to the land of mild retardation today," Touya said sarcastically.
Rinku frowned as did Shishi, both of them trying to think of something that might convince their friend to join their worthy cause; however, it turned out that their words were not needed.
From across the room a sudden round of whooping calls grabbed their attention. "Death to the hostage," cried Chuu's excited voice.
Touya's eyes widened. Did they not understand that the book was a classic? An aged time capsule of a separate time and place? An book whose words had acted as a unique tether to thousands of others who had read the book, who might currently be reading it? Was nothing sacred?
"Jin, if anything happens to that book . . ." he warned.
Rinku placed his hand on Touya's forearm, asking his attention. Touya reluctantly gave his frosty gaze to the young boy. Rinku shook his head.
"Words are worth nothing to scum like them. Join us, fight them, and we will do everything within our power to save the hostage," he said softly.
Touya's eyes rested on his young friend for a time before sliding back to the opposing fort, and then to Shishi's glaring face. He sighed again.
"I can't believe I'm doing this," he mumbled under his breath. "Alright, Rinku, Shishi, let's do this," he said.
Rinku let out a cry of joy and yanked his unresisting form under the thin walls of their fort.