Disclaimer: FB belongs to Natsuki Takaya, and anything else you recognize doesn't belong to me either.
Chapter 29
"Aw, damn it all." The white-haired boy plopped onto the grass, letting his bike fall into a metallic tangle beside him. Once again, Hatsuharu, Shehure's younger brother, was lost, thanks to his nonexistent sense of direction. He'd missed three days of school, trying to find Lhadoman to challenge him to a martial arts fight. And he had his high school examinations coming up, too. Not that they really mattered for him—Asheno had decreed he would go to Karori, and what Asheno said was automatically inscribed as law. However, the thought of going to Karori with Huki and Lhadoman cheered him up. Lhadoman was his rival in martial arts, but Haru still liked him a lot. Nharu, the rabbit, would also be starting at Karori with him, too. Despite their large difference in size, the childlike Nharu was actually fifteen years old, like Haru.
I should call Rin, idly thought Haru as he sat back, supporting himself on his hands. Rin, the horse and his girlfriend, would be able to give him directions back to the main estate. And my mother, too, she'll be worried. But for now, he'd enjoy the wonderfully clear weather. It would be the last beautiful day for a while yet.
"Excuse me!" A girl's frantic yell rang through the air. "Excuse me! Are you all right, sir?"
Haru realized the voice was addressing him, and he looked over his shoulder. A girl wearing a green physical education uniform panted as she ran towards him, her brown ponytail flying behind her. She stopped suddenly, only twenty feet away.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" Lhoru blushed a deep scarlet. "I thought you were an old man and that you had fallen or gotten into trouble or—but you're young!"
Haru immediately recognized her as the klutzy but generous and kind type. Something about her seemed familiar. When he couldn't recall why, he turned his mind to more pressing issues.
"It's not a problem," he said, noticing she was still bowing and apologizing. "You can stop now." Lhoru stood up, and saw for the first time that the teenage boy had a layer of black hair underneath the tousled white mop. He was a full head taller, and had wide-set gray eyes.
"Do you know the Shoma estate, by any chance?" asked Haru. Maybe the girl knew where it was.
"The Shoma estate? Yes, I do!"
"Can you tell me how to—" The words dropped off as Haru recognized the sound of Lhadoman and Huki bickering in the distance. They were coming this way. Now was his chance to challenge Lhadoman. "Excuse me for a minute," Haru, walking to the side of the road, said to Lhoru.
Lhoru had been running the girls' endurance run, an annual physical education rite at Karori, and much dreaded by underclassmen. The run was a tradition that had persisted despite nobody really understanding what good it did for the students. Upperclassmen generally felt glad they didn't have to submit to the twenty-minute run, and sympathized too much to make fun of the younger students. The endurance run followed a set route leading from the school to a nearby park, and back. Girls and boys ran separately. Today the girls had started first, forty minutes ahead of the boys. Lhoru, one of the slowest runners, had lagged far behind. Zhula hadn't even bothered to come to school today, and Hanadzima had stopped near the beginning so she could enjoy a new book. Now the boys were catching up.
"Why must you turn everything into a competition with me?" Lhoru distinctly heard Huki chastising Lhadoman, as usual.
"Shut up! You're not the best at everything, you know!" yelled Lhadoman, running even faster, his amber eyes blazing. Huki followed suit, picking up his pace. He coughed once or twice—he'd started developing a cold last night, and insisted on doing the run even though Lhoru encouraged him to stay home. Colds always made Lhoru nervous, since her mother told her her father had died of pneumonia.
Haru and Lhoru watched the steady progress of the boys. As they neared, Haru stuck his foot out onto the road. Lhadoman, absorbed in his race, didn't notice the obstacle. He fell with a tremendous thud to the road.
"What the f—" Lhadoman started yelling, then quieted when he saw Haru and Lhoru. "Haru, what the hell were you thinking? I could've been killed!"
Haru shrugged. "It was the only way to get your attention." Huki stopped, his breathing slightly labored.
"I was just about to beat Huki!" groaned Lhadoman.
"Idiot, we still had to get to the park and back," muttered Huki, leaning over and resting his hands on his knees.
"Whatever," said Lhadoman, resigning himself to Lhoru's anxious examination of his bleeding head.
"What are you doing here, Haru?" queried Huki, ignoring Lhadoman. "Oh, Haru, this is Mileshi Lhoru, who's been staying with us."
So that's who she was! Haru remembered Shehure telling him about her at the last Dzuni meeting two weeks ago. Lhoru, the talk of the Dzuni.
"Pleased to meet you," Haru bowed to her. "I'm also a member of the Dzuni."
"Pleased to meet you! I'm so sorry I didn't introduce—"
"That's okay," jumped in Haru quickly. "Anyway, I wanted to find Lhadoman because I didn't have a chance to challenge him to a fight the other week. I hear you've done some training lately, Lhado? Well, so have I."
"Can't it wait? Huki and I were having a race." Lhadoman brushed dirt off his shorts.
"But I got lost for three days trying to find you," protested Haru. He looked visibly annoyed.
"Uh…Lhado, I think you should just do what Haru wants," interjected Huki, pulling Lhoru away from the two. "We should move over, the other boys might see us," Huki added. The group moved further down the hill, out of sight of the road.
"Look, Haru, just go home and don't bother me now," Lhadoman said.
"What, afraid of a fight?" asked Haru, tossing his leather jacket to the ground.
"No, what, me afraid of you? That's dumb," declared Lhadoman.
"This is going to turn nasty," whispered Huki to Lhoru. "We'd best just stay low until this blows over." He gently led her a little further away from the increasingly combative duo. Lhoru jumped as Haru suddenly delivered a hard blow to Lhadoman's shoulder.
"Oh, no, he's turned black," groaned Huki. Lhadoman returned the blow with an equally unforgiving kick, sending Haru flying to the ground.
"What?"
"Well, Lhoru, you might say Haru has two personalities, like Khagura, except he's much worse."
Lhoru had difficulty imagining anyone being worse than Khagura, a sweet and shy girl who had an unfortunate tendency to become extremely violent in her desire to show love for Lhadoman.
"This personality that you see now…" Huki indicated the sneering Haru taunting Lhadoman. "The family calls him 'Black Haru' when he snaps like that. 'Black Haru is vulgar and very violent. 'White Haru' is his dominant personality, and much more pleasant."
Meanwhile, Haru and Lhadoman had engaged in an armlock, and their verbal exchange didn't reach Huki and Lhoru's ears.
"You're still no good, Haru," growled Lhadoman, "I can predict every move you're going to make."
"Well, aren't you one to talk, the one who can't defeat Huki. Kitten," spat Haru.
"I'm not a kitten! You asshole."
"Maybe after this, I'll have a little fun with your girlfriend. She seems gullible enough—just the right kind for you." Lhadoman blinked at Haru's taunt, then realized he was talking about Lhoru.
"Leave Lhoru out of this!" His grip tightened on Haru's shoulders, and Lhadoman tossed him onto his back. "She has nothing to do with our fight!"
A cry of "Huki!" pierced the air and stopped Lhadoman and Haru in mid-punch. The two saw Lhoru leaning over a collapsed Huki.
"Damn!" exclaimed Haru, his black personality dissipating as he rushed to Huki's side, the fight completely forgotten. Huki lay wheezing noisily, a hand to his throat.
"My…asthma…" he croaked.
"We must get him to the hospital!" said Lhoru.
"No, that will cause too much trouble if he transforms," Haru said. "We'd better get him to Hathori at the main house…"
"No, Shehure's house is closer," said Lhadoman, hovering behind Lhoru.
"We can't take him in a cab, the transformation risk is also too great," murmured Haru. He turned his eyes to Lhoru, and studied her for a second. The remaining vestige of his black personality drily remarked, "Well, if you must hug a girl, at least hug a cute one."
"Lhoru," Haru said with a tone of decision. He leaned over and pressed her to his chest.
"What are you doing, you pervert?" yelled Lhadoman as the familiar explosion occurred.
"Wh-wha…" stammered Lhoru. A black and white cow materialized next to her.
"Hold my neck so I don't change back," Haru instructed Lhoru. "I'll carry Huki on my back to Shehure's."
Finally, Huki rested comfortably in the guest room bed. The group's trek through the city attracted considerable attention, since a cow bearing an unconscious boy on its back was not a commonly occurring sight in Lhasa. However, Lhadoman had done an admirable job of fending off curious children and adults.
After Shehure had repeatedly assured her that Huki would be all right and that Hathori would arrive very soon, Lhoru went into the kitchen to start preparing dinner. Haru remained by Huki's side in cow form, until he changed back. The fight had been indefinitely postponed, and Lhadoman lent Haru some of his clothes. Watching the cow enter the kitchen, Lhoru thought Haru looked much tamer in Lhadoman's favorite light blue sweater and casual khakis. Quite a departure from the tight black pants, leather jacket and red tank top he'd sported earlier.
"Will you be staying for dinner, Haru?" asked Lhoru, already planning to add extra helpings to her fixings.
"Yeah, I guess I will," replied Haru, filling a glass with water. "My brother Shehure tells me you're a fantastic cook."
"I'm not really that…did you say you were Shehure's brother?" Lhoru turned her head. "I didn't know Shehure had a brother."
"I'm eleven years younger than he is." Shehure was about 26, which would make Haru 15. "I can see you don't know a lot about the family yet." Lhoru missed the slightly cocked eyebrow.
"That is true, but I'm happy with what I know so far." As soon as she said that, Lhoru knew that wasn't true. She was certain that much of the darkness that hung over the Shomas she'd met so far had everything to do with the family.
If I only knew more, I might be able to help them more, she thought. But I don't want to press them and make them feel uncomfortable.
In a seemingly casual tone, Haru asked, "So, which Shomas have you met so far?"
"Let's see, you, Huki, Lhadoman, Shehure, and the doctor, Hathori, and Nharu. And Khagura! How could I forget Khagura!"
"Khagura certainly leaves an impression," agreed Haru. "Still, plenty more Shomas for you to meet." He fell silent, and an awkward air descended upon the kitchen.
"You seem very attached to Huki," ventured Lhoru, cutting onions.
"I admire him very much," Haru said. "He was my first true friend, besides Shehure. Huki helped me when I had some serious problems as a little kid. That reminds me—I wanted to apologize for my black side earlier."
"It's no trouble, really."
"Well, it's a big pain for me. I snap without warning when I get angry, then I do…things…I regret later."
"Does the black side come from your Dzuni?"
"In a way, yeah. Normally it takes something pretty serious to make a cow lose its temper, but not as often as I do. When I was little, the adults used to make jokes about my being stupid and slow—I think they meant to be funny, but it sure didn't work. You know the story about the banquet, about how the rat rode on the cow's back and then jumped to the front of the line to be the first Dzuni to enter? That was what the adults laughed about. I started turning black a lot. My parents and even Shehure had trouble handling me, so I began martial arts training. I liked it a lot, but it didn't help very much.
"I also hated Huki, because he was the rat. He was responsible for all my problems. We didn't see each other too often because our family head always kept him at close hand in the main house, and I lived in a different house with my parents and Shehure. But one day after martial arts, I walked by the main house and saw Huki sitting in a window reading. At that moment I just started screaming stuff like, 'You ruined my life! Because of you everyone calls me stupid and slow! I hate you!' Huki listened to all of this without flinching. Then when I'd yelled myself out, he says, 'Are you really stupid, Hatsuharu?' That was all he said. He freed me at that moment. I realized that I really wasn't stupid, that I wanted people to stop calling me slow, and it wasn't Huki's fault. I'm really glad, because otherwise I'd still be treating Huki as my enemy, and that would truly be dumb."
Haru calmly sipped from his glass and looked at the clock on the opposite wall contemplatively.
"It's a wonderful story, Haru," Lhoru said simply.
"I see now why Huki seems much happier," smiled Haru. "Today while you two were talking, he was actually smiled. He never used to do that before."
"It couldn't be because of me."
"Lhado and Huki also don't fight as viciously as they used to. I'm amazed that they're down to fighting verbally more often rather than all-out brawls. It used to be they couldn't pass each other in the hallway without throwing punches."
"It was bound to happen. They are growing up, after all." Lhoru smiled, and grabbed a stack of plates. She went to the dining room to set the table.
Haru sighed. He worshipped his older brother, but Lhoru's natural modesty and faith in others worried him. "I hope whatever's Shehure's planning, it doesn't hurt her."
Now Haku had an explanation for the earlier episode involving Shehure and the little Haru, and he'd seen further expositions upon Shehure's quest to break the curse. The path of the visions seemed clear: Faran-Zhuku would show Lhoru encountering each member of the Dzuni, and she would open their hearts one by one. But it could not be that simple.
"For one thing, Asheno's still a sadistic, evil man," he said aloud to himself, in the privacy of his drawing-littered room. He had already built up a veritable drawing encyclopedia of the visions he'd had.
"You right," Faran-Zhuku responded to Haku's spoken thought. "It not work in way Shehure intend."
Haku bit back the urge to ask Faran-Zhuku to skip ahead to the real breaking of the curse, especially if the ghost had just told him Shehure's plan would fail. By now Haku knew better than to question Faran-Zhuku.
"I tell you, before again you reproach me for showing useless visions," the wolf rumbled, "They will help when rest of your Dzuni arrive here. You will be the one who understand them and their powers best."
"Makes sense to me." Placing a brand-new sketching pad in his lap, Haku started drawing a young Huki sitting in the bay window of Asheno's parlor, facing down a furious Haru in his white belt martial arts outfit. The expression in Huki's face was tired and sad. The white blossoms of a tree framed the window. Despite the obvious differences in manifestation of the old curse and the current Dzuni, it was still comforting to know that others had had similar problems with their Dzuni characteristics in the past. A new thought came to Haku.
"Faran-Zhuku…"
"Yes?"
"You once said you could only show me the memories of the most recent Dzuni."
"Right. So you pay attention back then."
"Does that include me, Hatsuharu, Kho and all the current Dzuni?"
The ghost hesitated. The silence surprised Haku, for he couldn't remember a time before when Faran-Zhuku had been unwilling to answer.
The terse response followed quickly. "Yes."
"So if you really wanted me to be able to identify and understand the current Dzuni, why not show me their memories?" Simultaneously, Haku quailed at the thought of probing his dearest friends' consciousnesses.
"That is why," said the wolf. "Seeing memories very invasive. But yes, you could see their memories. I say you wait until later."