Warnings: None


Lucky Child

Chapter 108:

"Patience is a Virtue"


The moment I got home from school, normalcy swallowed me like a ravenous shark.

"Keiko? Is that you?" Mom called when she heard me come in through the side door. "We need help in the kitchen, ASAP!"

"Coming, Mom!" I said as I kicked off my outdoor shoes, and then I joined her in the kitchen for an evening of hot broth, chewy noodles, and madcap vegetable chopping—punctuated by frequent trips to the pantry, where my schoolbooks lay open atop a crate of corn. Stealing bites of knowledge between morsels of food, I studied and slung ramen to our hungry customers in turns, jotting down answers to math and science problems with hands made sticky from buckwheat flour. I didn't mind, though. This was the normal after-school evening rush hour, where patrons hungry after a hard day's work sought to sample my mother's famous cooking. Nothing I hadn't done a million times before, and nothing I wouldn't do a million times after. Like a stone into water, I sank deep into the routine, and when a certain regular customer of ours sat down at the counter with a sigh, I didn't even blink.

"Lookin' good in that hairnet, Keiko," Yusuke said, lazy grin surfacing in increments. "Totally suits you."

"Shut up," I grumbled as I finished chopping a bunch of scallions. "The usual?"

"What, no lunch lady special tonight?" he teased. "I'm hurt."

"My bad, Yusuke," I said with no sympathy whatsoever. "Tell you what—I can offer you a knuckle sandwich, on the house. How about that, huh?"

Dad chuckled where he stood by the giant pot of simmering brother. "Simmer down, Keiko. You're scaring the customers!"

Well. 'Scaring' wasn't precisely accurate. The customers near Yusuke and I were laughing, and Yusuke joined them with some snickers of his own. I just glared and put together his favorite beef bowl, slicing the meat thin just the way he liked it, silently bearing his taunts and mockery as he slurped his noodles and put on quite the littler performance for the crowd at the ramen counter. His jibes didn't get under my skin, though—this interaction, too, was normal, and nothing I hadn't suffered before. I just scowled and rolled my eyes and jeered until the dinner rush slowed and they no longer needed me in the kitchen, and when Yusuke disappeared upstairs, I doffed my apron and followed on socked feet.

Yusuke wasn't in my room, but a spring breeze blew through the open window. I showered away the scent of ramen and soon crawled out that window to join him, lying beside him on the roof's warm shingles below the field of clouds blotting out the sky above. City lights dyed them hazy yellow, a sun-warmed olive at odds with the darkness of the night. Yusuke stared at it without speaking, the green of his jacket more brown in the rooftop shade. I said nothing, for a time. The spring breeze tasted of soil and light rain, vaguely floral as it danced across the tongue.

"Hey," I said at last.

And Yusuke said, "Took you long enough."

"Yeah, yeah." Rolling onto my side, I faced him and propped my head up on one hand. "So how was your first day back at school? New grade and everything. And you even showed up today, right?"

Dark eyes darted in my direction. "Why do you sound shocked?"

"Just amazed you passed. First you win a dangerous, demon-infested fighting tournament, and then you manage to advance a grade. And then you go to school. Will wonders never cease?"

"Hey, you're one to point fingers," Yusuke grumbled. "Still can't believe you didn't ditch today, yourself."

"Me, Keiko?" I said, placing one offended hand atop my chest. "Golden Girl and model student? Apple of my parents' eye? Why would I ditch my first day back at school?"

"Uh." Yusuke looked down, at our legs splayed out before us. "Because of those?"

For a moment, I wasn't sure what he meant—but then I followed the trail of his eyes and saw the way my shorts had ridden up, exposing flesh painted in a dozen rainbow colors. An octopus and a lion with golden eyes, staring up at me from where they lay entrenched in golden skin. I flinched when my gaze met theirs, unaccustomed to seeing anything there besides blank thigh, and tugged my shorts back down as far as they would go.

"Oh my god." Yusuke's eyes glittered as brightly as his teeth. "Did you forget about them?"

"Fuck you, Yusuke." The insult slipped out in English, unbidden. "It was a long day."

His grinned widened. "Your eyes are grey again."

"Shit." My hands flew to my face. "Really?"

"Yeah." His arms lifted, hands tucking behind his head. "You know, I was watching you tonight. That's kind of why I came over. Well, one of the reasons, anyway."

"You came over to watch me? Um, creepy much?"

"Oh, fuck off, Keiko. Can't blame me for thinking about your stupid color-changing eyes—eyes that keep changing when you speak English, by the way." His eyes, in contrast, missed absolutely nothing as they raked over my face, observant and surprisingly shrewd. "They stayed brown the whole time you were downstairs. Call me crazy, but do ya think it was because you were busy making ramen?"

"Not funny, Yusuke."

"I'm not joking. You were busy doing something you've done a million times—as Keiko. But up here, you're just you. You're Tex."

"I thought I told you to cool it with that nickname."

"Since when have I ever listened to you?" he countered. "Face it, Tex—right now, you aren't the same person you were downstairs."

I flopped onto my back again, not wanting to meet his eyes. "Is it that obvious?"

"To me it is. Not so much to other people."

We sat in silence for a while. The damp, earthy wind curled into my wet hair, matting it to my cheeks in sodden strands. Oddly cold, that wind. I regretted shorts and a t-shirt, wishing as I wrapped my arms around myself that I had brought a sweater.

"So what you're saying," I said, suppressing a shiver that had little to do with the wind, "is that when I wasn't thinking about anything, and when I was just being Keiko, my eyes stayed brown."

"And when Tex came out, they changed," Yusuke added.

"Still not on board with the nickname."

"Well tough titties, because I like it," he said. "Can't keep calling you "grandma" after Genkai came back from the dead. Too many old ladies for one lifetime." Yusuke grunted as he sat up, hands running over the roof's shingles in broad, searching arcs. "We gotta update that thing we carved up here…"

"What thing?"

"You know. That thing you carved into the shingles back when you baked me that weird coffin cake on my Death Day." He reached down by his knee, then grinned. "Here it is!"

I sat up, too. His fingers pored over a message carved into the roof in messy scratches, and I knew what it said even without reading the words. But I read them anyway, because the nostalgia couldn't be ignored.

RIP Urameshi Yusuke

March 26 1977 – Dec. 3 1990

Survived by his Grandma

Badasses till the bitter end

It had barely faded since its initial inscription, but Yusuke set about updating it nevertheless. He pulled a Swiss Army knife (where had he gotten that?) from his pocket and popped out the tiny blade with a grin, poising the knife over the message with steady hands. "Now let's see… how do you write Tex in English?"

I showed him, and he dutifully drew and X over 'Grandma' and wrote 'Tex' just above it, trading one nickname for another as easy as pie. A murmur of disquiet settled into my belly at the sight of that word. I'd been 'Keiko' all night, just like normal, but the tattoos and Yusuke's nickname for me… they felt alien in this familiar space. Like interlopers, intruders who didn't belong, whose presence could shatter the quiet night into pieces. But the night didn't shatter, and soon Yusuke lay back against the roof again, satisfied by his handiwork.

I didn't join him. I sat with legs drawn against my chest, arms wrapped tight around my knees as I stared moodily into the night. Was Yusuke right when he said my eyes changed when I spoke English? They changed just as I remembered the tattoos, too. Was that the reason they changed? Or perhaps it was a combination of reminders of my old life bringing physical evidence of my past self back to the surface. Hard to say. It certainly seemed like the eyes could be connected to my mental state. But…

"It's a solid theory, I agree," I muttered eventually. "But it doesn't answer the question of why Hiruko gave me these or what's happening to my eyes."

"You can say that again," said Yusuke. "I only met the guy for a minute or two, but being annoyingly vague kind of seems to be his thing." He glanced down at my legs, lips hitching at the corner. "The tattoos aren't bad, though. You look like a Yakuza's girlfriend, but the colors are nice. So did it hurt?"

"Did what hurt? When I fell from heaven?" I asked sweetly.

"No! Getting the tattoos, dumbass!"

"It hurt more to get them this time. The pain was more spread out when I first got them, but these got sliced into me all at once." Tracing a finger over the lines of the octopus' tentacles, I murmured, "You know, I got this one outside of Disney Land."

"Cool," said Yusuke. "But why an octopus?"

"Because they're awesome."

"But why?" he pressed. "It's huge!" When I didn't immediately answer, he added, "I know Americans aren't as weird about ink as people are here, but still. Seems like a big patch of ink to commit to."

"Not really," I said. "It's not like either of these was my first."

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah. The octopus was my second and the lion was my third." I traced the lion's mane with a fingertip, where pinks morphed into greens and greens into vivid blues. "I got this one after my back piece."

"Wait," he said, sitting up. "You had a back piece?"

"Yeah. But Hiruko didn't give me that one." My lips pursed. "I guess he didn't bother because I can't see it and be annoyed by it if it's on my back."

"A back piece," Yusuke said, grudgingly awed by the idea. "What was it of, anyway?"

We talked about my tattoos for a little while. Yusuke wanted to know how much they hurt, and why I got them in the first place. I held back telling him about their sadder aspects; it didn't feel right to burden him with those details, young as he was. But his curiosity burned bright, and I told him all that I could until the embers of that fire cooled. He settled back onto the shingles with a grin, gazing at the ink on my legs with new appreciation.

"Well, gotta hand it to the guy," Yusuke said. "Hiruko did it to piss you off, but I'll bet you're pretty happy to see something from your past again, huh?"

I grimaced. "Not as much as you might think."

"Why's that?" said Yusuke.

I didn't reply right away. I just stretched out my legs and looked at my tattoos, until I could read the lines of my thoughts in their swirling, rainbow ink.

"I got these because they represented me," I said, words slow and careful and controlled. "Things I was proud of. Things I had accomplished. Things I wanted to commemorate during my life, when I was—"

I faltered.

"When you were Tex?" Yusuke supplied.

"… fine. When I was Tex," I relented. "But they don't really apply to my life as Keiko. If I'd wanted tattoos in this life, they wouldn't have been these pieces. They'd be specific to this life, not my old one." My hands crept to the lion and the octopus again, tracing the subtle variations in texture across both pieces. "With these, I wasn't given a choice."

"Oh." It took a moment, but soon Yusuke gnashed his teeth, the terms of my reality settling in at last. Throwing one fist into the opposite hand, Yusuke growled, "Then that just makes Hiruko even shittier. All the more reason for me to kick his ass the next time he shows his stupid pink hair."

"Fighting for my honor, Yusuke?" I pretended to swoon. "My hero!"

"What can I say? I'm the savior of humanity." He preened for a minute—and abruptly deflated. "And yet I still have to do math homework."

"Life just isn't fair."

"Nope." He bared his teeth. "It's not."

"Uh oh." Leaning my head on my knees, I asked, "What's that look for?"

His grimace intensified. "Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but apparently Spirit World isn't a fan of yours right now."

I huffed. "What else is new?"

Yusuke hesitated before saying: "Me being your parole officer."

"Yeah. Ayame told me this afternoon."

"Wait, she did?" He did an impressive double-take, then flopped back against the roof to drape his arm over his face. "Oh, thank god! I thought I was gonna have to explain everything."

"You're off the hook." Bracing for impact, I told him, "Well, go on. Rub it in my face how I answer to you now."

But Yusuke just shrugged. "Nah."

"Excuse me?"

"Nah. As in, no. This whole thing's just stupid." He laughed, derisive sound aimed skyward—aimed at Koenma, of that I had no doubt. "You've been watching out for us this whole time, and they wanna repay you by making me your damned jailor? I'll pass, thanks."

I couldn't help but feel touched. "Yusuke, that's so…"

"Don't get me wrong," he interjected before I could get mushy. "Making you do whatever I say sounds like a blast, but… I dunno. Being handed it on a silver platter sucks, and the whole thing is just too much trouble, if you ask me." Yusuke shut his eyes, pretending to nap. "So if they ask, just tell 'em I'm making you eat hot peppers every few days and that you hate it. Make me sound like a good jailer, yeah?"

"While I appreciate you looking out for me like that, at least stop by the restaurant once a week for dinner," I suggested.

One sly eye cracked open. "But I do that already."

"Yeah, but we can pretend you're doing it special just to keep an eye on me," I said. "That way if anyone asks, we can say we have a check-in appointment like I do with Kurama and Hiei, and we won't technically be lying." In a conspiratorial whisper I added, "We'll be technically correct, which is the best kind of correct."

"Loopholes." Yusuke grinned. "You've always been good at loopholes."

"Technically the term is 'malicious compliance,' but…"

"Whatever it's called, I'm on board." He raised a fist. "Let's stick it to the man, eh?"

"Yeah." I bumped his fist with mine. "Let's."

Contented silence fell like a warm spring rain, one broken only by the sound of laughter occasionally drifting from the restaurant below. Yusuke's eyes stayed shut; I wondered if he actually slept, or if he played possum for my benefit. He knew I must not like the idea of sneaking around, my enthusiasm for malicious compliance notwithstanding. Still, I was merely grateful to know Yusuke was on my side, not to mention that his terms for my parole were going to be so lax. I had half expected to be forced to eat a hot pepper or three to amuse him, but… I supposed even Yusuke knew when not to push it. His lack of desire to monitor my whereabouts suited me just fine—because, as I kept reminding myself, a storm loomed on the horizon, one I hadn't yet decided how best to handle. It had been bothering me ever since our return from Hanging Neck Island, although I hadn't allowed myself to dwell upon the matter. All I knew was that I didn't fancy the idea of Spirit World watching my every move in the days to come. I just hoped they wouldn't be monitoring Yusuke overmuch, either. Not to mention our other friends…

"Say, Yusuke?" I asked.

He didn't move. Just hummed an affirmation that he heard me.

"How's Kuwabara?"

Yusuke scoffed, eyes opening at last. "Hell if I know. He avoided me all day."

"Really."

"Mm-hmm."

Trying to appear casual, I studied my nails. "Well, I have some gossip that involves him, if you wanna hear it." When he turned toward me sharply, like a shark scenting blood, I said, "Remember how Kuwabara and Kurama found out their parents are dating recently?"

"Tough to forget, honestly. Botan won't shut up about it." He rolled his eyes. "So what's the problem?"

"Kurama doesn't like that they're together," I said. "Back on the island, he told Kuwabara flat out that he wants to break them up."

"Weird," Yusuke said, nose scrunching in confusion. "But why?"

"He doesn't want her interacting with someone so connected to the supernatural. Could end up outing Kurama's little demon secret or something, y'know?"

Yusuke made a face—like he got it, and didn't like it, but at least understood.

"And I was at Kurama's house earlier today," I went on. "And guess who at his house when we showed up?"

Yusuke's jaw dropped. "No!"

"Yes: Kuwabara senior," I said. As Yusuke buried his face in his hands and appeared to die of secondhand embarrassment (making me wonder if I still had enough ingredients for another coffin cake) I said, "Kurama's mom scrambled to make up an excuse for why he was there, so I don't think she's actually told Kurama about their relationship herself yet."

"No way!" Yusuke said, horrified. "Why do you think she's hiding it?"

"Not sure. Maybe she thinks he wouldn't approve?"

"And she's not wrong."

"He basically asked for my help breaking them up when I came over earlier," I confessed (once more prompting Yusuke to pretend to die, that gossip-lover). "It sucked."

"Talk about a mess," he said once he recovered enough to speak. "What do you think Kurama'll do about it?"

"Honestly? I have no idea. And that's more than a little scary," I said with a shudder. "It's Kurama, after all."

"Yeah." Yusuke covered his mouth with a hand, staring into the middle-distance in horror. "Oh, man. And Kuwabara really likes Kurama's mom, too." And here he laughed, a loud bark of wry joy. "Sucks to be him, because against Kurama, he doesn't stand a chance!"

"Are you gonna tell him about this?" I said once he finished having a chuckle.

But Yusuke just shrugged. "How can I, when he refuses to get within ten feet of me?" He heaved a sigh and lay back again, staring at the clouds through hooded eyes. "Nah. Kuwabara's gonna have to get over his weirdness if he wants any help outta us. Serves Kuwabara right for ignoring me." He huffed through his nose. "And for ignoring you, now that I think about it. Definitely serves him right."

I liked that he used the word 'us,' but I didn't say that out loud. Yusuke would just tell me to stop getting mushy, after all. Instead I lay beside him again, propping my head on a hand once more.

"Anyway," I said. "How's Botan doing?"

Another shrug. "She ran off this morning to go find Hiei and train. No clue where they are, but it's no skin off my nose."

"Uh huh. Sure."

Yusuke glared. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, nothing," I said in a singsong voice. "Nothing at all."

A growl of warning slipped from between his teeth. "Tex—"

"Wanna play some Dragon Quest?" I was already up and scrambling out of arm's reach, heading for my bedroom. "I'll let you have the controller!"

Yusuke, being relatively easy to bribe, took the bait and followed me without threat of death or noogies or being force-fed spicy peppers. Sure, he glared a bit whenever Botan came up that night, but the gift of Dragon Quest was enough to keep his ire at bay. He sat on my floor while I took up residence on my bed, the pair of us lapsing into silence as the game queued up and we began to play through our most recent save file. Neither of us talked much, except for when Yusuke yelled at enemies or I nagged his reluctance to use healing magic on his party. Soon even that talk quieted, inconsistent light flickering through my dim room as the TV cast odd shadows over my bed, my desk, my bookshelf, setting hollows in Yusuke's cheeks and boogeymen beneath my bed. It's little wonder I flinched when Yusuke at last spoke, his voice little more than a sibilant whisper in the dark.

"Hey, Keiko?" he said.

"Yeah?" I said.

"How long until the next big emergency comes knocking, do ya think?"

I paused.

I told him, in time: "I'm honestly not sure."

And that was the truth, of course.

We had been back from the tournament for little more than a day, after all.

I knew what was coming, but I had no idea when it would arrive—and that made thoughts of what I should do next all the more agitating. It meant that all I could do was wait… and in the wake of my delayed expectations followed the riptide of uncertainty.


Because I couldn't decide how the hell to handle my tattoos in light of my dance classes, the next day I took the coward's way out and just didn't go to school at all.

They can't kick you out if you don't show up, right?

Right. Yes. Foolproof logic, if I do say so myself.

Anyway.

In order to minimize the chances of getting caught while taking a "mental health day" (my somewhat euphemistic term for playing hookie and ditching class), I left home wearing my uniform and headed off in the direction of the school. Once out of sight of my parents' place, I booked it to the train station and headed downtown, where I disembarked, changed clothes in the bathroom, and stared at the station map as morning commuters swirled around me like eddies of water in a rushing stream. No one paid me any attention as I decided where to go—a decision made when I recognized one of the most distant stops on the map, the city's name standing out like a gold ingot in a field of stones.

Mushiyori City, the map read.

"Mushiyori, huh?" Hitching my bag higher up on my shoulder, I murmured to no one at all, "Well, I've got all day to waste before aikido lessons tonight, so distance isn't an issue." A pause. Then: "Might as well get the lay of the land while I can, in that case."

Mushiyori was, after all, the city where our next adventure concerning Sensui and Itsuki would largely take place. Getting to know the city's secrets couldn't possibly go amiss, right…?

Well. It wouldn't go amiss so long as I didn't run into Sensui, that is. Which was a possibility, I admit, but I shoved the notion to the back of my mind and boarded the train anyway.

Much like Sarayashiki, Mushiyori City lay on the outskirts of Tokyo, more like a suburb than a true township in its own right. In its general makeup and layout it also resembled Sarayashiki, possessing a downtown shopping district along with an industry center and several areas of residence. I headed for downtown, as it seemed the most interesting and the most likely location to serve as the grounds for the Chapter Black arc of Yu Yu Hakusho. Nothing about the bright, shiny and populous district gave itself away as the site of eventual chaos I knew it would become, but nevertheless I walked its many streets and perused its many businesses with dutiful attention paid to alleyways (potential escape routes) and centers of human society (which we'd want to avoid, if we ended up fighting in this city). Try though I might to spot them with my mundane eyes, I didn't see any strange psychic bugs, however, nor did Sensui or Itsuki show their faces. Because it felt like the right things to do, I kept looking for and expecting oddities, but none availed themselves. By the time noon rolled around and hunger gnawed my belly, Mushiyori had proven itself to be little more than a reflection of Sarayashiki's small-town coziness replete with its own quaint vibes—an utterly normal town full of utterly normal people who went about their utterly normal business wearing utterly normal smiles and suspected nothing amiss at all.

But all of that felt like a damn lie—like a thin façade you could scratch away with the edge of a single coin.

It felt like that because I, meanwhile, felt anything but normal. Like a tumor growing where it didn't belong, conspicuous in the way it infiltrated a space where it was not meant to be. Shop owners treated me kindly, but I walked away from them with haste. People on the sidewalk smiled, but I looked at the ground without a word. When I felt eyes on me, I walked in the other direction rather than meet their kindness full on. I knew what was coming to their sleepy little town, after all, and I wasn't going to warn them about Doctor's murderous rampage or Sensui's destructive powers. I didn't deserve their smiles, in that respect.

Thus, I kept my head down, and I just kept walking.

When I could no longer ignore my hunger, I went to the nearest café and ordered something to eat. It was warm that day, cheery cherry blossoms floating in pink drifts to the café's flagstone patio. I sat at a table and watched people walk by, sipping tea and nibbling a scone as I tried to reconcile the picturesque scene with the restlessness bubbling in my chest. It was tough, however, when a mother and her child walked past, child laughing all the while as she reached for the petals falling from the sweet-scented tree.

My hands clenched around my teacup.

I wanted to tell that mother to run. To take her child and flee, because who knew what might happen here? Who knew when the chaos would descend, turning this sleepy town to the site of a demonic invasion?

But looking around, watching that child laugh, I couldn't help but wonder: Was this really the place where Chapter Black would take place? Was this utterly normal place really the spot where Sensui would open his gateway to Demon World? Was this utterly normal locale already crawling with psychic bugs I couldn't hope to see with my mundane eyes? Because surely Sensui had already started carving that tunnel to another dimension, allowing the bugs to invade this city of oblivious humans…

My eyes did not behold any bugs that day.

They did, however, behold American tourists, which is almost as alarming.

The tourists ambled past not long after the mother and her child walked away. They held cameras, and they oohed and ahhed at the sight of the cherry tree under which I sat. Their shutters clicked like hail striking a tin roof as they snapped photo after photo, talking to each other in English and laughing far too loudly for my tastes. Their Midwestern accents grated in my ears, too, and in spite of myself, I couldn't keep from wincing when they shrieked and pointed at the café's cute signage. Much as I felt out of place in Mushiyori's normal environment, so too did I feel out of place beside those Americans—odd, given I used to be one. Was that how I'd appeared when I visited another country? I sure as heck hoped not. Talk about embarrassing…

I much preferred the next gentleman who walked by, whose reserved nature stood in sharp contrast to the boisterous Americans. This middle-aged gaijin tourist wore a pressed linen suit (complete with matching trilby and a white-handled cane) and a large handlebar mustache, auburn hair streaked through with grey, and he stopped to admire the cherry tree in appreciative silence, smile serene and quiet as he caught a single cherry petal on his open palm. I watched him with a smile; he reminded me of my uncle, a little bit, and the sight of him made me feel oddly at peace for no particular reason at all.

That peace didn't last. Soon his eyes drifted in my direction; I looked away as fast as I could, but it was too late. He'd caught me staring, and with another serene smile he tipped his hat at me.

"Lovely day, isn't it?" he said—in a British accent, and the resemblance to my uncle made my heart swell.

"Yes, it is," I replied in English. "The cherry blossoms are beautiful this time of year."

His bright blue eyes glittered. "Ah, jolly good—the king's English!" he said, clearly delighted. "Haven't heard that spoken clearly in quite some time. Wondrous country, Japan, but I confess I miss my mother tongue." Another tip of his hat. "You have a cracking day, madam. Fare thee well!"

He walked off whistling a tune between his teeth, swinging his cane in a jaunty circle as his heels clicked against the sidewalk. I couldn't keep from giggling—but another passing tourist, hearing me speak English, approached to ask for directions, and I forgot about the dapper British gaijin entirely.

The latter half of my day passed as quickly as the first half, but try though I might, I didn't much enjoy my time away from school. "So much for a mental health day," I muttered as I headed back toward the train station. The process of wandering around, caught up in dreading the events to come, hadn't been particularly restful… but it wasn't all bad. "At least I didn't run into any familiar faces. Because that would've been—"

As soon as the words left my lips, I regretted them… because the minute I spoke that concept into the world, the universe heard me, and it delivered.

I'd been passing the front of an arcade as I spoke. Lights from the games placed neon sparks in the business' front windows, reflecting infinite colors in a whirlpool of like and hue. As I passed, a face swam forward through the colors, catching my eye the way a lure catches the attention of a hungry fish. However, for a second I didn't register to whom that face belonged, and I walked past the arcade without turning to glance at it—but then, reaction embarrassingly delayed, I backpedaled and all but smashed my face against the glass, peering through it at the boy on the other side. He played a crane game, and he didn't notice me as I stalked toward the arcade's front doors and marched inside. I must've stood behind him, fuming as I watched the reflection of his face in the game's glass front, for a good three minutes before I remembered to speak, clearing my throat with pointed articulation.

"Excuse me, young man," I said. "But shouldn't you be in school?"

"Huh?" said Amanuma as he turned. He looked panicked for the most fleeting of moments, but then he saw me and grinned, panic fleeing out of sight. "Oh, nee-san, it's just you! I thought you were a teacher for a second there." His face fell as he looked behind me and spotted no one. "But where are Yusuke and Kuwabara? Aren't they with you?"

"They're in school," I said. "Which leads be back to: Shouldn't you be in school?"

Amanuma, that brat just shrugged. "Shouldn't you?"

I blanched.

Amanuma smiled smugly.

I tucked my chin to my chest and grumbled, "… fair point, Ferris Bueller. I concede."

"Ferris who?"

"Nothing." I stepped toward the machine and pasted on a smile. "Whatcha playing, huh?"

Amanuma laughed and loaded another coin into the machine, explaining that he could've long won a prize, but he was aiming for the grand prize, and he needed to jostle loose a few other prizes before he could grab the big kahuna. I watched him play in silence, noting how easy it seemed for him to manipulate the claw and eventually pry loose the capsule containing the grand prize. As it dropped into the dispenser for him to claim, he gave a whoop of joy—but it turned quickly into a sigh, weary and quiet and slow.

"Too easy," he said under his breath. "I've played all these games already."

I tutted sympathetically. "Looks like you need something fresh, huh?"

"I guess."

"Thought so." I jerked my thumb at the door. "Why don't we go get some ice cream? Change up your pace a little, huh?"

His eyes brightened as he stuffed his prize in his pocket and out of sight. "Sure!"

An ice-cream parlor stood next door, luckily for us. I bought us our treats and snagged a spot on the patio, where we watched passersby do their shopping and chatter with one another, warm spring air a balm for Amanuma's dour mood. Ice cream cures all ills, and he shoveled his down with gusto and a grin… which made it all the more painful when, albatross instincts taking flight, I knew I couldn't let his behavior go unacknowledged any longer.

"Hey," I said, setting aside my cup of ice-cream. "I know this is awkward, but can you tell me why you skipped school?"

Amanuma's smile vanished. Giving his cone another lick, he shrugged, freckled face downcast as his mop of brown hair fell into his luminous blue eyes. I leaned forward, though, to catch his eye and smile.

"Is it maybe too boring?" I pried. "Or not challenging enough?"

He pulled a face. "That's not the reason."

"Then what—?"

Amanuma bared his teeth. "I didn't want to look at their stupid faces anymore, OK?" he snapped—a snap so loud, it was almost a yell. I jerked back at once, and Amanuma (whose face flushed bright pink with shame) averted his eyes, ice cream lying forgotten and melting in his slack grip.

"OK, OK. It's OK," I said, forcing myself to smile. "We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

Amanuma said nothing.

Then he grumbled, "Good," and went back to eating his frozen treat.

In silence we ate our ice-cream, but our silences possessed vastly different tenors: Amanuma's frustrated and self-conscious, mine mystified and uncomfortable. He wouldn't look at me as we ate, and I couldn't keep my thoughts from straying back to the anime from which Amanuma hailed. In it, Amanuma joined Sensui in his quest to obliterate the human race, as eager as Sensui to see that fate enacted on the unsuspecting humans of the world. He joined Sensui after Sensui appealed to Amanuma's feelings of alienation—because, I reminded myself, Amanuma thought his peers were all stupid and shallow and ignorant, that he was disliked and unloved because they were just too different. He even felt that way about his parents, absent as they so often were. Thus, he became easy prey for Sensui in that respect, tempted into compliance by Sensui's offer of payback against the people Amanuma thought had wronged him.

Back when we first met Amanuma, I had wondered if I was allowed to change those feelings. If I was allowed to give him friends and make him feel less alienated, knowing kindness would make him that much less likely to submit to Sensui's manipulation. And I thought, before then, that I had succeeded in that respect.

Now, though?

It looked like my influence hadn't really changed Amanuma's feelings about his classmates at all. And did that mean—?

In spite of myself, my skin began to crawl, and I set aside my ice-cream with a clatter of cup on shiny tabletop.

"Say," I said. "Amanuma."

He didn't look at me. "Hmm?" was all he said around a mouthful of rocky road.

"Have you heard from that friend of yours lately?" I asked as my thudding heart crept high into my throat. "The weird adult one we've talked about before?"

"Oh." Amanuma scowled. "I haven't seen him."

"OK." A held breath leaked from my lungs, relieved and tense. "OK, good."

He grunted, then asked in an oddly frantic rush: "You have a good spring break, nee-san, or was it super boring or something?"

"Oh. Uh. No. It was… good, I guess," I said, stammering at this unexpected question. "I… I went camping with friends."

He stuck out his tongue. "That sounds boring."

"It was." Better he believe that than the truth. "How about you?"

Amanuma shrugged. "Just played video games."

"I see." A beat, awkward and uncomfortable. "And was that fun?"

"… sure. I guess."

We lapsed once more in awkward silence. Amanuma crunched into his cone, expression sullen as ice-cream smeared across his nose. I tried to dab it away with a napkin, but Amanuma dodged my hand and glared until I withdrew.

"Kinda thought I'd see you and Yusuke and Kuwabara around during spring break, though," he said, staring at me with accusation painted in his eyes. "Would've been a lot more fun if…"

He trailed off.

His eyes averted.

Accusation changed to hurt in the span of a misplaced heartbeat—and in that time, my own heart broke in two.

So that was the problem.

Well, shit.

"Ah. I'm sorry, kiddo," I said, meaning ever word. "We weren't in town during spring break, or else…"

Amanuma glared again.

"Yeah," he said. "I noticed."

I wasn't expecting him to get up and leave, but that's exactly what he did: He stood, chair scraping horrifically against the pavement as he darted away from our table and toward the edge of the patio, leaving his napkin and the rest of his cone abandoned on the table. I stared after him in shock before bolting down the rest of my ice cream (and giving myself one hell of a brain freeze in the process). But my goodie-two-shoes nature wouldn't allow me to leave behind our trash, so I grabbed it all and basically chucked it into the wastebasket near the patio's edge, and at that point Amanuma was sure to have vanished into the many streets of Mushiyori's downtown—but as I left the patio and jogged in the direction he'd gone, I spotted him almost at once. He stood stock still under the awning of a florist's shop beside a display stand of daisies and lilies and tea roses, barely visible in the shadows of the heaped blossoms and awning's shade. Approaching him was like stepping into a cloud of perfume, cloying and sweet, and because he stared with such dogged intensity down the street, I said his name as I neared so I wouldn't scare him.

But I didn't scare him. He just turned toward me with an absent "Hmmm?" before looking away again, down the road toward… nothing. Just wandering passersby and a few cars, a pair of laughing children and their nearby parents.

"Amanuma," I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Are you OK?"

He seemed to come back to himself, thousand-yard-stared returning to the present. "What?" he said, as if waking from a deep sleep. "What did you say?"

"Are you OK?" I repeated. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"It's nothing," he blurted, a hectic flush pinking his cheeks. "I just thought…"

My mind leapt to a worst-possible-scenario, of course. "Was it that friend of yours?" I said. "Or did you see a bug, maybe?"

His nose scrunched. "A what?" Amanuma shook his head.

"Nothing. Never mind." And because he looked both mystified and embarrassed—a potent combination indeed—I changed the subject. "But I really am sorry, kid. About not seeing you during the break."

He hesitated. Then his chin ducked and he muttered, "Yeah. Thanks."

"Want to maybe hit up an arcade on Sunday?" I said. When Amanuma didn't reply, I sweetened the pot with an offer of, "I can get Yusuke to come with."

He looked up at once. "That'd be nice," he admitted. "And maybe Kuwabara?"

"Oh. Uh. Maybe him, too." Curse my need to reassure small children! Because I didn't want him forcing me to make an outright promise, I hastily added, "I'm going to be an albatross now and remind you that you can call me any time. For any reason." I pinned him with my best, Keiko-inspired no-nonsense stare to show him I meant business. "Allow me to reiterate: Any time for any reason. All right?"

But Amanuma didn't look entirely convinced. He just offered me a smile, one that only barely touched his eyes as he said, "Sure. See ya round, nee-san."

He broke into another trot, more sedate than the one before, and I watched him go in silence. Surprising no one, I couldn't help but wonder why he'd run so suddenly from the ice cream parlor—not to mention what he'd seen that had prompted that break for the street. Had he spotted Sensui, as I'd first suspected? Or perhaps Itsuki? Were they watching him, as I'd wondered so many times before? I'd asked Spirit World to keep an eye on the kid for me, so perhaps he was even sensing their presence (provided they had done as I'd asked in the first place and were monitoring him, of course). Amanuma was destined to develop a powerful psychic Territory thanks to expose to Sensui's hole in time and space, so perhaps whatever he'd sense had been a result of his burgeoning psychic abilities.

If he developed them at all, that is.

Would distance from Sensui at this crucial time in his development stunt his powers? It was a possibility I had briefly considered in the past, but there was no way to know for sure until the rubber met the road and the Chapter Black arc got going.

It was all conjecture, in the end. I reminded myself of that as I turned toward the train station, ready to head off to my aikido lesson and the promise of a reunion with Kagome. I reminded myself that there was nothing I could do but wait, and that meddling would likely do more harm than good. I reminded myself, perhaps futilely, that patience was a virtue I'd do well to emulate. All I could do was wait, and in the meantime hope that when Amanuma developed his Territory, he remembered that he could call me for any reason at all.

As I entered the station, a chill skated up my spine.

I wondered again if Sensui was watching.

And I wondered what the hell I'd do about it if I found out that he was.


NOTES:

I literally have a checklist of all the characters in NQK's sphere; these exposition chapters will explore basically all of them one by one to see where she stands with all her friends before the plot kicks off in earnest. That means we've covered Kurama (at least in part), Yusuke, Kaito (mostly) and Amanuma. We'll get it all done soon, promise.

Definitely modeled that one gaijin on my uncle (rest in peace, you magnificent bastard). Miss him lots and was thinking about him today.

This chapter was going to be twice as long, but I decided to axe the final scene (Minato and Kagome catching up with Keiko) and do a shorter one so I could update again next weekend instead of making you wait. See you with the next chapter on Sunday, June 28.

And yes, the next chapter will be about Minato, Kagome and Keiko catching up on stuff. Stay tuned for the fun!

Thanks to everyone who chimed in last week. You helped push this story over the 5,000 review mark, which is just WILD. I'm so grateful for your support, especially in light of that milestone, and I can't thank you enough for continuing to read LC: noble phantasm, abbynicks126, Eden Mae, SuzyQBeats, xenocanaan, LadyEllesmere, Kaiya Azure, Domitia Ivory, Anya Kristen, MissIdeophobia, IronDBZ, Call Brig On Over, SterlingBee, tammywammy9, C S Stars, DeusVenenare, ewokling, RandomR15, McMousie, Melissa Fairy, AnimePleasegood, Kuesuno, Sorlian, MysticWolf71891, Vienna22, Ouca, MyWorldHeartBeating, Dark Rosette, kindsoul1991, DarkMoonDiamond, buzzk97, cestlavie, Biku-sensei-sez-meow!