Part X: Of Waffles, Sibling Rivalries, and Gossip
When you entered the kitchen to make Horo's waffles, you noticed the kitchen was not as lively as it usually was every morning. That might have been due to the fact that only Lyserg and Tamao sat at the table, conversing quietly with each other. Both of them being as soft-spoken as they were, it made it slightly difficult to understand what they were saying as you mixed the batter for the waffles. Ren had taken the liberty of plugging in the waffle iron, but he was nowhere to be found.
'He's probably talking to Pirika for me,' you thought, pouring some batter into the waffle iron. Then you closed the lid thoughtfully, letting your eyes wander out the kitchen window. Half-expecting to see something out of the ordinary, you were slightly disappointed when the only thing you saw was a small squirrel running up a tree with an acorn in its mouth. How simple it would be to be a squirrel... Not having to worry which other squirrels were mad at you... After hearing the doorbell ring, you sighed.
"That must be Jeanne-sama and Marco-san!" Lyserg yelled happily, then ran off to answer the door, followed closely by Tamao. You doubted that she even knew Lyserg's guests, but greeting them at the door was considered polite, and the pink-haired fortune teller would risk life and limb to be polite. Turning back to the window, you let out a small squawk when, instead of the squirrel, stood the shawl-donned boy from earlier; Hao.
"Kon'nichi wa, Katsumi-chan," he said happily, resting his elbows on the windowsill. "How's my dearest otôto?" Was this guy really your employers' worst enemy?
"Yoh's fine," you said, trying to figure out what could possibly be evil about him. Oh right; the flames. How could you overlook the fact that he had disappeared in a burst of flames?
"That's good," Hao said, resting his cheek on his forearms and looking into the room with curious eyes; an innocent gesture nonetheless. "What's that?" he asked, nodding to the waffle iron. You blinked. He certainly wasn't as smart as everyone had said he was.
"It's a waffle iron," you said. "You make waffles in it." Of course! He wasn't dumb; he'd just had no experience with modern kitchen appliances whatsoever!
"'Waffle'," he repeated. Then he smiled hugely. "That's a really funny word, you know that?" You giggled softly. "What do you do with these 'waffles'?" he asked, cutely staring up at you through the window. You resisted the urge to haul him in through the window and hug him to death.
"You eat them," you replied after hearing his stomach growl loudly.
"Can I have one?" Hao asked, tracing a small circle on the windowsill with his finger and giving you big doe eyes. You cringed, trying to fend off the cuteness; but alas, you failed completely.
"Okay, just go over to the back door and I'll--" Somehow, it didn't surprise you too much that Hao chose to leap through the window instead of using the door like a normal person would. Cringing slightly as he landed with a soft thud next to you, you opened the lid of the waffle iron and revealed the large, golden brown pastry. Hao, who had scampered over to where you were, gasped childishly as he leaned over the counter to get a better look at the waffle.
"Wow," he breathed as you speared the waffle with a fork and directed it onto a plate. You then shoved the plate into his hands and doused the waffle with some maple syrup, which you had pulled from seemingly nowhere. You sat him down at the kitchen table, fearing it would be too risky to seat him in the dining room.
After consuming the entire circumference of waffle, Hao leaned back in his chair, tipping it so that the front legs no longer reached the ground. You cringed upon hearing the chair creak slightly under Hao's weight. Not wanting the chair to break and cause a ruckus, you protested quietly.
"Hao-san, could you not tip in the chair? It might break." Hao blinked, then allowed the chair to fall back to the floor, making a soft clunk. Hao looked at the syrup-coated plate in front of him, not knowing what to do.
"Where does this go?" he asked, holding up the plate and causing the syrup to drip down his thumb, which he promptly stuck into his mouth after you took the plate from him. Before you put the plate in the sink, you inquired:
"Do you want another waffle?" Hao's eyes lit up in a childlike fashion, and he grinned.
"You mean I can have another?" he asked. You really couldn't see how this guy was evil in any way.
"You can have as many as you want," you replied, watching his expression reach an all-time happy. Then he thought for a minute.
"Can I make one?" he asked, cocking his head to the side. Somehow, you knew that Hao would make a mess, but you couldn't resist that adorable stare. You nodded, and handed him the bowl of batter to pour into the waffle iron.
"Just pour it in slowly," you instructed, sensing his gung-ho attitude about making waffles. After the waffle iron had been filled, you then showed him how to close the lid. He giggled a bit when the batter sizzled after the lid was closed, but his laughter was quickly interrupted when a small child appeared at the window, jumping up and down so he could see into the kitchen. It was remarkable that a child that small could jump so high, as the window was almost five feet off the ground.
"Hao-sama!" the child called into the window, mid-jump, instantly rousing Hao from his waffle-making actions. "Opacho--" he disappeared under the window, only to appear a second later. "--saw the--" And again. "--X-LAWS!" And again. "Hao-sama--" And again. "and Opacho--" And again. "--should--" And again. "--get going!" Even though the child had stopped speaking, it still continued bouncing up and down outside the window. Hao looked annoyed.
"Opacho, I'm making waffles right now!" he huffed, watching the small cloaked child bounce. "Can't this wait!" The child shook its head, and Hao placed a hand on his hip. "Alright then, Opacho. Where are they?" he asked angrily.
"They're--" Bounce. "--on their--" Bounce. "--way--" Bounce. "--into--" Bounce. "-the kitchen--" Bounce. "--right now!" Hao then looked around the room before walking over to the window, grabbing the child by its shawl mid-bounce, and pulling it into the room. Just as he did so, Lyserg and his two usual guests entered the kitchen.
"HAO!" the three of them howled, causing you to cringe. The tall blonde man pulled out a handgun and pointed it at Hao's head, seething. Hao watched coolly as Lyserg began yelling things along the line of "parent-killing bastard" in his direction, smirking when Lyserg had used up all the curses and bad names he had thought up, leaving him sputtering incoherent syllables. But the most the hoary-haired girl did was scowl in Hao's direction, but she still looked as sweet as ever when she did.
"Kon'nichi wa minna," Hao said to them as if they were acquaintances of his. Somehow, all the yelling of Lyserg and his guest had roused Yoh from wherever he happened to be at the moment, and he glared angrily at Hao. Then he noticed you, standing about three feet away from Hao, waffle batter in hand.
"Katsumi!" Yoh yelled, drawing Harusame from some unknown place. "Get away from there! It's too dangerous!" You took a few paces back, but when Hao turned and looked at you with big, sad brown eyes, you stopped. Yoh then looked at you with the exact same stare, then yelled another command. "Katsumi, go outside, now! You'll be a lot safer far away from Hao!" You took one last fleeting glance around the now-crowded kitchen, before turning and running out the back door.
You were greeted by a chilly autumn wind, which blew a few dead leaves through the yard. You heard quite a lot of new voices yelling (including Horohoro's) and banging around. Wanting to know what was going on, you ran over to the kitchen window and peeked inside. Just as you had done so, a flash illuminated the room, and Yoh came hurdling through the open window and landed with a thud on the dying grass, a small bit of dust rising up and sticking to his sweaty face. Amidamaru burst out of the sword and hovered over Yoh, who had a large burn on his chest.
"Yoh-dono!" the samurai cried. "Are you alright!" Yoh sat up shakily, a trembling hand clasping the charred skin of his chest.
"Y-Yeah," he mumbled. "I'm f-fine." You watched in shock as he tried to stand up, using the sword to stable himself, but then fell back to the ground with a whine, clutching his scorched torso as if that would make the pain go away.
"Yoh-san!" you squealed, scampering over to brunette. "What happened!" It was obvious that Hao had launched some sort of fire attack at Yoh, but what had happened exactly was a mystery. Yoh looked up at you with glassy eyes, not wanting to appear weak in any way.
"Hao happened..." he mumbled quietly, then Lyserg was flung out the same window Yoh had departed from and landed dangerously close to Yoh. You noticed that Lyserg was generally burn-free, but he was infuriated beyond all belief. He stood up, growling curses, and began to brush himself off hastily, grasping his slightly-cracked dowsing pendulum in one hand. Then he launched himself back at the window, but collided full-force with Horohoro, who seemed to have jumped out the window by his own free will, as if to lead Hao outside.
Whether it was intentional or not, Hao followed the ikapsui-armed Ainu out the window and landed gracefully next to Yoh, who flinched as if he was afraid of being stepped on. Hao smirked down at his twin.
"You see, dearest otôto," he said coolly. "That's what you get for disturbing me when I'm making waffles." He placed his foot on Yoh's burned chest, causing the younger of the two to cry out softly. "Don't ever do that again!" he yelled, losing his cool demeanor for the first time around you and scuffing his foot roughly across Yoh's chest, ripping away the burned skin and making his little brother lose himself completely in the pain.
Tears washed away paths of dust on Yoh's face, and you watched in horror each time Hao repeated the cruel scuffing action, eliciting a heart-wrenching cry from the smaller boy. That is, until the small child known as Opacho appeared in the window, the waffle iron and the bowl of batter piled in its tiny arms.
"Opacho has the stuff you wanted, Hao-sama," it piped, jumping down to the ground and watching the batter in the bowl slosh precariously. Hao smiled victoriously, then spit into Yoh's open wound and turned to Opacho, who had scuttled over next to him.
"Spirit of Fire," Hao commanded. A huge, glowing red human-ish figure took form in the yard, bumping a tree and causing it to go up in flames. You gasped, unable to move. By now, most of the tenants in the inn had made their way to outside using the back door, and were gathering to watch the fight that was going on. Except Ren. He was nowhere to be seen. But without your noticing it (you were too amazed by Spirit of Fire to notice anything), Hao had approached you.
He then picked you up bridal-style and began to walk over to Spirit of Fire. You, of course, began to flail mercilessly at this and shriek protests as loud as you possibly could.
"Katsumi," Hao said sternly, trying to keep a firm grip on you so you wouldn't fall. "I'm taking you away to be my Shaman Queen and cook waffles for me forever and ever, so could you please stop giving me hell! This is supposed to be enjoyable!" You shot him a glare of disgust, but he leapt many feet into the air toward Spirit of Fire's upturned palm.
"Katsumi!" you heard Yoh yell through his tears of pain. You felt a pang of guilt jolt through you, knowing how mush effort it must be taking for him to remain conscious, let alone cry out to you.
But mid-leap, Hao jerked to a stop as if something was pulling on him. In fact, something was; Ren was standing out on the limb of a tree, a large chunk of Hao's hair being firmly grasped in his fist, and the blade of his spear mere inches from the coffee-colored tresses.
"No way in hell are you taking Katsumi," Ren said. "So if you want to keep your precious hair attached to your head, I suggest that you put her down and go back to wherever the hell you came from." Hao looked even more mad than before as he pondered his options.
"Fine," he said after a while. And with that, he let go of you. You began to fall in what felt like painfully sluggish slow motion, and Horohoro was hovering around beneath you acting as if he was going to catch you. Somehow, you landed on Horohoro instead of in his arms as he had meant. The pair of you crashed to the ground, and you got up, groaning a little as you rubbed your head. Then you looked up at Hao, who cast you a mournful gaze just before he, Opacho, and Spirit of Fire took off into the sky. Then, you remembered something...
"Yoh-san!" you yelled, running over to the sniffling brunette on the ground. Apparently, Anna wasn't as caring for her fiancé as you thought she would be, as she was glaring down at him and muttering something about him being weak. Somehow, you felt like this was all your fault. But then again, you had let Hao in, and you had been making waffles with him. You just hoped that something like this would never happen again...
Yoh gazed up at you with the same doe eyes Hao had used earlier. You felt so awful about what had happened...
"Katsumi..." he muttered. "You're still here... Hao didn't get away with you..." You knelt down next to him and shook your head. Then, you felt a hand on your shoulder. You looked up into the face of none other than Horohoro, who had Kororo sitting on his shoulder.
"We'd better get some ice on that burn," he said to no one in particular as he eyed Yoh's chest nervously. Blood had begun to seep out where Hao had ripped away the burned skin, and it was now staining Yoh's white shirt a brownish-red as it mixed with dust on the ground. Trying to remember as much as you could from the First Aid course your teachers had forced you into taking last year, you said softly to Yoh:
"Okay, I wanna make sure this isn't a really bad burn, so I want you to tell me if this hurts or not." With that, you gingerly pressed down on part of the wound with a few of your fingers. Yoh let out a painfully loud wail when you did this, and you felt him grab your free hand as hard as he could. New tears formed in his eyes, and you looked guiltily up at Anna, who seemed to be enjoying the pain Yoh was being put through. You frowned slightly, poking a few different places on Yoh's chest, each educing a new yelp or moan. You sighed, trying to get the feeling back into your left hand from when Yoh had grabbed it.
"Well," you said, feeling mighty professional at the moment. "You don't have any third-degree burns, so we don't have to rush and call an ambulance. But we should get some ice on that, and we'll call the doctor in a little while." Then you began showing Horohoro and Kororo where to form ice.
After a few more yelps from Yoh, Ren and Horohoro had taken the liberty of carrying him up to his room, and Anna had called a friend who happened to be a doctor. Lyserg and his blonde guest were having "man-talk" in the kitchen, and the silver-haired girl disappeared into the onsen with the other females of the house.
Things had calmed down quite a bit since that morning, and you were forced to resume your duties as the maid. Anna had instructed you to wash the floor around the onsen, and even though she and the other females had been lounging in there for the past hour, she made you wash it with them still in there.
Somehow, though, the other girls had no idea you were there. It might have been because they had their backs to you, but you thought it had more to do with the uncontrollable feminine giggles they were emitting. Pretty soon, though, the topic of their conversation had shifted from the waffle incident this morning, to who they secretly adored, to first impressions of the other tenants of the inn, to who they secretly adored (again), then to the kissing incident that morning...
"...And onii-chan and I saw them making out like they were the first ones who'd ever done it, right there in the laundry room," Pirika said. This was followed by three overly-done gasps of social horror.
"I've noticed that Yoh hasn't been paying as much attention to you as he should, Anna," Tamao said, breaking her "vow of silence," as Ren had called it. "Well, ever since Katsumi got here."
"And I caught her running around here in nothing but a towel the other day," Anna informed the others. You were starting to become slightly annoyed.
"What did you do?" Pirika inquired curiously.
"I gave her a stern talking-to," Anna said. "Do you know how fast I'd fire her if we didn't really need her help around here?" the blonde asked, not expecting an answer. Jeanne nodded.
"Yes, and Lyserg's been acting very strange lately -- preoccupied, almost. It's like he doesn't care for me anymore." she said, playing with a bit of her silver hair. The other girls nodded.
Things continued like this for a little while longer before you stormed out of the onsen, slamming the sliding door behind you, and possibly bringing into light that you had heard the whole conversation.
End Part X.