Love Hina belongs to Akumatsu Ken. This Fic belongs to me
Mitsune's smile fell
She didn't understand what happened. She did everything right – she was friendly, she behaved herself, she didn't make any jokes or flirt. Hell, she even chose to wear a bra today, just for this encounter! She followed all his rules and demands to the letter without a single complaint, risked so much to be here, not telling any of the girls (Naru still thought she was still hanging around the bar for their monthly pool game (which she was also missing specifically for this)).
She has been 100% on the level with him since the minute she had shown up – all to get herself a "no".
"WHY?!" she cried, slamming her hands on the table "I was completely honest with you!"
"Precisely," he replies bluntly as he put the lease away "You told me you came her to spy on me for Naru and the rest, and offered to do the same back."
"Exactly, and-"
"And so I said no."
It felt as if the room shrink down around her as her throat closed up. Her head dropped while her nails dug into her jean pants, grip shaking all the while. So it hadn't mattered in the end. No matter what she had done, whether or not she lied, he was never going to give her that chance, that one moment of redemption she had so desperately grasped at to the point she had forsaken the others just to have the opportunity.
(Oh god, the others! They're going to ask her aren't they? They'll ask and she'll have to tell them she fucked up everything for them by exposing the plan and getting on Kei-chan's bad side even more than before! She's surprised he hasn't gotten the shredder out right now.)
"So after all that," she says, voice stuttered throw gritted teeth "You still don't trust me…?"
Keitaro stares at her, shoulders just as tense as when she first arrived "I've said multiple times already, and I'll say it as many more as I need to," he says, stoping to exhale "If you want your rooms back, you need to sign the lease. There's no negotiating, no spying, no exchanging or trusting or anything – just sign on the dotted line and that's it."
"And that's what I came for-"
"No," her mouth slams shut as he cuts her off "What you came here for is an easy out for everyone else, and expected me to go along with it because it would 'make things like the old days' like you somehow think I want. I'm not letting you scam your way out of this one like always!"
He removes his glasses, rubbing his temples in irritation "Even now, you're still doing the same nonsense as usual – coming in with some wild hairbrained scheme and hoping I'm too blinded by the taillights to see what's actually going on! The only thing I can give you credit for is being willing enough to throw Naru and the rest under the bus to try and get me to go along."
It was at that point that Mitsune's mask had fully fallen off, and despite the more rational part of her brain begging her to take the loss and come back with a better battle play, her anger had sadly already slammed down on the trigger.
"Well how else do you expect them to come and sign! They're still pissed that you kicked them out so suddenly and have no clue what's going to happen with this new lease you scrapped together without telling us until we were out the door!" she feels herself scream, slamming her hands on the table "Maybe if you brought this up before throwing us all out on the street, we'd've been more receptive!"
Her (former) landlord looked ready to counter, but now it was her turn to cut him off "Hell, I'm still pissed myself, but I put that all aside in the hopes of convincing you to work with me – which was apparently worthless! If I knew you weren't even going to give me a chance, I'd just take a shot sleeping at the bar again!"
The last sentence seems to startle him a bit, but his stern expression returned soon enough "I did give you a chance! I already knew you were planning something and could have just easily told you to take a hike the minute you showed up here, but instead I let you come back in and make your case! You're lucky I even decided to hear your stupid plan out!"
She can't help but roll her eyes, even despite telling herself to reign it in before she really gets herself in trouble here "Oh, how lucky of me that the great Keitaro Urashima-sama is being so generous as to offer his time to me – I feel so fortunate!" Mitsune yells "If I wanted to deal with someone giving me the second degree, I'd go back home!"
It was startling how much she meant that, as much as it had hurt to even say, because she'd never imagine being at the Hinata would make her feel like that, that she'd prefer her family's judgmental stares to Keitaro's own. In fact, she hadn't felt anger like this since the day her parents kicked her out – frustration and desperation fueling her rage as she desperately fought to keep the two people who brought her into the world from abandoning her to its cruel whims and, failing that, at least getting the last word in.
"Then why don't you?" Keitaro bites out coldly, glare deepening as he near word for word repeats the last thing she heard from her father right before she was told to be out the door "You have legs, and money if you didn't go gamble or drink it away somewhere – what's stopping you?"
It was really saying something to realize how much being able to see both elder Konno's in that glare (to see how cold and uncaring it was at the sight of her and her anger) sank the final nail in the coffin and made her realize there really was no fixing anything. She wasn't "Kitsune" to him anymore, wasn't a friend or anything – or someone who could have been more if she had worked harder, ignored that part of her conscious that hadn't been dimmed by liquor and flashing lights (the part that told her "she's your friend and the only other one that doesn't treat you like the hopeless lush you are – are you really going to screw that up 'cause old four-eyes gets you hot-and-bothered sometimes?"), had fucking noticed what was about to go down 4 weeks ago.
But she didn't – and now she was here, screaming her head off at the last guy she should be doing this to because her trump card turned out to be a bust and now the only thing she can think to do is pull a Naru because she's just now realizing she burned the one bridge she had wanted to keep and it hurts.
Maybe that was why Keitaro suddenly turning his back on her hurt so much? Maybe that's why waiting had been so anxiety inducing? Maybe that's why she had panicked so badly when Haruka flat out told them she couldn't help anymore? Maybe that's what, after four weeks of begging and brown-nosing and favor-wrangling with no benefit or progress, had pushed her to toss her filter out the window and start screaming? Because she did the exact same thing she does with anyone she can get to treat her like she wasn't a screw up with the one person she never wanted that to happen to, and it hurts.
(She was no longer his "exception" – and it fucking hurt)
So rather than more angry yelling, Mitsune lets out a cackling, fox-like laugh, too stunned by the multiple revelations bearing down on her to properly consider her next words.
"The same thing that's stopping the others!" she chuckled, grin turning feral "I mean, do you really think any of them are really just going to tuck in their tails and come moseying back just because you threaten to give their rooms away? That they'll turn into good little obedient mousies because you up and decided now to try and play Alpha-dog? I know these girls Kei-chan, lived with them for years! They aren't going to sign, because they're stubborn enough to think they can outlast you, that no matter how big and tough you wanna act now, it won't mater because all they have to do is wait things out until you get tired or scared or whatever and tell them you aren't going through with kicking them out anymore."
"And honestly, I almost believed it – 'cause lets face it Kei-chan! You aren't as tough a customer are you're pretending to be right now! Oh sure, you gotten 'hard' on us a few times yeah, but in the end all we had to do was bat out lashes and wait a couple days, and you went right back to bowing and scraping like you always did." she stops to chock on a coming sob, finally notices her ruining mascara is dripping onto her blouse "But now you aren't and now there's only seven days left but no one wants to believe you're serious, no one wants to admit they made a bad call and now we don't have any options left. Sure, Naru talks a big game about solidarity and how you'll 'realize your mistake' eventually, but the truth is she's scared as shit that you actually mean it and now she doesn't know what to do anymore! Su still looking for parts so she can make some dumb machine to fix all our problems while Shinobu's waiting for you to ride in on a big white horse to whisk her off into the sunset because even she knows Naru's entire "solidarity" shtick is crock just as much as I do! Mutsumi's still convinced you're just 'going through a phase' and will 'snap out of it soon' and refuses to tell Naru how far up the creek she is, let alone acknowledge it! Hell, Motoko literally giving herself leprosy right now because she's so fucking stubborn that she won't admit she ain't cut for roughing it like those old-timey samurais she's so obsessed with but is still keeping at it because she thinks that any day now, you're going walk up to her tent in the park and tell her you surrender, that you can't hope to beat her fabulous siege tactic of not bathing for three weeks! Even fucking Haruka knows shit's bad and basically checked out last week because she knew a lost cause when she saw it!"
She wheezes, near out of breath, heart and head throbbing "'If you want your rooms back, you need to sign the lease'? Spare me – These girls would rather stay out and about during judgement day, and they'd do it twice over before signing your stupid lease! That's what your dealing with, so you might as well just give our rooms away right now instead of wasting both our time and torturing everyone like this!"
Keitaro's expression is unreadable, glasses obscured by the light and fingers barely twitching as his arms remain pressed to his sides. She isn't certain how much of what she's said effected him (or even remembers what she's said – the anger from before now robbing her of focus as it drains from her), but she can't help but let a small part of her pray that he listen, that he noticed.
That maybe, there was still-
"Okay then."
She tries to say...something to that – anything really. But her mouth just slowly closes shut as he begins shuffling though the forms on the table, no longer paying her any attention.
(He really didn't care anymore.)
"If you still want your room back, you are free to sign." he says, focusing on clearing the table, re stacking whatever paper's are still there "Otherwise, you can leave..."
Mutsumi trails cautiously behind Naru as her friend stomps through the hallways of Tokyo-U, teeth gritting so audibly that one could easily mistake the sound for a tire wheel rolling against a gravel road. She feels like she should say...something encouraging to her, but she can't really think of anything at the moment, distracted by sending calm, placating smiles to the other students stopping to stare at the scene in a desperate attempt to hopefully look like everything was just fine.
Sadly, the whispers that flittered around them told her that she was pursuing a lost cause –
"Did she really do that?"
"Yeah! You should have seen her after the tests got returned – she was practically cussing everyone out and claiming she wasn't graded fairly. She even tossed a chair and almost hit Ando."
"I was more worried about poor Professor Kujo. She was screaming at him the whole time. Looked ready to just go and throw him through the wall at the rate she was going."
"Jeez...I know you told me Narusegawa care about her grades, but…."
"I know, right? Talk about overreacting! Even I didn't get that pissy about it, and I definitely did worse than her..."
She recognizes at least two of the voices from their shared math class, but the rest were strangers as far as she was concerned. What bothered her more was the judgementalness of the tones – as well as the lies coming out of their mouths! While Naru did have a bit of an outburst about her final grades, it hadn't been at all like they had described. Most of her anger over it had been funneled into arguing with the teacher over some of her scores and nothing else, no chair throwing at all, especially since Mutsumi was next to her the whole time. She knows the two of them had seen what occurred, yet here they were acting like she was being wild the whole time. To think their classmates would go a spread false rumors like that...
But then again, the rumors from before still haven't gone away yet, and neither had the apprehension from their classmates. Even if what they and those two said wasn't true (and Mutsumi would continue to refute them till her throat ran dry), to everyone who only saw her Naru as the one from the stories whispered harshly around campus, she might as well have been throwing chairs and knocking over desk as far as they were concerned.
(But that still didn't make what they were doing okay)
The whispers grew fiercer and crueler, and Mutsumi felt herself frown and was getting ready to admonish them when she hears a tearing sound behind her.
"Bastards!" she hears her friend hiss, and turns to see her bending the spines of her textbooks, tearing some of the pages under her grip "What the hell do they know..."
Her heart aches at the sight, and tries to say something hopeful, remind her that spring term was just around the corner and they still had a chance to help her boost her scores again and catch her up with the rest of the class-
"Honestly, I can see now why Urashima-san dumped her. What a violent girl."
At the sound of Keitaro's name, Naru's head whipped over to the direction of the gossips, who stiffened briefly and scattered under her glare before Mutsumi could even think to get in the way and nudge Naru back into the direction they were walking.
The rest of the hallway crowd follows suit. One girl lingers and catches Mutsumi's eye, only to be pulled away by a fellow gawker, who leans into her ear
"I can't believe she still hangs out with her..."
Suppressing a sigh, the brunette places a concerned hand on her friend's shoulder instead of commenting like she wanted to (It has hard to tell who exactly it was aimed at anyways).
Even though things should have been calming down with exams ending, somehow they had become much more tense, especially after class rankings were revealed and Naru learned she had lost her spot as the top student. All efforts to get her redheaded friend to focus on the brighter side of it all had been complete failures as she seemed to be dragged deeper and deeper into a bog of discontent and frustration. Even the reveal that Keitaro had gone down a few ranks too did nothing to calm her.
(She can't help but wince at remember having to use up half her recent paycheck to reimburse the owner of the meeting room they rented for the dents Naru left in the walls and furniture)
There had been a small hope that the return of their finals papers would have dimmed those fires down a bit, but all that had done sadly was stoke them and made them burn hotter than before. At the rate things were heading, Mutsumi was scared she would-
She shook her head. No – no thinking like that. Naru wasn't so (horrible) weak to let something like this drag her down, and Mutsumi wasn't going to let it either. They were friends after all, and it was a friend's job to help bring the focus to where it needed to be – which right now shouldn't be on Naru's grades or those people from before.
"H-hey, have you heard from Mitsune yet?" Mutsumi asked, fingers nervously laced together. Naru had spent the last two meetings worrying over where the silver haired woman went, and all morning trying to reach her on their way to campus. Any attempts to call her resulted in voicemail, and the local bars nearby hadn't even heard of her (which was a surprise and a half. To think there were bar Mitsune had yet to claim as homesteads...)
"No," she says curtly, eyes narrowed behind her glasses. One could easily mistake it for sullenness if they didn't see the way her hands were clenched worryingly while shaking by her sides.
Mutsumi bit her lip, and slowly took one into her hands "...Well, we don't have any more tests now, so lets use the time we have before the next meeting to go and check downtown or something. I'm sure-"
"Naru."
Both girls stop, Mutsumi out of surprise and Naru out of (somewhat-pleased) shock.
"Oh, Seta-san!" Mutsumi chirped, relief filling her as she sees her friend shly smile from the corner of her eye. Even if her crush was no longer there, Naru always seemed to cheer up when Seta was brought up, so this might be actually be good for them "How nice to see you! We weren't expecting to run into you today"
Seta stares at them, a secret streak of spring sunlight obscuring his glasses.
"Actually, I was looking for you two..."
Kentaro looked around the quad, trying to see if he could spot the sight of familiar red hair or-
"Ken-kun, over here!"
He stops and searches around, finally spotting Temari waving at him while standing on the tips of her toes as Daiji motioned him to come over. Shizuru was also there, standing off a bit to the side but perking up once he arrived.
"Finally, we were about to send out a search party" Daiji joked, and Kentaro can't help but blush as he ducked his head down.
"Sorry, I'm still having trouble getting around." he admits, scratching his cheek "This place is a lot bigger than Kyoto-U. It gets confusing."
Daiji just chuckled while Shizuru shook her head, and the four headed off to fulfill their plans of hanging out at a recently opened buffet to celebrate finishing finals. Grades wouldn't come out until after the official end of the term via email, so the only thing really left to do was celebrate the end and wait.
"I can't believe I failed my accounting final." Temari groaned, tugging at her pigtails "Ugh…Why do I even need to know about stock market crashes anyways!?"
"Isn't that important for someone who wants to work in marketing?" Shizuru points out, causing her to groan harder.
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I can't think it's dumb to put in a final exam," the smaller girl whines, then pouts at her friend "You're so lucky you're majoring in education Shizu-chan – I bet you guys get all the easy fun stuff!"
The brunette rolled her eyes "Ah yeah, it's such fun having to have cram sessions on science and history so I can prove I know how to properly teach core subjects. Not to mention all the psychology stuff I had to memorize for my other classes..."
"Y-you know what I mean!"
Kentaro watches the one-sided light scolding commence while Daiji just laughs at the sight. While it might look a bit more serious to outsiders, Kentaro can see through the light jabs given just how much the girls seem to get along, especially if they're able to talk to each other like this.
Temari eventual disengages from her losing battle to turn to them "Dai-chan, you're a lit major, come defend me!" she cries as she tugs on the larger man's sleeve, who looks away jokingly in response
"I'm not sure what you failing accounting has to do with me needing to memorize writing terms and interpreting works of old dead guys?"
Seeing as how she was getting no sympathy from her other friend, she immediately turned to Kentaro, who holds up his hands in defeat, though he does send a sympathetic look her way. As a business major, he felt for her, but as someone working hard to get his degree, he agreed she might need to put more work into keeping her grades up.
Eventually, the topic moved away from the despair inherent in impending grades to other topics, like new movies coming out and individual plans for spring break.
Eventually, they moved into a more serious topic...
"So Kentaro-san – how exactly do you and Daiji know each other anyways?" Shizuru asks, nudging the former "I didn't get the chance to ask you the last time we met and this guy refuses to divulge his dark past to us."
Temari's eyes light up as Daiji huffs in displeasure "Ooh~, embarrassing high school Dai-chan stories – I gotta hear this!"
Daiji rolls his eyes "Come on you two, leave it."
"No, it's fine." Kentaro decides, coughing into his hand His life before graduating high school wasn't exactly something he looked back on fondly, especially that time. Still, better they hear it now then later, or worse – from someone less fond of him…
"Back then, I was very, er…"carefree" when it came to relationships with the opposite sex, especially starting and dropping them." He admits, fiddling with his hands "I didn't really consider it necessary to put stock in 'feelings' or 'honesty' when it came to things like that."
He turns to Daiji, sweating when he sees the incredulous look lobbed his way
"Dude was a grade-a casanova back then – and an insufferable one at that." the redhead states with a twitch of his eye, causing him to start laughing nervously "Practically went through our entire female student body twice over and even a few neighboring schools, smooth talking them into thinking he thought they were the loves of their life before ditching'em for the next skirt in line." Daiji then stops to twirl and point and Kentaro dramatically "In fact, so great a lover was he, that all of those girls would come straight to me about their torrid love affairs, simply due to the fact that as his desk neighbor, I would have great insight into his reasons for leaving some many broken hearts in his path and find them a way back into his good graces."
Kentaro winces "I thought you said it wasn't that bad?"
"For me now maybe," Daiji says bluntly "High school Daiji, on the other hand, would have really loved not almost losing his hearing from so many girls crying at him all day about how you stopped leaving huge-ass bouquets in their lockers – like serious, how loaded was your family back then that you could afford to do that on the daily?"
Kentaro sputters as he fights down a blush "Y-you weren't exactly any better!" he argues "From what I remember, you were constantly rejecting girls left and right! At least half the ones in our class had asked you out during the semester before I even got to them. If I was a casanova, then you were definitely a don-juan!"
"Yeah, 'cept I didn't promise the girls I rejected a call back after" Daiji counters bluntly, a slight red dusting his cheeks when he adds "A-and it's not like I asked them to confess to me either! Hell, I don't even remember talking to half of them and yet somehow they all got it into their heads I was waiting for their hands in marriage."
"Says the man who was in so many female-dominated clubs!" the other counters, clearing not accepting the excuse "I'm almost jealous you never noticed what a chick magnet you were, might have given me an easier time of it too!"
His expression goes flat at that "My apologies that my crime of having hobbies interfered so deeply with your philandering. Clearly, I should have gone for the more "manly" clubs and leave you to your flirting."
Both girls looked between the two's bickering before Temari asked "So you guys hated each other?"
They nodded, though Kentaro adds "Well, Daiji hated me. I barely knew he existed back then outside of being my apparent rival for the affections of the other female students."
Shizuku hummed thoughtfully at this "So how did you become friends then?"
Kentaro starts to fidget a bit. The story was always so...uncomfortable to tell people.
"During my second year, one of the girls who I had dated previously had been...upset when I cut ties with her, especially when I took up with who I later learned was her best friend." He began to explain, nervously threading his fingers together "She confronted me on it very violently."
She and Temari blinked, then turned their attention to Daiji again
"One of his old dates realized she got played and brought a knife to class when he was alone – Practically threaten to go full Doom Maiden on him." the redhead translated, causing Temari to pale while Shizuru's eyes went wide "I kind of walked in on it by accident, and while I still didn't like him, the idea of seeing him get shanked wasn't high on the list of things I wanted happening in my life." he crossed his arms, eyes growing distant from the memory "So I knocked her down and helped keep her pinned till the teachers arrived, then sat with him while he cried his eyes out."
Kentaro makes a flustered disagreeing noise as both girls go quiet for a bit. Temari still looked a little disturbed with the story (or rather, the nonchalantness used to describe the events that occurred), while Shizuru lets a stretch of odd silence pass through before running a hand through her hair with an exasperated sigh
"Why am I not surprised?" the brunette woman says before eyeing Daiji "Only you can make friends with a dude through a near murder attempt."
Daiji just shrugs "Well, thanks to that, I realized Ken wasn't all that bad, just stupid when it came to women – Didn't appreciate the snot on my uniform though."
Kentaro nods, flummoxing a bit at that last part "In any case, it was an eye opening encounter for both of us. We exchanged names afterwards, and have been good acquaintances ever since."
Temari had gained color back, but she still look rather distressed "Still, it...what happened with that girl. I can't imagine being calm after something like that."
Kentaro sees Shizuru and Daiji share a look from the corner of his eye before answering "Don't worry about it too much, it's in the past anyways." then smiles at her "As one might say, I know better now."
The small blonde-dyed woman blinks at him, surprised that her words from their last meeting were being echoed at her, but she seemed to at least relaxed again and eventually gave a smile back.
"Well, that's good to hear!"
The brunette man nods as the good mood returns and the four turn the corner, continuing their conversation until the buffet comes into view from the distance.
"By the way" Kentaro began "There was a huge crowd forming near the west end when I was looking for our meeting spot. Did something happen?"
Temari tap her chin while the other two's expressions grow thoughtful.
"Not that I heard of..." the former admits before turning to the other two "Wait, isn't that where the archeology department is? Where that guy from the rumor about Shizu's classmate works with one of the professors?"
Shizuru frowns at that "Yeah, but I haven't really heard anything new about him since then."
Temari hums, and looks to want to ask something else, only for Daiji to interrupt by ruffling her hair, eliciting an annoyed whine as she tries fixing it.
"Let's just forget about it and get to eating. It probably isn't anything important anyways."
Kentaro doesn't fully believe him, and neither does Temari, but the subject is allowed to be dropped and they move on to other topics as they enter the building.
Ren passes through the hall of the main south wing, having just made a quick round from the north wing to the kitchen and back, pausing when he sees one of the room door's open.
He peeks his head in and blinks, eyes widened in surprise "Oh, you're back!"
Mitsune turns to face him, looking a little awkward as she waved "Ahaha...nice to see you again, Ren-chan!"
He waves back "Same here! I thought something happen because I heard yelling before I saw you leave yesterday. I would have asked Urashima-san, but...it kind of felt like it wasn't my place to pry, especially being a new tenant and all."
She chuckles nervously at that, scratching her cheek "There was some...issues needing to be settled, but they're all fixed now." then gives a carefree wave of her hand "As of this moment, I'm back to being a full-term renter till I'm outta cash or someone makes higher bid!"
He gives an awkward laugh at the poor joke, clearly unsure how serious to take her "Then allow me to say welcome home neighbor!" he says, then checks his watch "Whoops, study breaks almost over. I'll see you at dinner then?"
She nods, and he gives a wave farewell as he heads back on his way to his room in the next hall
It's only until she hears the sound of the door click shut before she and her carefully constructed smile collapses...
Mitsune doesn't leave, but instead waits, until the table is cleaned, the plates are stacked, and the files are away, and he sits and waits for her too.
Then she waits as he leads her back to the door, unseals it, allows her to leave, and shuts it right behind her.
And she waits as her feet take her to the nearby bar, where she waits for a drink that isn't coming because she's still broke, waiting by other drunks who complain about work and family and friends and lovers and having to wait for more booze. She waits until the closing hour where she gets shuffled off by the owner who has no interest in waiting for her to leave on her own. Then she heads to the next bar to wait, and the next, and the next one, and the next one….
And then, as she wakes up on the floor of another apartment she has to wait to remember, she remembers something else -
("If you still want your room back, you are free to sign.")
Mitsune sighs hard, hands running through her hair anxiously as she stared at the ceiling. Well, she did it, she made her choice.
Now what?
Suddenly her phone rings, and when she sees the caller ID her breath leaves her.
"Fuck."
Big Sisters Naru and Mutsumi, and Kaolla all sit at a table alone, the later sweating buckets as she fidgeted in her spot under the redhead's glare. An emergency meeting was called out of nowhere and the first of the former demanded that everyone be present – specifically Big sister Mitsune and Shinobu.
Needless to say, seeing neither there had done nothing to lift the sour mood surrounding her.
"What did you say?"
Kaolla flinched, twittering in her seat even more. Even with the sight of Big sister Mutsumi trying to placate Big sister Naru with calming shoulder touches had done nothing to mitigate her fear. It was like she was sitting in front of Amalla in the punishment hall when she had broken a pot and blamed it on a bat and was about to receive a lecture – only this felt ten times worse because at least in that situation, she knew what had made Amalla mad. Naru, however, was a volcano ready to burst, and Kaolla had no clue how to plug her up before she could erupt and melt everything in her path
"Shinobu…s-she said she wasn't coming to the meeting." she confessed, near biting her tongue with how fast she was speaking "And..."
"And?"
Her lip began to wobble, tears pricking. She hated feeling like this. She wished Motoko was here – she was better at things like this than Kaolla was.
(She wished she had one of her machines with her, one that could make Big Sister Naru be calm and happy like before)
"And to say that she isn't coming to any others." she says, carefully watching Big sister Naru's hands as they balled up "She's going back to the Hinata to-"
The Kotatsu explodes and Kaolla has to duck for cover, refusing to look up until there's no more noise or screaming from Big Sister Mutsumi.
When she finally feels brave enough to turn around, the Kotatsu doesn't exist anymore and Naru's stomping to the door, Mutsumi frantically following behind her.
"Naru wait-"
"She fucking betrayed us!" Naru screams as she turns around, hair near frazzled and eyes bloodshot. "She's going to go and sign that fucking lease after everything we talked about!" Mutsumi is forced to back away as she swung an arm wildly "And not just that – she has the nerve to go and tell lies about me to fucking Seta! I want her to explain to me straight to my fucking face what the hell it is she thinks she's doing!"
Mutsumi is saying something that's probably supposed to talk her out of her current course of action, but all Kaolla can see is that rage that's been building up over the past weeks taking over and threatening to consume her friend, and how terrifying it is to see this so close up.
(For some reason, it makes Kaolla think of a monster from an old Molmolian fairytale Lamda told her once – about a woman who turned into a vengeful spirit after her husband tricks her into entering the forest and drowned in the nearby river trying to get back home. She was so upset over the betrayal and her death that it transformed her, and even after taking her revenge she was still not satisfied, and went on to attack any who wander by where she died.)
All this does is worsen the fire, and it's only the crisp sound of Naru's phone that interrupts her next threat, though it does little to ease the anger as she near snaps it in half opening it
"WHAT?!" she snaps, then whoever on the other end must have said something nice because Naru actually stills for a bit
"Motoko? Where are you, we-"
Kaolla perks up at that. Motoko hadn't come in to the meeting today either, or called Seta's house to let her know where she was like usual. She said that she had to be careful conserving her phone battery so she couldn't talk to her as much for a while, but it was still a bit worrying that the young momolian couldn't at least keep track of where her friend was.
No one can hear what's being said on the other line, but must have been worrisome, because Big sister Naru goes pale before promising to be somewhere as she snaps it shut and goes running for her coat.
"Naru?" Big sister Mutsumi asks, still hesitating to go any closer "What's going on? Why-"
"It's Motoko," she answers sharply, shoving her arms through her coat sleeves "She at the hospital!"
Kaolla doesn't even remember standing up, but she'll never forget how her heart near stops at the news "Wh-what? Is Big Sis Motoko okay?"
"No – The bastard called her sister!"
Heavy footfalls pass by his office as Keitaro picks up the phone.
[Hello Urashima-san, we need to talk.]
[3 days left until the end of Winter term of Tokyo U]
So, lets talk Mitsune real quick.
Out of all the girls, she's definitely the most...controversial when it comes to fandom opinions. While she's the most open and "honest" of the harem about her feelings towards Keitaro, what ultimately hurts any chance of her actually being considered a potential better canon-love interest has always been the fact that she very much takes for granted the amount of patience Keitaro (and frankly, the rest of the girls too) has for her and her antics (as well as the nonsense she pulled during the final parts of the Molmol arc but if I talk about everything that happened there and why it's messed up I'm gonna end up hitting the page limit). Whether it was to avoid paying rent or just for a laugh, Mitsune's always relied on either her looks, charms, or lying to get out of any trouble she got into, and had never hesitated to use those on Keitaro to either trick him into something or string him along for whatever she scheming in the background. Canon her probably never imagined a day where Keitaro would either say no or finally get sick of it all, and neither did the one in this fic. After all, she's sweet old "Kitsune", the funny drunk onee-san who likes to make crude jokes and press her chest against him to get free drinks, then claims he was groping her a minute later when he says he can't. Sure, maybe her jokes can hurt, and maybe she could stand to lay off him a little, but it's all in good fun right? It's not like he actually hates it...right?
(As the old saying goes - you can only cry wolf so many times before people stop coming and you realize your arm's getting torn off).
There's also the fact that she's the most static of the girls, not really growing or changing like the rest with the story (though Akamutsu admitted he wasn't able to find much to do with her plotwise and ended up having to expand on her more in the anime) outside of becoming Haruka2.0 after taking over the cafe. We really don't have much on what it is or was in her life that made her become who she is, having to work from both headcanons and what bits that can be gathered from the story. The only real solid detail we have about her past is that she became Naru's friend back when she was in high school and helped keep boys away from her, which doesn't tell us much except she's always looking out for Naru.
Which is why I ultimately went the direction I did with her in this chapter - Because for all her static and shiftiness, Mitsune always has and always will be the type to gamble, whether it's with money, alcohol, or relationships. Sure, she knows how self-destructive this greedy kind of thinking is, that it never works out and bites her in the ass in the end, but can't really help but try, thinking "Hey, maybe I'll get lucky this time?", that if she pulls the lever enough times or bets high enough often, the numbers will roll in her favor and she can finally have her cake and eat it too like she always dreamed. She thought she could mantain the status quo, that even if she couldn't have Keitaro (not without hurting Naru), she could at least keep their fun little "Maybe I like you, maybe I'm just trying to get another free drink" dynamic going because he hadn't pushed her away like all the others she tried that with, that maybe she could risk it ending like she does every time she goes betting on the tracks. She thought she could win big this time.
But like always, she backed the wrong horse. And while she "luckily" still had a chance to recoup her losses, ultimately her and Keitaro's relationship is never going back to the way it way, and she sadly has to live with that as well as her part in it.
Okay - now for everyone else! I've brought forth another brief Naru snippet! Naru is still sadly digging her hole, with Mutsumi still refusing to take the shovel out of her hands, but at least she's starting to notice the cracks in her perfect portrait of her old childhood friend, though she still has her blinders on tight (and while I would normally keep this vague, I must confess - yeah, the classmates whispering were lying/exaggerating what went down after final grades got returned. how Naru reacted was bad/not okay, but they're still ultimately lying for drama and clout at the end of the day).
And hey, Kentaro's back with Daiji and the gang! Funny story, I realized while writing this scene that since I'm following/using the manga mostly, that is was near impossible to insert Kentaro's backstory into the main cast's lives like in the anime, so I ended up having to write that exposition scene with Daiji and give him a brand new one, which would also explain away any changes I made to him as a character (Hurray for Transformative Works!).
Also hey, Motoko's poor lifestyle choices finally caught up with her. Wonder what's gonna happen with that? And who called Keitaro?
Anyways, thanks for reading. See y'all next time!