Ch 3
After dropping off Keitaro's bag in Granny's room, and Haruka grabbing a loose-leaf binder from the desk in the room, the two walked out of the house and down the stairs toward the Teahouse. Almost as soon as Haruka cleared the doorway, she lit the cigarette still dangling from her lips and took a deep breath of nicotine goodness. Keitaro gave her a sideways glance but otherwise stayed silent as they walked down the steps and reached the teahouse.
Pointing Keitaro to a table in the empty shop, Haruka started puttering around behind the counter. After a couple of minutes, she returned to the table Keitaro was sitting at, holding a ceramic flask of liquor in one hand and two small cups in the other. Placing the cups next to the binder sitting unopened in front of Keitaro, Haruka sat down and then poured the liquor.
Picking up and holding the cup for a moment until Keitaro did the same, Haruka raised her cup slightly and gave the traditional drinking salute. "Kampai."
Keitaro murmured "Kampai" in reply, then shot down the drink in one gulp. Haruka almost expected Keitaro to start choking or coughing. But except for giving a loud exhale and his eyes watering some, Keitaro gave no other reaction to the potent drink.
After a moment of eyeing the unmarked flask the drink had come from, Keitaro looked back at a slightly disappointed Haruka. "I'm guessing that's not sake."
Haruka shook her head. "Shochu. Twice the punch. Warmed it up like sake though."
"Not bad." Keitaro gestured toward the flask, and Haruka refilled his cup. Holding it so the heated liquor warmed up his hand, Keitaro fixed his gaze on Haruka, who was sipping from her cup.
"Goddamn it, Granny…" Keitaro took a sip of his drink before putting it down.
"Yeah. I knew that she was going make you the heir and landlord, but I didn't think she was going to do it like this." Haruka was swirling the drink in her cup before glancing back at her nephew.
"I wouldn't have minded if Granny had just asked me to help her run the place, but this is BS. She knows I have to study for the Todai exam, and she dumps *this* in my lap? The work will be bad enough, especially since it looks like things have be sliding around here, but I'm going to have to deal with *those* tenants?" Keitaro looked like he wanted to shoot his drink again, but instead took another sip.
"Maybe she just wanted to fix you up with them?" Haruka was semi-joking as she said this, so she was surprised that Keitaro took her seriously.
"That would work out well. Two junior high girls, a trickster, a short-tempered man-hater, and a homicidal swordswoman that can throw energy blasts. And then there is me, a 20 year old ronin (1) with issues. Uh-huh, that's going to work out really well." Keitaro looked down at his half-empty cup before tossing down the rest of the drink.
"Well, it looks like you got past most of your issues. You did pretty well against the girls when they were after you." Haruka was looking from Keitaro to his empty cup, visibly considering if she should refill it or not.
"If you can call running for my life dealing with it. And one more, it's going to be the last." Nodding Haruka refilled Keitaro's cup, then her own.
After putting down the flask, Haruka pushed the binder over to in front of Keitaro. "That's the tenant book from Granny's desk. It gives you the details about the girls, you might want to go through it before you face off with them again."
Opening the book, Keitaro began to rapidly read the varied entries. Along with basic personal information on the tenants, there were notations about rent paid and due, repairs both done and needed, and at the end of the book a list of current Inn income, expenses, and bills.
After reading for twenty minutes Keitaro gave a sigh as he flipped the book shut. Finishing the last sip of the drink he had, he took off his glasses and started massaging the bridge of his nose.
"Is it that bad Keitaro?" Since Haruka was the de facto assistant manager of the Inn, she had worked with the books before, so she knew the current financial situation.
"No, it's not. But what Granny has been doing is just treading water. Just enough is done so the Hinata-sou can pay its bills. Granny herself did not have a lot of expenses, so the lack of income was not a problem for her. But asking someone to do as much work as is needed to fix this place up for room and board is a bit much, even if they are going to inherit it down the line." Keitaro put his glasses back on and looked back at his aunt.
"So you're going to turn the Sou back into a hot-springs resort? What about the dorm and the girls? They really don't have anywhere else to go."
"Yeah, and that's the other problem. Most of those girls have problems that would need a social worker to help with, not a ronin-turned-manager. I just *know* Narusegawa is going to be giving me flak just for breathing, Aoyama isn't going to be far behind, and judging from how late Konno usually is in making her rent payments, the amount she is in arrears and what I've seen of her, I'm pretty sure she is either going to try and scam me, or worse. That plus there are two freaking 14 year old girls with problems of their own in there; having a 20 year old male as their landlord is just going to look bad, period." Keitaro looked down at his empty cup before pushing it aside in disgust.
"Well, Granny already suggested one part of the solution in her letter. How hard would it be to get Kanako here?" Haruka was trying to look on the bright side of things, and latched onto the first thing she could think of.
"How hard to get her here? Not very. How hard it is to convince her that she is my adopted sister and not my designated bed warmer? Much more difficult." Keitaro dropped his head to the table and left it there.
"Well, it least you aren't blood related." The look Keitaro threw at his aunt would have curdled milk. "You know why Kanako feels the way she does."
"Oh yes, indeed-y. I was there for most of it. Problem is Kanako has picked up some of my traits along the way, one of which is about keeping promises, and you know the one she made." Keitaro dropped his head back to the table.
"She promised that she would take care of you, not that she would marry you or some such." Haruka rested her face on top of her hand, her arm braced against the tabletop.
"And if you can convince her of that, I would be *so* grateful. At least we got her past the whole 'How you say 'Hello' in Japan' phase." Keitaro gave a shudder at the memory. It was bad enough that someone would literally throw themselves at you with less than wholesome intentions in mind; it was worse when it was a 14 year old girl.
"So what are you going to do now? I mean in general." Haruka put a cigarette in her mouth, but due to the glare Keitaro shot her she did not light it for now.
Keitaro sighed. "Tonight I need to get some sleep, so as soon as dinner is done I'm hitting the rack. Tomorrow I'll do a top-to-bottom walkthrough of the Sou, see what need to be fixed up. From what I've seen, there is a lot of routine maintenance that need to be caught up with, so if the gods are willing, I can get it done before I have to start seriously studying for the Todai exam. It won't be such a big deal to re-open the place as a resort after that. The big problem is going to be personnel; I can't run a resort with only one or two people, so I may have to downscale the idea some, like making it a bed-and-breakfast and have some help from the tenants."
Haruka half-smiled. "Well, you won't have to look far if you are looking for a chef; Shinobu-chan cooks better than some restaurants around here."
"Yeah, and she's 14 years old. I can't depend on a minor going to school to do the amount of work needed." Raising his head from the table and looking at his wristwatch, Keitaro put his hands on the table and pushed himself up and off his chair. "Time to go and put Shinobu-chan's cooking to the test."
"As long as that is the only thing you put to the test." Haruka had a smirk on her face as she stood up as well.
"Oh hah hah. She's way too young for me. I prefer girls to be able to buy the booze and pay for the hotel room without illegal ID." Keitaro shook his head. "And don't make jokes like that around the girls, especially Aoyama and Narusegawa. They are going to attack first and maybe ask questions later."
Keitaro turned and started walking toward the door when Haruka's next question brought him to a halt. "You know, you haven't told me about Thailand. When is that going to happen?"
Standing facing away, Keitaro asked a question of his own. "How much do you know?"
"Not much. Just that the expedition you were on was attacked, and that you, Seta and his daughter Sarah made it back. Seta was badly injured, but he's expected to make a full recovery."
"You're curious about what happened?" Keitaro glanced back at his aunt.
"Yeah, but I've seen that look on your face before. It can wait, but I do want to hear about it."
After a moment Keitaro replied, "In a few days. We would need a lot more time and booze for me to talk it." Stepping forward again, he headed for the steps up to the house while Haruka locked the door behind her and hurried to catch up.
It was a council of war, if the term could be applied to three teen girls.
Sitting cross-legged around the heated kotatsu table in Naru's room, it would be hard to take them seriously, except for the fact that one girl was minutely examining a katana for damage and another girl was almost glowing in anger. The third girl was looking from one to the other, sipping from an unmarked bottle that the other girls were careful not to ask the contents of.
After a few moments of silence, the black haired sword girl finally sighed and wiped her blade with a silk cloth she had produced from the belt of her hakama. In one slow motion she sheathed the sword and leaned it against her lap next to her.
"Satisfied, Motoko?" The honey blonde knew better than to mock Motoko's sword or her skill with it; she had seen what happened to the upperclassman at the high school who had not only made fun of the girl but tried to snatch the blade away from her. The boy had wound up have to finish the school year in traction.
"You can never be too careful, especially when you do not know the person that wielded your sword last."
"What do you think the skill level is of our new dorm manager, Motoko?" Kitsune knew how touchy the swordswoman was about her skills, but she was genuinely curious about the newcomer.
Motoko scowled. "That would be difficult to say. While he was able to defeat me, it was by means of unconventional tactics and methods. I do not know what his true skill level is until I spar with him. I do know that he is not an opponent to underestimate." She paused for a moment. "His appearance is what is disconcerting to myself. He does not look very different from the males we deal daily around here, but there is one thing I have noticed that is unusual about him. His eyes."
Kitsune looked from the resident swordswoman to the glowering girl and back again. "Well, don't keep us in suspense, Motoko."
"This male's eyes do not stay still. It is not that obvious because he is only looking with his eyes and not turning his head while doing so, but his eyes do not stay on the same thing for very long. He is always aware of his surroundings, and he tends to focus on…" Motoko's voice trailed off. "Threats."
"What do you mean, threats?" Naru was starting to look interested in the conversation now.
"This male pays attention to those he considers threats. When you and I were standing before him, he kept looking mostly between the two of us. Even when he talking with someone else, his eyes kept coming back to us, and there was nothing perverted or lecherous in his gaze. He is a fighter that must be taken seriously."
"Wait, he was facing away from us when Haruka was reading the letter out loud, how is that keeping an eye on us?" Naru protested.
"I could see that he had angled himself so that he could see us in the reflection of the glass of the window he was in front of." Motoko had the slightest hint of admiration in her voice for the tactic.
"So, you sizing him up to be the next Mr. Aoyama?" Kitsune knew she should not tease her roommate in such a way, but what was life without a little risk?
Motoko stiffened in outrage. "Be serious, Kitsune! We know nothing about this male except what we just learned from his own lips and from his grandmother's letter. And that is something that should be of serious concern to us all."
"What, that he's a pervert? That's obvious, Motoko." Naru's expression had changed from a glower to a frown.
"No, I am referring to his lineage and his duty as given to him by Granny Hina. How much do you remember of your school studies of the feudal era, especially the shoguns?"
Naru shrugged. "Just the basics. The shoguns were the military leaders of feudal Japan, the true power behind the Imperial throne. They tended to pass down their position father to son, when the succession wasn't clear it tended to get messy."
Motoko nodded. "That is correct. The shoguns were the true heads of government, and therefore they had advisors around them, men of great power and responsibilities. These men were very much trusted, as they frequently worked closely with the leaders they served. These retainers were known as hatamoto, those under the banner. These samurai were always lords, and they were paid with grants of land or with a salary. For a family to be awarded 20,000 koku of land and promoted to the ranks of the closest advisors due to the actions of one of their members was almost unheard of in the Tokugawa era."
"So you're ready to have this guy's babies because of something that happened a couple hundred years ago?" Kitsune was finishing off her bottle, so she missed seeing Motoko's hand moving over to the hilt of her sword. It was not until she lowered the bottle that she saw the tip of the sword sheath just in front of her eyes. She barely had time to blink before the sheath tapped her on the forehead, causing her to jerk her head back in shock.
"It would do you well to remember where the line of propriety is, Kitsune. A line you have passed a while ago." Motoko's sword was back alongside her, the swordswoman sitting straight and calm as though there was nothing bothering her.
Kitsune looked over to Naru, but the look on her best friend's face showed that while she was not happy about Motoko's corrective action, she was not about to complain about it. Swallowing the lump in the throat, Kitsune resolved to cut back on the risqué jokes about the touchy kendoist.
Naru did however share the fox girl's curiosity about the new male. "So you want to cut the pervert a break because of who he is descended from?"
Motoko hesitated for a moment. "That is not what I intended, although you may see it that way. You heard that Granny Hina made it a giri for Urashima-san…" Motoko's face twisted slightly as she said the honorific, "to take over the Hinata Inn." The two other girls nodded. "It is now a matter of family honor for him to do as his grandmother asks."
"So what's the big deal? He can always say no." Kitsune flinched back slightly as Motoko's eyes hardened and bored into her.
"No offense, Konno-san," Naru winced slightly as Motoko's voice became even more cold and formal as she spoke to her friend, "but since you come from a family of common lineage and no longer have any close family members, you do not understand what it means to have family obligations, especially of this seriousness. Urashima-san has been charged with protecting his family lands, and he strikes me as someone who takes his honor seriously."
"What do you mean, lose the family lands? Worse comes to worse, the government buys his property. This is prime real estate here, they are going to get a pile of money for it." Kitsune squirmed at the look Motoko was continuing to direct at her.
"Like I said, you are of common lineage, Kitsune. Given what you know about Hina and Haruka, and how Urashima-san was spoken about in Granny Hina's letter, does he really strike you as someone who does NOT take honor seriously? Both he and Granny referred to promises he is trying to keep, and that is closely tied to personal and family honor. He is going to do his utmost to protect what has been in his family for over two centuries."
Naru spoke up. "Look Motoko, this guy may be the modern day equivalent of a samurai warrior, but I'm not going to let him perv and assault us girls here at the Hinata-sou. Especially with poor Shinobu and Su around!"
Motoko nodded. "Agreed. This is what troubles me the most about what Granny Hina has done. We are familiar with the lecherous nature of males," here the other girls nodded in concurrence, "but we have to take into account that Granny Hina would not deliberately put us tenants in a position of imminent harm either."
The girls pondered. Granny Hina was more than a little flaky - really, a zero-notice tour of the world's hot springs at her age! - but she would not want the girls living at the Hinata-sou to be in the clutches of some pervert either.
"Also, keep in mind that Urashima-san is within his rights to shut down the dorm and reopen the Sou as a hotel or resort again. There is little we can do about that."
The other girls winced. Short of moving in with non-existent family in the Tokyo area, there was literally no other place to move to at the rates charged by the Hinata-sou; any other place would charge double or triple what they paid now. If they did lose their places at the Sou, they would have to either move back home away from Tokyo, or in the instance of Kitsune, she would have no place to go back to.
"No, what we must do is be on guard around our new manager, and try not to be in a position to where he can take advantage of us. Especially the younger girls." Naru nodded vehemently in agreement with the kendoist.
The fox girl just nodded slightly in acknowledgement before posing a question of her own. "So what do we do if Manager-san does try and take advantage of us, Motoko? Like you said, he's a serious fighter."
"I have confidence in both you and Naru to hold off a perverted male long enough to cause an outcry. We will also be keeping an eye on the younger tenants to do the same." Motoko responded.
"Motoko, even if we cause an outcry, so what? We can't fight him off for long," asked the ash blonde girl, finally serious.
"Hopefully I will hear what is happening. Then Manager-san will learn that I will take my duty to protect the tenants of this Sou even more seriously than he does his own promises." A grim look was now set on the kendoist's face.
Before Naru or Kitsune could ask what Motoko meant by that, there was a soft knock on the door. "Naru-sempai, dinner is ready. Are Kitsune-sempai and Motoko-sempai there with you?" Shinobu's voice traveled through the door.
Motoko stood in one smooth motion. "We are all here, Shinobu-chan. We will be downstairs shortly." Moving to the door, she cradled her sword in her off-arm and left the other two girls sitting behind her, blinking at each other while the swordswoman's last statement prior to the interruption hung in the air.
1 - ronin - originally referred to a samurai without a master. Now used to refer to secondary school graduates who have not yet been accepted to a university. Not a desired status.