The ice cream was amazing. Sticky and dripping down her fingers like she was a child who didn't care, Nala happily followed Maria and Haruhi as they walked through the shopping district in the center of town. Slurping at her ice cream off the side of the cone, Nala paused to look into a dress shop. It was a high end one, and she knew without looking that the prices were far higher than she could ever afford, but it didn't stop her from wanting to look.
"Hey guys!" Her voice caused both Maria and Haruhi who were a few steps ahead of her to pause and turn. "Can we finish our ice cream and go in and try on these dresses? It looks like fun!"
"Nala," Haruhi's voice was warning, "Those look expensive."
Nala waved her free hand in a casual dismissal of the words.
"It's ok, we're not going in to buy them, we're gonna go in to look and try some on for fun. It's been too long since we've done something like this."
Haruhi couldn't hide the sparkle in her eyes as she glanced at the gorgeous creations on their mannequins inside the shop window.
"Well, it couldn't hurt to look..."
"Perfect!" Nala went took a step towards the store, before pausing with a dubious eye on her sticky hand and the dripping cone. "I should finish this first and wash my hands before we go in, wait here I'll be right back."
So saying, she swallowed the last bit of her ice cream and cone and dashed down the street into a small restaurant to go and wash her hands in the bathroom.
It was early spring, so not overly warm, but not as cold as the winter months had been. Thinking back on it, Nala paused as she left the washroom. It had been late summer when she'd tumbled off her neighbor's roof and into the open arms of the hosts with their willingness to help, and desire to keep her and her cousin safe. So, she thought about it for a moment, it had been about seven months now that she had been with the hosts. With a smile that Nala couldn't keep off her face at the thought of how close she'd come to be with the hosts, and the adventures they had been on so far, she exited the bathroom, and left the restaurant.
As she walked down the street, her eyes bright and happy, she mentally did some more math and paused dead still in the center of the street causing people walking behind her to grumble and snap rudely at her as she were forced to walk around her. She didn't care though, rather quite the opposite as she let out a little squeal.
Maddy will be here in less than three weeks!
With a small squeal, Nala pulled out her phone and sent that to her cousin in a quick text, before slipping it back into her pocket and heading back down the street to where Haruhi and Maria were waiting.
Nala could hardly wait for the day her cousin arrived. It may have been many years since they had seen each other, and they had only just started talking again recently, but she knew that bond they had had as both family and close friend's had never faded. It was a friendship built to withstand time, and Nala was determined that no matter what happened, she would keep that friendship, and her cousin, safe.
As she walked down the street, she saw a flash out of the corner of her eye and spun to see what it was, only to find nothing there. It was one of those moments when you see something, or someone move and then when you turn they are not there.
Weird.
With a shrug, Nala turned back and kept walking down the street. When she got back to Haruhi and Maria, she had all but forgotten about the incident and was only excited to look at the dresses.
The three girls stepped into the store, chattering excitedly about colors and fabrics.
"I feel like you could wear a deep green well Nala, it would bring out your eyes."
"Agreed," Maria added onto Haruhi's statement, "A green of any color really, or maybe a nice yellow?"
"It would definitely depend on the shade of yellow, some yellow washes me out really badly and I end up looking like a sickly little kid."
So on and so forth, the girls greeted the sales associate, and began to browse.
"These are beautiful guys, look at this one!"
"Oh my, that shade of pink is perfect Haruhi!"
"Try it! Try it!"
With much laughter, and happiness, the girls tried on dress after dress, took pictures, and secretly envied the rich women and girls who could buy any dress in the store with their pocket change. All the while making sure no one who would recognize Haruhi came into the store since that would be rather hard to explain. They must have spent hours in the store, and it was growing dark when Maria's phone began to ring. With a grimace she grabbed it and answered.
"Maria speaking. …. Yes sir...No sir I was unaware of that….Yes, I'll head back now….Mmmhmm…..Yes….Yes….Of course, I'm on my way." With that, and a sigh, she hung up. "Sorry guys, but it looks like I have to head back to the station, so I have to take you guys back home."
With a worried glance at Haruhi, Nala looked back at Maria.
"Sure, yeah, not a problem, but is everything ok?"
Maria nodded.
"Yeah. Just something confusing came up, and before you ask it's confidential so I can't tell you what it is."
"Darn."
With a laugh at Nala's pout, Haruhi re-hung a dress she had been looking at, and nodded at Maria.
"I have studying to get done, so we should go."
"Wet blanket."
They both chose to ignore Nala's teasing remark, and nodded at each other.
"Should I drop you off at the school, or at your house Haruhi?"
Haruhi glanced at Nala.
"My house. The club is closed by now."
With a nod, Maria held out her arms from her side in the universal gesture of 'link arms with me' and beckoned towards the door.
"Shall we?"
Nala stepped up and slid her arm through Maria's and they both pulled Haruhi over to link arms with before marching out of the store with laughter on their lips. They walked down the street to Maria's car, and after sliding in headed for Haruhi's apartment. When they got there, Haruhi and Nala slid out of the car after hugging Maria and waved goodbye as they walked up the steps of the apartment complex. Upon getting to the door, Nala stepped aside to let Haruhi unlock it after her friend grabbed her keys from her school bag.
"Nala, what are you doing?"
"Waiting for you to open the door?"
"Don't you have your keys though?'
"Er, no. I forgot them today."
With a frown, Haruhi continued digging through her bag, but after a few moments stopped and looked at Nala with a confused face.
"Nala I can't find my keys. I think I forgot them this morning too."
Nala sweatdropped.
"Wait, what you're telling me is that both of us forgot our keys, and we are locked outside of our home with the forgotten keys on the other side?"
Now it was Haruhi's turn to sweatdrop.
"Yes."
"Well this is just wonderful. I guess it looks like we'll be waiting for Ranka to get home."
"He isn't coming home tonight remember? He has the night shift at work tonight."
"ARE YOU SERIOUS!?" Groaning, Nala slid down the wall next to the door. "I'm so hungry Haru! What if we get stuck out here all night! I'm going to be forced to whither away into nothing from lack of food! What do you expect me to do!?"
Shaking her head as she looked down at Nala, Haruhi spoke.
"First of all Nala, you sound like Tamaki about food right now, secondly, we have phones. We can call Kyoya-senpai and the problem will be solved."
Oh yeah….I'm an idiot.
"Good idea Haru,' grunting as she stood up from the floor, Nala gestured towards the phone Haruhi held. "Sorry for the momentary breakdown, I am really hungry so we should call and have him get us and bring us food. What would I do without you?"
Haruhi smirked at Nala.
"Get into far too much trouble. I'll call him and have him come give me one second."
As Haruhi dialed Kyoya's number, Nala glanced around them. They were on the second floor of the apartment complex, overlooking the quiet street, and it was beginning to grow dark. With an uneasy glance at the setting sun, Nala shot out a quick prayer that Kyoya would hurry his butt down to get them because strange things had had a tendency recently to start showing up to kill her when it was dark. Nala really did not want to repeat the Aka Manto experience over again.
Standing a the railing, she heard Haruhi on the phone behind her, but her mind was too caught up in the crazy events of the past few months.
Even as she thought about it, there was a buzzing in her back pocket. Pulling her phone out, she frowned upon seeing it was an unknown number before answering it.
"Hello?"
"Is this Nala Fuyumi?"
"Yes, can I help you?"
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line before the strange man spoke again.
"I do believe you can. You know who I am Miss Fuyumi. I've tried taking you by force already, but I see now that that wasn't the way to do it. You always seem to have a magical ability to escape me."
"Tokiya."
His voice was nothing but a gasp of horror from her lips when she whispered it. With a cruel chuckle he responded.
"The one and only, now, I have a proposition for you Miss Fuyumi. I am offering you one last chance to come to me before I come and take you by force. And trust me, this time I won't let you slip out of my fingers."
"Never." Nala all but gasped the word out, her legs threatening to buckle underneath her as she began to shake. They had never imagined this being how he got in touch with her. "I will never give up to you."
The cruel laughter drifted over the line again.
"I'm afraid you don't have a choice Miss Fuyumi, it's just a matter of how you come to me. Will it be by your own violation? Or do I need to get a little more rough with you hm?"
Anger filled Nala at his snide words and threats, and strength filled her voice as she growled back at the man over the phone in a way that would have had the twins nodding their pride.
"You listen here you asshole. I will never come to you, and there's nothing you can do to me that would ever make me give myself up. I'm going to destroy you Officer Tokiya, and by the time I'm done with you you'll be the one begging me."
Maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but being around Kyoya has taught me a lot.
Even as she thought that, and listened to the silence from Tokiya's end of the line, she realized her mistake. Apparently Tokiya picked up on it too.
"Nothing I can do to you hm? Who said I was going to do something to you? If I recall correctly, you're cousin is coming to visit in a few weeks, and you have your darling best friend Haruhi Fujioka no? I'm sure they wouldn't mind a quick visit from me would they?"
"You bastard! Stay away from them!"
His laugh was ugly now.
"You have two weeks to make your decision Nala Fuyumi. I'll be in touch."
With that, there was a click on the other end of the line, and a moment later the phone began to beep to announce the ended call. Pale and shaking, Nala clutched the phone tighter in her hand and stared down at the blocked number that was still flashing on the screen of her phone. Slowly, she turned to face Haruhi who was standing a few feet away caught up in scolding Tamaki over the phone.
Tears began to fill Nala's eyes. She had two weeks to figure out a way to save her friends from this psychotic man who was after her. How was she supposed to do that? Panic began to set in, and she glanced around herself wildly and turned back to grip the metal railing at her back in a vice like grip. Suddenly the street didn't seem quite so friendly, and as the shadows continued to lengthen, Nala's panic grew.
"Nala?" Spinning back to face her best friend, Nala knew that whatever Haruhi saw on her face wasn't good, and with a hurried command to get to the apartment because something was wrong, Haruhi hung up and hurried to her friend. "What happened?"
Haruhi's big, brown, doe-like eyes were staring directly at Nala who she could feel her heart thumping in her chest, and the tears burning behind her eyes.
"Haruhi. He called me. I have two weeks to save you and come up with a plan. I don't know what to do!"
With a soft sob as the reality of the situation crashed down around her once more after the pleasant day she'd had, Nala let herself fall into Haruhi's arms and cry. They stood there for a few moments, before a voice came from the far end of the walkway, and quick steps sounded coming nearer to them.
"We come up with a plan Nala. No one is taking you, and I have people tracing the call right now." Whipping their heads around, the girls gaped as they found none other than Kyoya Ootori striding toward them. "I had a vision this would happen, so I came to get you since it was the most logical thing to do. You'll both come and stay with the hosts to be kept safe."
He was standing in front of them now, his dark eyes serious and angry, his glasses catching the light and his hands tucked into the front pockets of his designer jeans. He fairly reeked of anger, but not anger at the them, Nala knew that. No, anger at the people who would threaten people he cared about.
Without thinking about it, Nala pulled herself out of Haruhi's arms, and with a strangled noise of sadness and hope, more animalistic than human, she threw herself at Kyoya and wrapped her arms around his waist. He was warm, and solid, and for a moment it was nice to lean against someone she knew would protect her so Nala let herself melt into the hug she was giving him.
"Thank you."
Her whisper slid around them, and for a moment, standing there in the sunset, it was just the two of them.
Without a word, Kyoya slowly pulled his hands out of his pockets, and slid his arms around Nala to return the hug, and even as he did that, Nala could have sworn she heard him whisper something above her head. Yet when she tipped her head up to look at him, and found him staring down at her with that strange look in his eyes again, he just shook his head and murmured something else.
"You're welcome."
And it was the first time that Nala had ever heard Kyoya return someone's thanks in a way that was not calculated, or dripping with sarcasm. No, in that moment it was the most sincerity that she had ever heard from him, and it warmed her to the core despite the situation that had caused this to happen. Nala was terrified, she would never say otherwise, but in that moment, with Kyoya's arms wrapped around her it almost seemed possible that despite the threatening phone call, and the fact that she had cried for the second time in front of him, that things would work out. Because when Kyoya had his hand in the matter, it always did.
**Authors note**
Guys! We're getting there! Tokiya really is a jerk, and it looks like he's finally making his move. Guess we'll just have to see where this leads to hm? What did you guys think of the chapter? Also, small public service announcement here, but my laptop broke so that's why this wasn't uploaded sooner, so until that gets fixed, my updates may be a little slower since I have to write them on my family's main computer, but that;s ok because they'll still be coming. I've actually been doing some work prepping the first few chapters of this stories sequel so when it's time you guys won't have to deal with super slow updates.
Anyway, let me know what you all think, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Till next time guys!
Shout out to….
ShelBell25 + sammiesweetheart0517 + quidditchers + YourFriendBob +
OlliePop1 + Autumn CanterNot + Let'sDotheTimeLordpAgain (Thanks for the fabs/follows it means a lot to me, and I hope you have enjoyed the story so far!)
repy (Yay thank you! And you did? Oh my…)
Abby (Guest) (Thank you thank you thank you! And awesome! I'm excited to write it)
killjarkidranger (Ugh needles are awful! and it's fine don't stress it man :) )
ktmyldy28 (Thank you so much! I dunno if you read my replies but thank you so much for your heartfelt reviews, It always makes my day a little better when I get your reviews. Also, since this story is written for you guys, as well as my own personal pleasure, it just wouldn't feel right to end it without giving you guys a heads up before hand. I'm glad you like Maddy too hehe trust me she has quite a few adventures that are gonna be happening to her courtesy of Nala.)
Let'sDotheTimeLordpAgain (thank you so much! I know it's a bit of an odd versions of the hosts but it's what drew me into writing the story in the first place because I hadn't seen it done before. Also, thank you for the the critique, I hadn't realized I had been doing that so I'll definitely keep an eye open for that now)