TWENTY FIVE
Pasting on a big yet nervous smile, Kurenai answered the call, "Hey V! How's it going?" she glared at Ren's muffled laughter at her weirdly high-pitched voice before wincing and shoving the phone away from her ear as if it's burning.
The call is not on loudspeaker yet everyone in the room can hear the apparent yelling of the person on the other line. She rolled her eyes when Ren waved a finger at his sister implying she's in trouble while her dad smirked at her predicament.
"V," Kurenai pressed the phone back to her ear despite the incessant yelling on the other line, "I'm sorry I didn't call, things were a bit chaotic yesterday… Calm down… I'm fine… It's just a sprain." Kurenai massaged her temples before turning to her dad and nodded towards the door beside the lit shelf towering behind him, he nodded and she walked into it to continue her phone call in private.
Their friends on the couch blinked at the door Kurenai disappeared to. It seems whoever is on the other line is not easily persuaded despite her efforts to reassure him.
"So overprotective, that son of mine." Ethan said and their eyes landed on him, confused.
"Son?" Sango asked.
"Dad's one and only biological child, and our adoptive older brother, Mavick Walry." Ren explained, "He's older than me by two years and Kurenai by four years." he turned to his dad, "Weren't you worried as well, dad?"
Ethan's blue eyes stared at the photo on his screen, "I'm more rational than your brother, her injury doesn't look severe and she was able to go shopping. I was going to give you a call to check on you guys but you already beat me to it by coming here."
Ren shook his head with a smirk, "Yeah, he tends to be an idiotic brother when it comes to peaches."
A knock on the door rang in the room, "Come in, Millie." Ethan announced and the secretary they met outside entered with a tray of iced tea, "Please, have a drink." he offered.
While taking small sips on their refreshing beverage, the guests' eyes peeked around the room; dominated by lustrous chocolate dark wood walls balanced out by white tiled floors and white accent wall drawn with geometric patterns by strips of metallic gold strips behind the plush black leather couches they're sitting on, the room oozed the masculinity and elegance of the man in front of them.
The shelf behind Ethan serves not just to hold books, vases and small figurines encased in glass, the contents are tastefully arranged and it's as much a decorative piece as the tall white vase with white silk cherry blossom branches in the corner of the room next to them and the blown glass sculpture of coiled flames atop a black pillar standing between the two curtained windows.
They turned their heads when they heard a click from the door, "I'll see you soon, take care…" Kurenai said as she stepped out of the room, "Yes, yes, I'll stay in touch V, don't worry… Bye."
"Did Mav give you anything more than a hard time?" Ren grinned.
She sighed, "All hell broke loose when I told him that we're with dad."
"Of course, we remembered to give dad a visit and we didn't even remember to give him a call."
Kurenai grinned at her brother wickedly, "Speaking of 'we', prepare yourself brother. He's pissed that you didn't inform him as well."
It was the brother's turn to sigh, "I'm glad he took the role of the overprotective brother but he needs to calm down. I'll give him a call later."
Kurenai chuckled and glanced at her friends, "You told them who my caller was?" she asked as she sat down.
"Yeah." Ren stretched on his seat with his hands behind his head, "Mavick's quite the character especially when it comes you, it's hard not to tell people abou—Ow!" his sister chastised him with a kick on the leg.
"Stop making fun of us."
Ethan chuckled at the childish scene and shifted his attention to the children on the couch, "So you adopted these children baby girl?" the kids sank into the couch under his scrutiny.
"Well, something like that." Kurenai chose her words carefully since there's a certain daiyoukai in the room who is Rin's father figure and she doesn't want him thinking she's eager to play house.
The old man stretched his arms open, "Awesome! I have grandkids! Come over here little ones! Greet grandpa!" for the first time, his authoritative façade completely disappeared, replaced by a huge, charming smile.
The siblings stared at their dad's enthusiasm before Kurenai smiled at the little ones, "Go ahead kids." she urged and the children hesitantly walked up to Ethan.
Ethan ruffled the kids' hair, "Call me gramps okay?" he smiled fondly at them, "The grandkids I would get from you and Mavick will be gorgeous." he gave each of them a chocolate bar and they ran to their mother who offered to unwrap it for them.
"Oh believe me, with all of their womanizing, your sons probably have kids we don't know about." she raised a playful brow at Ren who cheekily stuck his tongue out at her.
"I don't mean grandkids that I'll have from each of you, but the kids that you and Mavick will have together." he pointed out and Kurenai froze from opening Shippo's chocolate bar. Ren smirked at the comment while the others in the room stared at Ethan, stunned.
When she recovered from her shock, Kurenai glared at her dad, "Did you seriously just suggest that I go and have kids with my adoptive BROTHER?" she stressed the last word.
"Why not? You're not related by blood anyway." the old man said it like it's the most natural thing in the world to do.
"It doesn't matter! We've been siblings for over seven years! This is so wrong on so many levels!" she spat while Shippo skipped back to the couch nibbling at his sugary treat.
"But I'm worried about you baby girl, you'll be twenty-six soon and you've never had a boyfriend." her dad still insisted.
Kurenai heaved exhaustedly while opening Rin's chocolate, "Dad, I'm turning twenty-six, not fifty. Your desperation is at a whole new level there to even propose Mavick as my partner."
Something tugged within Sesshoumaru at the idea of Kurenai partnering with another man. The woman's relationships should be none of his business and yet he's overcome with irritation and his beast growling and clawing in protest is not making things easier.
"He'll take care of you, you know." Ethan's plea pulled the daiyoukai's attention back to the debate in front of them.
"He can take care of me as his sister, but as a romantic partner? No thanks. He'll be a headache." she raised her hands in dismissal and leaned back on her seat, "Mavick's a notorious womanizer just like you and Ren and you know how I feel about relationships…" she covered Rin's ears, "and sex. He's an amazing brother and I love him for that, I don't think it can be anything more."
"Dad, you'll have to wave the white flag now." Ren said while browsing on his phone, "She watched the three of us casually go through one relationship after another and it really turned her away from getting into one herself."
"I guess so." the old man sighed in disappointment and watched his 'granddaughter' walk back to the couch.
Sesshoumaru gained a new level of respect for Kurenai when he saw her cover Rin's ears before talking about a sensitive subject, it showed how much she cared about the young girl. But most of all, he admired how she stood by her principles on relationships and how she seems to be a woman who doesn't rely on a man to be confident with who she is.
"Between your foreign friends and your furry family members, the house must be a hell of a lot livelier." Ethan switched the topic, "That being said, you have to seriously start looking for an assistant Kurenai. You've managed quite well after we let your last assistant go but with the current situation, you really have to."
"I know dad." she replied, "It's not exactly easy to find someone I can trust not to betray me by leaking private information to rival companies and reporters." she smiled bitterly.
"Peaches, it's Stacy's loss when she did that. Her salary's more than most people make in a year, she traveled the world under VIP treatment but most of all, you treated her like a sister and she threw all of that away for meager money." Ren encouraged.
"You've always had trust issues baby girl but when you do trust someone, you tend to forget that not everybody is as loyal as you, especially in our business where celebrity secrets can really pay a lot of money. Just protect yourself more when you do find an assistant." her father advised.
"It's not exactly relaxing to have to look over your shoulder all the time. But yeah, I do need an assistant so I'll deal with it. Another thing dad," she added, "since we can't exactly leave our friends alone and fly to New York, we'll be bringing them with us. We already booked them in our flight."
Ethan's eyebrows knitted together, "How were you able to do that without the necessary documents that they have to have? They clearly have no documentation that they exist in this era."
The siblings grinned mischievously, "Oh they do." Kurenai replied.
"You forged documents?!" her father hissed.
"How can you accuse your children of something illegal? They're legally registered as residents of this era with a little help of magic. They have birth certificates, IDs, passports, and visas." she explained.
"She asked for the blessing of the enchanted entities dad and because she's never done anything selfish since discovering her own powers and bears no ill-will, they were more than happy to give permission." Ren added.
Their Feudal era companions gaped at Kurenai. They couldn't believe that she was able to make them legal residents of this era. The scope of her powers reached a league they didn't know existed.
Ethan stared in awe at his daughter, "Well that's generous of them." he said then grabbed his phone, "So their flight details are taken care of, as for the hotel…" he trailed off as he tapped away on the gadget.
"We figured out our sleeping arrangements and due to some circumstances, we need to add two more rooms with two double beds to the current booking." Kurenai suggested.
"Alright. This will most probably come out of your pockets but let me see if I can work something out."
"That's why I told you not to insist to the shows' executives to book us at 1 Hotel, it's pricey. It's unreasonable to ask them to pay for the additional expenses." she grumbled.
"At least it's not Ritz-Carlton." Ren chuckled.
"But that's your favorite hotel in New York! You'll be performing at Central Park early in the morning, isn't it better to book a hotel in the area and avoid unnecessary delays because of traffic?" Ethan set his phone on his desk.
"I love it for vacations not for business trips. There are more modest hotels around and we'll barely stay at the hotel dad. Well, there's no use arguing since it's done." she glanced at her watch, "We should get going dad, you must be busy and we need to pack for tomorrow. Do you have anything else for us?"
"Have you explained to our guests here about the documentary shoot for your tenth anniversary concert?" her father asked.
"Yes dad, we told them about the film crew that have been following us around from the beginning of the planning process and will continue to do so until the last audience leaves the arena after the concert." Kurenai looked at her friends and felt bad for them once again. When they told them about the filming and showed them a sample of how it goes, their friends got anxious and expressed their discomfort on being filmed, "As expected, they're not comfortable with it so we spoke to the film company and they told us to just let the crew know who doesn't want cameras pointed at them or at least pointed too long."
Ethan looked at them sympathetically, "Sorry about this but it's part of their job. We hope you can endure it for a bit." relieved when they smiled at him, he turned to Ren, "We need the green light on your proposal for Dani Kayde's music video son. Do you have anything for review before sending it to them?"
"I'm almost done with it, I'll send it to you tomorrow evening." his son responded, "But with the pre-production, we might have to push the shoot to after our concert. They know this right?"
"Well yeah, but it's better to get all of our ducks in line ahead of schedule." Ethan told him, "Well that's all for now, I'll be in touch as always. Enjoy New York and have a safe trip!"
"Oh dad, why not join us for dinner tonight?" Kurenai asked as they got up on their feet, "The house is a bit of a mess since we're having the vacant rooms decorated but we haven't had dinner together in a while."
"You guys cooking?" Ethan asked as he stood and when she nodded, he smiled, "Of course, dinner's at seven right?"
"Dinner's at seven." she smiled back before moving to give her father a quick hug, "Sorry for being a pain." she giggled.
"I can't expect less from my passionate daughter." he replied, "Now, if only you can be passionate in dating..." he teased.
"Enough." she reprimanded playfully, "See you later dad." Kurenai gave way to her older brother who also gave the old man a hug.
"See you at dinner dad."
"You too, son. You know what to do with your sister." he winked at his son.
"Stop ganging up on me you clowns." she rolled her eyes and walked with the kids to the door.
He looked at both of his children with pride. Eventhough they're not his real children, they've always given him a great deal of respect and love that any child bound to their parents by blood can offer. They're his pride and joy, of course along with his one and only real son.
"See you later gramps!" both kids waved happily at Ethan and his heart skipped a beat.
He waved back with a smile, "Later kids."
As the door closes, a huge smile has been pasted on Ethan's face and it stayed there for the rest of the day as he looked forward to having dinner with his children's larger family.