Author's Note: I know, I know, this took a long time to put up. Apologies. ^^;; Been out of town and whatnot so yeah... But tada! Chapter 13: In which Kanoe gets a new intern!
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Kanoe leaned against the doorframe of her office and watched the young woman fluff her hair and hike up her skirt before sashaying over to Yuuto's cubicle. She giggled and leaned over his shoulder, making sure plenty of cleavage would be visible.
"Hey Yuuto…" Kanoe tried not to laugh as she batted her eyelashes. "Can I borrow a pen?"
"Hm?" Yuuto glanced up, just noticing her presence. As soon as he did though he assumed his best hey-babe-wanna-be-in-pictures-? smile. "Of course you can! And can I just say that is a fantastic top?"
Kanoe rolled her eyes and examined her nails, disappointed to find that one had chipped.
"So um- I was wondering…"
Aha so she finally gets to the point.
"Do you want to go out for coffee or something this Friday?"
Yuuto gave a toothpaste commercial worth grin. "That sounds great!"
The girl's eyes lit up.
"But I'm busy Friday!"
And her face fell.
"Sorry! Perhaps some other day?"
"Oh… yeah…" the girl returned to her cubicle, tugging her skirt back down dejectedly.
Kanoe raised an eyebrow and made her way over to Yuuto suspiciously. He didn't notice her until she jerked the book out of his hands and began thumbing through it. "Cheat codes and tips? I didn't even think you were into video games, Yuuto."
He shrugged and leaned back in the chair. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna fall behind in work."
"Oh don't worry; my expectations of you are low enough that even if you lost both arms and legs and were struck blind and deaf I'm sure you could still live up to them."
"I'm flattered by your vote of confidence."
"Besides, it's not like I care if you get any work done."
Yuuto shook his head with a chuckle. "How did you ever climb that high on the management ladder Kanoe?"
She raised an eyebrow and tossed her hair back over her shoulder, thrusting her chest out slightly as she did so. "Now how do you think."
"By fucking senseless every boss you've ever had?"
"Bingo."
"Well then how come you aren't a little higher yet?"
She frowned and gave a small huff, crossing her arms.
Yuuto laughed. "Lemme guess. Came across your first gay boss?"
"Not the first no. Just the first I couldn't persuade to… experiment."
"But haven't you ever had female bosses?"
"Yep."
"Surely the same method wouldn't work on them?"
Kanoe curled her painted red lips into a perfect smile of seduction. "And what makes you think not?"
Yuuto raised an eyebrow. "You don't have tapes of this do you?"
She whacked him over the head with the video gaming manual then held it up. "So who is she?"
Yuuto didn't even bother trying to look innocent. He tried for dumb instead. "She?"
"The girl you're trying to impress with all this."
This time he laughed out loud, ignoring the curious stares from his coworkers. "Impress? More like trying to keep up with."
Kanoe eyed him suspiciously. "Really? This is a lot more effort than you normally put into… well anything."
He shrugged and folded his hands behind his head.
"The sex must be mind-blowing. Or some other kind of blowing maybe." Kanoe observed, easing herself onto his desk to cross one leg over the other.
Yuuto grinned. "Nah. Haven't gotten that far yet."
"Oh did you just meet her?"
"Hmm." Yuuto thought for a moment, watching the ceiling as if he were counting in his head. "A couple of months ago so not really I guess?"
Kanoe's eyes widened. "You've known her for several months and you haven't slept with her yet?"
Yuuto shrugged again, a grin still in place.
Something was very wrong here Kanoe thought.
"Is she ugly?"
"Nope. Dead sexy if you ask me. Huge tits, great legs, you know. The works I guess." Yuuto's eyes got a distant look that to some might have appeared wistful but she knew better.
"So you've been hanging out with some hot chick for months and remained celibate?" Kanoe gave him an incredulous look.
"Never said that." Yuuto winked and tilted his head slightly in the direction of Miyuki's desk.
Oh good, he wasn't completely gone.
"Still. Video gaming manuals? Miyuki likes to garden."
"So?" Yuuto's face scrunched into damnably attractive confusion.
"Never caught you reading gardening magazines."
"Why would I do that?"
After a moment's studying his face, Kanoe drew the conclusion that he was serious. Not to mention stupid. But hey, the blood wasn't making it all the way north so who could blame him. Other than every woman alive.
"I see." She said simply then walked out of the cubicle, leaving him to watch after her, his face a mixture of confusion at her last words and appreciation of the view as she strolled away.
She returned to her office where the phone immediately rang. With a sigh she sank into the plush leather swivel chair behind the desk and picked it up, answering with a bored voice and after a pause, informing her assistant that he could go ahead and send the new intern up.
A few moments later a soft knock came at the door and a young man with dirty blond hair poked his head in the door. "Umm, hi! Are you Kanoe-san?" he asked hesitantly, looking ready to bolt at any second.
She leaned back in the chair, crossing her legs again toward the door, sure to give him a good view. "I am."
Rather than stare at her legs or rather where they disappeared underneath her skirt though the boy was eyeing her desk.
"Is that… a Snowglobe?"
Kanoe threw a bored glance at the desk where she had thrown the glass globe onto a stack of papers as a paperweight months ago. "Yeah, I guess it is. One of my previous employees brought it back from a vacation to Germany once as a gift." The annoying, simpering little thing. She added silently, recalling how he had thought that would win her affection.
The boy slid into the office and wandered to the desk to admire it, his eyes shining with admiration. "From Germany! I love Snowglobes… I collect them now but I don't have any from another country! I just get them when we take school trips to other cities. That's just so… what's the word? Chique? Is that German? I think it is…" He babbled away, staring at the Snowglobe the entire time despite Kanoe's leaning over toward the desk in a fashion she knew left her blouse unusually… open.
What an off day this was for her.
Eventually she got tired of the boy focusing all of this attention on that worthless little ball of water and white flecks and cleared her throat pointedly.
The boy jerked and blushed a deep crimson that she thought fleetingly would perfectly match her current nail polish. "I'm so sorry!" He bowed so low and so quickly that he nearly lost balance and fell over onto the desk, an act which prompted more bowing and apologizing.
Kanoe pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "Enough."
"Right! Sorry! Um! I'm Keiichi! Keiichi Segawa!" the boy announced in halting little bursts of energy. "I'm your new intern!" He handed her a small stack of papers which she jerked out of his hand and shoved unceremoniously under the Snowglobe. Rather than look offended or disappointed though the boy's eyes lit up as though this were a great honor.
"Right well." She rubbed her temples. "Your duties are simple. For the most part you'll just be fetching me coffee, making copies of things, running errands, that sort of menial work, as I'm sure you already know."
"Yeah! But it's still such a great opportunity don'tcha think?" The boy leaned forward, practically bouncing on his seat with enthusiasm. "I never thought I'd really get a chance to intern in a government office! But I'm gonna work really hard!"
I don't know how you got this chance. Kanoe thought to herself, recognizing a class-1 idiot when she saw one. Of course. That meant there was still plenty of fun to be had with him. She stood and didn't bother to pull her skirt down as she did so, aware that it had hitched up when she had settled into the chair. She took care to sashay her hips slightly as she walked out from behind the desk and throw her foot out just enough with each step to draw attention to the red pornstar worthy stilettos encasing her feet. "Of course hard work will go far. But there's a way for you to go even farther if you're really… ambitious." She rested her fingertip against her plumped lower lip.
The boy tilted her head, waiting curiously for an explanation.
She walked behind him and ran one hand from the crook of his elbow to his shoulder, bringing the other hand to rest on the other shoulder. He tried to turn his head to get a good look at her, finding it difficult to do though as it wouldn't turn quite that way. She caught sight still of his blank confused expression and found herself thinking Okay, seriously? but continued, lightly massaging his shoulders.
"Oh!" Keiichi spun around, jerking away from her grasp with a surprised but suddenly understanding expression. "I get it!"
It's about time…
"You want shoulder massages too! You are a pretty busy and important woman; I bet your job gets really stressful so you need something to help you relax! I don't really know how to give massages though… But I can learn!" He balled his hand into a fist and drew his eyebrows together in determination. "And I can bring in aromatherapy candles too! My mom swears by them! No really she does, she sometimes says things like "son of a thunderstorm-scented candle" and I mean, I don't really know what that means but I suppose it's swearing…."
Kanoe stared at him, dumbfounded as the boy launched into another ramble.
Normally, new interns could be divided into two groups. There were those who got what she wanted immediately and were pathetically eager to try their hand, not to mention other body parts, at pleasing her in bed. On the other hand there were also those who didn't get it at first and when they did were extremely embarrassed, or occasionally those who just skipped straight to the being embarrassed part, not that this kept them from joining her in bed either.
But this? This boy was something new. Kanoe wasn't sure she liked it.
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On his way home from work, Yuuto stopped by a convenience store and made his way to his usual aisle. He had been planning on this for a while but as usual he'd been sort of half-hearted about it. It had taken Kanoe's pressing earlier to prompt him to finally take action.
He paused before a shelf full of different colored boxes and lightly tapped his cheek, trying to decide. He leaned slightly to the left at first, drawn by the new flavor put out but the "for her pleasure" ones on the right caught his eye as well and he found himself caught between them, not yet ruling out a number of other fun-sounding options. A young man who had been restocking one side of the shelf noticed and asked if he needed any help.
"As if you know anything about condoms Kazahaya." A dark haired boy commented in a snarky voice as he walked past carrying a box of hair products.
"Shut up Rikuou!" The other boy yelled back, looking for all the world like a cat with its hackles up.
"I'm just fine." Yuuto smiled reassuringly, happy though that his suspicion about why the boy had been blushing with every box he put on the shelf had just been confirmed.
Despite his reassurance however, he continued to waiver. Then it finally hit him.
It mattered.
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He hadn't forgotten about Fuuma, Kamui reassured himself as he grabbed his backpack and headed out the door. It was just that Kotori wanted to practice for the school arts festival. And how could he say no? The whole class was depending on them to do well at this point. And she wanted to practice. It wasn't like she could do so on her own after all. She needed him.
Kamui smiled to himself at that thought then shook his head.
When he wasn't with Kotori he was busy trying to catch up in school. Although this had turned out to be easier than he had expected once he discovered that for his faults in other subjects, Sorata had quite a knack for tutoring history. Maybe it was his well-developed story-telling capabilities but he had a way of making events and people long dead and gone come alive again. And as much as he hated to admit it, Seishirou was a surprisingly effective tutor for math. He was still behind, and certainly not an A student but the squiggles and numbers were beginning to make some sense to him.
And of course when he wasn't obliging Kotori with extra dance practice or trying desperately to catch up with his fellow students, he was baby-sitting. He had begun to wonder why Aoki and Karen had been hiring him so much lately but hey, he could use the extra money. It was just unfortunate that it cut into the time he could have spent searching for Fuuma.
Okay so he occasionally just spent an afternoon hanging out at the vet's office with Subaru and helping feed the animals. But hey, everyone needed some down time right? It wasn't like he could afford to work himself sick; that would just give him even less time to search.
Kamui sighed and counted up the days in his head. Ten days. It had been ten days since he had done any searching for Fuuma. He mentally berated himself for this the resolved to get back on track the next day. It didn't matter that he had long ago exhausted every resource he could think of. He had to find Fuuma, he just had to.
He was so lost in his thoughts that it took several moments to realize that someone had been calling his name. He jumped and realized Kotori was only a few feet away, waving madly at him.
"Are you alright?" She asked, innocent eyes all a-shine with concern for him.
"Huh? Yeah I'm fine!"
"Okay... it's just that you seemed really lost in thought- like you were worried about something." Kotori fell into step beside him as they walked together back to CLAMP campus. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Kamui fidgeted, toying with the end of his tie and wondering why he had made the lame decision to wear his school uniform today. Kotori was so pretty in that white skirt and matching beret… He pulled his eyes away and sighed. "It's… kind of complicated."
Kotori looked up at him and he suddenly remembered why he told her all his deepest secrets when they were little. Not that she knew them now, which was still strange to remember. She was his childhood sweetheart, but he wasn't hers and on the one hand, it was frustrating not being able to bring up things they did when they were small but on the other hand, her personality had not changed at all and it was easy to remember why he fell in love with her in the first place.
"I had a friend." He found himself beginning to explain without thinking. "Who… went missing I guess."
"Was it Fuuma?"
He started and stared at her wide-eyed. "H-how did you know that?"
"You asked me if I knew someone by that name the first day you arrived at CLAMP school." She pointed out gently.
Kamui blushed, suddenly feeling like an idiot for not remembering. "Oh yeah… well yes it was Fuuma. We'd been friends since we were really little and then… something happened… we kind of got into a fight. And I haven't seen him since."
"Don't his parents know where he is?" Kotori paused as a bird landed on her shoulder and smiled to it, softly stroking its feathers.
Memories came flooding back all of a sudden- the image of Aunt Saya's blood splatter across the walls and floors and ceilings and the worst part of all: Fuuma standing calmly in the center of the room licking a bit of blood off his finger… "His parents… died." Kamui choked slightly on the last word, unable to put it any better than that.
Kotori covered her mouth daintily, startling the bird into flying away. "Oh my gosh! That's awful- I'm sorry!"
Kamui stared at the ground, at a loss as to what to say. Not that he thought he could speak anyway while fighting back a wave of nausea.
"Have you been looking for him all this time?" she inquired, laying hand on his arm, pulling him back to the sunshiney world around him for the moment.
He shrugged. "Yeah sorta. I don't really know what else to do at this point though." Why was he getting so choked up now? Damn he must have looked really pathetic with tears stinging his eyes and shaking hands.
Kotori watched him for a moment in silence then looked up at the sky, watching fluffy white clouds laze overhead. "Have you tried the library?"
"Huh? Oh yeah I went to the public library and looked him up."
She shook her head. "No, I mean CLAMP library."
"No… but wouldn't the public library have more information than a school library?"
Her eyes positively glittered as she turned back to him. "Maybe at other schools! But not CLAMP's library! It's the best in the nation! You should go check there- I bet they have something on him! I mean our school has so much state of the art technology that hasn't even been released anywhere else- I'm sure they can help!"
Kamui opened his mouth to thank her for the suggestion but they were interrupted by their teacher running into them, nearly knocking them both over.
"Oh Kamui-kun, Kotori-chan! I'm so sorry but something has come up and my nephew is injured and needs someone to take him to the hospital while his parents are at work; I'm going to have to cancel the extra practice today!"
The kids both reassured him that it was fine and watched him dash off toward the teacher parking lot.
"Huh. Well now what?" Kamui turned around and was surprised to see Kotori pushing the door to their classroom open.
"He left it unlocked!" she informed him brightly. "And the desks are all still pushed out of the way!"
Kamui wandered in after her.
"So why don't we just practice, the two of us?"
Kamui clenched his jaw and hoped his face was not as red as it felt suddenly. "Oh… um… okay." He agreed at long last.
Kotori gave him her usual ray of sunshine smile and grabbed his hand, pulling him to the center of the room.
"We don't have any music." Kamui quickly pointed out.
Kotori considered this, pressing her forefinger against her lips as she stared at the ceiling, leaving Kamui to ponder how damn cute she was in the meantime. "Oh well!" She cried at last with a small shrug. "I'll just sing!"
Kamui wasn't sure his heart could race any more than this when she adjusted her hand in his and rested the other in its usual spot on his shoulder then began to do just as she said and sang. He wondered in passing if all the songbirds in heaven were jealous hearing her song or if they were joining in up there. He had a feeling they were joining in.
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A/N: Muahaha, now I've referenced Chobits, Duklyon, Cardcaptor Sakura, AND Legal Drug. XD Yay for more CLAMP crossovers!