"Oneeeeeeeeeeeeee-saaaaaaan!"
Arashi flipped over and pulled the pillow over her head until Sorata gave up and left the room. Why had she agreed to this?
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Kusanagi stirred at the sound of Sorata's voice down the hallway and he smirked to himself, realizing that he must have been trying to rouse the young lady he had begged to invite along with them. He breathed in deeply, letting the salty air fill his lungs and wondered when the last time he had felt so good was.
He had not been to the ocean since he was a teenager and somehow he had forgotten in all the years he had been in the big city just what he had lost. It was so easy to forget how to breathe this deeply in the middle of a polluted smog-filled city. It was like he had been living half-alive, half- breathing all this time. The mountains would always feel more like home to him, with their dark, earthy smells, but the tangy scent of the ocean held a special place in his heart as well.
He had always felt a special connection to the very earth itself. Like people had forgotten the land and all that it stood for, trampling it down without a second thought. Sometimes when he stood under a tree and the wind blew through its leaves just right he could almost swear he could hear someone whispering to him just softly enough to hear, but not loudly enough to make out the words. He had forgotten how similarly he felt listening to soft whoosh of the ocean tide sweeping across the sand like a gentle caress, reminding the land that it was not alone; it would always have the sea. It had always made him feel a little bit like he was eavesdropping on an intimate moment, hearing the sweet nothings that lovers whispered into one another's ears when they were alone in each other's embrace.
He rolled over, taking another deep, enthralled breath and stopped dead when he felt something stir beside him. He jerked his head up in alarm but laughed at himself when he realized it was just Inuki. The puppy awoke at the sound of his voice and gave a cheerful yip, giving him slobbery good morning kisses.
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"Onee-san!"
Arashi pulled the blankets over her head to block out the sunlight as Sorata jerked open the shutters, letting sunlight stream invasively into the room. She waited until she heard him sigh and shuffle out before reaching up to slam the shutters closed again and roll back over.
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Yuzuriha was confused when she woke up and Inuki wasn't asleep at her feet. Ever since the first day that she had brought him home, he had stayed faithfully by her side and slept in her bed. What could have changed that now she wondered? Maybe he had found some sort of interesting creature on the beach? She hoped it wasn't a washed up jellyfish; she could easily imagine the puppy getting unpleasantly stung.
She stretched like a cat as she sat up, arching her back happily as she reached for her toes. Then she tossed the covers aside and hopped out of bed, tossing clothes out of her suitcase left and right until she located her swimsuit. She had every intention of hitting the water ASAP, or at least as soon as she was finished with breakfast.
"Inuki?" She called out the bedroom door. She heard a small yip down the hallway and skipped along the creaky floorboards, expecting to turn the corner and see the puppy sitting by his food bowl in the kitchen, tail wagging a hundred miles a minute. As it turned out she was only partially right. He was in fact in the kitchen with his tail going so fast it could have propelled a small boat but not waiting patiently for food. Instead he was bouncing around Kusanagi's feet and between his ankles as bacon sizzled enticingly in a pan on the stove.
She giggled as Inuki noticed the bacon as well and yipped hopefully. Kusanagi looked down but shook his head. "This isn't for you, pup."
Inuki whined and Kusanagi refused again, getting down a platter to put the strips on. Inuki gave him a carefully considering look and sat down with his paw out as Kusanagi had trained him to do upon command.
Yuzuriha waited for another refusal but was surprised when Kusanagi laughed. "Alright, alright, but just one, okay?"
The puppy's tongue lolled happily as Kusanagi broke off a piece of bacon and knelt to hand it to him. As soon as he had his prize, Inuki's attention turned to the doorway where Yuzuriha still stood and he gave her a triumphant "look what I got!" look. Kusanagi glanced over his shoulder to see what the puppy was looking at and gave Yuzuriha a big grin.
She loved his smile. It was so open, like he didn't know how to fake a smile to save his soul. You could just tell that when he smiled at you, he really meant it.
Yuzuriha had spent most of her life with Sorata's smile. She knew that probably 99% of the time, it was genuine and that he really was a generally happy person but she also knew that there were darker days when the pressure of their own pasts got to him, when things reminded him of his parents and the way things used to be. She also knew that he would smile even on those days and while she admired his perseverance, his determination to keep moving forward with his life, sometimes the dishonesty dug at her a little bit. She had always wanted to tell him that he didn't have to smile for her sake, but had never really known how to broach the topic. It was really the only thing she and Sorata had never ever talked about.
So when she realized that Kusanagi's smile was real, she found a relief she had not known she had been craving all these years.
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"Onee-san!"
Arashi shrieked as ice cold water suddenly doused her and her bed. She jackknifed into a sitting position and jerked her soaked bangs out of her eyes, looking up to see Sorata standing over her with a grin and an upturned bucket.
"You bastard!" She screamed and threw the covers aside.
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"Did you sleep well?" Kusanagi asked as he sank into the seat across from her.
Yuzuriha nodded vigorously over the stack of pancakes between them. "Oh yes! It was great waking up to the smell of the ocean wasn't it?"
Kusanagi chuckled and agreed.
Yuzuriha studied the breakfast laid out between them, wondering. "Um…" she began slowly. "About what you said at the arts festival…"
But before she could get another word out, a blur of color rushed past them both, nearly knocking over a pitcher of syrup.
"I was just trying to wake you up!" Part of the blur insisted.
"By dumping water on me?" The tail end of it demanded hotly.
"Well how else was I supposed to?"
"You weren't! That's the point! I was sleeping!"
"But the ocean is right out there Onee-san! Don't you want to go play in it?"
"More like drown you in it!"
The banter died away as the two disappeared from view and Kusanagi gave Yuzuriha a puzzled look.
"I thought you said that they were dating."
"They are."
He gestured down the hallway. "Then what was that?"
"THAT", Yuzuriha declared loudly, "was true love."
Kusanagi shook his head. "Kids these days."
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"Are you sure you're alright?" Kakyou's brow furrowed as he poured another mug of tea.
Seishirou waved his hand dismissively. "Of course! I couldn't let you guys go to the beach without me now could I?" He gave a hearty smile as Kakyou slid into the seat across from him.
It was strange to be sitting here like this actually, Kakyou realized. His only contact with Seishirou up until now had always been via Hokuto and Subaru, an indirect link that meant they had never actually been alone together before.
I just made a cup of tea for the man who murdered the love of my life. He thought, staring at the man across the table. It was absurd. And yet…
The thing was, Kakyou had always thought of Hokuto's killer as being something of a vague and simply evil monster, not unlike how children imagined creatures that lived under their beds. Even when they had briefly met in the previous world at the gathering of all of the Angels, they had not in fact interacted and so the image had remained. It had never really sunk in before that Seishirou was a human being. The only reason it had now was because of his injury.
Kakyou furtively eyed Seishirou's bandages from beneath his bangs, glad that Seishirou was too preoccupied with his tea to notice. It seemed strange to realize that he could get hurt, wasn't he supposed to be the one who hurt others?
He could have hated Seishirou, he supposed. Certainly, it would have made sense, given that he had been the one to kill Hokuto previously. He could harbor a deep grudge, despise the man with all he had.
And yet… he found he couldn't really muster that kind of resentment. It was partially because Kakyou was just not very good at holding on to emotions like anger for long, but partially because in a twisted way, he was grateful to Seishirou. He had only been able to meet people nearing the end of their lives in the previous world and it was because Seishirou had killed Hokuto that Kakyou himself had been able to meet her. It wasn't exactly that he was happy that she had died, but he was happy that he had met her.
And fate had a funny sense of humor if this life was anything to go by, as Seishirou was indirectly the reason they had met this time around too…
He was so caught up in his reminiscence that he didn't notice Kamui come down the stairs until he slid into the seat next to him. Kakyou smiled into his tea as he noticed that Kamui still watched Seishirou warily every time that they were in the same room. He supposed some people were better at holding grudges than others, although the boy seemed to have become a little more uncertain ever since the incident at the hospital and Kakyou that despite his suspicions, he was at least glad that Seishirou had protected Subaru.
Still, there was something strange about the way that Seishirou had taken it all in stride. In fact, he seemed to almost find the whole situation with his eye amusing. Kakyou had not exactly expected him to drop into a deep depression or go on a killing spree or anything, but he would have thought there would be more of a reaction than this. He had not even decided to press charges despite having had his eye gouged out for crying out loud.
Then again, considering Kakyou's own unwillingness to hold what could have been a well-deserved grudge against the man, he supposed he couldn't judge. Perhaps he and Seishirou were just more alike than he had originally realized. That was a terrifying thought all its own.
He shook his head, leaving those thoughts behind. More importantly, he had to focus on this weekend. It was the first time he had been around Hokuto for an extended period of time without it being all about work and he just had to make it special and memorable. He desperately wanted to make things more official between them or at least to make it clear that he loved her, had loved her, since the moment they had met.
The problem was, he had no idea what would be a unique enough way to confess. He knew she got love confessions on a regular basis, she was a vivacious, beautiful, and successful young woman and Kakyou was far from the first person to notice.
He had debated something big and flashy like a blimp but immediately wrote the thought off for two main reasons: one being that that was more Nokoru's style and on top of that just not being Kakyou's personality, he knew from experience that Nokoru's flirtatious advances had never once gotten him into Hokuto's multi-colored pants. The other reason was that Kakyou was fairly certain that he would die of embarrassment.
So he considered the simple route of finding a pretty seashell and telling her that he considered her the most beautiful thing by far, but that was just too corny and would probably bore Hokuto to death. Either way this seemed to end in one of them dying, which admittedly, would make an impression, but not the one he was trying to make.
Then she bounded down the stairs and all his careful planning was thrown out the window as his attention was directed at the real Hokuto and not the one in his fantasies.
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Something was up and Hokuto knew it. She just didn't know what it was and that bugged her even more than misogynistic pricks hitting on defenseless teenage girls bugged her. Which was a lot.
She had known that something was wrong for the past several weeks but coming downstairs and discovering that Subaru was still in bed was a wake-up call for her, if one could forgive the double entendre. The only non-mysterious thing about the scene at the breakfast table was that all of the men were dead silent as if they were observing a funeral rite for their scrambled eggs. Seriously, did nobody know how to make conversation here? This was what happened when one stayed with a group of guys.
"Who's ready to hit the waves?" She cried enthusiastically, making a mental note to go attack her brother in a few minutes.
"I am!" Seishirou ignored the incredulous stares of the other two as he cheerfully raised his hand.
"Not you, you aren't allowed in the water right now, remember?"
"That doesn't mean I'm not ready for some fun in the sun!" He promptly replied with a grin.
"That's what I like to hear." She clapped his shoulder as she skipped by on her way to pour a cup of coffee. "What about you two?" She gestured broadly at the others, nearly splashing the scalding contents on them all.
Kamui and Kakyou looked to one another with matching "help me" expressions. Neither of them said a word.
Hokuto rolled her eyes and slammed down the mug, making both the coffee and the two of them jump. This was a vacation and they were all going to have fun dammit. They were going to get into the spirit of summer or else, and she informed them thusly before making her way back to the staircase to take care of the biggest party pooper of all this morning.
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When Subaru woke up he could hear the seagulls just outside his window and understood for the first time in his life why they called it crying.
The sunshine that filtered in through the curtains seemed strangely morose for such a pleasant day but he realized it was probably just him and not actually the light itself.
Seishirou had already gotten up and the emptiness of both the bed and the room pressed down on him until he felt as though he were choking. Half-panicked, he threw back the covers and wondered briefly where the sudden nervous energy was coming from but the answer was pretty obvious. Ever since that day at the hospital, Subaru had been jumpy as hell, as Hokuto had pleasantly noted just yesterday in the car. Her theory had been that Subaru was afraid that someone was going to attack him or Seishirou again. Kamui knew better however. He had watched both Subaru and Seishirou intently and silently the entire time, as though waiting for some invisible chord to snap at last after fraying dangerously for the past several months. Subaru had never told him the full story behind what had happened before, but Kamui knew enough to know that Seishirou had been missing an eye in their previous lives as well and that it had something to do with the same period of time that he had killed Hokuto.
The result of Kamui's connecting the dots might have been amusing if Subaru had not been so wracked with fear and once buried guilt. At first, he hadn't known why the boy had started to hang close to Hokuto so much whenever they were all together but after a few gatherings he had realized that Kamui was wary and trying to protect her from an assault that might never come. Subaru wanted to laugh and cry when understanding struck him at last as he realized that the teenager was making an effort to protect a woman he barely knew so much more than Subaru had made for the sister he adored.
More than Kamui, he wondered about Kakyou's reaction to the entire situation. The blond-haired former dreamseer had not shown so much concern as Subaru had initially expected and he at last realized that Kakyou probably did not even know that Seishirou had lost an eye once, much less that it had indirectly been the precursor to the murder of his beloved.
He stared out the window, wondering if it was the slight tint of the window pane making the world looking washed out and faded, or his own inability to relax enough to appreciate the beauty of the world outside. The answer seemed obvious though, even to himself.
Before he could close his eyes and roll back over however, the door slammed open.
"Subaru Sumeragi! What do you think you're doing?"
He blinked, caught completely off-guard. "Um?"
The next thing he knew, a sequin-covered body had leapt into the empty spot in the bed next to him.
"Hokuto! What the hell?"
"Yo."
He instinctively drew the covers up around him, even though he was actually still dressed in an undershirt and boxers. "What are you doing?"
"Getting your lazy butt up obviously. Come on, there's breakfast downstairs!"
He shook his head. "I'm not hungry." He protested.
"Nonsense!" She cried, jerking at the covers insistently. "You'll need fuel for all the fun we are going to have today!"
"Stop it."
Hokuto froze and tilted her head slightly, giving him an odd look and Subaru stared blankly back until the realization hit him that he had never once ordered her to do something.
"Subaru, what's wrong?" She asked softly, letting go of the blankets and letting them drop between them.
He struggled to find the words, knowing full well that there was no way he could tell the truth. He hated having secrets to keep from her.
She crawled up to the head of the bed and settled down, Indian style on top of Seishirou's pillow, tugging the edge of the comforter just enough to cover her legs as well, effectively tucking herself in.
"We aren't kids anymore." Subaru remarked, watching her.
"What does that have to do with why you're so out of it lately?"
"Nothing, I meant that we're too old to be sharing a bed now; it's weird."
She waved her hand dismissively. "Who cares about that. Besides we're twins, we're allowed a little lee-way."
"I don't think that's how it works."
"Well I do, so there."
He shook his head, recognizing a losing argument when he heard it.
"He seems okay." Hokuto sobered slightly, staring at the painting across the room of a ship lost in a stormy sea.
"He is, I think." Subaru acknowledged.
"Why aren't you?" The question was blunt, as so much of his sister's questions were.
Subaru sighed. "Can you do me a favor?"
"Depends." She replied warily.
"Don't be alone with Seishirou."
She gave him a baffled look. "Why, are you afraid we're going to fall madly in love with one another now?" She attempted a joke, but her smile lacked the light that it usually held.
He shook his head. "Just… don't okay? Please?"
She frowned.
"Hokuto." He implored.
"Fine." She replied at long last and he breathed a sigh of relief. "But you owe me an explanation."
"Can I have a little time to figure out how to explain?" He answered, hoping he could, for once in his life, come up with a good enough lie.
She studied him carefully with an uncharacteristically somber expression and he was certain that she reading him like an open book, knowing exactly what he planned to do.
"Fine." She answered again then abruptly shifted moods once more. "But in the meantime, come on! Let's make some pancakes!"
Before he could react, she leapt off the bed, jerking the blankets with her.
He sighed again and at last got up. "I'll be down in a moment then."
"You better be! Or I'll come barging right back in here, you know that. I don't care if you're stark naked." Hokuto announced loudly as she disappeared out the door.
He snorted then stared after her at the empty doorway.
I won't let you get hurt again. He thought with determination.
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It was far from unusual for Seiichiro to be awoken by his children bouncing on the bed, especially on a day they knew they were going to get to go out somewhere fun like the zoo. As such, when he had lain his head down Friday night in their hotel room, he had fully expected to wake up that way the next morning and find Nataku and Kazuki, swimsuits put on backward and bits of sunscreen haphazardly smeared on their cheeks and in their hair.
Instead however, he found himself jolting awake with the edges of a nightmare burning away like the night before the summer sun slowly creeping over the horizon. He could not seem to capture the last tendrils of the dream before they dissolved into his memories but something about them left him jittery and uneasy. He looked over to Karen and found her fast asleep, one arm around Nataku, who had evidently crawled into bed with them too at some point in the night.
Upon reflection, Seiichiro realized that Nataku had become more and more attached lately. When he had been younger, he would cry even at the thought of leaving his mother's side, but as he had gotten older, the boy had fostered a certain defiant independence as most young boys seemed to do. He had insisted upon doing everything himself and had been prone lately to wandering away from them even sometimes when they were out and about, pulled away by curiosity and a certain adventuresome spirit.
Then suddenly, in the past couple of weeks he had become more withdrawn and clingy. Seiichiro had noticed it the day they were at the supermarket and Karen had turned a corner while Nataku was looking the other way. The second he realized she was out of sight, Seiichiro had seen the panic light up in his eyes as his breathing quickened. When Karen had reappeared, Nataku had grabbed the edge of her coat and clung to it like a life vest.
He had already asked Nataku if everything was okay at school and the boy seemed to genuinely light up when he talked about their latest science projects and the book his teacher had read to the class. The boy wasn't ill or injured; he didn't show any signs of any physical ailments at all. Still, something was wrong and Seiichiro knew it, but if he was honest with himself, he was somewhat afraid of what it might be. He shook his head. Then again, maybe this was just a phase. Maybe he was just getting worked up for no reason. He sighed and slipped out of the bed and out onto the patio as silently as possible.
A saline-infused breeze whispered by, ruffling his hair and brushing against his cheeks, warm reassurance. He loved days like this. He did not think he felt particularly claustrophobic while he was inside but as soon as he was outside it was like releasing a long-held breath. Surely there was no greater joy than that of dancing fresh air.
It was just a bad dream. He thought serenely. And Nataku's going to be just fine; it's just another childish phase. But a strangely cool blast of wind rattled the window panes all of a sudden and Seiichiro felt the vague tendrils of memory stir at the back of his mind and fear crept back in. He had the unnerving sense of having forgotten something very important, like the time he had forgotten to slow down in time for that one curvy road on the way home and spun out. He and Karen had been lucky enough to walk away unscathed that time but he had the urgent nagging sense that unless he did something soon they might not be so lucky again.