Wow, I have so many thanks to give away!
Thank you to lilyannp and the anonymous guest for reviewing! (Message for lilyannp: Leiko Rin is actually a cool character, just wait and see.) Thanks to ClaritaNox for favoriting/following and thank you to Kaye Wonderland for favoriting/following this story as well as favoriting my first OC fic, Ouran Infiltrated!
Anyway, enjoy!
"Ow," I say, rubbing my head. "That was rude."
The woman with the baseball bat glowers at me and raises it higher, exclaiming, "Who are you and why are you in my house?" I shove the bobby pin I used to pick the lock into my silver hair, two tiny flowers balanced behind my ears.
"Mizuki Kokoro Aihana," I bow dramatically. "I snuck in here because you weren't answering the doorbell and I need to talk to you. I'm a friend of your neighbor Fujioka and I'm here to tell you to go ahead an unpack all of your boxes. We're saving your home."
"Why would you do that?" I grin noticing that the baseball bat is still raised, but my face falls when I try to tell her the reason.
"My friend Haruhi Fujioka told us about your daughter, how she's sick," I stare at the woman's tiled floor. "I have a little brother in Karuizawa, he's sick too, and he's not getting better. I just, if my little brother isn't going to live, I want someone else to."
"Well, Aihana," the woman finally lowers the bat. "I won't call the police. Just leave and don't come back."
"Just Mizuki," I correct. With a smile, I pluck an indigo flower from the braid down my back and hand it to her with ceremony. "For you to remember me by. Mizuki Aihana, the girl that saved you all."
"I'm thankful, Mizuki," the woman says, holding the small flower close. I smile once more at her before dipping out the door and on to the landing.
I walk home in the cold rain, the umbrella saving only my jacket, hair and face from the water. But I don't feel cold at all. I feel warm. After all, this is the reason I live; to help others by hurting a few. Its really fun.
X-***-X
I knock on the door of the owner of the commoners' apartment complex. After a tense moment, a fat man in an unbuttoned sports jacket answers.
"What do you want?" he asks rather rudely.
"Hi!" I say cheerily. "I'm selling cookies for a fundraiser at my school and I was wondering if- OW!" The man slammed the door right on my foot. With a grimace, I kick it open and tug a wooden gun painted with shoe polish out of my waistband. Smiling like a maniac, I growl, "Do not scream and do not try to run. I will shoot you, don't underestimate me. Now, I want the password to your computer. You can sit in the corner."
The man shakily raises his hands to his chest and backs into what I can now see is a small office. There is a metal desk and a tiny, old looking desktop computer as well as a series of file cabinets and odd trinkets. I push past him, closing and locking the door, and sit in the office chair, taunting him for the password. He stammers out what I guess to be the name of a pet or something (he doesn't look like the kind of person with a family or friends) and I type it in quickly.
"I'm in," I say into my earpiece. "Can you see on the button cam?"
"Yeah," Takumi says into my ear. For the next five or so minutes, he guides me through an irritatingly complicated process of various inputs and commands and files and things I will never understand. Finally, he says into my ear that it's done and to continue.
"Alright," I say, pushing the chair away from the desk and standing, the fake gun dangling from between my fingers. "You gotta go to sleep now."
"Do you m- mean you're going to k- kill me?" The man stammers.
"Nuh-uh," I laugh. "I'm an illusionist, not a murderer." With that, I take out an LED flashlight and click it repeatedly in his face, flashing it on and off rapidly. Then, I reach down and smack him hard across his cheek, sending him sprawling across the cement floor. The light is stuffed quickly into my pocket, the fake gun tossed out a window where I can retrieve it later. I kneel next to the man and widen my eyes innocently.
"Are you okay, sir?" I ask in my best sweet voice. "You passed out."
"I'm fine..." He says with a pained voice, holding his cheek and squinting. "Who are you?"
"Don't you remember me, boss?" I ask, injecting some kind of offense into my voice. "My name's Kokoro, I've been your assistant for the past year. You must have taken quite a fall if you don't remember me."
"Oh, right, Kokoro," the man says with confusion, sitting up on the floor. "What happened?"
"When I came in to bring you your newspaper, I found you like this. But don't worry, I already called an ambulance, sir. They'll be here soon. Oh, I know, I should go wait for them! Also, before I forget, I picked this flower for you and thought you might like it." I pull the second indigo flower from my hair and press it securely into his hand.
"You do that," he says shortly, still blinking in confusion and staring oddly at my flower. I rush out the door, closing it behind me with a grin. After retrieving my wooden gun, I open my umbrella and walk away once more into the drizzling, night, pulling my jacket tighter around my stomach and watching my breath fog in the autumn chill.
X-***-X
A few days later, the sickly girl is admitted into the hospital. Kagami, Takumi and I all visit her the day after she's admitted. When we reach her room, the girl is asleep, breathing lightly. I look around the room as Kagami places a vase of flowers by her bedside (indigos and a tacky collection of roses, of course). My eyes alight first on the girl's mother, the lady I talked to when I "broke in" to their house.
"Hello," I greet politely. "Remember me?"
"Mizuki Aihana," the woman says, standing and bowing shallowly. "I can't thank you enough."
"You don't need to," I say. Next to me, Takumi nudges me in the side urgently. I ignore him.
"Get better," Kagami wishes the unconscious girl, patting her awkwardly on the hand before grabbing my elbow and tugging us out the door and down the hall.
X-***-X
"Mission accomplished!" I announce grandly, spreading my arms wide and slamming the music room doors open, only slightly surprised to see dozens of ladies in sunburst dresses turning my way. I am otherwise ignored by the hosts fro the rest of the day, except the occasional sidebar comment directed to me or a (polite) request for items related to casual snacking.
Although, when everyone clears out and only the club is left, I am immediately hug-glomped by an overexcited Tamaki.
"You really did it, Mizuki!" He squeals.
"Impressive," the twins say together.
"She's safely in the hospital now and I made sure that Haruhi's neighbors aren't getting evicted any time soon."
"Thanks a lot, Mizu-chan," Haruhi says from the side. I turn to her and smile.
"No problem."
Not long after that, Takumi and Kagami drop by to pick me up from the music room and ride home. We all ride in silence, Takumi buried in a math textbook and Kagami staring forlornly out the window at the rolling hills, probably missing Karuizawa. I am silenced by my own thoughts.
I never would have refused to help the girl, but was there possibly another way I could have done it? Sure, bribery is always an option and it's much less violent but it doesn't always work. But what if I had refused to help her? She would probably have died, end of story. What if someone had found me? What if... oh no.
What if Kyoya Ootori finds another way to blackmail me, to keep me from performing my illusions? Of course that's always a possibility. They love the spotlight too much for their own good. But then again, so do I.
Right, before I go, I should thank my best friend (also the inspiration for Leiko Rin) FEEEEEESH, without whom I would not, could not, and certainly should not be writing this story.
