Desu to everyone who read the first chapter! Here is the second!

Chapter 2

Anything Can Happen

"OK...let's pick teams for a snowball fight!"

"That'd be awesome! But we have five people..."

Hearing this, Kouji turned to Izumi.

"Where's Junpei-senpei? I thought you called him."

"Well..." Izumi trailed off. "I thought he was coming..."

Splat.

Kouji felt something cold hit the side of his cheek, and he whirled immediately.

"Oops! Sorry, Akito!" called an older boy from the street, who was now approaching the house. "That was for Takuya!"

"You might just want to call him by his nicknames, Junpei...he almost murdered me when I called him Ji-san..." Takuya warned, pretending to be serious. He was the one who had thought up of the snowball fight.

"It was pretty funny..." Tomoki snickered, who had reinforced the idea of a fight.

Junpei had now come up to the side of the house, grinning.

"Fine, no nicknames. But let's get on with that snowball fight!"

Takuya and Izumi were the captains, and Takuya had just selected Tomoki for his team.

"Kouji," said Izumi, a glimmer in her eye.

"Nooo! He's the best pitcher!" whined Takuya. "I was going to pick him next!"

"Should've chosen him first."

"Fine! Junpei can throw pretty far too!"

"That leaves me with Kouichi!" laughed Izumi.

"Argh! And the best defense?"

In no time, the fight had begun. Izumi and the twins had taken refuge in a line of thick pines, where Kouichi and Izumi crafted snowballs while Kouji pelted them at a snow mound, where Takuya's team hid behind.

Junpei and Takuya burst out behind the mound and chucked some chunks back at him, crying out a war whoop.

One of their snowballs hit Kouji on the side of his head, and he staggered in surprise.

Ow! They must have ice-balls or something!

Izumi ran out from the trees with several snowballs in her hands.

"Take them!"

Kouji took two and pelted them both at Junpei, then made three more aimed for Takuya's head. They cried out in surprise, and were not very successful at getting revenge.

"You think we got them on the ropes?" asked Izumi, laughing as they threw weak clumps of snow at them, missing them by more than a foot.

Kouichi laughed, and Kouji managed a grin.

After an endless back and forth firing of snow and ice, Izumi's mother called them in for hot cocoa. It was undetermined which side won the fight.

"We conquered you!" Takuya insisted. "We clobbered, crush, and ultimately defeated you!"

"No way! You should have seen your faces when you were being buried in snowballs!"

Kouji kicked the snow off his boots idly as he listened to Izumi and Takuya's latest argument. He slipped off his jacket and hung it in a rack in the closest, and even after he had taken off his snow pants, gloves, hat, scarf, and boots, they were still fighting.

"Look, Izumi...!"

"Don't you start with me, Takuya!"

"Come on, guys, let's call it a tie and get some hot chocolate." Kouichi sighed.

One the table in the kitchen were six mugs of boiled water with boxes of cocoa flavoring packets, and a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies. Mrs. Orimoto hovered around the kitchen, looking for spoons and napkins.

Kouji poured a French Vanilla packet into his silver mug, and stirred it with his spoon just handed to him, the metal clinking quietly against the ceramic.

"Well...I'd say we'd call it a day." said Takuya.

"Yeah. I have homework to do one way or another." Kouichi agreed. He sipped his mug.

"Same here," said Junpei.

"I have a book report," added Tomoki.

"Fine, but let's IM what we're going to do tomorrow, OK? There's bound to be lots of things you can do on a weekend like this."

Izumi took a drink of her hot chocolate.

"Anything can happen!"

Kouji froze up, even after taking a casual gulp of his steamy drink.

Anything can happen...

-o-o-o-

Kouji had just opened the door to the house when he heard someone yell at him.

"Kouji! Where the hell 'ave you been?" his father roared from the living room. "An' where's Satomi?"

He's drunk, Kouji thought to himself. He could smell alcohol from where he stood, shrugging off his coat.

"She went to town to run some errands," Kouji replied calmly. He walked into the living room where his father sat on the couch, his suit from work still on, beer bottles rolling and clanking on the carpet. Kouji noticed the television was on and that there appeared to be a football game being played.

"Liar! The two of you left at eight in the mornin'! It's 'our in the afternoon!" He bellowed, chugging down some more liqueur.

How does he know? Well...for all I know he could've been stealing beer in the fridge...

But wait..it's four? But...that can't be right. She couldn't't have been gone for eight hours!

"An' where were you?"

"I...went to Izumi's house until one. Then I shoveled driveways until 3:45," Kouji explained quickly.

"Fine. You're off the 'ook. Put the money on my desk and call 'Tomi."

"Fine, and while I do that, you go sober," Kouji muttered under his breath. He walked over to his father's study and pulled out the forty dollars he had gotten shoveling for his two neighbors. He made sure his father wasn't in sight, and pulled out ten dollars for himself.

He won't notice...he'll still have thirty...

Remembering his last assignment, he picked up the phone in the study and dialed Satomi's cell number. He stooped down to pet his energetic Shepard, Shadow, who danced around his feet.

After a few rings, he was asked to leave a message.

I guess I don't have much of a choice...

The phone abruptly beeped. Shadow jumped up and barked, her tail thrashing back and forth.

However, she wasn't looking at Kouji or the phone.

"Satomi, it's Kouji. Where are you? I just got home and Dad says you haven't been here since this morning. Please call me back, I don't care if it's on my cell or house phone. Bye."

Kouji turned off the phone, and sighed. What was going to happen now?

Shadow was sent into fits of barking when the doorbell rang at that moment.

He heard his father order him to get the door, so Kouji briskly went over to and opened the door.

He had to blink his eyes at the flashing lights of red and blue around him. He looked up to see two police men glaring at him.

"Is this the Minamoto residence?" asked one of them, holding a notepad.

Kouji suddenly couldn't breathe. He nodded slowly. He thought he heard the sound of police sirens and people talking in the front yard, but he wasn't so sure of anything at that moment.

"We need to speak to your father."

Before Kouji could think he saw his father approach from behind. He had fixed up his hair while Kouji had stalled and he could smell the fresh scent of mints on his breath.

"Yes, Officer?" he asked, hands on the doorframe.

"Well...we've got some bad news."

Oh, dear. What happened? This next chapter I may have to bump up the rating a bit...but...hope that doesn't stop you!

Silver

P.S - I DO realize there weren't any reviews for my last chapter...but oh, well!