Chapter 4
"Alright you rabble!" Haru yelled happily at the children, hands planted firmly on her hips, arms akimbo and feet planted firmly apart. "Easter Saturday Picnic in one hour! You know what that means: picnic stations!"
The children had congregated once more before the TV when breakfast was over – there were a couple more cartoons that happened later – but at Haru's words, they all went running. Over-nines went to the kitchen and started packing picnic baskets – Haru had already made sandwiches and filled thermoses with soups and warm drinks; five-to-eight-year-olds filled drink-bottles with water; children under five sought out the bats, balls, frizbies, hats and sun-screen. Haru collected her own hat from her room, as well as the first-aid kit – she hoped that she wouldn't need it, but there was always someone who would fall down and scrape their knee or something like that.
"Picnic stations?" enquired the Baron quietly as he snuck out from beneath Haru's hair, making sure that none of the children were still in the room. She had been quite firm that he not be seen by them.
"It's easier for me, and a bit of fun responsibility for them, and nothing gets left behind this way either," she answered by way of explanation. "Hold tight, I'm about to flop," she added.
He didn't have time to ask what she meant, but held tightly to the base of her braid as she moved almost heavily over to a large couch, now vacant of the ten or so children that had been piled on and around it just five minutes before. She proceeded to fall backwards onto it. The couch went oomph, and Haru sighed, closing her eyes to listen to the children being busy in the other rooms.
"Tired are we?" enquired the living statuette innocently as he stepped out onto her shoulder again.
"You were a witness to breakfast in this house Baron – don't tell me watching them doesn't make you feel just a little old." Haru lay her head against the back of the couch, no longer having to worry about Baron hiding there. "And I get older every year," she added.
Baron pulled off his plain brown shoes and started pressing his socked feet heavily into the shoulder he was standing on, trying to knead the tension out of the woman who so captivated him.
"Mmm," she moaned contentedly, rolling her head away from the shoulder that was being worked. "That feels nice," she added, her words a different kind of moan, though just as content.
A minute later, Baron slipped under the braid and out again, onto the other shoulder, which he proceeded to treat the same way.
Both shoulders now loosened of the accumulated tension of nearly fifteen years, the cat hopped down to the seat of the couch and allowed himself to be picked up and deposited in the brunette's lap. There, he proceeded to snuggle down in a fashion somewhere between a cat and a child.
Haru smiled and slipped his shoes back onto his feet for him, wishing there were some way for her to return the favour.
Children slowly trickled back into the large living room, their focus on the TV, which Haru hadn't touched. She rose and headed out to the bus she had bought – it was an old bus that had once done routs around the city, but now it served her purpose of moving a large number of children – and their schoolbags or in this case, picnic stuff.
She started loading the baskets, bags, coolers, sports equipment and toys into the bus's spacious undercarriage, closing doors as the spaces filled up. When there was nothing left to load – except the children – she returned to her front door and, with her smile fixed firmly in place, told them all that it was time to go.
Baron stayed hidden under the long brown hair for the entire drive.
The children ran around the park almost wildly – playing games of tag, hide-and-seek, and all manner of other games – while Haru and Baron lay out the food on one of the larger picnic tables. Hiromi arrived with Tsuge just as Haru put down the last pile of sandwiches on the tablecloth.
"And they arrive just in time to not need to worry about helping," Haru said with a smile as she looked up at them. "We're one great, big, slightly dysfunctional family. Set a date yet?"
"June first," Hiromi answered, slightly defiantly, a triumphal smile on her lips.
"You sat down and argued about it last night didn't you? After I asked you yesterday," Haru quavered, sorry about having caused a fight, but glad to finally have a result.
"No apologies, we had to pick a date eventually, you just convinced me to sit him down and discuss it," the blonde ordered in her friendly, slightly bossy way.
"And it was a civil conversation," Tsuge added, his arm still around his fiancee's shoulders. "Not an argument."
"Alright then," Haru smiled. She cupped her hands around her mouth and called the children in. They would eat, then they would play some more, and Haru would wonder quietly about Hiromi and Tsuge adopting one of her charges. She loved them all dearly, but it was better for them all to have two parents all to themselves, rather than just her and swarms of friends all the time – including when they didn't want them.
"Hey Haru," Hiromi started, watching the children running around playing after they had eaten. Tsuge had gone with them, playing soccer with some of the older boys, deliberately playing a little badly now and then, but still showing off moves as he skidded the ball around them. "I talked to Tsuge about something else as well last night. He wants to wait a bit, let the honeymoon go on for as long as we can, but…"
"You told him about you not being able to have kids, huh?" Haru asked, though it was more of a statement.
Hiromi nodded sadly. "He'd really like to be a father, but I can't give him that. He still loves me, but I was wondering… could you set us up with one of yours around about Christmas time?"
Haru smiled, glad that she hadn't had to put the idea into Hiromi's head – it would have felt too much like manipulation and playing off a known weakness. It wasn't something she liked doing. It made her feel dirty.
"Tsuge would like a boy?" the brunette suggested, looking over at the tall man letting himself be toppled by the irrepressible Yin and his friends.
"I kind of think he'd like both," Hiromi answered. "A boy to rough-house with, and a girl to hold up to treat like a princess. I know I'd like a little girl, to teach her how to cook and play lacrosse."