Pin pon~ ("ding dong" in Japanese)
"Come on in!" Amu told the visitors through the intercom. The children were jumping up and down with excitement.
Amu went to greet the visitors at the door, Ikuto following behind. Despite their excitement, the children were too shy to greet the guests.
The door opened. "Hey, Hina– I mean, Tsukiyomi!" said a lively male voice.
"Come in, Kuukai, Utau! And you can just call me Amu, Kuukai," she giggled. While Ikuto greeted the Soumas, Amu called to her kids, "Children! Come out; Aki-chan and Kaita-kun are here!"
I haven't mentioned this before, but since the Souma kids and Tsukiyomi kids are cousins, they've met quite a few times before, so they were used to them.
At the mention of their cousins and uncle and aunt being here, the Tsukiyomi children stepped boldly forward. Aki and Kaita saw them from the genkan (a place where Japanese people take off their shoes) and immediately rushed to take off their shoes.
Aki was the first to greet them. "Hey, Akito," she said boyishly and grinned. She nodded to his sisters in acknowledgment. Miu smiled back, Kiku bowed politely, and Ai just stood shyly behind Akito.
"Hello, Aki-chan and Kaita-kun," Akito replied, smiling. "I'm glad you made it."
Aki, Akito, and Kaita are the three oldest children amongst the whole gang, respectively, so they get along quite well. Aki is a competitive, tomboyish girl with brown hair and purple eyes. Kaita is a slightly timid, reluctant boy with blond hair and green eyes.
"What are you saying?" Kaita exclaimed, hitting Akito playfully. "We live only 15 minutes from here by car, so of course we would make it!"
Akito smiled. Just then a small, purple chara came out from behind Aki, followed by a white chara. Natsumi spotted them and exclaimed, "Ah, look, it's Yumi-chan and Hachiko-chan!" and flew over to them. Hakase and Tetsu followed slowly behind and the charas made a group of their own.
Yumi is a fashionable, girly, slightly snobbish character, born out of Aki's desire to be more girlish and fashionable. Hachiko is a veterinarian character with short, light blue hair. She even owns a golden retriever!
"Hello, everyone," Hachiko greeted them pleasantly while stroking her golden retriever. The dog wagged her tail in response.
Natsumi, enamored with the dog, came over to her and asked Hachiko, "May I pet her?" to which she replied, "Of course." The little dog licked Natsumi's face as Natsumi laughed. "You're as cute as ever, Honey-chan."
While Natsumi and Hachiko were engrossed with Honey, Yumi eyed Tetsu and said shyly, "Hi, Tetsu-kun," and smiled at Hakase, to which he blushed a little.
Tetsu smiled at Yumi and bowed a little. He looked around as if he was looking for something.
"What is it, Tetsu?" Hakase inquired.
"Ah, I was just wondering where Ira Ira-kun is– HEY!"
A menacing cackle sounded from behind Tetsu, whose person just messed up Tetsu's neatly-combed hair. Tetsu turned around furiously to find a spiky black-hair-with-green-streaked chara doubling over with laughter.
"IRA IRA-KUN, I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS!" Tetsu cried out angrily with a popping red vein on his forehead. He started to chase Ira Ira, who immediately took on the game of "Tag", and still cackling uncontrollably.
The other charas were watching amusingly as Tetsu made threats at Ira Ira, who in turn shouted out annoying insults at Tetsu, which made the red-head grow more hot-headed by the second.
Ira Ira is Kaita's chara. He is mischievous, teasing, and a prankster, and loves to play pranks on others, especially charas. He was born out of Kaita's desire to be a harmless prankster.
Natsumi saw that Tetsu was clearly not happy about his messed-up hair, so she was set upon stopping this chase. She flew after them, crying out, "Tetsu-kun! Ira Ira-kun! Please stop!"
It took a few moments before Tetsu realized someone was calling his name. Despite his desire to chase Ira Ira some more, he recognized the voice as Natsumi's and felt an inclination to stop. Natsumi, grateful that he finally stopped, came up to him. Ira Ira saw that he was no longer being chased, so he, bored, started to go back to the group with a stifled chuckle until Natsumi called after him, "Ira Ira-kun, come here a minute, please!"
Ira Ira sighed and turned towards Natsumi's and Tetsu's direction. As I said before, Natsumi has a positive influence on everyone, so even Ira Ira would feel inclined to come when he was told to by Natsumi.
The black-haired prankster came to them, and Natsumi requested, "Ira Ira-kun, stand here across from Tetsu-kun, please," with a pleasant smile.
Ira Ira did so. When he looked up, he saw Tetsu give a deathly glare at him. Ira Ira returned it with an I-got-you smirk, which boiled Tetsu's anger up again and started to punch him, but Natsumi stopped him. The hot-head retreated, though his anger was still boiling.
Natsumi began, "Now, I don't know what happened for you two to chase around each other like that, but I do know that it doesn't make any of you happy."
"It's fun for me," Ira Ira spoke up with a mischievous grin on his face.
"That doesn't mean that it's fun for everybody or makes others happy," Natsumi reasoned. "Now let's solve the problem by combing Tetsu-kun's hair, which he so dearly cherishes." With that, Natsumi asked Tetsu for his comb, to which he got it out of his big apron pocket, and started combing his hair, which Tetsu blushed at.
Ira Ira saw this and grinned mischievously, knowing that Tetsu liked Natsumi. He decided he would press him on this matter later, but not with Natsumi around.
"There, all done!" Natsumi said, an accomplished smile on her face. She gave Tetsu back the comb, which Tetsu took shyly and put it back into his pocket.
"Problem solved! Let's go back to the group," the bright chara smiled at them and started to go off to that direction, with the other two closely behind.
When they got there, Hakase asked Tetsu teasingly, "Had fun, huh, Tetsu?"
"Oh, shut up," he replied, screwing up his face into a disgusted look. Hakase chuckled.
Gee, I suppose this story will be longer than I thought. Well, I hope you'll be patient for the next chapter also!
I didn't list the new chara's outfits because it would kind of take up space. But don't worry, I think I'll try making a little website that lists this story's characters, charas, personalities, trivia, and appearances, so I'll make that when I finish the last chapter.