"… Eighteen, nineteen, twenty!"
The indigo-haired boy turned around from the tree trunk he was covering his eyes on.
His golden eyes searched the spacious park where they were playing hide-and-seek with the rest of the kids. All of the families have arrived, have eaten, and then decided to go to the park to rest a little. Some of the children wanted to play hide-and-seek, while some others either played tag or just conversed with each other.
"Mou ii kai?" (A/N: Translation – "Are you ready?") Naoki Fujisaki shouted loud enough for the other contestants to hear.
"Mada da yo!" (A/N: Translation – "Not yet!") he heard a few voices shout back at him. He turned around and counted to twenty once again.
After counting, Naoki turned around and shouted "Are you ready?" again, this time having a couple of voices respond, "Mou ii yo!" (A/N: Translation – "It's okay!")
Relieved that they were finally ready, he set off to find Kaita, Riya Sanjou, Hikari Fujisaki, Sei, and Ai.
As he was walking around, the nine-year-old grumbled to himself, "Why did I have to lose to janken to be the oni? I'd rather be the hider…" he sighed. "I guess I can't help it."
He searched around a tree until he found his five-year-old younger brother, Hikari, bundled up in a ball with his blond hair sticking out.
"I found Hikari!" Naoki triumphantly said, grabbing Hikari, setting him off in a fit of giggles. He put his brother down and instructed him to go to the "pen". Then he went off to find the others.
He found Kaita and Riya eventually, and all that was left were Sei and Ai. Naoki set off to find them. The children sat down and watched him.
Hikari's yellow eyes noticed something black hovering over Riya's dark green hair. He stood up and reached to grab it, but the little chara was too quick for him. Riya noticed the movement and faced towards Hikari. "What's wrong?" she asked him, her cool but soft brown eyes questioning.
"Just now, I saw a little boy in a tuxedo around Riya-onee-chan's head, and I thought he might be bothering you, so I tried to grab him," he cutely explained.
Before eight-year-old Riya could reply, Hikari exclaimed, "Oh, look! Kaita-onii-chan has a little bad-looking person over his head!" he ran over to try to grab it, but Ira Ira flew out of his grasp, grinning. The cocky grin motivated Hikari to chase him even more, so he tried jumping and grabbing him, but failed. Ira Ira grinned and grinned every time Hikari made an attempt to catch him, and he started to cackle menacingly before long.
When Ira Ira got way out of Hikari's reach, the blond-haired boy decided that he would wait until the strange little chara would come down.
Hikari faced Kaita, who was grinning at the five-year-old's futile attempts to catch the prankster chara, and confidently said, "Don't worry, Kaita-onii-chan. I will catch the bad person for you!"
Both Kaita and Ira Ira reached their limit and laughed so long and hard that tears were coming out of their eyes and they were hiccupping when they finally stopped. Hikari just stood there, puzzled at the sudden laughter, and almost forgot to grab Ira Ira when he came down to Kaita's side. Riya was also chuckling a bit.
The brown-haired boy wiped his tears, and said between hiccups, "Hikari, this chara isn't a bad one. He just likes to play harmless pranks, that's all. Ira Ira doesn't mean any harm."
"Oh," Hikari said, content. He felt a little embarrassed at his assumption, but he giggled in spite of himself.
The black-haired-with-green-streaks chara faced Hikari and introduced himself. "My name is Ira Ira. Nice to meet you," he grinned, and chuckled a bit.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Hikari," the blond smiled, then frowned. "Is your name Ira Ira because you're always irritated? Is that why you have that popping vein on your head?" (A/N: "Ira ira" in Japanese means "to be irritated".)
Ira Ira cackled and replied, "No, it's because the pranks I play on people cause them to be irritated and maybe get a popping vein," he grinned, then whispered in his ear, "Watch this!"
He went over to the tuxedo chara, who all this time has been floating next to Riya, and said mischievously, "Hey, Kaito, your tuxedo shirt got dirty."
"Eh, really?!" Kaito exclaimed, examining his nice white shirt. While he was doing so, he felt something being taken out of his left hand.
"KORA! Give me back my wand!" Kaito exclaimed angrily, chasing after Ira Ira, who was cackling uncontrollably. "I'll give it back if you let me use it once!" he hollered back mischievously.
Kaito gained speed and flailed his arms. "No! If you use it wrongly, who knows what'll happen!"
"That's the fun of it, Kaito!" the prankster cackled back.
Kaito chased and chased Ira Ira, having surprising stamina without his top hat falling off.
The magician chara was getting tired of chasing Ira Ira, so he shouted, "Fine, I'll let you use it! Just don't mess anything up!"
When Ira Ira heard that, he looked pleased and went over to Kaito, who glared at him. "And you better not use it on me!"
The prankster cackled. Kaito was getting irritated. "Just hurry up and use it, will you?!
"Ah, sorry, I think I won't after all," Ira Ira concluded nonchalantly, handing him back the wand.
Kaito was exasperated and exploded, "You mean I chased you all for nothing?!" he looked so enraged that he looked as if he might break his own wand, but controlled it. A popping vein appeared on his forehead.
Ira Ira left him that way, giving a low chuckle. He came back to Hikari, who was watching the scene with a worried look on his face, and said, "See? All I do is harmless pranks, although they may irritate a lot of people, which is what I do," he grinned.
The five-year-old nodded, still looking a bit concerned.
Meanwhile, back to Naoki…
The indigo-haired boy searched and searched for the two four-year-olds, but couldn't find them anywhere. Naoki sighed. "Either they must be really good hiders or they keep changing hiding places…"
He was feeling a little thirsty, so he decided to stop by the place where his parents were talking to Ikuto, Amu, Tadase, and Shiina.
His mother, Rima, wasn't talking at the moment, so Naoki went up to her and tugged on her sleeve. The short, pretty blonde looked up, smiled, and asked, "What is it, Naoki? Are you finished with your game?"
Rima's son shook his head. "No, I'm still looking for Sei-kun and Ai-chan. I've been searching for them for three minutes, and still haven't found them. I'm thirsty, Okaa-san. Do you have any drink?"
She shuffled around in her bag and found the thermos with unsweetened tea in it. Rima handed it to Naoki, and he screwed the top off, poured the tea in the cap, and drank thirstily out of it. He did that two more times until he was satisfied. Naoki handed back the thermos and continued his search.
You may ask, "Where could Sei and Ai be? Are they in trouble?!"
Well, let's find out for ourselves.
When Sei and Ai were finding hiding places, Sei spotted a large hole in the ground, pretty far away from the rest. He walked over to the hole and saw that the hole wasn't too deep and that he could crouch in it. The dark red-haired boy looked over to Ai and saw that she was still searching for a hiding place. So he had an idea.
"Ai-chan!" he said after he reached her. Ai turned around shyly with a questioning look in her eyes. He took one of her hands and said eagerly, "I found a hiding place big enough to hold us! Come on!" and led her to the hole.
Ai looked down uncertainly at the depth of the hole. Sei noticed this and assured her, "Don't worry, I'll make sure you won't get hurt!" with a big smile. The shy blue-head blushed at his smile, smiled back, and replied, "Okay!"
Sei got down in the hole and helped Ai get down. Then he crouched against the wall of the hole and told Ai to do the same. So now they were both just sitting there, waiting to be found.
Ai was noticing something she hadn't felt before. Her little heart seemed to beat faster when she was near the kind little red-head, and they had only met today. She had never felt like this when she was with someone else, not even with her beloved daddy. She decided to tell Sei about it.
"Sei-kun…" she began in a soft voice. Sei turned to her. "I don't know why, but my heart seems to beat a little faster when I'm with you. I haven't felt like this before with anyone else," Ai looked at him with a little blush on her face. "Do you know what it could be?"
The four-year-old looked a little puzzled. "You know what, Ai-chan? My heart does that, too when I'm with you… I wonder what it could be?"
Ai's eyes widened. "Really? You feel like that, too? I wonder if there's some sort of connection between us," she pondered.
Sei rested the side of his head on his raised knees, also pondering. Then he smiled. "Well, whatever it is, it sure makes me feel happy. Let's always be together, okay?" he reached for Ai's little hand and squeezed it. Both of their hearts did a little flip when they touched. They were too young to understand what romantic love was, but they were old enough to somehow know that they would never be separated.
They kept holding each other's hands for minutes. Sei noticed how long it was taking for Naoki to find them and remarked, "I wonder what's happening with Naoki-nii-san… I hope he hasn't forgotten to find us, or just give up," he worried.
Ai saw his worry and squeezed his hand. "Don't worry, Sei-kun. I'm sure that you found such a good hiding place that Naoki-onii-chan has trouble finding us," she assured him with a cute smile. Sei blushed at the flattery.
In the end, Naoki couldn't find them, and yelled out for them to come out, which they did. Naoki praised them for finding such a good hiding place, and they beamed at each other. The hide-and-seek players all gathered around and inquired whether they should play the game again or play tag with the other children. Most of them decided to play tag, and the rest that wanted to play hide-and-seek were few, so they also decided to play tag.
As the hide-and-seek gang were nearing the tag gang, Naoki called out to anybody who would answer, "Can we play onigokko, too?"
"Yeah, just run along with the rest of us!" Akito answered, currently being chased by Tadashi, who was vigorously trying his best to tag anybody he could.
And so the afternoon went by with the children playing tag, until their parents said it was time to go back to the house.
Finally done after more than a week! Sorry it took so long, but it's kind of hard to come up with ideas. I still have two children to introduce, so hopefully I'll find time to introduce them in the next chapter, which will hopefully be the last one!
And, I didn't put this in the last chapter, but if you're wondering, Shiina isn't part of the original Shugo Chara cast; I just made her up so Tadase could have a partner, as I'm not too comfortable with him with anybody else. Let's pretend that they all met her in high school.
Here are the Japanese words that I put in the story just for some variety:
Janken – Rock, paper, scissors; a game that Japanese children play when they're choosing somebody to be "it", or just for fun.
Oni – Demon; they also use this word to call somebody "it".
Kora! – "Hey!", not as a greeting.
Okaa-san – Mother/Mom
Onii-chan/Onee-chan/Onii-san/Onee-san – Older brother/Older sister; this can be used by children when addressing somebody you respect or to someone you consider close (adults don't use that, in that case, and you wouldn't normally call an old person or an adult this unless you're his/her actual brother/sister).
Onigokko - Tag