Chapter Five: Kamui Goes Out
Morning found Fuuma in a much better mood, a lightness brought about by a decent night's rest and the prospect of no school. Rather than set the alarm clock that woke him six days out of the week, Fuuma woke on his own, sometime around ten o'clock. Rubbing his eyes, he lay looking up at the ceiling for several minutes before considering getting out of bed. Next to him, Kamui stirred on top of the blankets, looking up at him. "'Morning." Fuuma mumbled, smiling sleepily. "How long've you been up?"
Kamui tapped his lips with his finger before responding with "twenty minutes and seventeen seconds."
Fuuma laughed, reaching over to ruffle his hair. "Well, sorry to keep you waiting so long."
"Kamui doesn't mind. Fuuma needs sleep." Kamui grinned, nodding in agreement with his own statement. "To recharge."
"True, but breakfast isn't a bad substitute either." Fuuma responded, throwing the covers off. "Besides, we've got a busy day today."
"Busy?"
Fuuma was halfway out the door before turning around to answer him. "Yeah, busy. Come on, I'll tell you about it over breakfast." Waiting until Kamui followed, Fuuma bounded down the stairs and into the kitchen. Not surprisingly, Kotori and Father were already up, and looked as if they had been for a while. "Morning!" Fuuma called, ducking into the refrigerator, pulling out an egg and some leftover miso soup.
"Good morning!"
Kotori giggled from her chair next to Father. "Good morning, oniichan, Kamui-chan." She turned to her brother. "There's rice in the cooker if you want it."
Fuuma filled a bowl with rice and grabbed a pair of chopsticks from a drawer before plopping down into the chair across from his father. He let the egg roll around on the table while he stirred up the soup, mixing the paste with the broth. Kotori began to squeal, and he looked up to see Kamui pushing the egg around the table, watching it roll with an intense interest. "Look." He said, pointing to it. "Not straight."
"Oh my, he has to be the cutest thing I've ever seen!" Kotori exclaimed, voicing an opinion Fuuma had at the same moment, but would have rather not said out loud. Instead, he got up from the table and retrieved another egg from the fridge, content to let Kamui play for a while.
Their father looked at the scene over the edge of the Sunday newspaper, eyes laughing. "If that falls, you're cleaning it up, Fuuma." He said lightly.
"Right, right." Fuuma said dismissively, cracking his own egg over the rice bowl, tossing the shell on the table while he stirred the yolk into the rice. He caught Kamui glancing from the bowl to the shell, and then up to him. Fuuma gestured to the empty shell. "It's food, Kamui. You break the shell, then eat the yolk inside."
"Eat the yolk?"
Fuuma nodded, picking up a clump of rice-and-egg with his chopsticks. "Yeah, but I don't think you should try and eat it, it might screw your insides up." He popped the food into his mouth and watched Kamui study the egg some more. Suddenly, the persocon whacked the egg against the table, sending smashed bits of shell onto the floor and getting the yolk all over his hands. Kotori jumped, then began to laugh at the shocked look on Kamui's face. That result had obviously been unexpected.
Trying not to choke on his food, Fuuma managed to not laugh directly in Kamui's face. Even Father had a twinkle in his eye at the sight. Kamui turned his hands over, looking at the yolk as it dripped down his fingers. He looked like he was contemplating tasting it, when Kotori waved at him. "No, no, Kamui-chan!" She scolded gently. "Don't do that! Let me get you a towel."
Father folded his paper and gazed across the table at Fuuma. "What are your plans today?"
He finished the last little bit of rice before answering. "Well, Arisugawa told me about someone who can give Kamui a software upgrade. I thought we'd head over there after breakfast." Fuuma glanced at Kamui, who was being fussed over by Kotori and thus, not paying attention. He frowned, but just shook his head. "I think he might be one of the Imonoyama, but I'm not sure about that. If he is, then he can definitely help me."
The surprise on Father's face beat out Kotori's by only a small margin. "An Imonoyama?" He asked. "Are you sure you'll even be able to see him?"
//With everything Arisugawa told me about Kamui, I'm betting that we'll get in, no problem.// Fuuma nodded. "Arisugawa arranged everything for us, Father." In truth, Sorata hadn't spoken a coherent word to him after the incident two days ago. All he had been able to get from the Kansai boy had been a series of growls and muttered curses. Without Arashi, Sorata seemed completely lost. For the past couple of days, he had been late for class and hadn't done any of his assignments. Seeing how he used her for an alarm clock and homework help, Fuuma wasn't surprised. "Don't worry about anything."
"Don't worry!" Kamui chirped, grinning widely.
Father smiled at Kamui. "All right, if you say so. I hope it doesn't cost too much."
Fuuma wholly concurred with that sentiment. Meanwhile, Kotori had finished cleaning Kamui's hands off and had begun to drag the persocon from the kitchen. "We'll have to get him some clothes!" She said firmly.
"He can just use something of mine." Fuuma responded, resisting the urge to grind his teeth.
Kotori wagged her finger at him. "Not if he's going to meet an Imonoyama, he's not!" She insisted. "He has to look -nice-, and so do you, oniichan!" With that, she disappeared upstairs, a bewildered looking Kamui in tow.
Father merely chuckled. "She means well, Fuuma." He said, as if reading his son's angry thoughts. Fuuma still hadn't gotten over how quickly she had latched on to Kamui, as if he was a new doll or something for her to play with. Dammit, Kamui was -his-!
"I know she does." Fuuma returned through clenched teeth. "I'll go get dressed now." He tried valiantly not to stomp up the stairs, thereby giving away just how irritated he felt.
Kotori took a half an hour to find Kamui something to wear. What she came up with only cemented in Fuuma's mind that she considered the persocon to be something akin to a life-sized doll. When she dragged Kamui downstairs, he was wearing one of Fuuma's old school uniforms that their mother had saved. However, it was one of his uniforms from -elementary- school, complete with tie, jacket and a pair of shorts. "It's still a little big on him," Kotori observed as she straightened his tie for what seemed like the millionth time. For his part,
Fuuma was horribly embarrassed at having to bring Kamui anywhere looking like that, despite how unbelievably cute he looked.
//It's better than a sailor suit…// Fuuma grabbed Kamui by the hand, tired of waiting, and began to pull him out the door. "We'll be back later." He told his sister shortly, and disappeared out the door. For the next few blocks, Fuuma concentrated solely on getting as far away from home in the least possible time. Kamui ran awkwardly behind him, attempting to keep up on his shorter legs. Neither of them noticed just how many people were staring at them until they paused to rest-well, when Fuuma paused to rest, anyway-outside of a convenience store.
There had to be a better way to go about getting to the address Sorata had given him than such a public route. Digging into his pocket for change, he found, with relief, that he had just enough for cab fare. Signaling the first one he saw, Fuuma shoved Kamui into the back seat and told the driver where to go. Fortunately, CLAMP Campus wasn't that far away.
The number of security checkpoints the cab driver had to go through to get onto the campus came as an immense surprise to Fuuma; he had never seen so much security around a school before, certainly not enough to rival the protection granted to the Diet or Metropolitan Government Buildings. Upon seeing their destination, Fuuma felt himself grow faint. The Imonoyama Nokoru he was coming to see was indeed a member of the powerful family. He would be dealing with a very influential, sophisticated and rich person, wearing clothing he'd owned for years and accompanied by a persocon dressed like some child pornographer's wet dream. He could feel his breakfast threatening to come back up.
"Imonoyama Mansion, sir." The driver called, pulling up in front of the huge wrought-iron gate. Beyond them stretched an enormous mansion; it was the closest thing Fuuma had ever seen to a castle, though it was nothing like the old English buildings he'd seen in history, or the ancient Osaka Castle he'd visited on vacation one time. He counted maybe four dozen windows in the front of the pristine white building, and who knew how many there were in the back. But any building with that many rooms had to be absolutely enormous on all sides.
Fuuma paid the man, hands trembling slightly, and emerged from the cab, Kamui at his heels. The persocon looked up at him, concerned. "Fuuma is all right?"
Laughing weakly, Fuuma shook his head. "This guy could probably wipe my family off the face of the earth." He muttered. "And I'm coming to -him- with a computer problem…" He had begun to think that perhaps, this wasn't such a good idea at all.
The intercom at his elbow squawked, sending them both jumping at least a foot in the air. Whimpering, Kamui clung to Fuuma's sleeve as someone began talking. "Welcome to the Imonoyama Mansion." The speaker was female, and sounded decidedly unthreatening. "Please state your business."
"Um… well… I'm Monou Fuuma, I'm here to see Imonoyama Nokoru-san about my persocon. I got his name from a friend of mine, Arisugawa Sorata. You see, I'm having some software trouble, and I was told he could help m--"
"Please enter through the gates." The voice cut off Fuuma's babbling, thankfully, before he could really get started. With a soft squeaking noise, the iron gates opened, offering them a large, brick-laden path that led up to the main door. Fuuma stole a quick look behind him at Kamui, who just smiled up at him, oblivious as usual to anything amiss. The persocon took hold of his hand and waited for Fuuma to lead on, a frightening bit of trust that suddenly made Fuuma feel uncomfortable. Patting Kamui's head, he extracted his hand and hurried up the front walk.
A few steps from the door, Fuuma turned and saw Kamui still standing at the gate, looking down at his hand. Fuuma bit his lip and forced down a feeling of guilt. Kamui couldn't be sad, could he? Even if he was, it was just a computer program… it wasn't as if those feelings were real. "Come on, Kamui!" He called. After a moment, the persocon ran to catch up to him. Fuuma turned and approached the massive wooden door, swallowing thickly and ringing the bell.