"It was no fun that Keitaro was leaving."
- Kaolla Su; 'From MolMol with Love'

Chapter XII:
Zen and the Art of Coming Out

April 12, 2007
Hinata Apartments, Hinata, Japan
1103 hours, local time

"...In spite of increasing global opposition to the war in Iraq, King Su of MolMol continues to express support for the ongoing US presence in the Middle East, stating that, quote, 'The policy of President Bush that the terrorists must be engaged on their own soil rather than be allowed to wreak havoc in American cities is the correct one.' When questioned on his country's willingness to send its own forces to Iraq, the king declined further comment, citing that the operational policies of the US military and the MolMolian military are too dissimilar to allow for effective coordination in combat."

Furrowing her brow, Kitsune leaned her head back over the couch she was reclining on just in time to spot Kaolla sneaking out of the kitchen with a bushel of bananas in her arms. "Hey, Su!" she called out, startling the MolMolian princess. "Just what does your dad mean when he says that?"

Recovering quickly, Kaolla leaped from where she had been standing to land seated on the couch next to Kitsune, having plucked a banana from the bunch midway and already consumed half of it. "Hey, I thought I was the one that was supposed to have super agility," Kitsune said sourly, referring to her 'heroic class.'

Kaolla tilted her head to one side. "It's just something that comes to me naturally, I guess," she said, then stuffed the rest of the banana in her mouth and looked at the TV. "Now what were ya talking' about?"

"Lady on the news was talkin' about your country, and how the king said that the MolMolian military wouldn't work too well together with the American military," Kitsune explained.

"Oh, that's right," Kaolla said, nodding. "The Americans rely far too much on their advanced military technology in a battlefield. While there's nothing wrong with that perspective, the military of my country uses a combination of advanced technology and magical prowess. It's why such a small military is so effective, but it also means that we really can't send anybody to help in other areas of the world."

Kitsune chuckled and crossed her arms over her chest. "I guess the rest of the world's not too keen on subscribing to magic of any kind, huh?" she mused. "Even after half a year, I'm still having some trouble getting used to it, myself. But with all the stuff that we can all do now, it's kinda crazy."

"Yep, yep!" Kaolla remarked, then jumped up and dashed up the stairs toward her room, leaving Kitsune to flip through the channels on the television, looking for a decent soap opera.

After a moment, she stopped flipping channels and held up the slip of paper Keitaro had given her that morning, a "Gift Certificate for One Free Request." He'd given them out to everyone, even Nealla, Sabashii, and Lorenzo. "What's the big idea givin' us these, Keitaro?" she asked the air, staring at the gift certificate with both eyes open.

April 12, 2007
Tokyo University, Tokyo, Japan
1110 hours, local time

"So, part-timer..." Seta said, looking up from the book he had been reading. "You've finally made up your mind, have you?"

Motioning to the side with a nod, Seta and Keitaro started to wander across the campus in the general direction of the cafeteria. "I won't lie," the archaeologist continued. "It's a remarkably hard exam. Of the forty people who qualify for it, only six will get to go."

"Ouch," Keitaro said, rubbing the back of his head. "Sounds hard. On the off-chance that I'm one of the lucky six, I'll be working with you, won't I?"

The archaeologist professor nodded. "So, have you told everyone at Hinata-S? yet?"

Again, this was cause for the Tokyo U student to rub his head. "Well, Seno knows because he caught me with all those information books," he replied. "Other than that, it's sort of hard to break the news. I'm working on it, though."

"You should probably tell them sometime soon," Seta said, taking his lit cigarette out of his mouth. "If not, you might want to lull them into a good mood by issuing them a 'Do anything you want' gift certificate before spilling the beans."

Needless to say, Keitaro was floored by the extreme coincidence there, then he laughed. "That's exactly what I did!"

Seta laughed as well. "Ooh, then great minds do think alike!"

Unbeknownst to Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber, Naru and Mutsumi were just passing by at that time, and Naru happened to overhear the last snippits of their conversation. While Mutsumi was rambling on about what she was going to have for lunch, Naru wondered, What are those two doing?

April 12, 2007
Hinata Apartments, Hinata, Japan
1317 hours

A lazy afternoon had descended upon the apartments. Kitsune had actually gotten off the couch for a change, and was in Su's room seeing about anything the technological genius could do to whip her up some good weapons to use. Lorenzo was up on the roof of the building; he'd set up a target thrower there and was polishing his marksmanship skills with his weapon of choice, a specially-modified M14 carbine.

In Room 302, there was a rare silence, as all the electronic entertainment systems were off and the lights were out. Seno was asleep on the futon, turned to face the wall. Beside him, Motoko sat up and ran a hand through her disheveled hair, then stood up and padded softly to the door, slipping out and moving down the hall toward the kitchen for a drink.

Next door, in Seno's old room, Sabashii was adding the finishing touches to his room. As had been seen with both Kaolla and her sister Amalla, Sabashii seemed to share that MolMolian capacity to turn a set amount of space into a dimensional nightmare. Various eyecandy posters of assorted anime girls and pop stars adorned the walls, along with the man's impressive collection of weapons, all properly cataloged and kept within their display cases. He had stowed the futon in the closet in favor of a Western-style four-post bed of Gothic Victorian make, complete with a mirror set above it, black metal frame, and curtains. And to top it all off, he had a love swing dangling from the ceiling, and various bondage equipment scattered across the room.

One floor down, in Room 203, Nealla sat perched on her windowsill, looking out over the scenic view of Hinata Onsen and Sagami Bay beyond. Behind her, her room was a faithful recreation of MolMol's jungles, much the way Kaolla's was. The computer lab area that was Kaolla's trademark was absent; its de facto replacement being a harem-style bed with a variety of cushions of differing sizes and shapes, set beside a dipping pool both deep and large enough to function as both a mirror and soaking pond.

Turning away from the world outside her room, she lifted her right hand, in which she held the free gift coupon that Keitaro had given her. To put it frankly, she was confused by the significance of the thing, and why he had decided to give her one. She hadn't had any ideas of what she could use it for, but figured that she would know what to use it for when the time came.

She lowered the coupon and glanced inward at her redecorated room. "It'll never quite be home," she said quietly as she climbed down from the window, closed the curtain, and moved deeper into her room.

Next door, in Keitaro's room, Shinobu was moving about the room, tidying up. It was that period of downtime between lunch and gathering the laundry, and with nothing better to do, she decided that she would take some time to clean up the rooms of the tenants that were currently out. And being that Naru and Keitaro were pretty much the only ones fitting in that category, she figured she'd start with Keitaro's room first. She was hardly in the room for five minutes before her shriek echoed throughout the otherwise-quiet building.

Upstairs, Sabashii looked up from oiling a Middle Ages European waraxe upon hearing the shriek. A girl is screaming and I have nothing to do with it? he mused. That's a problem. Turning the waraxe to a battle-ready grip, he stormed out of his room and toward the stairs.

Seno was likewise immediately wakened by the sound, in time to look up and see the barechested Sabashii barreling past his door brandishing a waraxe. Without missing a beat, his left hand shot over to grab Shinaijou from its place on the nightstand next to him, then ran directly to the outside railing, leapt over it, and grabbed the bottom rail to pivot himself down and into the second floor hallway.

The closest to the scene was Motoko, who was making her way back up from the kitchen. Despite this, she didn't manage to get into the room before Sabashii, but she was just as prepared as the new tenant and her husband. "Shinobu, what's going on?" she asked, her hands glowing with ki as her eyes flicked about the room, looking for the source of Shinobu's scream.

Seno landed on the second floor at that moment and backed into the room, his left hand holding his sword out to the side with his right hand on the hilt, guarding against a potential attack from the rear.

Shinobu, meanwhile, hadn't screamed due to any sort of attacker or thief or anything like that. She had been cleaning Keitaro's room and a pile of books had fallen out of the closet on her. That had been the cause of her shriek as she sat there on the floor, rubbing her head painfully with one eye closed.

Then she looked up and noticed the bloody war party that had entered the room, feeling the heat rise to her face. Quickly, she waved her hands out in front of her. "No, guys, I'm okay!" she explained. "I was cleaning up Keitaro's room and all these books fell out of the closet on me."

Releasing her gathered ki, Motoko crossed the room to pick up some of the books, half expecting them to be adult in nature. But to her great surprise, every last one of them was about the United States, most of them travel guides and the like focusing on the West Coast, particularly California.

"American information booklets? How odd that Keitaro would have these..."

Behind her, Seno looked back, caught sight of the very travel guides he'd caught Keitaro with himself, and swore silently.

Sabashii blinked at the cause of the commotion, upended the axe to rest with its blade-end on the ground, and then leaned against the shaft. "Traveling to the Americas is pretty expensive unless you're going on a grant or something," he said, pulling one of the books from the pile and looking it over. "Depending on where you're staying, the cost of living is pretty high too. California and Las Vegas are the worst; but that's because there are a lot of tourists depending on what part of California you go to, and Vegas is always crowded, even in the off seasons. Are you okay, Shinobu?"

Shinobu smiled warmly at Sabashii and nodded, then hopped back up to her feet and started to gather up the information books. "I'm okay," she said. "Just took a little bump on my head. I'll put these back."

Seno nodded emphatically in agreement to Sabashii's statement. "Tell me about it. I was staying in northwest Florida when I went, so it was pretty cheap, but still, if I hadn't gone on that exchange program, and been lucky enough to have relatives there on my mom's side to stay with, I'd have been up shi-" He broke off suddenly, remembering Shinobu's presence in the room. "Err, I'd have been up the creek."

Motoko, holding the booklet that read 'Travel Tips for Central California', got a funny feeling, and turned to look at her husband, who seemed rather nervous. "Seno, you wouldn't happen to know why Keitaro has these books, do you?"

He blanched. "Me? Uhh, no, what are you talking about? Why would I know anything about-"

He was interrupted by a loud cracking sound coming from his sword, the sound one would expect if someone had taken a blade and used a hammer and chisel to split it down the middle.

Scowling, beginning to emit an extremely-pissed aura, Motoko crossed the room to stand before her husband, looked him dead in the eye, and then reared back and socked him directly in his left eye. The swordsman went down and didn't get up. "Lie to me, will you?" she growled.

Sabashii smirked. "Nice hit, Kendo Girl," he said.

The swordswoman chuckled. "It's been a while since I've been called that," she said, leaning down to pull her husband up off the floor and drape him over her shoulders. "Let's go. We're going to go downstairs and wait for Keitaro to show up. Shinobu, could you get the books?"

Two hours later...

"Oh man, I ended up talking to Seta forever," Keitaro mused to himself as he crested the last steps leading up to the apartments. "Seta does have a point about 'fessing up as soon as possible. It'd be a bloodbath if anyone finds out about my plans."

Sliding open the front door, he wasn't surprised to find nobody in the immediate area; at this time of day, most of his surrogate family were off doing their own thing. So he thought nothing of continuing his personal conversation as he pulled off his shoes and left them by the door. "Especially Naru," he said, then shuddered. "Man, if she found out, I'd get skipped straight past checking in at the Pearly Gates, and she'd send me right to Hell!"

As he entered the main sitting area, he found everyone was gathered in the living room. Shinobu stood behind the couch with Tama perched on her head. Kitsune was beside the couch, and Nealla was sitting on the arm of the couch near her. Seno and Su were playing Halo, and Seno appeared to be losing rather badly. Sabashii and Lorenzo were seated on one of the other couches.

Motoko, standing by the coffee table in her usual hakama and gi, pointed toward the couch. "Urashima, you might want to sit down."

The kanrinin winced. It was never good when Motoko used his surname to refer to him. Without protesting, he quickly made his way over to the exact spot that she pointed to and seated himself, then rubbed the back of his head nervously. "What's up, Motoko?" he asked. "You want to use me as your sword practice guinea pig, right?"

She shook her head once, then pointed to the surface of the coffee table. "What are these?" she asked.

"What are what?"

"Your damn books," Seno called over his shoulder, his attention focused on his completely out-of-character failure to snipe the opposing players. "The ones that Motoko hit me over."

"She hit you?" Keitaro repeated, dumbfounded.

Turning back as his blue-armored SPARTAN was introduced to a 105mm rocket, Seno pointed to his swollen left eye. "Knocked me for a damn loop, boyo," he confirmed. "Last time I ever try to cover for your ass."

"Don't change the subject," Motoko said, picking up the 'Travel Tips for Central California' book and dropping it in Keitaro's lap. "Why do you have these travel books?"

"Crap!" Keitaro exclaimed.

In an instant, Motoko had moved behind the landlord and caught him in a textbook sleeper hold. "Shinobu found them while she was cleaning your room," she said, beginning to apply pressure to the hold. "Confess! What are you hiding from us? Confess your sins!"

"Let's be reasonable!" Keitaro shouted, panicking. "I wasn't hiding anything from you, I swear!"

"Then why suddenly hand out gift certificates with an expiration date?" Nealla asked calmly, holding her ticket between the first two fingers of her right hand.

"Sempai, are you leaving and not telling us?" Shinobu asked, panic written all across her face.

"I know you had mentioned studying abroad before," Kitsune said, "but wasn't that for after you had graduated?"

"Tell us the truth, Urashima," Motoko ordered, scribbling something on her own certificate. "If you want a formal request, then I believe this entitles me to hear the truth from you, does it not?"

She tossed her certificate onto his lap, the simple phrase "Tell the truth!" written boldly on its face.

Keitaro picked up the slip of paper, then closed his eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry, everyone," he said. "I should've at least talked it over with you guys first." He calmly set the certificate down on the coffee table, then looked up at his tenants. "You see, I was hoping to go with Seta to the United States before this month was up."

He paused for a moment, waiting for the inevitable backlash, but Motoko, Kaolla, Shinobu, and Kitsune were stunned into silence. Seno continued to play Halo, and Sabashii and Nealla just watched calmly, unconcerned either way. Lorenzo looked righteously confused.

"Bad news is," he continued, "there's a selection test next week that determines who'll get to go. My chances are slim, but if I do happen to pass, then I'll leave almost immediately." For a moment, he considered telling them about the classes he'd be taking at the University of California about South Pacific Archaeology, but decided that information was irrelevant.

Shinobu was the first to overcome her shock and step forward. "You're going to be studying abroad but... Does that mean you're going to be gone for a whole week!?"

Cue faceplant.

"Shinobu dear, that's called a vacation," Keitaro said, feeling himself sweating. "What I'm talking about is something different." He leaned back and looked at the other tenants. "I would live with a family in the states, which means I'll be learning the language also. I'll probably be gone for at least half a year, or more likely a whole year."

"No!" Shinobu shrieked, throwing herself bodily at Keitaro and clinging tightly to him. "My high school entrance exams are coming up! And if you're gone, sempai, then I... I don't know how I'll manage!"

"Shinobu, you'll do fine," the landlord said, patting her comfortingly on the head. "Your grades have been improving consistently and-"

"That was just a fluke!" she insisted. "I still need you, sempai!"

"Yeah!" Kitsune said, clenching a fist. "Listen to her!" She crossed her arms and gave Keitaro her strongest glare. "More importantly, first you lie to us about your grades and now you keep secrets from us! Looks like in the greater scheme of things, we don't mean shit to you!"

With that, the fox lady turned and stormed out of the living room, heading up the stairs toward her room.

"How dare you patronize us by issuing worthless gift certificates to keep us happy?" Motoko hissed. "Have you no honor?"

Motoko was hot on Kitsune's heels, the extreme aura in her anger causing the floor to shake with every step she took.

Over on the couch, Sabashii calmly looked toward Seno. "So you knew he was going to pull this, eh?" the white-haired man asked.

"Yeah," Seno replied, his attention back on the game. "On the scale of stupid shit he's done, this is up there."

"Due to the landlord's dishonorable conduct," Nealla said, coughing once to draw attention, "I motion for a show of hands to veto Keitaro's notion to study abroad. All in favor, say aye."

"Aye!" Kaolla immediately answered.

"Wait, you can't do that!" Keitaro protested.

He looked down to Shinobu, who was holding her gift certificate out to him with teary eyes. On its face were the words "I promise not to go anywhere!"

"Not you, too!"

Before anything else could be said, Shinobu took off as well, dashing into the kitchen and slamming the door behind her. Sabashii stood up from the couch and turned toward the front door, calling over his shoulder, "Seno, Nealla, Kaolla, you guys up for a movie?"

The trio all made expressions of assent, and the four of them proceeded to ninja vanish through the front door, leaving Keitaro alone in the living room with nothing but the residual anger of the tenants and a knot in his stomach.

Ten minutes later, Keitaro's room

With the light of the setting sun lighting his room with a warm amber glow, Keitaro sat at the desk in the center of his room, leaning back on his arms and watching the sun set. He wasn't paying attention to the beautiful scene before him; his thoughts were focused on the memory of the disaster that was his tenants discovering his plans.

Looks like in the greater scheme of things, we don't mean shit to you!

Have you no honor?

On the scale of stupid shit he's done, this is up there.

Sighing, the former ronin sat up straight and turned his attention to the English textbook on his desk. "Best to forget about that now and start studying," he told himself, looking down at the page. "Let's see..."

But no matter how much he tried, his mind kept drifting to the hurt expression on Shinobu's face, and the righteous anger on the faces of Motoko and Kitsune, and the betrayal on Kaolla's face. I can't concentrate! he thought, clenching at his hair in frustration. Please, guys, believe me! I never meant to trick you!

With another sigh, he reached over and picked up the certificate Shinobu had left him, looking guiltily at the tear-stained ink. "Now that Shinobu's asked me not to go, what do I do?" He sighed again. "I totally blew it, and now everybody hates me."

Suddenly, from above him, he heard a repeating pounding sound, and muffled cursing. "Huh? Are we having an earthquake?"

Without warning, the ceiling panels he had installed that morning to close the hole between his and Naru's rooms shattered, and the angelic woman herself came tumbling through, a small sledgehammer clutched in her hand, her full weight landing squarely on Keitaro's lap. The landlord let out a shriek of pain as her impact compressed his family jewels.

Recovering quickly, Naru slid off of Keitaro's lap and seated herself on the floor beside him, nervously rubbing the back of her head with her free hand. "Oops, I guess it's my turn to say sorry," she said, chuckling nervously.

"What's the big idea?" he all but shrieked, protectively clutching his privates.

"I was, uhh...fixing a chair!" she fished. "In my room! And then...the floor collapsed!"

"And where does the hammer fit in!?" he demanded, pointing at the incriminating weapon in her hand.

She sobered almost immediately, tossing the hammer carelessly behind her. "It doesn't," she said flatly. "I wanted to ask you, you're taking the selection test next week, right?"

"Not again! I really tried, but I couldn't bring myself to tell you guys," he explained, looking down at the floor. "In the end, I wound up covering it up like I always do. It wasn't supposed to end up this way, I swear!" He shook his head slowly, then quietly said, "You should've been the first person to know. But the test is so hard, and I thought I'd probably end up failing it anyway, so I didn't tell you."

Naru hummed lightly at his admission, then reached behind her back and produced a plate of her inimitably-misshapen rice balls and set them on his desk, holding another plate with a kettle and two cups in her other hand. "Here you go," she said, smiling warmly. "I brought you a snack to help you study better."

He looked at her in utter shock. "You're...you're not mad?"

Still smiling, she shook her head, then stood up and walked away a few paces, before twirling back around to face him. "You know, this reminds me of the first day you came here," she said, her eyes losing focus slightly as she thought back to that distant memory. "We almost ended up kissing that night, didn't we?"

Keitaro laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his head. "Yeah," he agreed. "And just like then, I screwed up pretty bad."

"Mmm, so you did," she said, walking back over to him and dropping to her knees right beside him. With her right hand, she reached up and gently pulled his glasses off. "Well, we don't want history to repeat itself, do we?"

"What do you mean Na-"

His words were cut off as she placed her hands on his cheeks and pulled him toward her, meeting him in a warm and tender kiss. Closing his eyes, he raised his right hand and settled it at her waist, allowing himself to let go of all his worries and doubts in the gentle love of her kiss.

After a few moments, far too soon in Keitaro's estimation, Naru pulled back and sat down, smiling at him. "There," she said, handing him back his glasses. "Things are bound to go better now, right?"

For a moment there, Keitaro was led to believe that Mutsumi had somehow disguised herself as Naru...

"I understand why everyone else feels the way they do," she continued. "I understand how you feel too, of course. So no, I'm not mad at all."

Her smile turned devious, and before he knew it, she had wrapped her right arm around his neck and was vigorously rubbing the knuckles of her left hand into his scalp. "Even so, you still should've told me about it in the first place, you big dummy!" she said, laughing. "After all we've been through, how could you dis me like that?"

"See! You are mad!" he answered, while thinking to himself, She's been hanging around Seno too much, using American slang like that.

Letting go of him, Naru sat back down and laced the fingers of her right hand through his left. "I think they just wanted you to be more honest with them," she said. "By now you should realize that they care what happens to you. We all do. We're a family, you know."

"You're right, Naru," he said. "It was stupid of me to not think of the rest of you guys like this, to tell all of you about it."

Leaning forward, she gave him a kiss on the cheek, then stood up and pulled him up along with her. "There's still time, Keitaro," she told him. "Still time to tell them how you feel and what you want. So come on, let's get to it!"

Scant minutes later, Naru was pushing Keitaro out onto the landing just outside the entrance to the Hinata Apartments, which now seemed a little more crowded with Sabashii's convertible and Lorenzo's jeep taking up space beside the resident swordcouple's motorcycles.

"You think it's okay to tell them out here?" Keitaro asked.

"Don't think, man!" Naru replied, sounding disturbingly like Seno for that one instant. "Just get out there and do it!"

Stopping, he turned back to face the building, and looked at Naru, who winked and gave him a thumbs-up gesture. He nodded to her, then shored up his courage, planted his feet, and cupped his hands around his mouth to shout, "Residents of Hinata House! Please, lend me your ears!" He took a breath, knowing that if Seno had been there, he'd have made a crack about the Caesar line. "I'm sorry for being such a jerk and for breaking so many promises! You have to understand how I feel!"

As he spoke, Motoko, Kitsune, Shinobu, Kaolla, and Lorenzo were silently gathering on the third floor stairwell landing directly above the front entrance. The glare from the lights inside the building prevented Keitaro from seeing them. One by one, they all either leaned against a wall or sat on the ground, out of sight, and listened to what he had to say.

"I have a dream!"

Lorenzo almost laughed at Keitaro's probably-unintentional line from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I want to be like Seta and travel the world and see strange new things! I wanna boldly go where no man has gone before!"

Kaolla giggled as Motoko rolled her eyes and let out a sigh at the Star Trek thievery, that one more than likely intentional.

"Up until now, I've only been worried about fulfilling a promise I made as a little kid! But not anymore! This time it's different!"

Off on the side, Naru smiled and hugged herself at the mention of their promise. As far as she was concerned, they had fulfilled that childhood promise by being accepted into Tokyo University together, even though he hadn't managed to attend any classes yet. From her perspective, they were living happily ever after.

"This time I'm taking this exam because I want to! So if I'm being selfish, and I know I am, please, I'm begging you, forgive me for wanting to do something for myself!"

Kitsune cracked an eye open and looked to her right, toward the direction Keitaro was in. After all the things he's done for us over the years, it is about time that he finally does something because he wants to do it, she mused. Maybe we overreacted.

Shinobu brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Sempai has always been there for us, she thought. He's never hesitated to do anything he thought would make us happy. We should return the favor for him.

Keitaro's never complained when I wanted him to play with me, or help me test out one of my new inventions, Kaolla thought. He's always made sure that I was having fun, so now it's his turn to have some fun, too!

It was taking a lot of effort for Motoko to keep a smile off her face. A truly selfless man, she thought. Forever and always putting us before himself. It's high time we repaid that generosity. She frowned. It shames me that I reacted the way I did. It seems I still have much to learn, both as a samurai and as a woman.

Outwardly, however, no one reacted vocally to Keitaro's proclamation. Down at the entranceway, Naru began to sweat, sensing that her boyfriend was facing a shatterpoint; if nothing was done, he would assume that everyone hated him and things would only get worse.

"You did good!" she told him, projecting cheer into her voice as she walked up to him and hugged him tightly. "Who cares what the others think? At least you've got me in your corner, right? So..how about I help you with your studying then?"

"Uh, sure."

And so it went. With only a week of time before the exam, every day that passed for Keitaro was spent fervently studying for the test, taking breaks only to eat, sleep, and bathe. Each day, Naru spent all of her free time that wasn't devoted to her own school work to helping him study. Even though she knew that success in this endeavor meant he would be leaving her behind, she wanted to see him succeed at something he wanted for his very own.

And around him, life at the Hinata-S? continued mostly as usual, except for the fact that none of the other tenants said anything to him. Keitaro, naturally, assumed it was because they were all still angry with him, but this was not the case. They had all unanimously decided that the best way they could support him was to leave him alone and not interrupt his studying. Each of them also were hoping for his success, and they all kept a close, albeit discreet, watch over him.

April 19, 2007
Hinata Apartments, Hinata, Japan
0602 hours, local time

Finally, the day of the exam had arrived. Urged by Naru, Keitaro had gone after breakfast to take a bath in the hot springs in the hopes of making him relaxed and ready to take on the exam. Leaning back against the rocks of the spring, Keitaro let the warmth of the water soak into him, dispelling the chill of the morning air. Tama was with him, half-floating in the water and half-lounging on the rocks.

"I did what I could with the time I had," Keitaro told the turtle. "I should be fine, but I don't know." Leaning his head back, he folded his washcloth into a square and laid it on his forehead. "It's been a week since they found out, and not one of them, with the exception of Naru, has said a single word to me."

Hearing the sound of a sliding door, Keitaro looked over to see a diminutive figure approaching the springs through the mist, the person's height alone eliminating any of the other male tenants from the realm of possibilities. "Uhh, guy alert," he called out."

This did nothing to deter the figure, however, who continued forward, revealing herself through the fog to be Shinobu, clad in nothing but a pink towel and a healthy blush.

"Shinobu, are you blind?" Keitaro uttered, panicking. "What are you doing here?"

Without saying anything, the young girl stepped into the bath and sat down just a foot away from the landlord.

His rising panic activating his fight or flight instinct, Keitaro turned away from her and immediately began to move away. I don't know what's going on, but it can't be good! he thought. I'd better leave!

But he only managed to get two feet before he bumped headfirst into a soft barrier. Leaning away from it, the fog cleared enough to reveal that it had been Motoko's chest he had run into. The swordswoman sat in the chest-deep water, wrapped in a towel, staring coolly at Keitaro.

"Ack, Motoko!" he said, even as the still-clearing fog revealed the towel- or bathing suit-clad forms of Kitsune, Kaolla, Seno, Sabashii, Lorenzo, and Nealla, all lounging in or around the springs. "And you guys, too? Did I pick a wrong time to take a bath?"

Oh, shit, he thought to himself, sinking down up to his nose in the water and covering his head protectively. I've seen lynch mobs before, and this is definitely one of them. I'm definitely going to die for sure.

"Urashima," Motoko said coyly, turning to pick up a scrap of paper from the dry rocks behind her. "About these gift certificates. If I wrote 'Die' on here, would you go kill yourself?"

Don't need to do that, he thought. You guys are gonna do it for me!

Without warning, he suddenly found everyone throwing their certificates at him, along with calling out, "Take that!" or "Here's mine!" or "Mine, too!"

It all settled down rather quickly, and after a moment, Keitaro gathered enough courage to face the varied forms of death he'd be mandated to face from the orders on the certificates. The first one he laid eyes on was Kitsune's, but the message it read was "Don't go find yourself a sleazy blonde and forget all about Naru."

Okay, maybe that one was a fluke, he thought, looking at Sabashii's next.

"If you find yourself in San Francisco, avoid the Boardwalk area. It's where all the gays hang out."

Well, that's odd. But he doesn't really know me all that well, so...

Shinobu's was next: "Please pass your exam."

...I kinda expected that from Shinobu. She's always offering me encouragement.

Next he saw Nealla's: "Take some time and enjoy yourself. You work too hard."

Kaolla's: "I still want bananas!"

Lorenzo's: "Uhh, I don't really know what to put here. Don't overdo it?"

Seno's: "You should totally check out Fanime or Anime Expo if you've got time. The otakus will love you. PROTIP: Don't cosplay as Kakashi. Trust me."

Motoko's: "Make no mistakes."

Keitaro blinked at the certificates; not one had demanded some form of death, or demanded anything for that matter, except for Kaolla's request for bananas. But of course, that was usual Kaolla there. He looked up, noticing for the first time that all the girls' towels had somehow vanished in the melee, but that they were all wearing their bathing suits anyway.

"Do you guys mean...?"

"Good luck on your exam, sempai!" Shinobu said.

"At least keep this promise to us, Keitaro," Motoko said with a grin, dropping her callous facade.

"You'd better remember to write while you're over there," Kitsune drawled.

"I could make ya a cool device to help ya cheat!" Kaolla offered, grinning widely.

"I got you a cell phone so we can keep in touch easier, bucko," Seno said, lounging with one arm around Motoko, the other giving Keitaro a thumbs-up.

"You guys..." Keitaro said, feeling his spirits soar. "Thanks."

At that moment, Naru entered the hot springs, already dressed in a business suit. "Hey, what are you doing in there?" she asked Keitaro. "You decide to nest or something? Come on, get out already, we're la-"

She stopped as she took notice of the party that she apparently had not been invited to, and almost dove in to pull Keitaro out by the ear, before checking herself and realizing that she didn't need to waste even more time by having to change her shoes and stockings afterwards.

Obligingly, Seno and Sabashii both stood up, got hold of one of Keitaro's arms, and launched him out of the hot springs and into the dressing room. "Miss Violent Boobs is right," Sabashii said. "Don't need to be wasting any more time on the most important morning in your life."

"So far," Kitsune added, leaving a veiled reference to weddings unspoken.

"Very true, Miss Konno," Sabashii agreed, sitting back down.

Faintly, they could hear Naru's voice fading down the main stairs of the Hinata, "Come on, hurry!" and Keitaro's even more faded "I'm hurrying as fast as I can!"

The rest of the tenants settled back into the water. "Yeah, he's totally going to fail," Kitsune pronounced.

"Got that right," Seno replied.

Motoko smiled and leaned into her husband. "Nothing ever changes around here, it seems."