Author's Note: Special thanks to Guest for reviewing!

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from Sekaiichi Hatsukoi.

Chapter 3

"Hey! Wake up sleepy head," Haitani said in a sing-song voice. Takano, keeping in character, opened his eyes a crack and closed them soon after. He then turned his head away from the disturbance which irritated Haitani immensely. The foreign man gritted his teeth, but he took a few exhales to calm himself. "Listen. This is the last time I'm going to ask you nicely. Now, please get the fuck up," Haitani stressed the last two vulgar words. In Takano's opinion, it wasn't really a nice way to ask.

The teen decided that angering the older man any further was probably not a good idea, so he kicked off the covers and rolled off the bed. He allowed his eyes to wander around the room for a few seconds and then asked, "Where's Onodera?"

Haitani looked off to the side in disinterest. "I think he's outside. Or maybe he left. Either way I really don't care."

Takano narrowed his eyes. "Well, he did find me when I was captured the other day," the teen defended his brunet companion.

The older man chuckled. "Yeah, only to have me rescue him in the end."

Takano remained sagely silent at this.

'Wow, he sure has a short temper,' Takano thought.

After the boy was properly dressed, the duo met up with the missing member of the group who was waiting outside of the inn right where Takano left him last night. The black-haired boy wondered if the man was standing there the whole night, but he thought it best to not ask.

Haitani sighed, "Well, let's make our way toward the border then."

Onodera's eyes widened in surprise. "Really? That's so far from here. Shouldn't we stop by at the next town over?"

"No. That'll take too long." Haitani gave a devious smile. "And as far as I know, the shortest distance to a destination is a straight line."

"Yeah, but we'll get tired along the way," Onodera protested.

"We'll be fine. If you're worried about your stamina, you can stay behind." Haitani paused to let the statement register for the ones receiving it. "I encourage it actually," he added shortly after, wanting to pour more salt on the wound.

Onodera looked to Takano and visibly calculated his priorities. He blinked twice, sighed, and slumped over in one swift motion. The brunet walked dejectedly towards the southern exit which led to the border; all the while he kept his wilted posture.

Takano exhaled a breath he didn't realize he was holding; he was very happy that Onodera was coming along, but it didn't take a genius to know that the two older men would fall into another argument. It seemed that the only way for them to communicate was through arguing like a senile couple.

The teen sighed again at the realization that he would have to hear so much more of it before they reach their destination. He remembered the map of the world that was always displayed in the front of his geography classroom, and knowing that they had quite a long ways to go made him want to rip off his ears before they become subject to the annoying squabbling that was to come.

Takano almost gave out yet another sigh, but this time he clamped his mouth shut before finishing his stress-relieving breath. He caught up with Onodera at the exit while Haitani walked right behind the boy.

'As long as I get the answers I need, all of this will be worth it,' he thought.

Takano felt his feet going numb and his knees giving out, however, he willed himself to go forward. He didn't even know how long they've been walking; it felt like weeks, but he knew it couldn't have been that long.

The journey from Poinset to the point they were now consisted primarily of them walking next to the foot of the mountains that laid behind the town; the rough terrain was tough on all of them, however, none of them were willing to tell the other two that he was feeling tired.

After a few more moments, Takano finally broke the silence, "Hey, how much farther is it?"

Haitani thought for a moment. "I'm not exactly sure. The geography of Heliconis was never my strong point," he said remorsefully.

When the foreign man failed to offer a valid answer, Onodera took up the responsibility of giving one. "That fork in the road we passed a few minutes ago said that Stanotis was the other direction. That city is close to the border. If we travel for about two more days we will get to Listriv."

Haitani laughed, "And you were upset of taking this route! We've saved about a week by going this way!"

The brunet said nothing. He just stayed silent and crossed his arms across his chest.

The silence grew indefinitely until a rumble broke them out of their disjointed thoughts. "Well well, looks like someone's hungr-," Haitani was cut off in the middle of his sentence by the sound of his own stomach rumbling. He laughed nervously. "Yeah, why don't we go hunting for now?"

Onodera nodded and then he settled his eyes on the high rocks that were jutting out of the grass bedded earth underneath their feet. He listened intently for footsteps, and he then crouched down and started to sneak up some of the nearby rocks that led up the mountain. Haitani and Takano looked at each other, shrugged, and then followed his lead while crouching as well.

Eventually, Onodera led the other two next to a large tower of rock and gazed at something that was behind the thick stone slab. Takano got right behind Onodera and saw what he had his eyes on. It was a small animal of sorts. "See that?" the brunet whispered, "that's a goat. Many of them live around rock sculptures, much like the one we are on now. Its meat is very tasty, however, it can't be preserved for long."

The sixteen-year-old gazed at the beast in wonderment. "Oh. I've never seen one before."

"They are only in this part of Heliconis. In Viburm, where we lived, it's too cold for them."

Takano looked over his other shoulder to see Haitani looking at the goat lustfully; he must have been salivating at the sight of it. When Takano turned back Onodera had already begun his assault on the defenseless animal. He unsheathed his sword and stabbed the goat's neck swiftly before its little legs could scurry off.

Onodera turned to the other two men and gave a triumphant smile. Then they all hopped down the mountainous bed of rock and inspected their miniscule dinner thoroughly, however, all three were broken out of their trances when they heard a low growl coming from behind a nearby rock behind Onodera.

The brunet turned around just in time to see a large clawed paw drop down on him. He dodged to the side before he was injured; he thanked his quick reflexes briefly.

Meanwhile, Haitani didn't waste any time to push Takano back behind a pointed wall of stone. He then shot chains of lightning from his hands and into the shoulder of the predator. Even through all of this, the bear didn't let up on her assault on Onodera. Although, the swordsman was quick, the female was much faster and stronger. She bit into his right arm that was holding his sword, and he dropped it instantly. She then proceeded to slash his chest with her claws. The green-eyed man grunted in pain as he fell to his hands and knees while blood gushed out of his wounds.

Haitani kept wailing on the distracted bear with his lightning magic, and eventually, she was too weak to continue her attack on the wounded male.

The shorter man picked up his sword with his uninjured arm and stabbed the bear repeatedly until she died. He caught his breath briefly as he clutched his chest and stared down at his clothes that were bloodied by the bear's and his own blood. He sighed deeply but when he looked at Haitani he noticed the taller man's battle stance and followed his gaze towards multiple pairs of eyes and foaming teeth.

Haitani grunted with frustration at the horde of dark wolves, "Why are there so many?"

"We'll take care of them together. I'll watch your back."

"Yeah right. With one useful arm and you bleeding out," Haitani said sarcastically. He then turned to the closest wolf and lunged at it while he threw newly conjured spikes of ice into the mammal's body which killed it almost instantly.

Onodera spotted a wolf in Haitani's blind spot which had the intention of biting into the unsuspecting man's flesh. The wounded man scrambled his injured body to Haitani's back as he tried to protect the magic user. However, Haitani foresaw the attack from the wolf as well; he turned around punched it in the head. He then locked eyes with Onodera who was behind him.

"I got your back. Just let me help you," Onodera pleaded with the tall man.

Haitani said nothing, but he was clearly irritated. He punched the wolf again and then turned around and took two large strides toward the last wolf as he concentrated to conjure a large fireball between his hands. All the while, the wolf he was punching previously punching bolted up to him when it recovered.

"I'll take care of that one!" Onodera gathered his strength to end the creature, but Haitani already turned around and threw the fire into the wolf's face, effectively forgetting the last wolf behind him whom the fireball was initially for. Angry teeth sank deep in the man's calf as he howled. The wolf clawed and continued biting while Haitani futilely tried to pry the mammal's teeth off of him. Eventually, Onodera caught up and stabbed the wolf's back.

Both men panted and looked at each other with expressionless faces while they stood among the aftermath of the bloody battle they'd just endured.

After a few moments of silence, Takano craned his neck to look around the large boulder he was hiding behind. Upon seeing his visibly weary elders, he jogged to their sides. The teen said nothing to them; he could only stare at the wounds in disbelief. He's never seen Onodera in a worse state than what he was now, and it caught him off guard seeing his caretaker in this condition.

The brunet snapped right after Takano caught up to them, "Why didn't you allow me to help you just now? You could've come out of that battle uninjured." Onodera motioned to Haitani's mangled leg.

The man scoffed. "You think you could've helped me? Look at yourself. I probably would been half eaten if I waited for you."

"Shut up. You know my capabilities." Onodera looked at him accusingly. "What? Did you think I was going to stab you in the back if you let your guard down around me?"

"I wouldn't exactly be surprised if that happened. I know you hate me," Haitani shot back as he took a step closer to the shorter man.

Takano got between the bloody ones and shoved them away from each other. "Hey, can't this wait? You guys are hurt. You need to rest and get stitches or something."

"Ah, I could cast a healing spell, but I'm drained from that last fight," Haitani sighed. He then looked to Onodera with an amused smile. "Hey, you know magic. Why don't you heal us right up?"

Onodera knew where this was going, but nonetheless, he placed his unscathed hand above his chest and a faint glow emitted from the bottom of his palm. All the while, Haitani's smile was growing until he burst out into a full bout of laughter.

Through the pits of his amusement, Haitani managed to say, "We're going to be out here all night if you're going to heal us with that!"

Onodera frowned. "What do you suggest then?"

At the brunet's quiet inquiry, the taller man ceased his laughing suddenly. "Well, it'd only take a few minutes for me to heal both of us up, but I need to relax for some time."

"I don't suppose you want us to stay out here." Onodera raised an eyebrow.

"Why? What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that we go to Stanotis to rest. It's not that far, and it'd be a lot safer than out here."

Haitani observed the man in front of him carefully before he acquiesced. "Alright. But someone needs to help me walk there."

All three men retraced their steps as Onodera held the dead goat, while Haitani propped one arm around Takano's strong shoulders for support as they made their way towards the city they intentionally passed earlier.

All three men stepped simultaneously into the city expecting a mass of people, but they were greeted with absolute silence. Takano scanned the area briefly. The houses visible from his viewpoint all had broken windows while the overall exterior of the houses looked absolutely horrible. Some doors were missing handles while the sides of the buildings had indentations showing the abuse they went through previously; they must have been bashed in.

"Well, this looks terrible," Haitani said in annoyance. "The owners didn't even take care of their own houses. That's so cynical."

Onodera rolled his eyes, "This city is deserted. Obviously, some thieves would have thought to break into the places and steal whatever they could find, leaving what you see here."

"Ah, so you propose that we stay in one of these little houses that could have a mine buried inside, or who knows what else, just so we can blow up into fucking pieces." Haitani's calm voice did not match the vulgar statement. "We're better off just resting outside in the tent. At least no one's been sneaking in that!"

"Did you forget about that bear that nearly killed me? Or that wolf that almost bit your leg off? If more come around we'd be-"

"What about those big houses further into the city? They don't look broken from here." Takano cut off Onodera.

Being shorter than the other two, the brunet had to go on his tip toes for a better vantage point to see what the teen was talking about. He squinted and said, "Those are the high class section of the city. It's completely locked from the outside world. I don't think even a rat could get in."

"Why didn't they use the same precautions in these houses?" Takano asked.

"Only the well-off people would be able to afford something like that." Onodera offered the obvious answer simply.

"This looks like it's been like this for years. If they don't come back why would they go through the trouble in closing it off?"

"Back then they must have had some hope that they would come back eventually. They wanted to have something to come back to."

"You sure know a lot about this place," Haitani piped up.

Onodera turned around and glared at him, "I better. This is my country."

"Ah yes. This barbaric country of yours. Filled with people who are willing to make these buildings and then desecrate them like they mean nothing. You construct new things, but they are just little more than just tools. Just like you Onodera." Haitani locked his brown eyes on Onodera's green ones and smiled evilly; he was visibly excited at his clever insult.

If Onodera was a train, steam would be erupting from him at this moment. He then gave into the challenge. "I think the barbaric ones are those who would follow a materialistic king who doesn't know how to feed his own people and then begs others to do it for him."

"How dare you say that about my king?"

Haitani and Onodera's argument was starting to heat up, and once again Takano had to step in to stop it. He tugged on Haitani's arm that was still draped around his shoulders. "Hey, you need to rest now. How about we just go in one of the houses? I think the people who broke into them are gone, and there is probably nothing left of value for them to steal so they won't be back."

"You know, you have a point," Haitani said and put a finger on his chin.

Takano then dragged Haitani to a nearby house with its door still intact and pushed both of them through it. The house was indeed empty; it was plucked clean of any object that resembled furnishing of some sort. The walls appeared to have holes in them as if someone punched them in, and the stains on the blue wallpaper were most likely urine.

The teen led the way from the entrance and into what should have been the dining room. He sat Haitani down next to one wall and when Onodera came in, he headed straight to the kitchen to cook the goat; however, he was overcome with dismay when he realized that even the kitchen appliances were stolen.

The foreign man sensed Onodera's distress. "You know, in my 'unfed' country we don't cook our food over unreliable machines. We use our hard work and concentration to build our own fire for cooking."

"Just shut up already, you asshole." Even though the brunet said this he realized that the only way to cook the meat was to use Haitani's suggestion. He sighed deeply and walked over to the back door. "I'll be back in a little bit. I need to cook this outside."

Once Onodera left, Haitani turned his attention toward the teenager, and his face was painted with an extremely forced smile. "Wow. I'm such a pain in the ass aren't I?"

The black-haired boy gave Haitani the same dead expression that he usually wears but even so, he was surprised that Haitani would acknowledge how unpleasant he was. He thought that in the older man's weird rational way of thinking he himself wasn't the root of all the arguments.

Haitani sighed, "I've never been that amiable person and that everyone wanted to be around. Even my parents didn't want to be around me."

Takano didn't say anything because he didn't feel any sympathy for Haitani. He knew exactly how he felt, but eventually he stopped being affected by any it. After all, it's all he had felt for his entire life.

Just as quick as Haitani fell into his depressing mood he swung right back and put a sincere smile on his face. "So, kid. We're almost to the border. Excited or what?"

"I couldn't care less." Takano looked out the back door to see smoke arising from the back yard; he could tell it was Onodera by the grand smell of the meat he was cooking.

"Oh, I'm sure once we get there you'll change your mind. It's much livelier than this shithole of a country."

Takano remained silent at that blunt statement. Although Heliconis had a very different lifestyle than Listriv, he still really loved the country, especially his village Viburm where he lived with an incredible man.

"Don't listen to anything Onodera says about Listriv. He's throwing every problem we have out of proportion. Yes, we do have poverty, but every country does you know?"

Takano nodded his head and keep a passive expression.

"Alright, goat's all cooked up and ready to be eaten," Onodera announced as he walked back through the back door with three pieces of the goat pierced through with sticks.

The three of them sat on the floor of the unfurnished dining room in a triangle formation and ate their share of the meat in silence. Once Takano bit into his goat, his face automatically lit up.

Onodera caught this brief moment of excitement that came from the teen. "You like the food, Masamune?" he said with a prideful smile on his face.

"Yeah, I've never had something like this before. It's good."

"What? You've never had meat before?" Haitani asked in surprise.

"Not recently, no." Takano twirled the goat around to find a nice place to bite into it.

"Stop that. I've fed you meat before," Onodera said indignantly.

"No you didn't. Whenever we went shopping you always passed the butcher and went straight to the beans and lentils."

Onodera thought about it what the boy said for a moment. "Well, you never know what they could put in that meat! He could have put some type of drugs in it. I don't know where that food has been. And I certainly won't feed you something that could potentially get you sick."

"Wow," Haitani dragged the word out for a while. "You are way too paranoid."

"Well, it's a good reason!"

Haitani took another bite of his goat before answering. "Why would the butcher want to poison his customers? Wouldn't he lose money then?"

"That's… a good point," Onodera said in the softest voice he could muster. "But, you can never be too sure!" he said quickly after.

Haitani hummed, took the last bite of his goat, and then went to work on healing his leg. He scrunched he eyes in concentration as he casted the spell with great difficulty due to his weariness. When he was done he got up and stretched. "I'm going to check on the rest of the house. There might be something useful here."

"What? You're not going to heal me?" Onodera said in disbelief.

"That'll come after. You need to be patient, you know." The taller man wagged his finger at him as if he were a child. Onodera frowned but let Haitani finish his thorough search.

When he came back he put his hand on Takano's shoulder and said, "Hey, you want to rest? There's a room in on the far side of the hallway up the stairs. Oddly enough it still has a bed in it."

Takano on instinct turned to Onodera and when the older man nodded, Takano raised himself from the floor to show his consent.

Once Takano left the room, Haitani's expression darkened as he approached Onodera to mend his wounds. The injured man noticed this dark expression and tilted his head up. "If you kill me now while I'm hurt, Masamune won't be too forgiving with you," he warned.

"Oh, I know. I would just convince him that you ran off."

Onodera hoped that at this moment Haitani was joking. He then tried to alter the path of the conversation slightly. "Listen, I know you don't like me, and I don't like you. But we have to work together on this or Masamune will end up getting hurt. He's already been assaulted by those lowlifes because of our negligence."

Haitani pressed a hand into his face and sighed. "I have to agree with you on that."

"Not to mention what happened today, we were both pretty injured. If another wolf came around we wouldn't have been able to protect him."

Haitani regarded the man in front of him carefully. "What are you trying to get at?"

"What I mean is that you can hate my guts. I don't care. But, when we're in battle, you have to trust me." Onodera stressed the last few words of his sentence. "If he dies I don't know what I'd do."

After several moments of silence, Haitani finally gave his consent. "Alright. I guess you're right."

The brunet shifted his seated position slightly. "I'm glad we see eye to eye with this."

"Yeah, seems like the first time we've ever agreed on anything."

Onodera laughed slightly as their conversation died down. Both men stared in front of them in silence as if their truce was visible, and they were scrutinizing every piece of it. Haitani then placed his hands on Onodera's chest and arm to begin his healing spell. Both men fell deep into their own thoughts that they failed to notice the pair of teenage ears that were absorbing the words hanging in the air intently.