Warnings: None

Speak

Chapter 05:

"Explanations"

My inbox contained nine emails. One was from Sugi, asking if she could pretty please borrow my nice pair of yellow wedges for a date she had the next day. Another was from Akko, asking if I'd done the night's math homework. Yuuki had sent a chain message detailing how we'd both die if we didn't pass the email along (I didn't send it to anyone; Yuuki's superstitious, but I'm anything but). Five of the messages were inconsequential promotional emails.

The ninth email was from Kurama.

I saw it in my inbox on my cell phone during the drive home, but I didn't open the message. I leaned my forehead against the passenger side window and stared at the subject line while Dad's enka tape played over the stereo. He hummed along when he remembered the tune. Neither of us spoke until we turned onto the highway and Dad finally said: "I'm sorry. About what I said."

I snapped my phone shut and dropped it on my lap. To Dad I signed: "It's fine. It was the truth. No use hiding it."

He watched the signs out of the corner of his eye. When I finished he stared at the road like he could change its curvature with the sheer force of his will. A fire burned in his dark eyes, bright and angry and hot.

"If my father," he spat, "only knew you, he wouldn't act that way. It's not you, Momo, it's—"

I put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing once before turning to him with a smile. I know that, I told him with a gentle smile, and he understood.

"That's my girl," he whispered. A light chuckle. "You must get that kind streak from your mother. God knows it's not from my side of the family."

I did not agree with my hands, or even my eyes. I sat silently in the passenger seat and let the street lamps wash intermittent light across my impassive face.

Mom pulled me indoors, kissed Dad's cheek, and shoved him out under the pretense of having girl talk. One Dad disappeared into the night, Mom wasted no time pulling me onto the couch. "Well, how'd it go?" she urged, sitting criss-cross in her baggy sweatpants and bed-rumpled hair. I sat across from her in an identical pose, but I wrapped my arms around a throw pillow and took a minute to swaddle my shoulders in a blanket. I needed something to do to keep my restless hands steady. Once comfortable, I hesitated, fiddling with the pillow's fringe as I thought about what to say. Mom did not rush me despite her eagerness, and thanks to her quiet attitude—patience worked better on me than prying—I was able to find the nerve to sign: "I really like my new aunt. Very kind."

Mom raised an eyebrow. "I notice you didn't start with your uncle. Was he that bad?"

I shook my head. "No," I signed. "He was tense around Father. And…"

"And what?"

"My grandfather didn't tell anyone about..." I gestured at my throat. "Was a surprise to them."

Her eyes narrowed. "You mean Ryuuji told the Hatanaka family nothing about you?" she said slowly.

I nodded.

"Bastard," she said.

My jaw dropped.

"What?" she asked, defensive. "He's probably called you that before, so why can't I return the favor?"

I stared at her, shocked, and she ran her fingers through her hair with a moan. Teeth bit into her lower lip harshly; regret made her face go pale.

"That came out wrong," she said, giving me a sincerely sheepish look. "I'm so sorry, Momo."

"No problem," I signed on auto-pilot, but her words still hurt. I didn't want to let my injury show, however (if I seemed sad Mom would be groveling for weeks) so I covered by signing: "My younger cousin, Shuuichi-kun, is cool. He plays baseball. Played catch after dinner. Potential new friend!"

A relieved expression crossed her face. "Well, I'm glad one of the Hatanakas is normal," she said. "I can't count your aunt since she's not blood related, of course, but I hope to hell she's a good influence on her new stepson. Somebody has to counteract the Hatanaka DNA."

"If anyone can, it's her," I told her. "Shiori is great."

"Good. Now I feel better about you going over there," she concluded. "You have a nice, un-Hatanaka-ed aunt. I'm glad."

I winced. I had a nice, un-Hatanaka-ed aunt…and my aunt had a nice, un-Hatanaka-ed son. The breath stopped in my throat when I thought of his thick red hair and sharp green eyes.

Kurama.

Or was he Shuichi, now?

"Hey, what about your older step-cousin?" Mom said suddenly. "You haven't mentioned him yet. Is he as unsullied by the Hatanakas as his mother?"

I froze; Mom's eyebrows shot up. Ugh. Of course she'd ask about Kurama just as I thought of him. We were always thinking alike. I blamed it on genetics, or maybe a psychic link, or something equally as unavoidable. I stared at Mom like a dead fish, mouth gaping as I thought about what to say, how to say it, and why.

Why was all of this happening, anyway?

Mom was appropriately concerned by my reaction. "Are you OK, Momo?" she asked, taking my hand and chafing it. "Ugh, your fingers are freezing!"

I pulled my hand away to sign: "I'm fine. Just…"

She frowned, lines forming between her dark eyebrows. "It's just what?"

"It's just a big coincidence," I signed in a rush, "but do you remember the boys who defended me against those muggers a few weeks ago?"

"Your guardian angels, yeah," Mom said. "But why—?"

"My step-cousin was one of those boys. The one with the red hair."

She was the one to freeze, then. Eventually she managed to ask: "You mean, the one you've been emailing?"

I nodded.

She stared at me for a long, surprised moment. Then: "Oh wow. I mean, wow. Did he know who you were when he rescued you?"

I shook my head. "He looked as surprised as I felt when we met this evening."

Mom had begun to grin. "Maybe it's fate!" she said, elbowing me in the ribs. "The red string of love tying the two of you together, leading to a fateful encounter and a dashing hero saving a princess from harm." A pause. "That is romantic, right? I can't be too sure with kids today."

I didn't think it was romantic, not when confusion and unease made thinking of Shuichi, Kurama, whoever he was, so difficult. But I couldn't exactly say that to Mom without making her worry, now could I?

I set my alarm an hour earlier than usual. House dark and quiet, sun not yet risen outside, I padded downstairs to the study and read Kurama's email on our family computer. He hadn't sent any follow-up messages during the night; his first message was a simple introduction asking about my hobbies and school. As the sun pushed through the study's mauve curtains, I placed my hands over the keyboard and began to type.

…well. I tried to type. I wrote three words and deleted them, then repeated the process another six times before exiting the browser and pillowing my forehead in my hands. Ugh. This was so stupid! I needed to haul off and write him a response, not linger on it and psyche myself out. I breathed a sigh and set about giving myself a mental pep talk: Just rip it off like a Band-Aid, Momo. You got this. The sooner you write it all out, the sooner you and Kurama can go back to being fun, relaxed email-pals—

I jerked my head out of my hands and sat back in my mother's office chair. I gazed at the computer screen, but I hardly saw it.

Did I even want to be his email-pal?

His friend?

His cousin?

His date?

What did I really want from my dark, secretive step-cousin, anyway?

Maybe that's why I couldn't write him a damn email. I didn't know what I wanted from him—or he from me. Trapped in confusion, I couldn't express myself with any degree of accuracy. And this situation wouldn't benefit from emotional ambiguity, that's for sure.

Stuck, I didn't try to write anything else that morning. I did my yoga, went for my usual run, and ate breakfast. Kurama and my thoughts about our relationship could wait.

My friends have the uncanny ability to tell when I'm distracted. I can tell the same about all of them, too, of course. It's part of our bond as friends, a bond that has proved itself many times since our fabulous foursome materialized back in middle school. From the worst of times to the merely annoying, I can count on them to know when I'm upset and provide the exact kind of support I need to feel better about whatever it is that's bothering me.

Sometimes, though, I really wished they were a touch more oblivious. Keeping things to myself is just so hard around them.

"What's wrong?" Yuuki asked in a concerned voice. She was always the first in our group to pick up on peoples' moods. Her fingers twined around my arm as she leaned her head on my shoulder, staring up at me with eyes more befitting a puppy than a human being. Her hair, dyed blonde with multicolored streaks, spilled over the lapel of my uniform like stray paint.

"Yeah, you've been acting funny all day," said Sugi. She had been touching up her makeup in a compact mirror, but when she saw the way my face fell she shut the compact with a snap, alarm seeping in underneath her perfect layer of foundation.

Akko flipped her long black hair out of her face. "It's about a boy, isn't it?" she said. Yuuki and Sugi stared at her with raised eyebrows, but Akko just shrugged.

"Look at her," she said, gesturing at me with another sigh. "She's despondent. Sure sign of boy-induced preoccupation. Textbook case."

I sighed in defeat. Our uncanny ability is like a 'pack sense.' We can always tell when one of us is in trouble.

"See? She's even sighing." Akko crossed her arms over her chest. "That's usually my job, so spill it, Momo. I'll beat you up if you don't."

It was Monday afternoon—lunchtime, to be exact. We were sitting in our classroom, desks pushed together in a tight bunch. The rest of the class had wandered off, but it was cold outside so we'd elected to stay in. I'd made onigiri the night before to share with everyone, after my talk with Mom about—

Kurama, I thought darkly. The incident from the night before had left me unsettled, to say the extreme least. Shuichi, Minamino, whatever. How the heck do I explain this?

"Well?" Sugi pressed, flipping her carefully curled hair over her shoulder. She'd bleached it to a shimmering chestnut color over winter break. "It's rare you have boy trouble."

Yuuki shot the taller girl a vicious look, one full of warning and half-formed threats, but Sugi only shrugged.

"It's no secret Momo's shy," Sugi reasoned. Yuuki opened her mouth to defend me, but I put my hand on her shoulder. She closed her mouth with a pout. I knew it was true, as did she. No need to deny I was shy.

"Does it have anything to do with that Kurama guy?" Sugi went on. "You haven't brought him up today, and last week he was all you wanted to talk about."

The bottom fell out of my stomach. I'd told them everything about the encounter with Yusuke, Kurama, and the thugs soon after the incident occurred, hinting I had a new guy hooked over email and that we were going on a date—or something that could turn into one—during a soon-to-come weekend. They'd been happy for me (duh; of course they had!) and had helped me pick out an outfit that was sure to impress, but Sugi had been skeptical.

It sounds like a scam, she'd said. Play knight-in-shining-armor, get the girl's number, seduce her. Perfect setup.

A part of me wondered if she was right, given how coincidental all of this was. But that was impossible. Kurama's shock when he saw me at dinner had been real. He'd been just as surprised as I was.

I squeezed Yuuki's hand until she looked into my face. When I raised my hands to begin signing, her eyes opened wide in recognition. Her pigtails flopped against her cheeks and neck when she nodded for me to start, hair tangling with the star pendant hanging from the black leather choker at her throat. Yuuki was the resident interpreter of the group. Both Akko and Sugi could understand when I signed, but if I moved my hands too quickly, they'd lose track. Yuuki had learned Sign Language when she was a kid thanks to the presence of a Deaf aunt in her life and was quite fluent.

"It does have something to do with Kurama," she said, eyes in their pits of golden shadow and black liner tracking the motions of my fingers the way a cat tracks a flying bird. She interpreted for me when I added: "But first, do you remember how I was going to go meet my father's family for the first time yesterday?"

"Um, duh?" said Akko sarcastically. I'd told them all about it at length during the weeks preceding the event, venting my nerves on my wonderful and supportive buddies to an extreme degree. "How did it go? I figured it went badly since you didn't talk about it all day. We didn't want to pry, you know? You hate that."

I sighed again (in a thankful way) and told Yuuki (who told the others): "It went fine. My uncle and aunt are nice, eager to become close." I hesitated, then added: "What's bothering me is that I had already met one of my cousins without knowing who he was. He didn't know who I was until last night, either."

"Wow," Sugi said, one artfully plucked eyebrow rising high. "That's quite the coincidence."

"But why is that bothering you?" Akko asked. "I mean, it's just a coincidence, right?"

Another hesitation made me pause, but then I signed: "It is a coincidence, yes. But being saved from a gang of hoodlums is not how I would have preferred to meet my cousin."

Silence.

"You mean Kurama is your cousin?" Akko gasped, putting two and two together in a millisecond. She had been reclining in her chair, relaxed. Now she sat up at full attention. I saw the histrionics rising in the depths of her liquid black eyes. "Dude, you were going to go on a date with him!"

"'We're not blood related!'" Yuuki said, interpreting my signs, and even as the words left her mouth she looked confused. "What the heck, Momo?" she asked on her own. "You're cousins—of course you're related!"

"He's my uncle's stepson," I signed. "My aunt is his second wife, and she had Kurama in a previous marriage. So, we're step-cousins. Not related by blood, just marriage." I couldn't help but feel self-conscious when I added: "Would dating him be weird?"

The girls looked at one another, trying to decide what to tell me.

"It wouldn't be bad," said Sugi, fighting for words. "Plenty of cousins date in this country. But you'd still have to explain things to outsiders a lot, which would get awkward."

"Not that you two together are awkward, though," Akko was quick to throw out. Sugi realized what she had said and nodded vigorously along to alleviate the potential insult. "I mean, you met before you knew about being cousins, and it's not like you're even really cousins, so who can blame you for being attracted to a guy you met by chance?"

"What she's trying to say is that you should totally go for him if you like him," Yuuki said, clasping my hands in support. Then she got serious, which looks funny given her Goth-Lolita clothing and childish features. "But remember: if you date and break up, you're still going to have to see him all the time. You can't break up with family."

"I don't even know if I want to date him!" I protested with my hands. When my friends seemed more confused than ever, I clarified: "His name's not even really 'Kurama'. 'Kurama' is a nickname. When I asked him about it he said that it 'reflected a darker part of his past,' whatever that means, but Yusuke—"

Yuuki stopped translating and caught me by the wrist. "Who?" she asked, not recognizing Yusuke's name.

I gaped at her, realizing a little too late that I had never given a name to the other half of the duo who saved me.

"Yusuke was the other boy who fended off the bullies," I said. Everyone nodded in recognition. "He called Kurama by the name 'Kurama'."

"So, it's a nickname," Sugi ventured. "Why's that got you in such a tiff?"

I heaved yet another sigh. "It wouldn't bother me if he hadn't gotten so defensive about it."

Yuuki cocked her head to one side. "Defensive?"

I nodded. "I wrote 'Kurama' in my spaghetti noodles. He saw it, did a double take, and served me another portion to cover it up. I've never seen someone serve food so fast in my life!"

"But why would he be ashamed of his name?" Akko wondered with a frown.

Luckily, I had a half-answer. "Kurama told me that his name was from his past," I signed, "but since Yusuke still calls him by that name, doesn't it mean that the 'dark past' isn't in the past at all? He's still living it!" A twinge in my temples signaled the beginnings of a headache. "What if he's Yakuza or something?"

Throwing up my hands, I made a show of collapsing across my desk and pressing my head into the crook of my elbow. Yuuki patted my head in sympathy before taking a section of my hair between nimble fingers. I felt her begin to braid it but didn't make her stop. It felt nice to have my hair played with.

"Sounds like Kurama's got something to hide, at the very least," Sugi said dryly. She had a secret love of cop shows and mystery novels; I could tell that the wheels were turning in her head. "But if his name's not Kurama, then what is it?"

I lifted my right hand into the air, but I did not sit up or lift my head when I spelled his name with my fingers. Yuuki's hands on my hair stilled while she concentrated on interpreting my signs.

"Mi, na, mi, no, shu, i, chi," she said. "Minamino Shuichi. That's his name?"

I nodded as her hands resumed braiding, but I sat up straight and batted Yuuki's hand aside when Akko spoke in a hushed voice.

"No freaking way," Akko said, both horrified and excited all at once. My heart fluttered when I saw that expression. With Akko, it could only mean one thing: hot gossip. "No. Way. You're dating him?"

"We're not dating!" I signed.

"Akko—do you know him?" Sugi asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I might," Akko said. "I know his name, at the very least." She looked at me, eyes screaming she knew much more than just his name. "He went to Meioh, right, but he graduated the year before last?"

I sat up very slowly, staring at her through unblinking eyes.

She went on, gaze locked with mine: "And now he's at Sarayashiki U.?" she asked, a grin surfacing. "Studying medicine?"

"How," I signed, "do you know about him?"

The library pressed quietly around us, but Akko confidently led the way into its maze of rows and stacks without so much as a pause.

"Since we're affiliated with Meioh, we've got copies of their yearbooks," she said. "And I'm on yearbook committee so I've studied them to get ideas for our own copies. I know his face, and that name... that's infamous in this school." She plucked a book out of a row, glanced at the spine, and licked her lips. "Here we are. Let's take it to a table."

We crowded around a study table, the type with dividers on all sides to keep students from getting distracted. Akko sat down; we stood in a flock behind her chair, waiting as she thumbed through the pages. Yuuki bounced on her heels, craning her neck to see over Akko's shoulder (Yuuki is so short, it's ridiculous). Akko's lips pressed into a thin line as she glanced through the book's index page, and with a nod she flipped to the appropriate section.

Before us lay the senior portraits, big black-and-whites of boys and girls shown from the chest up in formal wear. The names under them were printed large and glossy; underneath the names were smaller words proclaiming things like class rank, clubs joined, and other academic accolades.

The students were organized by last name, of course, so Akko had to find the 'mi' section and go from there.

"Mi-mu, Mi-me, Mi-mo… " Her murmur seemed frail in the library's still air. She licked her lips again. "Ah. Mi-na. Here we go." She handed the book straight up over her head and right into Sugi's waiting arms. "That him, Momo?"

I leaned across Sugi's chest, blocking her vision so I could look at the book. Sure enough, there was Kurama. He didn't grin like the rest of the students, choosing instead to contemplate the cameraman with a small, benevolent smile and an eyebrow raised so slightly it hardly seemed raised at all. My lips pursed when I saw his class rank—number one on each and every exam, ever—and the long, long list of achievements he'd won during his high school career. The only conspicuous absence from his list was mention of sports, but that hardly mattered considering the "Will be attending Sarayashiki University's medical program on full scholarship" banner lying underneath it all.

And, to add insult to injury, he was pretty, even with his brilliant eyes and exotic hair bleached dark grey in the photographs.

Pulling back so Sugi and Yuuki could take an unobstructed look at him, I gave the twisted-around-in-her-seat-so-she-could-stare-at-me-in-delicious-anticipation Akko a slow, deliberate nod.

"What," Sugi said slowly, "the hell, Momo?"

Yuuki merely stared, open-mouthed, as she stood on tiptoe to see over Sugi's arm.

"This is the prettiest guy I've ever seen!" Sugi continued. Her face jumped from shocked to horrified in an instant. "Dear god, can you ask him what shampoo he uses? I've never been able to get my hair to gloss like that!"

"Oh, sure you have," Akko said crossly. She poked Sugi in the stomach. "And don't you dare go all inferiority-complex on us, you bitch. You're the best looking of us all."

Yuuki snapped out of her ogling and smiled at Sugi in apology. "She's right!" she chirped, snuggling into the tall girl's side. "You're beautiful!"

"So's he!" Sugi said, not comforted in the slightest as she stared at Kurama's portrait. She shrugged Yuuki off and looked at me, totally flabbergasted. "No offense, Momo, I think you're pretty and all, but this guy is, is…" She waved a hand in the air, searching for words, and at last settled on: "Otherworldly! He should be dating a princess, not one of us!"

I winced. He was indeed beautiful—feminine, perhaps even a little too feminine, but that didn't make his beauty any less apparent. He wasn't a conventional sort of handsome, that's for sure, but I had quite honestly never seen anyone like him before in my life. That said, Sugi's implication about my looks compared to his wasn't untrue…but that didn't make her observation sting any less.

I'd never let her know that, though. No use causing trouble over my petty sensitivities…

"We're cousins, remember?" I signed to Yuuki, who translated. "He has to be nice to me."

Sugi looked up from the book, frowning. "But that doesn't explain why he emailed you before finding out about the cousins thing," she said. "He wasn't obligated by family ties when he first messaged you. He did that on his own."

Now that was something I could make neither head nor tail of.

"We can talk about motives later," Akko said in a harsh whisper. She was trading stares with a librarian, who stood a few feet away with her hands on her hips. Obviously, we were being much too loud. "C'mon, let's jet."

The bell rang as we left the library, but since we all had homeroom in the same wing we could walk to class together.

"You still haven't explained how you knew who Kurama was," Yuuki chirped as she skipped ahead of the rest of us. "Story time, Akko!"

Akko flipped her hair, smiling a coy little smile. "Oh, you know me. I hear everything in this school."

I rolled my eyes. It was true, of course, and it was typical of her to be so proud of her abilities as a gossip-monger. Good old Akko.

"Cut the shit, Akko," Sugi snapped. She was still, apparently, feeling a little self-conscious, hence her bad mood.

"No need to get snippy," Akko said, scowling, but since she didn't want to piss off Sugi she just launched right into it. "Since this is an all-girls school, girls tend to pick idols from other schools as their objects of affection. Since Meioh is affiliated with us and we see them a few times a year, the boys who go there get picked the most often. Girls trade pictures and send mass love letters and all kinds of crazy stuff; you all know the drill because you've seen it in action." She chuckled a little. "But my sister, well, she went here before we did—at the same time as Kurama, in fact." Akko's face darkened when she threw up her hands in exasperation. "She crushed on him so hard, I heard his name every night over dinner for three entire years! She swears that of all the guys who got thrown into the spotlight at this school, he was by far the biggest star."

"I can see why young girls would like Kurama, I suppose," Yuuki said, face screwed up in thought. "He's so fairy-tale-like that girls could idolize him without feeling threatened. Crushing on him would be like crushing on a celebrity—you'll never meet a celebrity, and therefore you'll never get hurt. And since Kurama is so unreal, well, it's basically the same thing. No risk involved. I can see why they'd pick him."

I signed at her: "He's sensitive about his name. Could I ask you all to refer to him as Minamino-san from now on?"

We were walking through a crowded hall as Yuuki interpreted my signed words with verbal speech. The affect they had on the other students was immediate—two girls stopped dead to stare and another rushed up and got right in Yuuki's face, demanding: "Why are we talking about Minamino?"

Yuuki cowered and ducked behind me. The girl followed her, but before she could haul Yuuki forward for an interrogation, Sugi stepped between us and the interloper.

"We?" Sugi growled. "You are not part of our 'we.' We are talking about nothing that concerns you." She bared her teeth, but even in my most generous moments I couldn't call the look a smile. "So scram, doll face, before I get mad."

The girl looked terrified of the tall, gorgeous, and growling Sugi. She shot us a defiant glare before slinking off down the hallway, muttering about her idol under her breath as she went.

"People are still obsessed with him, I see," Akko remarked as we watched the fangirl go.

As the others murmured an agreement, I ducked my head. Luckily the bell rang before my friends realized how uncomfortable I was. We went back to class without discussing my silence. If they'd noticed, I wasn't even sure what I'd say.

If pretty, eligible girls were still fawning over Kurama two years after leaving our school system, was there any way I—plain, shy, mute little Momo—could hope to compete?

NOTES, April 2016:

Cleaned up language. Made a few details consistent with previous edits. Not much else done. One chapter more, and we're caught up with old material. New material coming soon!

Thanks to those who reviewed the previous revamped chapter: Akara Suzuki, j.d.y., jcampbellohten, Xxser3ndipityxX, AkaMizu-chan, and Guest!

NOTES 2010:

How will Momo defeat the evil fangirls?

Next chapter, we see things from Kurama's POV. I'm thinking I'll switch off every other chapter? What do you think?

I don't know much about Japanese yearbooks, but let's just say for the sake of this story that they have senior pictures in tuxes. If anyone knows differently, let me know and I'll change it to fit! I'd like to be authentic if I can. =D

Ugh. So. I think the reason I took so long to update this is because it's just, so, SLOW. This fic's plot happens behind the scenes, with most of the focus honing in on the relationship between Momo and Kurama, so… yeah. I need more plot. This fic has a really developed one, too (Momo has to end up in the prologue somehow!) but… urgh. It's just hard to write when it's so slow.

Anyway, SO SORRY for the delayed update, but I hope you enjoyed getting a deeper peek inside Momo's head. Most of this has been written for a month or more, but I had to flesh it out and for some reason I just couldn't get around to doing it. FORGIVE ME. (*prostrates self on floor*)

Thank you, guys, for sticking around despite how long I've neglected this story. YOU ARE ALL AWESOME and I love you. ^^ Dreamehz, frowninggivesyouwrinkles, Kaiya's Watergarden, AkaMizu-chan, Naitza-Kururugi, Talye Kendrin, Koryu Erlic, strawberry9506, Reclun, heve-chan, chocolateluvr13, WickedLovelyDream, Foxgirl Ray, crossyourteez, the Under-Cover Fangirl, rain chant, Shadow Goddess Miko, American Senpai, Panda-chan31, archangel fighter, dude where's my spirit gun, Wings of Silver Rain, DevilAngelWold27, BiGayStraightWhoCares, Mihakuu, and Miss Ratchet!