Reunion
The day of the event finally arrived. The participant's registration began at 7 am, concluding around 8:30, and at 9 am, when the access to the general public began, the Gymnasium was at full capacity with the representatives of several dojos from all along the country that were rather eager to participate.
It seemed that more than one thought that a little bit more of publicity would not harm anyone.
Their schedule was already set, beginning with the demonstration of the Tate-do schools just after the inauguration speech and then they would alternate between schools from the Koryu Budo and the Gendai Budo until every registered discipline had been shown.
Participants however were expected to appear twice at least. First everybody was asked to appear in a group demonstration of their discipline in a group Kata and then as individuals, showing a special move that was distinctive of their schools.
For this, each disciplinary group was given about half an hour before the inauguration speech so they could acquaintance themselves and maybe interact with the other groups and also so they could figure out which kata could they show for their group participation.
Hikaru however, was rather distracted. Her innate curiosity prompted her to search among the other groups of participants for the tall, dark, long haired man that she saw the day before at the hotel, but even though she looked everywhere, she could not find him.
She did find however the other tall guy, the one that was clearly related to the first one, the man that stole her attention in a rather unavoidable way. That man was in the same disciplinary group as her brother Satoru.
For a moment, Hikaru considered if she should go look for her brother with some silly excuse just to see if she could gain some more information about this mystery man; however she quickly got rid of that idea deciding to better concentrate herself in her incoming group presentation.
Besides, even if Satoru was not as overprotective of her as Masaru and Kakeru, she was sure that He would see through her act rather quickly.
Getting back on track, she noted that the other Kendo representatives decided to do a small rehearsal of the kata they selected to perform as a group, before going out to show it. They knew they had enough time for their rehearsal, seeing as the organizers were just getting around the greetings and presentations of the welcome speech and that the first group of Tate-do will not be up for another 45 minutes.
Their rehearsal was done satisfactorily, leaving the kendokas free to wander around the Gymnasium, and allowing Hikaru to do just that before having to get back to the rest of her group.
She was walking around in a distracted way, looking at everything and anything at the same time. She saw other groups' practices, people arriving late or even old friends reuniting after not being able to see each other since last competitions.
Sometime along the way, Hikaru started to hum her half melody while watching other people's practices. She still wasn't sure why, but her melody had been playing on loop on her head since the day before, not even allowing her to sleep without thinking of it. And it seemed that it would keep on playing for an indefinite amount of time.
Or so she thought, because both her humming and her distracted steps were abruptly interrupted by a tall barrier that Hikaru could have sworn was not there a couple of minutes ago.
And maybe she was right, because said "barrier" was just getting around the same corner Hikaru was about to take.
Hikaru's first reaction was to quickly apologize for not paying attention to where she was going, offering a million or so excuses for why she collided with him, and telling him that it would not happen again.
The problem was the moment her eyes met his, as he was giving her a rather intense look that made her uneasy enough to just offer a final apology before making a hasty retreat, leaving behind a tall, dark haired man whose violet eyes reflected just a small amount of the things he was actually feeling.
Because what Hikaru did not know was that the melody she had been humming moments before their collision, was a perfect match to the one Lantis had been playing on his mind for the entirety of the morning.
I apologize for the delay, I got a horrible two days migraine that left me unable to use the computer (light in general hurt my eyes and worsened the migraine)
But here I'm back. So I hope you enjoy this little chapters
