Disclaimed.
Finding Mikan
Chapter Thirteen: Cat in Nature
Golden Week. Seven consecutive days extending from the last week of April to the first week of May. One of the most celebrated holidays in the Japan since nineteen forty eight.
And absolute hell for anyone boarding anything to get from point A to point B, which incidentally happened to be everyone in the country.
Encompassed by a mass of affluent figures, all clutching laptops at their sides and speaking through cell phones propped on their shoulders, was the second youngest scion of the Imai family. Like everyone else, she was trying to squeeze through bodies to board the VIP compartment of her train. Never mind that it was virtually impossible for anyone to slip past anyone when everyone was shifting in the same direction at the same time. The crowd would have taken her with them had her feet not moved fast enough.
The entire thing was absolutely ridiculous. This was not even Shibuya station; it was Kitasenju. In preparation, Hotaru had bought tickets from a less prominent train station in hopes that there would not be as much traffic, for the stories she heard of regarding Golden Week were borderline terrifying. Of course, that particular idea worked out exactly the way she had intended.
Somewhere in the background, her phone was ringing. She would make a reach for it but her hands could barely move right now. She would have to call back once she was in her compartment.
Hotaru made a mental note to ask Ross to smuggle her some Teleportation Alice stones in advance come Golden Week next year. As her shoulder was roughly shoved by a man twice the size she was, she peevishly thought that nothing could possibly make this day any worse.
Except… "Attention all passengers, would Imai Hotaru-san, please report to Kiosk C. Imai-san, please report to Kiosk C. Thank you."
Never mind knives, she glared bombs and cannons at the speaker. Sometimes it helped immensely to make an announcement such as that before the requested person was rendered immobile. Even as Hotaru turned her head, another wave of pushing broke out amongst the people, propelling her forward and almost making her trip on her feet.
"Attention all passengers," the broadcast repeated, "would Imai Hotaru-san please report to Kiosk C to pick up your nephew. Thank you."
Well, in that case…
Hotaru did a one eighty and pushed against the crowd. Her efforts were as arduous as trying to escape the gravitational pull of a black hole, or swimming against the tide with two arms chopped off. She could not fully describe in words the unsightliness of the act. She just knew that she was never, ever going to do it ever again.
The train station, like all others, had platforms sorted by numbers. Hotaru emerged from platform fifty one into a grand hall with many corridors branching off into other platforms labelled by large platform signs on their entrance archways. In the middle of this hall was Kiosk E. She did not really remember many details about the train station, seeing as she had been more preoccupied with rushing away from the disorderly holiday mess and into a spacious compartment. However, she did remember that Kiosk D was somewhere near the thirties, so she headed in that general direction.
The inventor pushed her way aggressively through the dense crowds of families in the grand hall. Her luggage rattled behind her, occasionally catching on the straps of luggage or someone's foot, in which case it would tilt a little and balance on a single wheel before falling back onto the floor with a soundly thump. There was not a single iota in Kitasenju Station that mattered besides getting to Kiosk C. The people might as well be faceless. There could be suspicious men there with nicely packaged bombs in their hands and she honestly would not have spared them a second glance.
Through the narrow space in between the arms of a couple, she saw a lady in a green railway uniform. The woman had her upper body bent away from Hotaru and her hands on her lap. "I'm sure she'll be here soon," she assured.
"Yeah, I know," the child's response was all but washed away in the background buzz. "Thanks miss."
Then, they met.
It was a most absurd and dreamlike moment. At the same time that the lady in uniform turned away to once again request the presence of Hotaru Imai, Hotaru Imai shouldered her way past the last group of people standing between she and her nephew. She stumbled forward, taking a few extra steadying steps just to retain balance in her heels.
He stared up at her.
She stared down at him.
Neither of them really knew what to say.
But it was Hikaru. It really was, though he was not quite what he looked like in the pictures. The seven year old was just high enough to reach Hotaru's waist. His wide, purple eyes regarded her face with the certain degree of curiosity that existed in all children. He tilted his head left five degrees, as if trying to decide what to make of this grown woman in front of him who had the same eyes as his father and himself.
His gray hair was fluffed around his head, a little airier than Subaru's though just as straight. His skin was pale and creamy. He was not dressed in Alice Academy's uniform, but a casual T-shirt and baggy shorts. But she did not fail to notice the golden star that remained pinned to his side, or the necklace adorning an oval blue stone worn around his neck.
"Are you my aunt?" he asked candidly.
"Yes I am."
"Okay," he stated.
It was really that simple. Hikaru accepted that fact without showing any elation or disgust, as if he had just made an observation. Hotaru herself was also making many, constantly, about him. Despite all the trouble she had gone through to fetch this child, she herself had yet to actually develop an opinion on him. Him, as in the actual person. Him, as in Hikaru.
"Oh thank god you're here!" It was the lady in the railway uniform, flocking to them. With busy, gesticulating hands, she explained to Hotaru about how the child had been found by a red-eyed stranger, how the man would have stayed to find her but could not because he needed a train to catch.
Rubbish, she thought, Hyuuga, you are just too much of a coward to face me. Although there was really no reason why he would not. With this, Natsume had leverage against her, as much as she hated to admit. Funny how her feelings still had not take a turn for the better in the least. Without his actual presence here, it was easy to undermine the degree of influence he had in their meeting. It was like Hikaru was just there. That was all that mattered. He was there and it did not mean a single thing how he actually got there and who was responsible for him being there.
Except it did. It actually mattered astronomically. Hotaru just could not wrap her mind around it.
"Can you please sign this?" the lady asked, handing her a pen and a document that said that she was responsible for picking up a child and was, in fact, his legal guardian.
The inventor quickly scribbled a signature down.
"Awesome!" She beamed. "You're free to go!"
She nodded, and gently nudged Hikaru on the shoulder towards an exit to the crowded train station. Hikaru followed close by her side without her having to say anything. Sometimes a few people would brush by his small figure, obstructing his path, but he would just jog a little to make up for the lost distance. She did not even have to slow down her pace to match his. It was very convenient and relieving in a way. At first, she was deliberating whether to hold his hand so that he would not lose himself. But she hated the feeling of being babied when she was a kid and she was sure that he hated it just as passionately.
"Where are we going?"
"Nagoya," she said, "to our family."
A small crease appeared in between his eyebrows. "Really?" he asked, not exactly in the most enthusiastic of voices. "For how long?"
"Three days. Then I will take you to see your mother, if you know where she is. You do know where she is, right?" A small nod. "Good. Then that is that. For the last day, I suppose I can tour you around Tokyo for a little."
He nodded again, seemingly satisfied with her response.
They were now descending the many steps that leveled the train station off the ground. There was a swarm of cabs on the streets below. Around them, people were running about everywhere in a last attempt to catch their train. More people were simply sitting on the steps while calling friends or family with cell phones and headsets. Around a Sakura tree, kids chased each other with joyous laughter, sometimes running fast one way and then abruptly stopping to run in the other. To Hotaru, these little details were trivial. What was important was that Hikaru was the one really taking a glimpse into the normal life. In the seven days that he left the academy walls, she wanted him to see as much of the outside world as possible, to provide a different perspective than one that had been thoroughly filtered and then readily delivered to him on a platter.
"Hey." He suddenly tugged at her arm. "Are you really my aunt?"
"Yes."
"Then can you tell me about Fermat's Last Theorem?"
She paused mid step to glance down at him. Hikaru's face was the picture of innocence but it was such a feigned picture of innocence that Hotaru had to hide a knowing smile. She turned the other way so that he would not see the blatant amusement painted on her face. A cheeky kid, he was, but a smart one nonetheless. Nostalgically, she compared his skeptical questioning to one of her rare memories before Irving Academy of she and Subaru challenging each other with intense academic problems.
"Of course. He hypothesized that it was impossible for two numbers to add to a third if all three are bases of exponents with a degree higher than two. His theory had no proof beyond the fourth power so the validity of it was speculated for hundreds of years. Andrew Wiles is credited with proving it in the late twentieth century but preceding mathematicians such as Euler and Lamé also proved the impossibility of such addition with other degrees of powers."
He seemed to accept her answer, nodding his head from side to side. While he was doing this, she tried looking for an inconspicuous spot to teleport from, which would be easy except there were no inconspicuous spots in the bright afternoon on a holiday in Tokyo.
It was not long before he tugged on her arm again. "Do you know Schrödinger's cat?"
"Schrödinger's cat deals with the idea of a superposition of a particle—that is, for example an electron being in all of the places that it could possibly be located in simultaneously while only appearing in one place when one tries to find it. Of course, you know from Heisenberg's uncertainty principle that when an electron is found, it is also moved, therefore making it impossible to actually find an electron. Well, Schrödinger made a theoretical situation where he put a cat in a sealed, soundproof box with a lethal device that could be set off only if a subatomic particle was in a specific position. The idea is that without looking and knowing, the cat could be either alive or dead, and arguably both at the same time. But when one does look, the cat must be alive or dead because it cannot actually be in two states at once."
"Do you think he was successful in explaining the concept of quantum mechanics?"
"I honestly do not know." Hotaru stopped and blinked for a second, surprised at the honest answer that she gave. "Schrödinger's cat is something that I have never needed. I suppose it is a rather original analogy and maybe it does help people understand these concepts. Maybe he was just a cat person. I honestly do not know."
"Okay."
He stopped talking for a while so Hotaru told him about her plan to use his Alice stone to teleport to Nagoya. As Hikaru did not object to the idea, she could only assume that she had his permission. They walked down Kitasenju street. She briefly considered entering a store but then remembered that most stores had security cameras. Besides, would it not be absurd if two people walked into a store and no one walked out?
"We can just go," suggested Hikaru as they arrived in a crowded plaza. "No one's going to notice the disappearance of two people when there are so many."
She was going to call a cab and take them back to her apartment, but from the honking of horns it did seem like a lot of cars were being held up. Driving downtown during a holiday was a nightmare because vehicles were rendered useless when too many people crowded the streets and intersections. Not to mention the odd jaywalker who believed that he was god and would somehow obliterate any vehicle coming his way with bare fists. Between that and just disappearing, disappearing seemed like the better idea at the moment.
So Hotaru nodded.
"You are taking me to Nagoya, right?"
"You can take me if you distrust me that much."
"It's not that I distrust you…" but he contradicted his words by looking down and avoiding her gaze.
Hotaru stopped and squatted until her face was level with his. She let go of her luggage for a moment to cup his cheeks with her palms. "I will not take offense if you do. I have been absent for your entire life, a figure that you have only heard of but never known. I want you to test my character and judge me for yourself. It is the reason why I was so adamant on taking you out of Alice Academy. I want you to see and judge the world for yourself. Now tell me, how can I possibly want that while expecting you to trust me unconditionally upon our first meeting? I do not. I cannot. That would be extremely hypocritical of me."
He was biting his lip and taking it all in, nodding every two sentences. When Hotaru was finished, she smiled and took her hands off of his cheeks before rising to her normal height once more. Hikaru brushed the places where she had touched him, though no visible emotion displayed on his face.
"I trust you," he finally said, causing her eyes to flicker incredulously. "I do. It's the truth. I don't think you'd hurt me even if you weren't my aunt."
"You never know," Hotaru warned him.
"But it's true!" he protested, two fists clenched at his side. "I think you just want me to know that you can get everything right, so that I think you're a great aunt. I don't know about Fermat's Theorem, or Schrödinger's cat. Well, I do know that Fermat made a theory about how the addition of a plus b plus c can't apply when they all have powers higher than two and that Schrödinger did some experiment involving a cat that may or may not be dead—" he pause and took a deep inhale "—but not in the detail that you explained it with. That was just—I mean, I learn a lot from just talking to you."
Hotaru truly did not know what to say.
"I swear I wasn't trying to trick you or anything! I thought that if you were really my aunt, you'd know about everything!" He emphasized the word by spreading his arms in a huge circle. "I just wanted to see how you would answer a question that's more complicated than one plus one because one plus one is easy and everyone knows that it's two, right?"
Whether his question was rhetorical or not never mattered in the first place. As soon as it was out there, the cogs in her brain automatically began turning at lightning speed.
She almost thought in the way of a calculator. In her mind, the numbers and symbols appeared one by one. First the one, then the addition sign, then the other one, then the equal sign. Two. One plus one was two.
She opened her mouth to confirm, but as she did an irrational fear stopped and paralyzed her. Because… even if one plus one was two, what if it was not two? Because one plus one does not necessarily have to be two! Technically zero point six would constitute as one as it could be rounded to one, but zero point six plus zero point six equaled one point two, which could also be one. And similarly, one point four and one point four made two point eight, or three. A person was one. But a person and another person could have as many as seven children. Did that mean one plus one was nine? One positive and one negative nullified each other. Did that mean that one plus one was zero? To write the kanji for ten, first a horizontal stroke was made and then a vertical stroke. So one and one made ten as well. And eleven. That was right. How could she have forgotten eleven? Added textually as opposed to mathematically, one and one would just be placed next to each other.
"I do not," she muttered shakily. It felt like a vulture was picking at her skull. Maybe she ate something laced with narcotics earlier. She felt dizzy. She kept seeing Ross Anderson's face in front of her.
"Miss Imai, I think you know the reason why I called you into my office today."
His office was swirling and turning and bobbling as if she were stumbling into it while drunk and disorientated. The colouring was off. Her teacher's face looked like liquid, rippling every time she tried to stare straight at him. But the scene was painfully familiar—her first conversation with Ross Anderson.
"No, I do not know sir." Hotaru did not know whether she said it aloud or not. The words were so clearly ingrained inside her head.
He slapped a bundle of papers down in front of her. It was a centimetre thick, but only the first two pages were test pages he handed out. Everything else had been added by her, blank pages detailing all the possible answers she could think of to the questions he created. Hotaru picked it up and flipped through it quickly, noting that her teacher had not scribbled anything on them. That was good. No corrections meant that nothing was wrong. On top of that, she had gotten a perfect mark. She did not see what the problem was.
He clearly had a problem, though. A big one. Why else would he look so exhausted, with that frustrated hand constantly combing through his hair? Hotaru stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate. "Christ," he finally did, "I've been a teacher here for six years and I don't think I've ever come across anything like this. Honestly, when I asked for the velocity of the bullet, I didn't expect you to include air friction or friction with the gun or the amount of force the barrel applied and for how many milliseconds it was applied. I didn't ask for a chart detailing the velocity for every hundredth of a second as it flew through the air. I didn't ask for you to calculate the trajectory or acceleration or energy, nor did I ask for the percentage errors. I especially don't remember asking for or mentioning the shape of the bullet, the gun and what specific types they are. These are all assumptions that you have made on your part. This question should not have taken eighty pages to answer. The only reason why I gave you full marks is because I saw that the first answer was correct and frankly, because I didn't have enough patience to even look at the rest."
Hotaru blinked incredulously. When she had been told to stay after school, she had been scared that she somehow did something unlawful and would be punished. She had been anxious. She had not expected her teacher to call her in and give her compliments.
"I won't lie to you, Miss Imai. I wanted to burn that test." His eyes flashed angrily. "Don't ever do this again."
"But all my answers were correct."
"That's not the point."
"They were!" she protested hotly, dropping her paper back on the table. "A rifle with a twenty one point six one inch barrel shoots significantly different from a handgun with a four point five three two inch barrel."
"You don't know if this is a twenty one inch barrel rifle or a four point five inch barrel handgun. All the question states is that it is a gun. You are not to assume what gun it is."
Hotaru gave him a disapproving look. "Sir, I know that these questions are hypothetical statements, but they should at least be realistic. Physics is all about modelling real situations, is it not? If this were a real situation, then there would only be one gun, one type of bullet, and fixed factors. There would only be one answer, which I have found in my test because I have written a variation of all possible outcomes."
"Don't call me sir," Ross Anderson told her, frowning. "Never address someone by their title. It's demeaning and disrespectful, both to you and to myself. I don't call you 'student' or 'child.' I am Mr. Anderson, a person. I have a name and I refuse to be addressed otherwise."
"Yes Mr. Anderson," she retorted, holding back the urge to roll her eyes in annoyance.
"Miss Imai, have you ever heard of Schrödinger's cat?"
She shook her head.
"But you are familiar with the ideas of quantum mechanics, specifically Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and quantum superposition?" He held out his left hand towards her, fingers outstretched, curved downwards in a questioning manner.
"I am, Mr. Anderson."
"A particle is in every single one of its positions at the same time until a test is actually done and one conclusive answer is reached. Logical reasoning will tell you that there is only one particle and that it can only be at one place at one time." He held up a single finger. "Like there is one answer to every single question, just as you said." He leaned forward then, matching her height even though he was only sitting. "You are mimicking the concept of quantum superposition, Miss Imai. Yes, all of these answers are true, but at the same time only one of them applies. The one is what I need from you. Just that one and nothing else, do you understand me?"
"Yes, Mr. Anderson," she sighed frustratingly, "but it still does not mean that I am wrong."
"No it doesn't." Ross Anderson's eyes pierced into hers. "It just means you have horrible self-confidence and a stringent phobia of failure."
She tired not to flinch. Tried not to. But she did. And she immediately cursed herself for failing again, not that he would notice anyway. She had several moments like this every single day and each one was gradually becoming worse than the last. Like she was being torn from the very inside. Like a rotten fruit that was only decorated to look pretty so people would buy it.
"I'm generally not an intrusive person and I won't delve into this any further if it discomforts you, but if you ever want to tell me anything, I am all ears."
"Is that all?" Her knees were weak. She could barely stand.
"Yes." He was not even looking at her anymore. "You are dismissed."
"Aunt Hotaru?"
Hikaru's voice dispersed the image and brought her back to Tokyo, present time. She glanced around wildly for a moment, overwhelmed by the change in scenery, the people and the tall buildings. Her breathing was shallow. She didn't understand anything: who she was, why she was the way she was, why she had met Ross Anderson and become friends with him, why she endured the Memory Project, why she was an Alice, why her nephew asked her for the answer to one plus one.
"What is the answer?" she whispered, latching her fingers onto his shoulders wildly.
"It's two," he stated with confidence she could not fathom. This time, it was he who was holding her steady, and he who was ensuring her sanity. It was she who held onto him like she was the seven year old child who needed support.
"Two," she murmured to herself, as if it were some mystical number. "Two… One plus one is two…" Her hand rose to her forehead. She dragged it down her damp, sweating face, wiping it dry.
It was Hikaru who grabbed her luggage with one hand, Hikaru who grabbed her hand with the other and Hikaru who teleported them both to Nagoya in an instant. The city faded out. The people and the buildings disappeared. In its place were mountains and the blue sky and old houses with brick walls and chimneys and farms and an old, concrete school and everything she had grown up around. Hikaru's hand squeezed hers one last time before he let go.
"Auntie," he said meekly, while tugging at her khakis. "Do you have an anxiety disorder?"
Hotaru was still shaken and clutching her head with two hands. "No," she admitted, dropping to a crutch. and staring hard into the ground. She felt extremely light-headed, disorientated. "I just can't—I can't…" she struggled to find the word "—I can't deal with failure."
He racked his brain. "Isn't there a term for that? A-aticki—"
"I'm atychiphobic."
"Oh, yeah, that."
He knelt down beside her worriedly. Seeing the adorable face of her nephew contorted with such concern hurt Hotaru to no end. His eyebrows arched in and his lips stuck out slightly in a frown. To blot out the image, she shut her eyes while heaving a huge breath. Another wave of nausea and dizziness surged through her body, this time weaker but still effective enough to make her feel like heaving.
And then suddenly that feeling was gone. Replaced. By something warm and fuzzy.
Hotaru opened her eyes to find her nephew's hands held out just at the two sides of her head. A luminescent green glow emitted from them. It was ticklish, intangible but at the same time existing. It felt like he was injecting some kind of pleasant substance into her head, one that made her want to curl towards it like a mewing kitten.
"Is it better now?" he asked.
Only then did Hotaru realize that the glow was no longer there. She cautiously lifted her hands a few centimetres off her head, suspicious that the headache and nausea would return. It did not so she rose to her feet shortly after.
"Amazing." She felt even more vitalized than she did on normal days. In fact, she would not mind climbing a mountain at that very moment.
Hikaru put a small hand to his chest and sighed, "whew! I was scared that it wouldn't work. I've always healed cuts and scrapes so I didn't know about mental pain."
"You are a saint child."
She expected Hikaru to smile or deny her praise modestly, but all he did was look into the distance and then frown. This time, it was not an expression that carried worry but reluctance and even a little bit of anger.
"Auntie," he finally asked, "do you love me?"
When he was staring at her with huge, innocent violet eyes, there was little Hotaru could do but nod, even though she knew it was a ploy of his to get a favour from her. And sure enough, right after the nod he gestured for her to lower her head.
She did and he whispered something so quietly that even the wind could not carry the words away.
"Then, can I please not see my father?"
To say Mr. and Mrs. Imai were shocked to see their grandson would be a massive understatement. To say almost anything would be a massive understatement. The truth stood that Hotaru's mother almost fainted when the two of them showed up at her door. Hikaru, who had been afraid that Subaru would come running if she did, quickly grabbed the two wrinkled hands that clenched the doorframe for support. He pulled her upright and walked her, albeit shakily, to the sofa.
"Oh my god," Mrs. Imai was hand-fanning herself. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god."
This was the point where Mr. Imai rushed out of the kitchen to see all the commotion. He took one look at Hikaru and tensed in a snap of the fingers. Tentatively, he approached with invariable disbelief.
"Hotaru?" He turned to her for an elaboration just as she shut the door and stepped over the threshold.
"Long story short," she sighed with closed eyes, "a… an acquaintance named Hyuuga Natsume got me permission to retrieve him from Alice Academy for Golden Week."
"Hyuuga?" Hotaru's mother's voice rose several pitches. She turned to Mr. Imai while pointing upwards. "Isn't this Hyuuga person Subaru's friend that he told us about a few years ago?"
"Not anymore."
A total of three people turned their heads toward the growl. Subaru was right in the doorway of his father's bedroom, adjusting a navy blue tie. He wore shiny loafers, a crisp white button down shirt and black khakis with two vertical, folded lines stretching all the way down his legs. A blazer was tucked underneath his arm. It looked like it was about to slip off.
Out of the corner of her eye, Hotaru saw Hikaru tensing at the sight of his father. She noticed, now, that it wasn't really a tense—more like a flinch. His eyes were resolutely glued to the floor even as Subaru approached.
"Hey kid," said Subaru softly. He reached a fond hand to the back of Hikaru's head and pulled him in for a five second hug. Hikaru showed no sign of resistance but he trembled visibly in his father's arms. "Hope you're doing good," he said with half shut eyelids. He then let go of Hikaru, but not before ruffling the child's hair one last time.
All they could hear subsequently was the stomping of running feet, a loud slam and the click of a lock as Hikaru locked himself inside the guest room.
In the living room, all was silent. Mr. and Mrs. Imai were obviously exchanging looks that almost screamed to Hotaru they were wondering whether they should tell her the secret or not. She raised her eyebrows very briefly at them both before turning to her brother.
"Why does he hate you so much?"
"Hotaru!" her father chastised the bluntness of her question.
Subaru just shook his head and exited the house.
Hotaru spared one glance at her parents, who still had mixed expressions. They were obviously useless in this case. She turned her head towards the wooden door. Hikaru was still showing no sign of life even after his father left the house. He probably would not come out without some coaxing. Mrs. Imai would be more than apt for that. Hotaru sighed and shook her head a few times before jogging after her brother.
"Hey!"
She could see his figure some fifty metres in the distance on the single dirt road that Nagoya ran along. He did not even perk up at her call, instead continuing to stride in even firmer steps. So she ran up to him and swatted him on the shoulder, forcing him to turn and scowl.
"I was talking to you."
"I know," he retorted in a tone that clearly stated if this is about my son again, I don't want to talk about it.
She knew she would not get a word out of him if she pressed, so she diverted the subject by reaching into her purse and pulling out a little satin box. "You know how it was your birthday a week ago and how you were constantly pestering me about not getting you a present? Well, here."
Subaru glanced at the dark blue box suspiciously before taking it with his long fingers. He looked to Hotaru, querying, "are you sure you didn't put a mini water gun in there that's going to pop out and spray me in the face?"
"You have a very vivid imagination, but no, that is a real present."
His eyebrows flew up once and landed back down. He snapped open the lid with his fingers and took the ring from the box slowly. As he brought it up to his eyes, she smiled. Earlier that week, she bought him a white gold ring adorned with a glossy moonstone, partially because she thought it was beautiful and partially because having a pearl would make it too obvious.
Nonetheless, Subaru caught on. "Is this a joke?" he bit at her. "I don't wear rings."
"Oh, do not say that. That is your birthstone."
"My birth stone is a diamond." He glared pointedly at her. "This is the birthstone of June."
"Really?" she cheekily feigned ignorance. "Well, my bad, then. The jeweler told me that it was for April. Here, hand it over and I will return it immediately… following Golden Week of course."
Subaru rolled his eyes at her and grunted in annoyance, but he did slip on the ring as she thought he would. Although, he made it obvious to her that it was given a place on the middle finger of his left hand and not the ring. Despite this, she was still gleeful enough to smile giddily while he pocketed the satin blue box.
"So why are you dressed so formally?" asked Hotaru as he started walking again. "Are you going somewhere for the weekend? Some woman you have been seeing?"
"No. I'm taking a body to the city for an autopsy and cremation."
She blinked in surprise and paused her strides for a moment. "On Golden Week?"
"Yes, sister. Of course people don't die on Holidays. No, they choose better times to pass away so they wouldn't have to inconvenience the rest of us who still have things to do and places to go. God forbid you die in the most inopportune moment in your life, like before you're finished paying off your debts or even see your granddaughter grow up."
"It is quite unsettling how you say this all with a straight face."
Subaru sighed patiently. "I may not be in the best mood right now. Sakura-ji just passed away yesterday. I called you earlier to let you know that there's no need to come over when everybody's just going to be mourning."
Oh, so that was the call.
"Well, there is little we can do about it now. Is Sakura-ji's body at his house?"
Subaru's head perked. "Yes, why?"
"Well, you will need to pick up his body and teleport to a city—and I assume that you will teleport because there are no other viable forms of transportation in this town available during Golden Week." Subaru reminded her with a look to stop stating the obvious and Hotaru suppressed the urge to swat him again. "Well then, will you be back by Monday?"
Oh, so now he wanted to deign her with a response. "Monday? Probably not, why?"
"I was a little concerned about the timing because I will be taking Hikaru to see his mother on Monday. I thought he was exaggerating when he stated that he did not wish to see his father, but maybe it is for the better if he reacts so negatively to the mere sight of you."
"You're taking him to Naomi?" It was as if Subaru never heard anything else. "Why are you taking him to Naomi?"
"…Well, why not? She is kind of his mother, you know? Unless you have forgotten somewhere in the past seven years?"
He mumbled something under his breath that she could not catch. When Hotaru held a hand to her ear and leaned closer, Subaru grunted in displeasure before snapping, "do you really think she'll be satisfied with just seeing him? You'll only make her miss her son even more, assuming that taking him out of Alice Academy is a one time thing—and speaking of which, what business do you have with Hyuuga for him to do such a big favour for you? Don't you two hate each other?"
Hotaru shot him a look that let him know that she knew what he was doing and she was not going to let him steer the direction of the conversation. "Right, so about seeing Naomi… You are aware that I am going to take him there whether you consent or not."
"I should have known. Since when did I have control over you?" he remarked more to himself than to her.
Subaru stopped upon arrived at Old Sakura's house and Hotaru with him. Mikan's grandfather, like all other Nagoya residents, had a very old fashioned bungalow, a living space he literally rebuilt from a farmhouse. Old Sakura was rich for a countryman. He had a large plot of land, farmed in his youth and rented his land to younger workers as he grew older. When Mikan was small, she had probably been friends with the sons and daughters of these younger workers. Now, they did not even matter anymore. Those people were from a life a long time ago and neither Mikan nor Hotaru remembered their names.
Subaru unlocked the entrance and slid the door open. The inside of the house was much more spacious than the Imais' house. Old Sakura's foyer was small but his living room contained a good three hundred square feet of free space covered with nothing but mats and futons. The four walls of the living room were lined with ancient vases and shelves holding huge collections of valuable antiques. Large windows adorned bright white walls on two sides, completely filling the room with sunlight. This was the house in the country that everyone dreamed of at least once in their lives but never actually had the money to buy.
"Neat," she commented, poking her head inside before Subaru grabbed her and dragged her out by the back of her collar.
"I can take it from here."
"Can I go in?"
"No," the response came firm as he shooed her away by flapping his hand. When she pressed for entrance, he firmly grabbed her shoulders and grounded her to her spot. "Look, I don't mind what you do in Tokyo. That's your own business. I can't stop you from talking to Hyuuga or becoming friends with him, though I try. But here, in Nagoya, I won't let you disrespect someone else's property out of mere curiosity. Sakura-ji is dead, yes. He has bequeathed us this house, yes, but only because Mikan is not here at the moment. We are only to hold onto it until she comes back to claim her inheritance. Before then, you are to touch nothing."
"I was not going to," she stated, but even as the words left her mouth, her eyes fixated on a ornate box sitting on a ledge protruding from a wall.
A master craftsman must have been chosen to decorate that. Even from here, she could just barely make out a few large details the small flowers and vines that were carved into the sandy wood. Except for the fact that it was in perfect shape, it almost looked like something from the Renaissance. There was even a golden lock to compliment the design, although she doubtful as to whether or not it was real gold; at second glance, the colour resembled her key just a slight.
As Hotaru squinted her eyes for a closer look, Subaru jerked her again, momentarily causing the vines and flowers of the design to distort into something completely different. Hotaru gasped and took a step back. Subaru, mistakenly thinking that he had shoved her a little rougher than he intended, outstretched a hand and asked if she was okay.
"Yes, I am fine," she mumbled distractedly.
She glanced to the box again, this time blurring her vision instead of focusing it. Subaru was convinced that she was out of her mind, but thankfully he got distracted enough by her absurd behavior to momentarily forget about Old Sakura. After Hotaru stood unmoving for a minute, though, he finally decided that it was a lost cause and stepped across the threshold of Old Sakura's house. She kissed her teeth, annoyed that she could not get the right degree of blurriness to confirm what she had seen.
He shook his head as he was closing the door and she stepped forward in a last attempt.
There it was, just for a second: vines and flowers carved in a pattern that, when blurred correctly, formed five letters.
MIKAN.
It's up to you to guess where Mikan is, but my guess that you probably won't come close. On the other hand, a handful of you will probably be spot on at guessing what's in the box.
Also somewhat noteworthy: I explained Schrödinger's Cat and Fermat's Last Theorem in the way that Hotaru, Hikaru and Ross Anderson would, respectively. Please don't actually try to learn the concepts from what I've put here. There are professional physicists for that. :)
Please alert, fave, review!
-IndigoGrapefruit
