Imai Hotaru woke up on the morning of April Fools' Day, and checked the weaponry for the day – in lockdown under her bed – first thing. Armed with the Taser-like object inside the case, she checked the lock on her door, picked up her toiletry bag, disabled the lock on it, checked its authenticity, and carried it into her bathroom, brandishing the scanner in front of her, as it emitted a weirdly purple light.
She had a good business going in the April Fool Protector 2.5. Obviously, sales in the past week had skyrocketed, even though it had been available for the past month. She snorted at the thought. How people were stupid enough to leave it this late, in this place, she had no idea.
The April Protector Lite – which she was carrying – was, of course, kept for her personal use, and had a few other tricks up its sleeve, such as multi-ray scanning instead of just an X-Ray/ black-light toggle, and a few others. It was also a lot lighter, given that it used the latest and most expensive ray projectors, paid for from her revenues.
Which still left a handsome profit; of course, the price hikes in the past week had been a good call.
She finished brushing her teeth, came back to her room, checked the lock again, went to shower – first switching on the advanced defence setting on her alarm system – dressed, after pulling her clothes and lightweight armour out of her inbuilt cold-chamber – where she had placed them a week ago to make sure no contamination of any kind reached them – and, shivering slightly, armed with both her April Protector Lite and an odd wristwatch that seemed a little bulky for her slim wrist (the Bakan Gun Portable), she opened the door, ensuring first that her alarm system was still enabled, and stepped outside.
Out of habit, she checked the mailbox to the left of her door, first remembering to Taser it to disable any surprises inside.
The APL registered a curse spoken softly around the corner of the corridor through its Key-sound Register Function (capable of picking up a selection of pre-programmed words when spoken by absolutely any voice, up to a hundred meters away), identifying it on its silent digital panel as Hyuuga's voice. She smiled to herself, used the room scan function to find the mirror he was using to watch her, and shot it with the paintball function.
She looked at her mail at leisure.
Invitation, invitation, bill for parts, invitation, another letter offering sponsorship, she could tell just by the pretentiously heavy paper and gold motif, and something pink, covered in simple, flowing lines twining into a border, and addressed in beautiful, careful handwriting to Imai Hotaru. Her heart skipped a beat as she tore it open.
Hyuuga Natsume was thankful that he had thought to install a small bag of cleaner above the mirror. He opened it with a small spark, and smiled in satisfaction as the paint washed off, leaving his view unobstructed. Not that he expected much, when she had shocked the electronic mechanism into gadget heaven.
His eyes widened in astonishment at the pink, glittery envelope held loosely in his quarry's fingers, and the succession of expressions on her face. Disbelief, excitement – excitement? Imai Hotaru? – A moment of shock that he had been hoping to see on her face for four successive April Fools' days, and a shutdown, pulling the familiar face back into its familiar cast. Had he not seen the process, he would have believed that the dark tinge it had was only his imagination.
She put the letter back in the envelope neatly, put in back in her mailbox with the rest – which it looked like she hadn't touched – and walked off towards the dining hall, hand shaking. He guessed that she would break her Taser toy if she didn't loosen up on it soon.
He hadn't exactly grown a conscience in the last five minutes. He crept softly up to her mailbox, flicked it open with a thumbnail and jumped back, relaxed when nothing sprang out at him, and fished out the pink envelope with two fingers.
His eyebrow rose when he saw that all the glitter was hand-done, and drew out the letter inside. His other eyebrow rose as he read it. He turned the single sheet over, expecting something more.
How could something this silly get to Imai Hotaru? It was something that would only make her raise an eyebrow for a fraction of a second unless it had a significant back-story.
Well, the letter did claim a back-story, he realized as he re-read it.
Could this idiot really have been Imai's first friend?
Only friend, he corrected himself.
He searched deep within himself to see if he cared enough to dig a little deeper.
He realized he didn't. But also that he would anyway, if only to alleviate his utter boredom with life at the moment.
People at the dining hall were whispering as they watched Hotaru stab at her pancakes as if Western breakfasts were the root cause of all evil in the world. It was rare, even on April Fools' Day, to see her this angry. Or this emotional in any direction, period.