"The Blackout"
The exwires group considered itself very lucky. They managed to deal with a monster in the lake much faster than it was predicted and because of that they could use the remaining few days however they wanted to.
That, naturally, could mean only one thing, with somebody like Rin in the group.
"Movie night!" Okumura the eldest was pretty much jumping in place, grinning madly. "I never had a sleepover either!"
"Remind me," Izumo rolled her eyes. "Why exactly I agreed to this?"
"It was either agreeing or suffering through him bugging you all day long," Ryuji snickered, putting the pillows down to create a comfortable spot to sit. Since they planned to spend the whole night staring at the TV–screen, they should at least do it in comfortable room. So he was carrying stuff and putting it on the floor, creating giant fluffy nest of pillows and blankets, while Shima was with Konekomaru in the kitchen, trying to break some sort of record in how much popcorn could be made in a single evening. Izumo was the one unlucky enough to went with Rin to a store, where they could choose second–hand DVDs for really decent prices.
"Next time you're doing that," Izumo just huffed angrily and sat down in the fluffy nest.
"Hey!" Ryuji protested. "I wasn't finished!"
"Then go finish on the other side, geez!"
He grunted something under his breath and moved away.
Honestly, it was just a comfortable nest to watch moves, not even a blanket fort, she through, furrowing her brow in irritation. Why he was always acting so serious about such dumb stuff?
And Rin wasn't any better, almost bouncing off the walls in his excitement.
It took them a few more moments to prepare everything, before they all settled down, carefully to not accidentally trip over one of the bowls with popcorn or the bottles with drinks. They also had to subtly explain to Shiemi that they didn't need salad, but appreciated her gesture anyways.
The TV finally was on and intro of some action movie was playing, cars already exploding in ridiculous manner, the people running around with guns and missing with every shot they took…
And then, the room went dark.
Bon gasped with a surprise like everyone else, though he was made noise only because Rin's tail startled him, suddenly smacking him right in the kidney. While the thing looked innocent and happened to be the weak point, it still could lay a hit rather neatly.
"Okumura, watch what are you doing!" he growled.
Somewhere on the left he heard Shiemi making a confused noise and Izumo answering her questions, while there was shuffle on the right; either Miwa or Shima tripled one of the bowls. At least it wasn't an open bottle, because that would end up completely sticky…
A sudden flash of bright, blue light was completely unexpected and was so intense it hurt.
"Damn it, Okumura!" Suguro screamed, shielding his eyes. "Turn that off!"
"I'm the only source of light here!" Rin protested, still burning brightly.
"You suck at being a flashlight then! You're blinding me!"
"I must agree with Bon, you're too bright," Shima mumbled, grimacing, but at least trying to look him in the eye. "Can you tone it down a bit?"
"Or go to the corner," Izumo said. "Just for a moment, so we can find candles and a lighter."
Rin grunted something under his breath, clearly unhappy.
"The idea was good," Konekomaru smiled slightly towards him. "But you used the flames only after we somewhat got used to the darkness. Eyes just don't like sudden changes like that."
"Yeah, I get it," Rin mumbled. He tried to tone down the flames a bit, but no matter how small, they were still annoyingly bright.
"I found the candles!" Shima grinned happily.
"It's a paschal candle," Suguro pointed out.
"So?" Renzou blinked. "A candle is a candle. And we need light anyway. So, moment of truth guys! Who's smoking?"
There was a silence.
"Seriously?" he asked, like it was something all that surprising. "Nobody? We need a lighter!"
"Rin?" Shiemi asked shyly. "Weren't you training it with miss Shura?"
"And burning most of the candle away," he grunted unhappily, his good mood gone.
"Hey, this is definitely a bigger candle!" Renzou grinned happily, waving one of the paschal candle, forcing Konekomaru to duck. "Come on!"
Okumura grunted something under his breath, but finally agreed to light the candles up. His brow furrowed with concentration, when he stared intensely at the candlewick. Then, a small blue fireball came to life, eating up hungrily the wax on top of the candle.
"It's not that bad," Bon decided, eyeing their new light source. "Not even a quarter is gone."
"Yeah, now translate it into normal candles!" Rin moaned unhappily. "I'm so freakin' bad at it!"
"Then try again, it's not like we don't have more," Ryuji just shrugged and handed him another one. "Unless you're planning to sit there, cosplaying a human torch all night."
He groaned, but decided to try and light up another candle anyway. It helped a bit that the rest of the guys welcomed every new light source with a cheerful "yay!". Actually it seemed to work much better than half–drunk Shura shouting at him or looking over his shoulder.
"Maybe you should try to use the fire a little bit over the candlewick instead of right in the center of it?" Konekomaru proposed, tilting his head slightly, carefully looking at one of the candles.
"Wouldn't that be cheating?" he blinked, uncertain. It sounded like a good plan, but the whole thing was supposed to help him learn control.
"Well, you're supposed to light the candle with your fire," the small monk just shrugged. "Besides, it is a fire. When you make someplace burn all of sudden it's hard to expect that the place around it wouldn't get hit by the flames too…"
He definitely would explain it further, talking about physics, chemistry and nature of the element itself and would totally try to prove – even mathematically – that concentrating only on the one point on the candle would create way bigger explosion than when targeting a slightly larger space. He would, but his attention switched towards Shima, who was crunching over one of the candles with a toothy grin and a fork in his hand.
"What do you think you're doing?" Ryuji spotted it too.
"Marshmallows!" Renzou happily explained, demonstrating the fluffy candy on top of his fork. "I always was curious if these tastes better when warmed over flame, like in the movies, you know?"
"You are not supposed to do that over flame so small," Suguro grunted, shaking his head. "And definitely not while using a fork, the metal is going to be really hot any moment."
"Party pooper," Shima grunted, turning away from his candy just so he could show Suguro the middle finger. When he turned back, the universe proved that it hated him. "Oh dear, it's dripping, it's dripping!"
"Of course it's dripping, what else were you expecting?!" Bon growled. "Somebody give him a handkerchief before he will smear it all over the blankets!"
Shiemi hurried up towards Renzou with a paper towel, while Shima attempted to save the blankets by himself, trying to keep away the sweet, whiteish goo that was trying to escape from his fork.
"Ow, ow! Hot!"
"Well, gee, genius!" Izumo snorted. "It's melted sugar, were you expecting something else?"
He just mumbled something in response, carefully licking the sweet and still hot mass from his fingers, while Shiemi took his fork away, carefully wrapping the rest of the glueish goo in the paper.
"Do you burned yourself badly?" she asked, looking at him with worried face.
"Nah!" Shima was grinning once again. "And it was quite good, you guys should try it too! Satan flavored!"
The rest of the exwires groaned painfully.
After a moment of arguing about jokes too dumb to exist, they finally settled inside their pillow nest comfortable and Rin could put his sword away. The candles could burn for way longer than they needed them too and were big enough to not fell down so easily. They just needed to remember about them before going to sleep, because setting the building on fire wouldn't be something Yukio would want to come back to.
"Damn, but the electricity won't come back?!" Rin whimpered, looking with deep sadness at the TV screen, like he hoped to bring it back to life with sole power of his will. "I so wanted it to be a fun sleepover and all! And now we can't watch the movies, or anything!"
"Don't worry," Shiemi smiled shyly. "I'm sure there's still a lot of things we can do and still have a good time. Without burning candies over the fire."
"Yeah!" Shima agreed enthusiastically, ignoring the subtle jab, so unusual for Moriyama. "We can play the bottle game!"
"No!" Bon cut in, before Renzou managed to say anything else.
"But it's fun!" he protested.
"No!" Ryuji barked again.
"I agree with him, no deal," Izumo huffed. "Besides, you don't know the Murphy's Laws? You would end up kissing only Suguro anyway."
"Ew, don't give me the mental images!" Ryuji protested.
"Figures, you wouldn't even thank me for saving your virtue," Izumo said and then smirked. "Princess."
"Oh, would you guys bug off already?!"
"Not a chance," Shima grinned happily. "Besides, you started it."
"Me?!" Bon wheezed. "How exactly I started it?!"
"He's probably referring to the time when you learned how to use naginata," Konekomaru pointed out, his face blank. He was so used to Bon constantly jumping to other people's throats he pretty much stopped reacting.
"You can use a naginata?" Izumo blinked.
"Isn't that like... girls weapon?"
"There's a bit of story behind that," Shima happily started explaining. "You remember Mamushi and other creepy snake chicks from back at Kyoto, right?"
They all nodded.
"So," Renzou continued. "They always were the ones to start a fight and they were getting away with it, because, well, girls."
"They were usually winning too," Konekomaru added with a small sigh.
"Yeah, exactly!" Shima grinned. "And once Bon just asked Mamushi how exactly she had beaten him up. So she ended up teaching him, because that gave her the perfect reason to beat the crap out of him even with adults around."
"Aw, I never knew you were such a masochist!" Izumo chuckled.
"Uh..." Rin scratched his head. "Isn't it that weapon to go against katana?"
"Pretty much," Miwa nodded. "It definitely got much longer reach than a katana."
"So we can spar sometime!" Rin grinned. "I never fought against somebody!"
"Maybe," Ryuji shrugged. "I'm rusty, though, it was long time since I did anything with that."
"Oh, don't worry!" Rin patted him on the shoulder using way more strength than it was necessary. "I'll go easy on you!"
"Just what are you saying?!"
Suguro was about to stand up and grab Okumura by his collar, but Konekomaru managed to grab him in time. "Oi, guys! You're not going to start fight right now, are you?"
"He's the one in hurry, not me!"
"Hey, gorilla, sit down!" Izumo yanked Ryuji's shirt. "Before one of you idiots set the whole place on fire! Honestly!"
That actually worked. Well, not the yanking, since Bon was way stronger than her and she probably could dangle on him all the day and there wouldn't be a difference at all, but the argument about fire. No matter how big and stable these candles were, they still were just candles.
"Okay, fine!" Rin sighed. "I guess losing the electricity was bad enough."
"Don't worry!" Konekomaru said quickly, using the chance to lead the conversation away from things that could end up in a fight. "There's a lot of things we can do!"
"Yeah," Rin grunted unhappily. "Like go to sleep?"
Bon opened his mouth, probably wanting to say that it was actually the sane idea, but Izumo elbowed him in the side with enough force to shut him up.
"We can do it like old-time scouts group!" Shima grinned widely. "Ghost stories!"
Shiemi made a quiet noise, like she wanted to say something but decided not to in the last moment.
"Hey, something happened?" Rin blinked, turning towards her and looking for something that could be wrong with the girl.
"No, nothing!" she said quickly, blushing. "I just… don't like ghost stories very well. They are scary!"
"You," Izumo sighed deeply. "Are an exorcist. Why are you afraid of ghosts?"
"Besides, you exorcised that one in the amusement park on your own!" Okumura quickly added. "Why are you scared when you're so awesome?"
Shiemi blushed brightly, her gaze wandering somewhere on the floor, where their eyes couldn't meet it.
"Let it go," Konekomaru shrugged. "If she don't like horror stories, then she don't like horror stories."
"Yeah," Suguro murmured, nodding. "I agree, let it go, guys."
"I don't want to spoil your fun…" Shiemi said quietly.
"Hey, girl! You're not spoiling anything!" Renzou grinned widely, wrapping one arm around Ryuji's shoulders. "We have all sort of stories about our princess here!"
Bon pushed him away hard, but Shima only laughed more when he noticed the angry expression on Suguro's face.
"Aw, don't be shy, princess!" Rin elbowed him slightly. "Truth or dare, that would be fun, right! I never did that either!"
Ryuji sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Just nothing to personal or uncomfortable, alright?"
They all nodded, since these rules just made sense. There was no point on forcing people to say things they were too ashamed to admit or making them do stuff they were uncomfortable with. They were here to have fun in the first place.
"So..." Rin started, eyeing Suguro with a grin. "How come you know how to pick a lock?"
Ryuji just grunted something under his breath and turned his face away.
"You really think that he's going to tell you?" Rezou chuckled.
"Picking locks somewhat do not fit well with him..."
"Well, he learned that when we were just small brats," Shima shrugged.
"Do tell, I smell something amusing!"
"It was all about the cookie jar."
"You're serious?"
"Well, you see, my mom and his mom and all the other women at the temple complex were baking from time to time, but all of them got a sadistic bone," Renzou started explaining. "So all the cookies were closed in a can and then the can went into a closet. With a lock on it."
Izumo started laughing.
"Seriously? You learned that because you wanted a cookie?"
"Bug off," Suguro grunted.
Even if the dim light it was easy to tell that he was blushing with embarrassment.
"But that's adorable!"
Ryuji raised his eyebrow instead of continuing screaming.
Izumo blinked, at first not really understanding, what that was about, but then she remembered what she just said out loud.
xxx
Ryuji opened eyes and groaned. While his internal clock was working like any other day, to used to getting up very early, his brain seemed not to share the sentiment.
It felt like his head was full of cotton and it was aching slightly. He groaned and slowly sat up, rubbing his eyes in hope that it wasn't the beginning of a migraine but merely a result for being too long up last night.
When exactly they went to sleep anyway?
It must have been late for them to just drop in here instead of taking the pillow nest apart and walking back to their rooms, Ryuji decided.
It was also a small miracle that they didn't burn the house to a crisp after all, because he didn't remember dealing with the candles. On the other hand, he could have just feel asleep while the others were still up.
Suguro looked around. Konekomaru found himself a comfortable corner, curling into a ball around one of the biggest pillows, while Shima was snoring slightly, spawned right in the middle of the blankets, with a half-empty bag of marshmallows in his hand. So, he probably tried to bake them again when nobody was paying attention to him.
Shiemi was sleeping near the window and Ryuji was pretty sure that the plants on the windowsill weren't as big yesterday as they were now.
Nearest to him was Izumo, sprawled on her stomach, her hair still in two ponytails, but now messed up and escaping the ribbons.
On the other side Rin was snoring slightly, his mouth slightly open and drooling on the pillow he was hugging. His tail unbound and lied half-covered by the blankets... and was wrapped around Suguro's ankle.
Ryuji grit his teeth and tried to free himself, but after he finally managed to get the tail away from his leg it just grabbed his arm instead.
"This is ridiculous!" he groaned. And Okumura of course was sleeping way to deep to just wake up when something was pulling his so called weak point.
He rolled his eyes and grabbed one of the pillows. One fight with the tail later and he was free, while Rin was still happily sleeping, hugging the pillow with his bonus limb.
There was no reason for sitting here anymore, so he stood up, grimacing slightly as something popped in his shoulder.
The morning was quite nice. The sun was only rising and the air was still a bit too cold for his liking, but it was making his head ache less.
Ryuji sat down on the stairs to the house they spend the night and breathed deeply, crossing his legs. It was hard for him to wrap his mind about it, but it was pleasant, even with a headache throbbing in his temples. Here they were, training to join forces in a line of work where death rate could reach even sixty percent if the year was particularly unlucky, but for some reason, they still acted like a bunch of kids, just having fun in between the storms.
And he felt at peace about that too, which probably counted as the most disturbing thing about the whole situation.
The wooden stairs creaked next to him, informing that he wasn't alone anymore.
"Here," Izumo said, putting one of the cups down next to him. "I've made coffee."
"Thanks," Ryuji smiled, accepting the gift.
If it was Shima, he would be much more suspicious. He tried to trick him a few times before, adding salt or chili pepper to his coffee. The one with chili happened to be actually quite decent and because of that Renzou was moping the whole day. He expected to have Ryuji cursing and coughing instead.
"You always getting up so early?"
"Not really," she shook her head slightly, sitting next to him. "I think I'm just not used to sleep around so many people."
"That might be it," he agreed, taking a sip.
The coffee was strong and bitter, not a tiniest bit of sugar in it at all. It was waking him up pretty neatly and the headache seemed to be disappearing slowly too.
"The guys were riding you pretty hard," she said over her own cup of coffee.
"Figures they would," Ryuji mumbled. "We were raised together so Shima really know which buttons to push..."
"It wasn't anything to bad, though" she pointed out. "Just kids being kids."
He looked at her for a moment, then let his gaze wanted away. Suguro was pretty sure there was some sort of a question he was supposed to ask. Like why she wasn't talking about her past at all, instead of telling some stories about school misadventures or things she did with Paku, or why she was keeping everyone at the arm length after all that happened between their group.
For whatever reason, Ryuji decided to stay silent.
They were sitting there for awhile in silence, sipping bitter coffee and letting it wash away the morning headache.