Ahhh sorry that it's been a while since an update! So hopefully you'll find this chapter as extra long X)
Please feel free to review if you wish!
Disclaimer: Oh woe is me, I don't own Kagepro, how shall I possibly live...
Okay. So maybe it wasn't going as well as Hiyori hoped.
It had been going so great too. They had finally pulled into the driveway of Ayaka's little crimson-bricked house. Hiyori had barrelled out of the car the moment her sister had pulled the keys out.
She had never seen the inside of her sister's house before aside from pictures and video chats; so Hiyori felt that she was understandably excited (Hibiya called it "reckless" though. Silly him).
"Whoa Hiyo-chan! Slow down a little!" She heard her sister call from inside the car, though it barely registered in her excited mind. Hiyori was already by the door knocking a cheerful tune on the wood, forgetting that no one was inside.
Or so she thought. To her sudden shock, the doorknob started to turn slowly.
"Hiyori wait, I mean it." Ayaka was rushing out the of the car door, her voice strangely frantic. With this, the gears in Hiyori's head began to turn.
"Ayaka-nee, you did lie to me! You said Ayano and the others weren't here!" Despite supposing she should be angry, Hiyori felt positively giddy. Her favorite relatives were here after all! Ayaka must have said that to surprise her.
"Hiyori, wait, no-"
It was too late. The door creaked open slowly. Hiyori brimmed with excitement, quite prepared to greet everyone.
"Hi, Ayano-nee! Tsubomi-nee! Shuuya...nii... Kousuke...nii?"
Hiyori's gleeful grin slowly turned into a dumbstruck gape, the words dying on her tongue. The person in the doorway...
"..."
The person in the doorway she was now facing was definitely not them. None of her nieces and nephews would dress up this weird. Or have such a blank lifeless stare.
He (they were a 'he' right? Hiyori honestly couldn't tell right away. Hmm, fine she would go with 'he') was practically a giant. There was no way he was less than 6.0. Hiyori may as well have been a dwarf standing in front of him.
From way on top of the 6.0 tall, human shaped tower, dead-looking pink eyes stared down at Hiyori lazily and coldly. It made her feel as if she was a simple bug he was about to step on. And yet she couldn't pry her eyes away; it was if he was a bizarre animal put on display at the zoo, one you just couldn't help but gawk at.
Looking more closely, she quickly noticed how his white hair was a little on the long side and tied in a sloppy ponytail. Was it bleached? His natural color? How old is this guy? He honestly didn't look any older than twenty.
But what self-respecting twenty-year-old would dress this way? Hiyori swore his clothes looked as if they were taken right out of a cheap video game. And what were those round, popping pink things drawn on his left cheek?! Gross.
Time seemed to drag on for forever, seeming more like hours than seconds as the two stared at each other. The (totally not) pathetically short girl staring with full intensity, the freaky giant freak staring with absolutely no interest at all. Neither said anything.
Hiyori was determined not to break, to defeat this intruder in her sister's house with her eyes. But it was kinda hard when the intruder never blinked.
Thankfully, however, at this moment Ayaka finally picked up her pace and met the two at the door (Hibiya was still in the car taking out their luggage.)
"Ayaka-nee, who's this guy? Why is he here?" Hiyori asked instantly, finally averting her gaze from the strange person to instead gaze accusingly up Ayaka.
Her sister smiled, though it looked more like a grimace. "Hiyori this is Konoha. Konoha this is my younger sister Hiyori."
"Hmm." 'Konoha' blinked (finally) from their staring match and grunted in Ayaka's direction; the first thing Hiyori heard him say.
"That doesn't answer my question Ayak-"
"Well then!" Ayaka clapped her hands together, actually cutting her little sister off. "Now that you've been introduced, answer me this Konoha; don't you remember me telling you to not leave your room until I got back?"
She placed a hand on his shoulder in an almost motherly way, but Hiyori was sure she wasn't imagining the hard glint hidden underneath the sugar sweetness of Ayaka's tone. It almost filled her with enough triumph to forget her feelings of hurt.
"Hmm... oh I remember now," Konoha replied towards Ayaka, in the same sense that Ayaka was simply a spot of air. Without a further word and hardly even a last condescending glance at Hiyori, he turned around and entered back into the house.
After spending a good three minutes watching Konoha slowly walk down the hall, and once he had disappeared behind a set of doors, Hiyori whipped around full-force to face Ayaka.
"Again Ayaka-nee; why is he here?" She demanded impatiently.
"He's uh, one of my patients Hiyo-chan." Ayaka tried to say light-heartedly. "He doesn't have a home of his own so I'm housing him for now."
"What!? Y-you didn't tell me!"
Ayaka sweat-dropped in apology. "I know, I know and I'm sorry. My memory's slipping remember? Haha."
"Yeah no kidding," Hiyori rolled her eyes, no longer able to hold in her annoyance like their parents had taught her. Seriously, how could Ayaka not tell her any of this? Her children being away? This freaking guy? Why was Ayaka being so... so... un-Ayaka?
Still, Hiyori tried to calm down just a bit. Taking a deep breath in, "How long is he here for?" Please just be a few more days, please just be a few more days, please-
"A couple more weeks or so."
WELL, THAT'S JUST GREAT AYAKA-NEE! I'LL BE SPENDING MY SUPPOSED AWESOME VACATION WITH A GROSS WEIRDO. THANKS A LOT.
Only it came out as "Augh."
"Don't give me that attitude now Hiyori. Konoha is our guest and my responsibility. No matter how you dislike it, he's staying here."
"But, but-!"
"No buts Asahina Hiyori," Ayaka commanded, sounding more like an actual grown up than Hiyori had ever heard. "Now I trust that you won't start any trouble with him during your stay?"
"..." After several moments of debating whether or not falling off a building and onto construction poles would be more preferable to putting up with a possible white-haired lunatic, Hiyori sighed in defeat.
"Fine onee-san, as long as I don't see him too often, I won't complain."
It was Ayaka's turn to sigh. "Well, that's the idea I guess. Good. Now go help Amamiya-kun with your bags while I-" Suddenly there sounded a crash from far inside the house. "-clean up inside. Again. Honestly, I leave for barely thirty minutes Konoha..."
With that Ayaka turned her back to her sister almost if she wasn't there, and jogged into her house, no doubt to check on stupid Konoha. Hiyori sucked in a deep breath, choking the disappointment in her throat before it could turn into a broken sob.
Forcefully turning on her heel, she trudged back to the car where Hibiya was drowning in a sea of luggage. Hiyori would have found it cute had she herself not been drowning under a sea of hurt feelings.
Just wait, everything will get better later. Everything will get better. Everything will get better, she chanted in her head like a mantra.
Everything will not get better. Will not, will not, will not!
Hiyori screamed the new mantra into her head. And also into her pillow. Good thing the walls in Ayano and Tsubomi's room were sturdy enough that sound didn't pass through so easily.
Seriously, this day could not have been worse.
First of all, Ayaka's promise of spending the whole day together? Total lie.
"Ahaha guess who's a total airhead and totally forgot she had errands at the hospital to run?" Her 'carefree' laugh had sounded more vapider than anything. "Don't worry you two; I'll be back sooner than you know and then we'll start properly on this vacation. Good?"
She came back at 10:00. So not 'good'. And even long before then Hiyori found herself hating everything. Especially Konoha, who she was 95% sure was really just a hollow shell with a brick for a brain.
He seemed to only listen to Ayaka, and now that she was gone he was free to wander the house, not listening to Hiyori's demands that he return to his room immediately. All he seemed to do was aimlessly knock over furniture, stare outside windows, and glare at Hiyori and Hibiya when he wasn't busy ignoring them.
It drove Hiyori insane and she felt herself grow more and more sick of him every second that she had to look at his gross face. But the even more sickening part? Hibiya loved him.
"I seriously don't know what your problem is Asahina. Can't you see just how cool Konoha-san is?" He had said for the umpteenth time, and for the umpteenth time, Hiyori felt her soul shrivel up just a bit more. Could this awful, brainless, pink-eyed imbecile really be her sweet Hibiya's type? She knew he was into video games (even though his parents forbid him to play) but not to this extent. He was paying even less attention to her now!
Hiyori actually had to excuse herself from dinner; if she had to watch Hibiya drool over and still be ignored by idiot Konoha any longer she would probably throw up all over the premade dinner Ayaka left them.
(Konoha refused to eat anything. Hiyori wasn't sure if she was surprised or not).
Seriously, Konoha was like a reverse-angel: instead of being sent from the heavens to improve her life he seemed to have been sent from straight from weirdo-hell just for the purpose of ruining everything.
Everything really is ruined, she thought cryptically as she laid on Ayano's bed, tears not yet formed but still a likely possibility.
While still debating whether or not it would be possible to catch a train back home at this hour, a sudden knock resonated off the door.
"Hiyo-chan? I'm coming in." She heard her stupid sister call from the other side. Hiyori was too mad to even answer back.
Ayaka came inside and sat on the opposite side of the bed. After a few awkward moments of complete silence, she finally broke it with a sigh. "Alright, you win Hiyori. What's wrong? You seemed so happy this morning..."
Happy...? Hiyori felt an angry light inside her flip on the moment that word was uttered, and as fast as lightning she whipped her head from the (definitely not wet) pillow and stood up tall on the bed.
"What's wrong? W-what's wrong?! I'll tell you what's wrong: everything. Everything about this trip has gone wrong! Ayano and the others not being here, Konoha, you being gone all day, Konoha, and you just acting so, so, so weird, KONOHA-"
Hiyori had to cut herself off just to catch her breath and to quickly wipe away the tears that were definitely not running down her cheeks.
"And you don't even care! Not enough to even tell me! And another thing-" She was just about to keep on yelling again until she actually got a good look at Ayaka's face.
She looked... genuinely sad and somber. It was an awful look on her sister. Hiyori had done it now, hadn't she?
"I, I, I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I-it's just, I really wanted the first day at least to be perfect. And now that it wasn't I'm just really disappointed." She plopped face-first onto the bed again, smushing her face harder into the pillow.
Hiyori felt a gentle hand begin to rub soothing circles onto her back. She found herself gladly welcoming the comfort. "Shh, shh. I know Hiyo-chan, I know. This day has been a disappointment for me too, and I'm really so sorry that I made you feel this way."
"It's... not your fault Ayaka-nee."
"Hush. It is so my fault. How about I make it up to you? I think I have just the thing to cheer you up."
"Oh? What's that?" Hiyori cringed a little; she still had some trouble keeping the bite out of her tone.
Though in turn, a playful sounding smirk entered Ayaka's voice. "A story."
Hiyori pursed her lips, not completely ready to let go of her anger just yet. "Don't you think I'm a little too old for silly bedtime stories by now...?"
"But it's not just any story; it's your favorite." Ayaka drawled.
"..." Hiyori ever so slowly rose again from her position on her belly. "Ayaka-nee, you don't mean...?"
She only grinned knowingly. "Oh yeah. But don't worry, if you think you're too 'grown up' for a 'silly' story such as this one, that's totally fine..."
Hiyori re-evaluated her decision quite quickly. "No no I want to hear it! It's been so long since you've told me it directly." She said excitedly as if she hadn't just been yelling a few minutes ago.
Ayaka's eyes gleamed reddish in the lamp light. "Excellent. Shall I start?"
Hiyori nodded and scooted closer to her sister in anticipation, feeling more and more like normal and connected to her than she had in years. There was just something about the way she said this story that was completely different than how her parents recited to her.
"Listen closely my sister. For this is the Shinigami's Forgetting."
"Once upon a time, there was a little monster. This monster, who spent time unmeasured in the shadows, began to wonder where he had come from, and why..?"