Chapter 58
Groggily opening her eyes Hitomi awoke to the sound of someone knocking on the door. She was sprawled out on the bed, lying on her stomach and the chill she felt told her she was barely wearing anything and wasn't covered.
A look to the left told her why that was. Leifang was lying beside her, hogging the whole blanket to herself, it being bound around her body and making her look like some kilted sausage.
Another knock.
Pushing herself up Hitomi ran a hand through her tangled hair and looked around the room to the clock she had placed on the bedside cabinet.
Holy crap! She had barely gotten 4 hours of sleep.
The couple had gotten back rather late and after that they had spend a few more hours fooling around with each other until they finally fell asleep.
She rubbed the sleep out of her right eye and got up from the bed, picking up the top that she had discarded the night before, put it on and zipped it up to cover her bare torso.
"This better be room service with a five stars breakfast." she muttered and yawned.
Running her hands down the top to smooth it out a little, but forgetting to do the same with her hair, she opened the door and was sorely disappointed not to find desired breakfast standing there but her father, dressed in a rather fluffy looking bathrobe. Looking down she noticed he had a matching pair of slippers on as well.
How unfair, she wanted some too.
"Morning, have you slept we-" Joachim was rudely cut off by his daughter.
"4 hours sleep, gonna go back to bed. Later." she said and slammed the door shut once more. She wasn't really bothered that he would take offense to that other than a little grumbling. Letting out another yawn she headed back to the bed, unzipped the top and let it fall to the ground once more.
Hitomi crawled back onto the bed and slid towards Leifang, spooning her to fight against the slight chill, and placed a small kiss against Leifang's exposed shoulder.
Closing her eyes she immediately started to drift off once more. A few more hours of sleep would be great right now she thought.
But she only managed to catch one more hour of sleep as Leifang decided in all her sleeping grace to push her out of bed while moving, waking Hitomi rather roughly as she hit her head on the ground.
"Ouch!" she rubbed the back of her head and glared at Leifang, who was still sleeping blissfully away and now claiming most of the space on the bed. On the one hand Hitomi would love nothing more than to take a pillow and smack her over the head until she was awake, but on the other hand she herself had been hogging most of the bed earlier and almost pushed her off.
With a sigh she decided to let Leifang sleep, not having the heart to wake her up.
"At least I can sleep well tonight." Hitomi said quietly to herself and kissed the Chinese's cheek, then decided that she might as well test out that rain shower.
With a shrug she pulled off her panties, headed into the bathroom, and got into the shower.
Oh man, this is awesome Hitomi thought as the water hit her body, enveloping her in a spray of water. She decided then and there that she would one day get a shower like this at home.
Her eyes traveled around and spotted the bottle of shampoo and, after further inspection, noticed that it was a damn expensive brand. Now she couldn't refuse it if they so generously offered it now, could she?
As she washed her hair the lavender scent of the shampoo filled the air and she finally started to feel awake. After washing up she spent at leasr another twenty minutes just standing there and enjoying the warm shower, then dried herself and, after finally finding one, put on a fluffy bathrobe as well as the corresponding slippers.
Gotcha! She thought triumphantly as she wiggled her toes inside them and headed back to Leifang, who was still sleeping and would probably do so for at least an hour.
So she might as well go and get something to eat then. Waiting a little longer until her hair was dry enough she put on some clothes, wrote a note saying that she was downstairs in the restaurant and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.
Hitomi rode down the elevator and headed towards the hotel's own restaurant. As she decided where she should sit she spotted her father sitting in the corner by the windows, heartily eating away at what looked like a steak.
She could kill for one right now. Without wasting anymore time she walked over and sat down opposite from him and waved over a waiter.
"Look who's awake enough to finally talk to me." he greeted her, not looking up from his food.
"I love you too, Papa." Hitomi said and turned to the waiter when he approached. "I'll have the same as him."
"And sorry for earlier, but I was really tired." she apologized to Joachim.
"Late night, huh?" he cut off another piece of the steak.
"Like you can't imagine."
"Oh I think I can." he said and pointed towards the base of her neck where she found a glaring hickey that she hadn't noticed thus far. "Maybe you should cover that up."
"Shit." Hitomi hissed. But she couldn't cover it up with anything so she just resigned herself to be seen with it.
Joachim chuckled to himself. "Well seeing as you punished yourself already I don't need to give you any flak."
"Yeah yeah, just make fun of me. One day, when you're old and senile I'll have to take care of you. And that is when I will remember all this abuse." Hitomi said jokingly.
"The joke is on you. I'm already old." Joachim commented and they both laughed at their banter.
"So how's the food?" Hitomi asked.
"Pretty impressive." Joachim said. "Best steak I've had in years. I tried it yesterday since I wanted to keep it basic and I just can't get enough."
"Well now I'm looking forward to it." she leaned back in her seat and looked out of the window.
"Where's Leifang?"
"Still sleeping like a baby I presume. I left her a note to tell her where I was since I didn't want to wake her up." she said. "So since we have some free time today, what are your plans?"
"I was thinking of doing a little sightseeing to be honest."
"Funny, Leifang and I had the same plan for today. Hey," she leaned on the table with her elbow. "Why don't we all go together?"
"I don't know. You sure you two don't want to spend time alone?" he asked.
"We can do that all the time. Now come on, it'll be fun." After she said that the waiter finally delivered her own steak. She thanked him, cut a piece off with her cutlery and put it into her mouth.
"And?" Joachim asked.
Hitomi chewed on it for a moment before swallowing and gave her father a smile then started to cut another piece off. "It's delicious. You think they might give me the recipe if I ask nicely?"
"Hitomi," Leifang said and looked sideways at her girlfriend. "When you said we'd go sightseeing with your father I didn't exactly imagine...this."
The couple stood a little far off from Joachim, the Chinese's arm looped around the German's, and watched as he was excitedly talking to another man while looking at...
...at a model railway.
Not just any railway though. They were currently standing in the Miniature Wonderland, the largest model railway attraction in the entire world.
"Sorry about that, sweetie. Maybe I should've mentioned that he's a big fan of model railways." Hitomi apologized herself for her father and watched him as he suddenly looked a decade younger with how enthusiastic he was about the whole thing.
"I don't really mind, it's just that it was unexpected. I kinda thought he didn't really have a hobby outside of martial arts." Leifang said.
"You'd be surprised. He even has his own railway in the basement. It looks pretty nice too, complete with tiny people like they have here." she said and pointed to the miniature people near the mini train station.
Leifang giggled as she tried to picture the man in the basement tinkering on every little detail of his own railway. She kind of liked that image. It made the father of the woman she loved look so much more approachable and while she was friendly with him she never really managed to get to know him more over the months that she had known him now.
A part of her wondered if her father too had such a 'silly' hobby as well, but to her shame she didn't know. In fact she wasn't sure if he had any hobbies aside from Wing Chun, and even that had taken a back seat in recent years with him being so busy all the time.
It shocked her that although he was her father she didn't know a lot about him and that thought saddened Leifang.
"What's wrong?" Hitomi asked her as she saw the look in her eyes. Leifang only shook her head and gave her girlfriend a small smile.
"Just thinking about my father and that I don't really know him as well as I should."
"You wanna talk about it?"
"No. It's just me being silly anyway."
"I don't think it's silly." Hitomi said.
"I know." Leifang placed a hand on Hitomi's chest. "And that's one of the things I love about you. But this is something that won't change just because I talk with him."
Hitomi didn't say anything at first then, after thinking for a moment, said. "So just get to know him better."
"Come again?"
"Get to know him better." she said. "During our summer break we could fly back to Hong Kong and visit your parents. You could use the time to get to know your father better."
"Hmm." Leifang thought about it. "You know that actually sounds like a good idea!"
"See?" Hitomi smiled. "And since we're already there do you think we could maybe...tell them about us?"
"Hitomi..." Leifang said. She would love nothing more than to tell her parents about them, but it wasn't as easy as that. They would be in need of some preparation work on the topic before she could drop the bomb on them. "I can't promise you that, I can't even be sure if my parents will be available at the time, and I fear that they might not be as open about it as your father was."
"I understand. I mean you're the heir to your father's fortune, that's a lot of pressure. We don't have to tell them immediately after we get off the plane. Let's do it step by step then." Hitomi said.
"Yeah." Leifang's face darkened for a second when Hitomi brought up that she would one day inherit her father's fortune and company, but before the Karateka could notice her face was brightening once more. "Well we also have the advantage that my father seemed to like you, so maybe that could help us smoothen things up a little."
"I'm actually way more worried about your mother. I still remember that story your father told me. Anyone who can use a knife like that always ranks on top of my list of people I don't want to mess with." Hitomi said. "I can already see it. 'What? How dare you corrupt my sweet girl!' and voilà Filet Hitomi."
"Now you're exaggerating." Leifang tried not to laugh and playfully slapped Hitomi's shoulder. "She wouldn't make filet out of you. Maybe a meat salad."
"Jeez now that's comforting." Hitomi chuckled. "Promise me you're gonna find me delicious?"
"Absolutely." Leifang leaned in closer and whispered. "Because I already find you delicious."
This caused Hitomi to turn a little red and clear her throat. "Do you now? Well glad to hear that."
"Mhm." Leifang winked and turned to look at Joachim who was still deep in conversation. A quick look at her watch told her that they have been here for almost two hours now. "Um, not to be the one spoiling the fun, but we've been here for a long time now."
"Yeah I know. Let me just talk to him." she pulled her arm out of Leifang's grip and started to walk over to Joachim. "Papa. I know this all is totally your thing but I'd like so visit the Hagenbeck animal park today if possible."
Hearing those words Leifang couldn't help but laugh quietly into her hand.
Oooh, the parents are always a very touchy topic. I still know when I met the parents and- ah but you don't wanna know that, aren'tcha?
So not a lot of things happened these past few chapters, but don't you worry, we'll actually get to the tournament next. But believe me guys, official Karate tournaments are actually pretty...boring.
So see you all next week!