07.17.11
SEARCHING
You know what the best part of living in a city is? Lots of places to go and people to see.
You know what the worst part of living in a city is?
Well… I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this.
I honestly don't remember much of the hour I spent fruitlessly searching for them. I know I went back to the hardware store and the manager looked at me like I was nuts when I breathlessly asked if he'd seen a group of young man looking for me.
When I didn't find them, I searched the surrounding stores. Nothing. Then I tried the supermarket. Nothing. Then the stores surrounding the supermarket. Take a wild guess.
By now, I'd just about given up. I realized that while I'd told the robots I was going to a store two blocks down, I'd never specified which direction I was walking. They could have been anywhere.
I leaned heavily against a brick wall, letting my body slide to the ground as I played it all out in my head: I'd have to call that company back and tell them the robots had gotten lost. I'd probably be made to pay for whatever damages they'd received, if they were even found at all. My father would have a heart attack when he found out. We'd probably have to declare bankruptcy because there was no way we could pay for six extremely advanced robots. We'd lose the apartment, be out on the street…
The thoughts just kept on getting worse and I'm really not one for such dramatics, but under the circumstances, can you really blame me?
I sat there for ten minutes, probably looking very strange to passerby. Then something small and blonde appeared out the corner of my eye.
"Hey, Haru-chan," said Hunny. "You want to go get some cake?"
"Not right now, Hunny." I answered miserably.
And three…
Two…
One.
"HUNNY!"
My scream sent the small robot jumping back into his much taller companion whom I only just noticed right then.
"And Mori, you're here too?" I was too relieved to care what an obvious question that was.
"Yeah," Was his response.
"Takashi and I were looking at that bakery!" he pointed to a brightly colored shop the opposite direction from where I'd come. "They had these huge cakes in the window with fancy designs and they were all different flavors and everything! I wish I could eat them, but I can't, so do you want some?"
"Where were you?" I was in no mood to make small talk about cake.
"You didn't come back. We were worried," Mori deep voice rumbled.
"Yeah, Tama-chan was terrified," Hunny continued. "He kept crying that you'd been capturing by a band of gypsies and sold into indentured servitude to a desert warlord and that we had to travel thousands of miles through rain and snow and storms to stage a daring rescue!"
…nice. I didn't know 'Soap Opera Dramatics' were a feature of a Princely Model.
"Okay," I said, rubbing my now aching forehead between two fingers. "Just tell me where the others are so we can go home."
"Kyo-chan's over there!" Hunny pointed at a building several doors away from the bakery. It was a computer store.
"Why am I not surprised?" I muttered.
I motioned for Hunny and Mori to follow me as I walked across the street to the store all while trying to ignore the whispers and stares of women (and some of the men) who saw Mori. When we entered the store, I found Kyoya immediately. He was in plain sight clicking away at a laptop on display while a salesmen was going on about the features (I doubt Kyoya was actually listening).
I wasted no time in running over, ready to give him a piece of my mind. He seemed to sense my footsteps and looked up from the screen with a smile on his face.
"Why, hello there, Haruhi," he said in a cheerful voice, which was honestly kind of creepy coming out of his mouth. "This man here was just telling me about the new model laptops that just came in. I had no idea yours was so out of date."
"Out of date?" I repeated incredulously. "It's only two years old… look, it doesn't matter. Let's go."
"Oh-ho!" the salesman piped up. "She's a tough one. Your girlfriend?"
Kyoya smiled. "My lover actually."
I gasped, completely taken aback. He said it like he was telling someone the time! Damn, emotionless robot.
"Haru-chan, can Takashi and I go look at the cakes some more?" Hunny suddenly asked me.
I silently shook my head. The salesman eyeballed Hunny and Mori.
"And who are these young men?" he asked me. "Friends of yours?"
"They are also Haruhi's lovers," Kyoya responded for me.
This, of course, made both mine and the salesman's jaws drop, but unlike me, the man recovered quickly.
"H-hey, that's cool!" he said raising his palms and sweating slightly from embarrassment. "That's what your into, it's none of my business."
"N-no!" I shouted, desperate to salvage the situation as best as I could. "He was just kidding. I'm not actually romantic with any of them."
"Yes you are," Kyoya commented in an annoyingly playful tone. "At least you will be soon enough."
You have no idea how badly I wanted to hit him right then. And if I didn't know it would cause unnecessary attention and that he was probably made of metal or something and hitting him would hurt me more than him, I just might've.
Anything to get rid of that. Damned. Smile.
"Look, thank you, but we have to go," I said as politely as I could to the salesman while pulling Kyoya away and motioning for Hunny and Mori to follow.
"That was rather rude of you, Haruhi," Kyoya lightly berated me once we were outside.
"Shut up," I was beyond not in the mood for patronization. "Just tell me where Tamaki and the twins are and let's go home."
Kyoya adjusted his glasses, he had weird habit of doing that at odd moments.
"I couldn't tell you where the twins have gone off to, but I thought you'd know immediately where Tamaki is."
I blinked, what did he mean by that?
"Can't you hear it?" he answered my question before I could ask it.
I wondered for a moment just how he could do that, but then my ears picked up a sound I hadn't noticed before: a melody I was unfamiliar with being played on the piano. It was coming from a small restaurant/café next door, and already a small crowd had gathered outside to listen. I couldn't blame them, the song was beautiful.
"That's…" I trailed off. I could just make out the piano through the large glass window, and the person sitting behind it, while his face was indistinguishable, was definitely blonde. Just like Tamaki.
"You did read the manual, right?" Kyoya said in that smooth tone of his. "The Princely Model is programmed to be an expert piano player and knows over 700 pieces. He is also capable of learning more."
I shook my head a bit as I came out of my daze.
"Is that right?"
"Oh yes," Kyoya answered (that smile was back…). "He can even play Mozart's sonata for two pianos all by himself."
"…Okay, now that's just ridiculous," I said flatly.
He shrugged. "Call it what you like, it's true."
Did I mention he really got on my nerves sometimes?
With a sigh, I started towards restaurant. The four of us entered through the front door, and were greeted by the unobstructed sight of Tamaki at the piano. His eyes were closed, giving an appearance of concentration and serenity. I'll admit, I had to marvel at how different he looked when he wasn't crying and freaking out over every little thing. So very refined and serious.
I heard female sighs from all around me, it seemed he'd gained a couple of fans. I never would have admitted it out loud, but I could see why.
This was much more like the 'Princely' Character he was supposed to play.
The song ended and was met with thunderous applause. Tamaki opened his eyes as he stood to take a bow. His eyes caught mine midway and the next thing I knew, he was right in my face and, lying dramatically.
"HARUHI!" he shouted. "My darling! Thank Goodness you're safe! I was so worried, don't ever scare me like that again!"
And there went the charm again. It's simply amazing how easily he could switch between temperaments so quickly.
"You were certainly looking hard," Kyoya muttered, glancing at the piano.
"I was looking," Tamaki whined. "But then I saw the piano and the lovely owner asked if I could play. I simply couldn't turn her down!"
Oh yeah, that was another part of the Princely Model's programming. While his main priority would always be his lover, he had a severe compulsion to keep all woman he encountered happy, if in a non-sexual way.
Indeed, the middle aged female owner came right over and gushed about how amazing Tamaki had been. She seemed just as fangirly as the girls my age, which was creepy considering Tamaki was, by appearance, roughly 17 or 18 years old.
"I hope you'll come back to play again," the woman half stated, half pled.
Tamaki just gave her a charming smile. "As long as you'll have me, madam."
The woman giggled. That's right, giggled. These robots must have had hypnosis powers and weren't telling me or something, to make a grown woman act so stupid.
So now I'd successfully located Hunny, Mori, Kyoya and Tamaki. That only left the twins. I recalled Kyoya saying he didn't know where they were. And upon asking, I found that none of the others did either. Great.
"Where do you think they went," I exasperatedly asked Tamaki.
"When I told everyone to split up and cover more ground, they went off in that direction."
He pointed to an alleyway which led off into another street. Wordlessly, I walked into the alley, knowing from experience that they'd follow me without complaint. We found ourselves surrounded by even more stores to search through. I had no idea what the twins were programmed to be interested in, only that they did everything together. This was not going to be easy.
"Okay," I said. "Let's start over here. We'll look through each store until we find them and then we're going back home."
"Wouldn't it be easier if we split up?" Tamaki suggested.
"No."
I made sure to be as firm as possible, not caring if it sent him running to the corner (it did, by the way).
"You're not leaving my sight again," I told them. "The last thing I need is for you to get lost for real. Now let's go."
"But we don't need to do that," Hunny said with a laugh. "We already found them!"
This earned another jaw drop. I know I keep saying this, but I don't usually do that. These robots were bringing out all sorts of weird emotions and reactions from me and I did not like it one little bit.
"You WHAT?" I shouted. "Why didn't you tell me? Where are they?"
Hunny didn't answer, aware that Mori would do it for him. The tall robot raised an arm and pointed behind me.
"Look."
His aim was extremely high, which unnerved me. I was almost afraid to turn around and when I finally forced myself to, I found that my fears were right on the money.
There were the twins staring down at me with identical Cheshire cat grins. From atop a fifteen story building.
Though they were high up, the wind carried their voices down to my level.
"HIIIIII HARUHIIIIIIII!"
The people around us stopped and looked up. Whispers erupted instantly, they had all come to the obvious conclusion when you see people standing on the edge of tall buildings.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" I shouted. I knew they would hear me, all the manuals had said that the figures had superhuman level hearing.
"WE WANTED TO LOOK FOR YOU FROM A HIGH VANTAGE POINT!" They shouted back.
By now, everyone was staring at me. I'm not prone to getting nervous around large crowds, but due to the situation, this one was getting to me. I just wanted to get those idiots on the ground and run home as fast as possible so I could yell at them properly.
"JUST COME DOWN HERE!" I shouted back in a commanding tone. "COME DOWN RIGHT NOW!"
As I'm sure you can already imagine from reading the last few posts, this was an extremely poor choice of words on my part. I found that out immediately after when I could just make out the twins glancing at each other with synchronized shrugs. They looked back down, those wide, toothy grins ever present.
And jumped.
Posted by Haruhi at 8:57 pm 8 comments