Phantom and Angel – Chapter 24
Count D's grandson wasn't in the guest parlor when T-Chan finally made it there. A few of his housemates were lounging in their favorite spots, giving him amused glances, but not disturbing the near silence with any sort of taunting.
That left the large antique grandfather clock the only source of noise in the room. Each tick from it bit the air with a sudden ring of dense metal cog locking into the next position and carved, varnished teakwood softening the sharp note of impact into a low, rich thrum. The upholstered furniture, pillows, carpets, and thick curtains all around worked together to absorb the sound and keep any echoes of the last from diminishing the next.
The sound drew T-Chan's attention to the pale alabaster face holding a perfect circle of perfect Roman numerals made of inlaid obsidian. He saw the second-hand move slightly with each tick that reached his ears, and his insides twisted in a sudden jolt of impatience and worry. The next four hours were going to be four separate volumes of eternity to him, but was it going to be enough time for Leon to get the rest he badly needed?
T-Chan's body gave a slight, involuntary flinch at the last unexpected part of his thought. He glanced around anxiously and was grateful that the others in the room were no longer paying the slightest bit of attention to him.
As inconspicuously as he could, T-Chan fled to the one place in the shop where time had no meaning to him. There in the kitchen, only half-unexpectedly, he found Count D's grandson standing at the sink and holding the plate Leon had eaten off of up to his beautiful, bewildered face.
T-Chan froze in his tracks, confused, at first, by Count D's perplexed state, and catching the end fragment of Pon-Chan's narration.
"He asked me where the dish-soap was, and I opened the cupboard and showed him, and then he cleaned them all by himself!" The little tanooki's words were filled with triumph and adoration.
Ten-Chan was standing at Pon-Chan's side, arms folded across his chest, and a smirk of approval mixed with smugness curved one side of his lips artistically. His head turned ever so slightly so that his thickly amused eyes could meet with the totetsu's.
For a few seconds, T-Chan's face mimicked the same bewilderment as the pet shop's keeper. The totetsu eyes flitted back to Count D's grandson, blinked once, filled with the light of comprehension, and rolled back into his head just before their lids clamped tightly shut. The rest of T-Chan's body crumpled to the floor on one side, curling in on itself, then twitched as his lungs drew in a sudden rush of air.
The only movement the other three were able to make at that moment was to widen their own eyes in astonishment. Just as they were all about to rush to T-Chan's aid, they were frozen again by the unexpected sound of a long, hysterical shriek of laughter that started coming out of him.
Ten-Chan's eye's narrowed in understanding, and he began laughing as well, although, not with as much enthusiasm as his friend.
Pon-Chan, too, seemed to get the joke soon afterward and began giggling with utter delight.
Count D's grandson, however, was still not seeing the 'punch-line', and his face tightened slightly in annoyance. "Oh! Honestly, children. What in the world could be so—"
T-Chan startled the shop keeper back into silence when he suddenly looked up into his face and reached out one arm to point at him. "Only Detective Leon Orcot could shake your hold on reality—BY DOING DISHES!!!" He went completely limp again, with the exception of laugh-induced convulsions.