You know? Usually I enjoy holidays. But this time, I wasn't so sure.
I pried my eyes open to see that accursed sunlight first thing in the morning, nearly blinding me. Seriously, who puts a window there!? I rubbed the sleep and temporary blindness out of my eyes and got ready for the day ahead.
Looks like my usual get up was what I was gonna go for this time. I pulled on my navy hoodie and walked out, wondering what I was going to do for today. Of course there was the case of Nyx. Maybe I could take her around Iwatodai. There would probably be some dire consequences if she somehow strayed off and got lost. You know, that's probably how I'm going to spend my holidays. Teaching Nyx about Iwatodai.
I wasn't quite sure how I could get Nyx to see that there was still some hope in humanity. I know, the bonds that I shared with my friends and hell… even love was what helped me to seal her away before. But I couldn't really just tell her that. I don't know whether she would be able to see the point of all of it.
I sighed inwardly and saw that Nyx was downstairs, reading a grocery catalogue. Why is she reading them though? It's not like they're anything that interesting… But I guess she'd be able to learn about some of the different things in our world…
My next train of thought was on the fact that I was so focused on making sure Nyx understood more of the things that existed in our modern world. I keep wondering why. I guess if she knew more about our world then she could fit in better in society and whatever…
Argh! I complicated things again in my head!
"Morning Nyx," I greeted.
Nyx looked up to me, with a bit of a bedhead and a sleepy look in her eyes. "Oh. You seem to be having a better morning than me at least," she sighed.
"Why? Did something happen?" I asked worriedly, and out of a bit of curiosity. Hey! It was interesting…
"You know how I'm the Night Queen?" she said with emphasis on the word 'night.' Night?
…
Oh! I see. "Guess you wouldn't be a morning person…" I muttered.
"Are you trying to patronize me?" she growled. Wrong choice of words… obviously. A mental facepalm later, I returned my attention back to Nyx and shook my head.
"Good," she replied. "If you were… I would have put you back into your place like the little mortal you are, Fool." Kowaii… Dayum. Remind me and the others never to get onto her bad side, brain? Yes, I will. Okay good. Now that I have officially had a conversation with my own brain and provided almost insurmountable evidence that I should have been admitted to a mental ward about a year ago, I'll tell that to the others later.
"I got it, I got it…" I smiled nervously before going over to the kitchen-y and sink area thing… I never got the courage to call it by its actual name… I felt… before like I would lose a lot of manliness points by saying something like that. The only one who could possibly say that without sounding stupid was Shinjiro…
Unless calling this place by its actual name actually gave me manliness points then awesome. But somehow despite my badass amount of courage… It seems the only thing that anyone could ever be greater than me in is Shinjiro in regards to courage…
Ah, the humanity…!
Anyways… what am I gonna make this time?
"Oh hey Minato-kun… you're up kinda early…" Yukari yawned a little before staggering her way into the kitchen-y and sink area thing. You know, I just realised how stupid I am. Staggering her way into the kitchen. Right.
"Eh, it's not that bad," I shrugged, catching a glimpse of the rice and some ingredients for miso soup. Coolio, I wouldn't mind that. And everyone seems to love my cooking no matter what I do since I never have the Fuuka disasters.
Yukari wrapped her arms around my neck just as I gathered the ingredients I needed for the miso soup. Damn, miso soup sounds really good right now… Good choice brain. Well duh, I am your processing centre. Good point. I'm just no longer going to comment on whatever you say that is directed at me, your brain. Aw… okay.
And Yukari? Meh. Anyways… Oh yeah, I can even make tamagoyaki and some good nori. Whoo, it's almost like a full breakfast thing! "I could be up even earlier…" I hummed slightly. I had a bit of a habit of singing small tunes when I was talking casually. Well… I started making everything and boiling the rice and stuff.
"I guess so," Yukari replied, albeit a bit sleepily.
I think this is a job for some multitasking even with a girl right attached to my back. I moved over slightly to the fridge and picked up the orange juice and moving again… I picked up a glass and poured the juice in, turning the settings for the rice cooker on at the same time. "Need a bit of a pick-me-up?" I asked Yukari cordially, indicating the glass.
"Oh, thanks Minato-kun," she said cheerfully, picking it up with one hand and almost reluctantly letting go of me to drink it. Orange juice was better in the long run since coffee was just a temporary fix to a pretty long running problem. I knew… all too well. I used to be the sleepy type and a person who just loved their sleep and clung to it like a precious gem. Which it definitely was, but I tried to limit that kinda thing now. Only if we ever went to Tartarus which is pretty much… not possible.
"No prob," I said absent-mindedly. I was still making everything so more of my concentration was on making the food and less on talking. Especially since I could pretty much feel Nyx's presence and terrifyingly crushing aura behind me. I was trying to ignore it as much as possible. I'm exaggerating of course.
"What's up Nyx?" I asked, at least trying to spare a small glance at her to be a bit more polite.
"Are you… multitasking?" Nyx asked sceptically. Why would she be wondering about that of all things? Well… never mind.
"Yeah," I replied, turning the stove on. Hm… I hope I don't get anything confused here now. I know that I want seaweed in the miso but I also need some for the nori and rice…
"Hm… I see," Nyx sighed. "I probably shouldn't be distracting you then… I'll just watch," she decided, looking on what I was doing from the side so that she couldn't really hinder me. Well, it's good she has the sense to do that.
I sighed inwardly, humming a small tune so it wouldn't be so quiet. I was the kind of person that always listened to something at almost any time of the day so when I didn't have my earphones with me, I hummed instead. "So light 'em up, up, up…" I sang softly, finally starting to heat up the ingredients in the pot for the miso soup.
"Light 'em up, up, up," Hm, I wish that more people around here know about some other foreign bands. That would be one of the most awesomest thing for me actually, to talk to someone about some metal, rock and punk like Skillet, Nightwish and Fall Out Boy… stuff like that.
"Light 'em up, up, up," I started on the tamagoyaki and started to beat the eggs together. Hm, the fun part's coming up. For the food and the song…
"I'm on fire!" I smiled to myself. That was my favourite part of the song, with all the combined harmonies and things. But of course, I didn't really say that as loud as they did in the song. I didn't need another stare on me. Make that two, Fuuka's coming down. This is coming together for a typical morning for me actually.
Now we just need the rest. But from what I've gathered, Akihiko or someone must've taken Koromaru for a morning walk since I couldn't see our resident shiba inu around. Hopefully they'll get back soon.
Welp, tamagoyaki's done. So is the rice and miso soup. Awesomeness. Dishes? Okay, not quite everything ready. After getting some bowls out for the rice and some of the disposable chopsticks I laid out everything and… tada! If there's any one thing that needs fixing it's that we need to stop using the freaking disposable chopsticks. But I guess you don't really need to throw them away but…
"Breakfast's done," I said with a bit of a sing-song voice, alerting Fuuka, Yukari and Nyx.
With breakfast done and plenty of leftover food since I had made some for every SEES member that could possibly eat this, we were eating with some small bits of conversation. "Minato-kun, your cooking is really good," Fuuka smiled.
"Yeah, it's as good as always!" Yukari smiled as well.
"Nyx, you aren't gonna eat? I thought even Goddesses ate," I gestured to an empty seat. She's always observing, but that's not the point. She's supposed to interact!
"We do. But I never saw a need-" Nyx began before being cut off by some pretty noticeable stomach rumblings.
"Come on Nyx, like a friend of mine said, you can't ignore the call of the stomach," I chuckled. That friend was Kenji. It's something that makes sense for him to say.
"Oh alright…" Nyx said with a bit of an irritated tone. I guess she doesn't really take to being proven wrong. Arrogance and stubbornness. Seems like something you see in almost every major god in Greek mythology. Just like Zeus and Aphrodite. Though, Athena's actually pretty okay. She helps out a lot of heroes. Suddenly Aigis' Persona makes more sense. Wonderfully awesome.
Once Nyx had sat herself down, Aigis' voice seemed to come from upstairs. Must've just come out from that pod thing of hers. "Good morning," she said stiffly, sitting herself down. Aigis was eyeing Nyx suspiciously before deciding to stop and actually eat. Yeah, she ate. I don't get it either. Them Kirijo people are pros at robotic programming and shit. I'm not.
Nyx had been fumbling over using her chopsticks though… I should really help her with that… "Are you okay with using them?" I asked cautiously.
"I'm just trying to get used to it. Before, I think we had things called knives and forks," she said almost frustrated before she stopped in her tracks. "I don't think we had those either…"
Well… talk about awkward.
After Fuuka so kindly helped Nyx with using her chopsticks, seeing as I was a no good teacher and only good at the more intellectual side of things I decided that Nyx should go out for a bit of a trip. "Anyways, the leftovers are for Ken, Mitsuru and Akihiko," I said to the girls absentmindedly before standing up and facing Nyx.
"Come on Nyx, we're going out," I said with a stern tone. Nyx looked like she was about to protest but eventually she sighed and nodded.
After we were out of the dorm, we started towards Iwatodai Strip Mall. Might as well start small and then I'll lead her around Paulownia Mall next time we go out. After going over the restaurants and most of the shops in the area and teaching her how to order items, I took her to Book-on.
"Why are we here?" Nyx asked.
"It's a manga café, so it's pretty quiet. It's a good place to get some information about certain things as well since they don't only have manga," I explained.
Nyx looked at me sceptically before shrugging it off and starting to walk slowly inside.
"Anyways, remember what I told you at Bookworms. It's about the same here, so just take your time," I sighed. "I need to… recharge."
Nyx nodded at that slowly before going over to what looked like the magical girl section of manga. Weird choice, but okay. I was going around some of the more factual and information-like books and chose a few. It was when I was sitting down and starting to read through that I noticed an interesting… someone.
There was someone next to me who appeared to be napping on the desk, and mumbling something as he was sleeping. Uh… hearing what he was saying, I could hear something about demons and I think I even heard 'Emily Rose' in that small string of phrases.
Against my better judgement, I shook him a little.
…
No response. Okay…
I tried again, but harder. God, I should not have done that.
"Why the hell are you doing that!?" he stood up and grabbed my collar, shaking me back and forth in what seemed to be a frenzy.
"Sorry!" I yelled back before receiving some 'shh' sounds telling us to be quiet. The guy looked around before groaning and sitting back down.
"Are you okay?" I asked nervously as I too sat back down.
He shot me a glare before running his hands through his hair. "I guess… but there's just one thing you should know about me. Never. Ever. Wake me up when I'm sleeping," he growled.
Now that he had calmed down I thought it would be a good chance to look him over. He had black hair for starters, and I swear that if those bangs of his were a bit longer he would look a lot like me… That might be my imagination though. His skin tone was pale, but just lightly tanned. And his eyes were a hazel-ish and dark brown colour.
"Anyways, since you've already woken me up…" he sighed, though I swear I heard some mutterings under his breath that sounded like 'who wakes people up in a place like this' but I just kinda ignored it. I probably wasn't supposed to hear that. "I'm Baru Kanashi… but just call me by my first name."
Hey, he even had a slight accent. Sounded a little American. Maybe he's from there or something. Wait… Kanashi Baru?
That sounds scarily like the word… sleep paralysis…
AN: So… I updated kinda quickly this time? *gaspy face* Anyways, yeah. I dunno whether I'll be able to keep this pace up so I still wouldn't expect the next chapter all too soon.
But hey, this is my first (and only) OC for Minato's little friend group. Yes, his name is a corruption on the phrase for sleep paralysis. And yeah, obviously this chapter is named after him for that little reference. I had a hard time coming up with a name for the guy, especially since I was a bit nervous about putting him in since he is based on another real person~
Hehe. I hope he's okay…
Yup, I was spending a lot of time on Minato's thoughts this time. It shows. Thank you Fairly English Story for giving me more fuel… XD
Anyways, see ya guys when I have the next chapter. Sayoonara for now! 3