A/N: Hehehe... I guess I'm going to start giving people suffering at full power from now on XD Trying a certain HTML feature that might end up not working on this site. So check out the AO3 version of this chapter if curious.
Neon bit her lips as she frantically tried to wrack her mind on how to explain her presence in the apartment to Sara. It was a bit of an unexpected predicament, after all, her coming here after Miichi called her over some emergency.
"Umm, I'm here to... take care of Keiwa—!" said Neon as that only made Sara even more hysterical.
"Eh? What? Neon-chan knows... wait, of course—" Sara stopped herself as the rest of Neon's words registered in her head. "Wait... Keiwa? What happened to—?"
Neon ushered her towards the couch where Keiwa was still lying unconscious after Michinaga left him there a few hours ago. Sara gasped as she hurriedly hovered over her brother, checking for his pulse and temperature and trying to shake her brother awake.
"I've tried waking him up before this as well," explained Neon slowly as Sara glanced back towards her. "But Keiwa didn't seem to respond. But I guess... the saving grace is, Keiwa is probably just sleeping right now."
Sara frowned at her as she turned towards Keiwa. "Sleeping? What do you mean by just sleeping? What happened to Keiwa—? Why was he like this—Did something happen...?"
Neon shrugged at her. "I've called a doctor who once treated me before when I was little. He didn't find anything wrong with Keiwa—but suggested that we might need to take him to the hospital just in case." She smiled weakly at her. "My friend just happened to be around when Keiwa fainted so he called me over to take care of Keiwa since he had to go somewhere else in a hurry."
Sara nodded slowly before gasping as she was reminded of something.
"Ah!", she exclaimed before turning towards Neon. "Did your friend also happen to see a white fox with Keiwa? Keiwa loved the fox so much, he'd be devastated if something happened to that fox!"
Neon nodded again as she tried to calm Sara down. "Yeah, I know about that fox too. Ace is fine, he's with my friend right now..."
"But why was Ace with your friend?" Sara asked again as Neon had no idea what to say.
Neon bit her lips again as she wondered again about what was happening between Ace and Keiwa. Because it baffled her to see how frantic Ace was acting to get away from Keiwa as far as possible. Especially considering how clingy Ace was with Keiwa the other day. Something must have happened between them that had spooked Ace so much! Also... Ace's tails! Not to mention... what's happening to Keiwa right now? Is he getting sick again?
Ace-sama... what's going on between the two of you right now?
xxx
Win and Tsumuri immediately glanced up once Michinaga arrived at the garage, almost out of breath. "What's happening? You barely said anything about the emergency before you cut off your call—!"
"About that—" Michinaga started to say as Ace finally bounded over towards the young man's side. As soon as Win and Tsumuri caught sight of the three tails fluttering behind Ace, they finally understood why Michinaga called out for them to meet.
"What happened?" asked Tsumuri before glancing down towards Ace as the fox started barking at her.
Michinaga just shrugged at them. "I had no idea. I happened to see them outside and thought that I wanted to say hi to them. But then suddenly Tycoon almost got hit by a truck and I barely got to him before he could get hit and then he suddenly fainted on me." Tsumuri let out a gasp as she heard that as Michinaga continued. "I took him and the fox home since I once went to Tycoon's house before so I know where they lived. And then suddenly out of the blue, this guy's tail just popped up a new one and I wanted to tell you guys about this—and this stupid fox kept wanting to come with me!"
He sighed again to catch his breath before casting a few glares in the direction of said 'stupid fox'. "I ended up calling Na-Go over to watch over Tycoon before coming here to see you guys."
Win whistled aloud after hearing Michinaga's retelling.
"That's a lot of stuff happening in such a short time! How's Keiwa-kun?"
Michinaga just shrugged.
"He was still out of it when I left—but just earlier, Na-Go called to tell me that the doctor she knows had checked on him and said that there seem to be nothing wrong about Keiwa. Even though in the case of unh... afib(?) or something... patients with heart complications can suffer episodes of fainting spells—"
"Afib, atrial fibrillation... meaning abnormal or irregular heartbeat..." Win muttered softly as he turned his attention towards Ace. "And then there's this guy's other issue..."
Michinaga nodded his head. "Geats seemed to know something, he seemed to be panicking when I told him that a new tail had popped out of his butt. But without our convenient fox interpreter, we'll have no way to find out what even that this guy found out."
Win frowned as he picked up on Michinaga's choice of words. "He's panicking, you say? Meaning that it's not a good thing that he's getting his tails back?"
"Beats me..." said Michinaga as Win suddenly started towards the backroom behind the stage. Both he and Tsumuri stared at the punk rocker in confusion. Seconds later, Win came back out carrying a small box while laughing weirdly in amusement.
"Hahaha... never thought I'd be glad for Hiroki to leave some of his junks right here for safekeeping. I know I saw it inside this stash some time ago—that damn shit got too excited to teach his little girl to talk when Fumi-chan was still barely one year old!"
Michinaga just stared at the guy in disbelief. "What are you even doing, PunkJack?"
Win just grinned at him and Tsumuri. "I'm answering your earlier question—a way for us to figure out what the hell Ace was trying to tell us, without needing Keiwa to interpret his words." He took out a small tablet-like toy that looked like a toy to help babies learn about hiragana and katakana and how the characters sounded. He turned the tablet on and pressed some buttons to see if any sounds came out.
"Nice, it's working properly!" he smiled before putting the tablet in front of Ace. "Come on, what're you trying to tell us?"
The fox just stared at the tablet... towards Win... at Tsumuri... and back at the toy tablet. And then Ace started to press some buttons.
「でる」
Win frowned at Ace. "What?"
Ace started pressing some more buttons again.
「けいわ」
「たいへん」
"Huh?" exclaimed Michinaga as well, as Ace kept pressing でる over and over again. And when no one made any move, Ace started biting on Tsumuri's long skirt and crying oddly and loudly.
Tsumuri stared at Ace's strange behaviour in confusion before looking up towards Win in alarm. Ace clearly seemed to be in great distress and it sounded as if it had something to do with Keiwa.
"What's going on...?" exclaimed Win as he took out his phone again to call on Neon.
xxx
Neon immediately picked up her phone and answered the call as Sara turned to look at her young idol.
"Hmm?" Neon exclaimed before sparing a glance towards Keiwa. "No, he's still ou—!"
Without warning, suddenly Keiwa's eyes snapped open and sat up in a rush before Sara hastily caught her brother before he could fall from the couch. Keiwa started looking around him frantically before noticing the presence of his sister and Neon.
"Where's Ace?" he exclaimed, before noticing Neon holding her phone next to her ear. "—is he somewhere on the other side of the phone?"
"Keiwa!" cried Neon as Keiwa grabbed the phone in her hand and placed it beside his ear (while also noticing the caller ID).
"Win-san!" said Keiwa right away. "What happened to Ace—?" he asked again before Keiwa went quiet for a long time. But then he started nodding his head before speaking again, "Right. Neon and I will head over there immediately—!" before ending the call and returning Neon's phone to her.
.
"Wait a minute, Keiwa! Are you sure you're fit to go anywhere right now?" cried Neon as Sara also expressed the same concern.
"I'll be fine... I need to see Ace as soon as possible—!" said Keiwa before he started staggering towards the door. Neon immediately gathered her things before hurrying over to help Keiwa move.
"Stop for a second!" exclaimed Sara as she blocked the path towards the exit when Neon and Keiwa tried to leave. "What is going on right now? Keiwa, what is happening with you?"
"Nee-chan..." said Keiwa simply as he smiled at his sister weakly. "I'll explain later, but right now... I need to see someone very important to me. Talk to you later?"
Immediately Sara found herself at a loss for words. When Keiwa said it like that, how could she stop him from leaving?
Seeing that Sara made no movement to stop them from leaving, Neon and Keiwa gently excused themselves before heading towards Win's garage...