The day was nice.
The sun was shining, and the sky was a bright blue, clear of any clouds.
On a beautiful morning like this, a young man asleep in bed, lightly snoring, was content to stay beneath the covers, brown hair splayed out on the pillow with bangs over his face.
The other young man, opening the door to the bedroom and walking in, was less content to let the boy sleep. He reached into the bag on his back and withdrew an airhorn, getting a few steps closer to the bed and aiming it at the sleeping occupant, finger pressing down on the button-
BWAAAAAAAAAAA!
"AGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!?"
-and having the biggest shit-eating grin on his face as the boy shot up, hair flying and screaming before his eyes locked on the dirty blonde with the airhorn, and the terror quickly turned to anger as he grit his teeth.
Genshirou Saji, grin still on his face, slipped the airhorn back into his bag, using the same hand to give the rattled boy a wave. "Yo. Mornin', Yamada."
"...Saji," The brown-haired young man, Taro Yamada, said through his grit teeth. He sighed and dropped his head, letting the anger fade into tiredness. "Why the hell did you wake me uppppp…? I was having some good sleep for once."
"Because Kuroi-san said you weren't up yet, and I thought it would be funny," Saji said with a shrug, "and it was. Plus, you have like… half an hour to get ready? You slept in a little, man."
"What? No, I didn't, I have my alarm set-" Taro turned to his side where the nightstand rested, his phone on top of it next to his electronic clock… that indeed showed he had slept in for an extra half hour. "Huh?"
Picking his phone up and unlocking it, he thumbed around to open his clock app, blinked a couple of times at his screen, and then groaned and thunked his head against it. "Fuck, I didn't set it last night…"
"What were you even doing? I was turning my computer off before bed and saw you were still on Steam."
"Dark Souls 3. Pontiff."
"...you have my most sincere condolences," Saji said, clasping his hands together in prayer for his friend, before clapping them together and turning around for the door. "Alright, get dressed and head on down. I think Kuroi-san was gonna wake up Pen-nee, so I'll have to make sure he doesn't get throttled…"
With Saji leaving the room and closing the door, Taro grumbled but tossed his blanket off and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, standing up in his t-shirt and shorts he wore to bed. He ran a hand through his long, dark brown hair, brushing his bangs out of his eyes as he walked to the mirror he had hanging from his closet door.
He squinted his eyes, trying to make out his own visage before remembering he wasn't wearing his glasses, making him walk back to the nightstand and pick them up, sliding the circular-shaped spectacles over his eyes and walking back to the mirror.
Now able to actually see, with his emerald green, bag-laden eyes peering back at him through the mirror, Taro set about fixing up his hair a bit. The young man wore it long, longer than most others his age, and made sure to keep his messy bangs out of the way of his eyes, his vision was already impaired as is. The ends of his bangs ended up curling slightly at the ends, with a longer bang, in particular, framing the right side of his face, trailing down and going past his chin by a couple of inches.
The bane of his daily hair care, however, was the single strand that stuck out of the top of his hair, the end of it curling even more than his bangs, resembling a spiral. Taro had tried for years to brush it, gel it, cut it, do anything to it, and nothing ever worked. Most times, the young man questioned his sanity over the strand of air. There was only one other person he ever met who had a similar situation, but he knew of no common trait the two shared that could've led to it.
Taro refused to call it an ahoge, like Saji did. He would never admit to having one, that would be ridiculous; it was just a cowlick, that was all it was.
Sanity questioning strand of hair aside, satisfied that his hair looked like it always did, Taro opened his closet and took out his uniform, along with a roll of white bandages. He hung the clothes off the door and then stripped off his shirt and shorts, tossing them into a clothes bin to the side, and began unrolling the bandages.
Using his mirror as an aid, Taro began the process of wrapping himself; his forearms. hands, and fingers were first, as they were the hardest to do, and better to get out of the way first. After a few minutes, the wrappings were snug and tight, Taro flexing his fingers a few times to make sure he had down it right. Satisfied, he went about wrapping the rest of the necessary areas, his shoulders next, and after them, his chest and back, those areas taking longer since Taro had to look over his shoulders at the mirror to get his back down.
Still, it didn't take longer than it used to. Years of repetition would do that for you.
When he was done, Taro stuck the roll on the doorknob of the closet door, rolling his shoulders, flexing, testing the bandage wrapping to make sure nothing was loose, or too tight that it might restrict his movement. If he had to adjust something at school it wouldn't be a first, but it didn't mean he liked having to do it, either.
Seeing as everything was wrapped properly, with good enough tightness but no restriction, Taro grabbed the clothes off the door and started getting dressed. The Kuoh Academy uniform wasn't anything too special to Taro, the standard blazer, button-down, pants, and shoes, with some little fancy details. Even if he had been living in Japan for 6 years now, Taro wasn't exactly used to having a uniform of all things for school.
Though his name was fully Japanese, Taro was born and raised overseas in the U.S for 10 years. 5 with his parents, and after the accident, 5 with his adoptive father. The older man decided that when Taro was 10, they'd move to Kuoh Town, his parent's hometown, saying something along the lines of they'd want their son to experience where they came from.
Taro himself… had no strong feelings, if he was being honest. It was just the town his parents grew up in, what was so special about it?
He could feel himself getting worked up as he treaded along that line of thought, as it was not the first time he thought about it, oh no, years past had seen him debate it a lot. And it never ended that well for his mood.
Clicking his tongue, Taro finished getting his uniform on and looked in the mirror, using the excuse of looking himself over to ignore his thoughts. He wore it mostly unmodified, replacing the black ribbon with a tie, and wearing a purple zip-up hoodie under his blazer, over the shirt.
The uniform helped hide most of Taro's bandages, the only ones visible being the ones on his hands, for obvious reasons. He'd get away with gloves in the winter but in the middle of spring? Yeah, he'd get works, that was for sure…well, more than normal?
Eh, thoughts for another day. Taro had other stuff to get done.
Walking to the door to his room, he picked up the messenger bag resting on the knob and slipped it onto his shoulder, exiting his room and closing the door behind him, heading down the second-floor stairs into the main hallway of the house, walking through until he ended up in the kitchen.
Sat at the table were three people, though in one case it was more accurate to say slumped.
Saji was one of them, wearing the Kuoh uniform sans blazer with the sleeves rolled up like he always did.
The second person seated at the table was Tsubasa Kuroi, Taro's adopted father, a friend of his parents who took him in back in the U.S. Though Taro himself knew he was older than looked, Tsubasa looked like he was in his 20s with black hair with golden bangs and a black goatee, dressed in a white t-shirt and plaid patterned pajama bottoms, drinking a cup of coffee and reading the morning paper.
The third person… wasn't sitting, as much as she was slumped on the table. Arms folded underneath her head like a pillow, long, iris-colored locks flowing down her back, as tired, magenta-colored eyes squinted at Taro as he entered the room. She was dressed in a long-sleeved white button-down, and, despite the young man's mental pleas, it seemed like the only thing she was wearing.
Thank God the button-up was at least buttoned.
"Mornin', Takun…" The sleepy older woman, Murasaki Shimada, greeted. She was a friend and coworker of Tsubasa and has been a babysitter and older sister figure to Taro since he was younger.
"Saki-nee…please tell me your actually wearing panties this time?" Taro asked, running a hand through his hair, the question making Tsubasa laugh and Saji sputter.
Blinking her tired eyes a few times, Murasaki didn't look down to check, instead wiggling her hips a few times to see if she could feel the material of her underwear. "Yeah, they made it on…"
"Oh thank God…" Both Saji and Taro muttered to themselves.
"Eh, I'm not too shocked. She worked later than I did last night, and crashed as soon as she got back," Tsubasa said, chuckling. "Probably just through off whatever. Surprised I even got her out of bed."
"If I could, Kuroi-san, I would put you in a permanent bed…"
"That's pre-meditated, Shimada."
"Mhm, like the boys would testify… they love their Saki-nee too much~," The sleepy woman said, a small smile on her face.
"We also love it when you wear clothes, but that ain't happening at the moment, it would seem," Saji said, raising a hand and catching a bento that Taro had tossed him from the fridge, the dirty blonde slipping it into his bag.
"Hey, at least it isn't a repeat of St. Patrick's Day," Taro commented with a shiver, turning to Tsubasa. "Seriously, Dad, how did you let her come home only wearing green body paint?"
"The same way I got home, Taro; slightly stumbling, blasted out of my mind," The older man stopped to sip his coffee, letting out a breath and setting it down, "and thinking it would be absolutely hilarious to see one of my sons stutter and stammer his way to falling over seeing a naked woman for the first time. And I still stand by the fact that it was hilarious."
"At least it wasn't Vali-nii, God only knows what would happen if he saw that…" Taro muttered, zipping up his bag and pulling his phone out, checking the time and clicking his tongue before slipping it back into his pocket. "Shit! Saji, we gotta hustle!"
"Yeah, yeah, says the guy who overslept," Saji commented as he stood up from the table, pushing his chair in and leaving the kitchen for the hallway. "See ya later Kuroi-san, Saki-nee!"
"I'll see you guys later too-"
"Ah ah, naw, none of that," Tsubasa said, folding his paper and setting it down, "you know the morning rule, Taro."
The young man blinked, before chuckling, "Yeah, yeah, I hear ya."
Taro walked up to Tsubasa and gave the older man a hug, getting his hair ruffled in the process. He then tried to give Murasaki a hug, but due to her state of dress, Taro settled for a one armed hug, which the older woman still reciprocated with a kiss on the cheek.
Flushed and cheeks red, Taro waved and quickly exited the kitchen to follow after Saji.
Murasaki sat up, lifting up one of her arms and resting her chin in her palm, humming as she stared out of the door of the kitchen to the front door of the house, where she caught it closing. "...only a little bit longer, and he'll be in his second year of highschool, Azazel."
The Governer General of the Grigori sighed, running a hand through his hair, "Yeah, I'm aware, Penemue."
"And your still not gonna tell him anything?" The Chief Secretary asked, turning her head to look at Azazel.
"Not if I can help it. Taro doesn't need to know anything, and I'm gonna keep it that way as long as I can," Azazel said with a sigh, giving Penemue a grin. "I mean, gone for 11 years without an incident, right? What's the worst that could happen?"
Penemue's head slipped out of her hand, dropping down onto the table with an audible thud. "God, if you weren't my boss, the things I would do to you for tempting fate like that…"
