In honor of my birthday (and the end of my vacation, sadly), I give to you updates!
When Miya first met Tsuki, she honestly thought the poor girl was a runaway. It didn't help that she had all her things in a single bag she had slung around her shoulder.
It was only as the girl slowly relaxed around her that she got the full story, and felt nothing but sympathy for the child.
Tsuki wasn't a runaway...technically anyway. She was an emancipated minor provided she could find lodging and be able to take care of basic living expenses on top of her education, and considering she wasn't even thirteen yet that was going to prove rather difficult (the living expenses, not the education).
She had a mother, but the woman was so lost in her own little world that it was better for her emotional and mental health that she be removed from the home discreetly.
Nana was aware that her daughter had gotten a 'rare scholarship' to a university in Shin Tokyo, but not the fact that Tsuki had removed her as her primary caretaker.
She had exactly three months to find a new appropriate place to live in and show signs of being able to handle the stress that came from living independently before the conditional emancipation order was rescinded and she was sent back to her mother. Considering the girl had been extensively bullied for quite some time, the concern for her ability to handle real life was warranted.
Miya was torn. On one hand, the girl clearly had a rough time of things if she felt desperate enough to actually manage to get a temporary emancipation order. On the other hand her instincts told her that children should stay with their mothers.
Considering how timid the girl was, Miya was highly tempted to send her home.
Instead she opted for a wait and see approach.
"How good are you at basic chores?" she asked, already coming up with a plan.
"Um... I'm decent enough. I know how to wash laundry and dishes, and I'm tolerable at making my own bentos. Mama sometimes forgot."
"You're planning to continue your education, yes? What grade level?"
"I just finished the online high school courses, so with any luck I'll be able to apply to the college nearby...even if my grades weren't the best, it was still better than what I used to bring home on my report card."
Miya's eyebrows went up a bit in shock. She wasn't even thirteen and she already passed high school?
"Are you the trouble making sort?"
Tsuki wilted.
"I never go looking for trouble. It just finds me," she said softly.
The poor thing looked like a skittish kitten, complete with fluffy hair. Miya's maternal instincts cooed at her.
"My husband would never turn away someone in need," said Miya gently. "I can forgo the rent because of your age, but only if you agree to certain terms."
Tsuki perked up at that, and for the first time since Miya met her she saw hope.
"Rule one, I don't like messy rooms. If you rent from me you have to keep it relatively clean. Rule two, I'm very strict on having 'company' and I don't tolerate it in the house...not that I expect you'll give me as much trouble as some of my tenants. Rule three, no pets allowed. Rule four, if you're going to live here without paying rent, then I expect some help with the upkeep. Nothing big like repairs, but helping to keep the place clean and cook for everyone will suffice. And do try to keep the noise level down when you're studying, because some of the other tenants have odd work hours and may be sleeping. Is that acceptable?" said Miya.
"Yes ma'am!" she said quickly. She couldn't believe her luck.
Miya smiled at her gently. It was like the girl was one of her more skittish Feathers that needed a place to stay for a while.
A few days later...
It had taken some doing, several calls to specific people in Namimori to confirm Tsuki wasn't making up her credentials or her ability to understand material, but she had been able to secure a special scholarship that allowed her to attend the local college.
At least she was able to drop her old school. Namimori's educational system was a joke in her opinion, but the double studying had been a nightmare. Oddly the more 'serious' crimes were nonexistent and the worst she had ever had to deal with was some minor harassment.
No one wanted to piss off the Demon Prefect after all.
Tsuki made her way back to the inn, and almost ran into a man with short grayish-colored hair and tired eyes. He must be one of the boarders who had weird hours.
"Hello little one. Are you lost?" he asked with a gentle smile.
"I'm currently staying here. Are you one of Miya-san's other tenants?" she asked curiously.
He blinked, before he shook off his surprise at that.
"I'm Homura, though my work name is Kagari. She probably mentioned a few of her boarders having weird hours didn't she?" he replied. Tsuki nodded. "I tend to work nights, so I sleep in a lot during the day."
"Fair warning, if you hear loud thumps on the stairs it's likely me from tripping on something. I'm something of a klutz," she told him.
"I'll keep that in mind, little kitten," he chuckled. She pouted at him, which only made the kitten comparison worse.
"I see you've met our new tenant," said Miya. "Welcome home."
"I'm back," replied Tsuki automatically. It was nice to actually have someone there to say that and mean it, rather than just following old habits. "I managed to get in, though I have to keep my grades above a C average at best."
"What school do you go to?" asked Homura. He might as well make small talk for now.
"Shin Tokyo University. It took forever for the paperwork to clear, and it's going to be a pain dealing with all the older students but it can't be worse than dealing with Namimori Middle School. The teachers there were an absolute joke."
If Homura had been drinking anything he would have choked on it.
"How old are you again?" he asked in disbelief.
"I'll be thirteen in October," she replied, not understanding why it mattered. Sure, having to do double homework had been a complete nightmare before but half of that was from the fact that the teachers did nothing about the harassment she dealt with on a daily basis and she got no support from home.
Homura looked at her with some respect.
"You must be something of a genius if you're about to attend college before you're even a proper teenager."
She quickly shook her head, somewhat depressed.
"It's less that I'm a genius and more that I was very motivated to get as far away from my home town as soon as I could," she sighed.
Homura sensed a story there, one that would need a lot of alcohol.
"So have you met Uzume yet?" he asked.
"Who?"
"Crazy cosplayer who has a bad habit of walking around in nothing but a tee-shirt and her underwear," clarified Homura. He barely dodged the shoe thrown at him.
"I heard that!"
"Oh, her. I think Miya's planning to blackmail her to take me clothes shopping later," said Tsuki.
"She is, though it's less blackmail and more that she's giving me an unwilling dress-up dummy if you're going to be a long-term tenant. Seriously, why do you only have three sets of clothes with you?" confirmed Uzume.
Tsuki winced.
"You're talking to someone who can't even afford a cell phone. How exactly am I supposed to pay for clothes when I'm too busy trying to pay for books and basic school supplies?" she replied.
"Which books?" asked Homura.
Tsuki looked at him.
"I have a ton of books in my room I don't read that are just taking up space. Depending on which course you're taking you're welcome to have them," he clarified. Seeing the bright, warm smile on her face he knew he said the right thing.
Miya watched the entire scene with a small smile on her face. She had initially been leery of allowing Tsuki to rent from her, but the girl was a quiet, sweet little thing who didn't mind helping with the chores. Though she was a bit clumsy, she still managed to get things done in a reasonable time frame provided she didn't do the task too quickly and understood what needed to be done.
Though the fluffy kitten comparison was becoming harder and harder to ignore.
Homura leaned over to a slightly drunk Uzume and asked half-seriously "When did Miya relax her policy on pets?"
"Hmm?"
"Because if I didn't know any better I'd swear she just adopted a kitten," he said, nodding to Tsuki in the kitchen.
Uzume choked on her drink from laughing.
"Oh god...and the weird part is that I can totally see it!" she cracked up.
Tsuki was way too much like a little kitten that needed to be spoiled rotten.
"Wonder what Matsu can dig up on her," mused Homura.
Curious, Uzume and Homura waited for Tsuki to join Miya in the grocery shopping (Miya was very pleased to have someone help carry back all the sale items) before they went to see Matsu.
"Well Matsu, what can you tell us about the new kitten Miya's apparently adopted?" asked Uzume.
"Give me a minute!" chirped the red head. "Here we are... Tsuki Sawada, age twelve... yikes."
Homura and Uzume stared at the file Matsu managed to drag up.
"Okay, how is that file even remotely accurate?" said Homura baffled.
According to the digital file Matsu found, Tsuki was still living with her mother and racking up an enormous amount of absences in Namimori Middle School. Her grade point average was dead last across the board and there was even a notation that all but stated she was a "no good, useless girl".
Which made absolutely no sense because Tsuki had just been admitted into college despite being at least six or seven years too young for it and was living in Izumo Inn with them.
Matsu searched deeper and found different files that told a completely different story. Except they were sealed and it had taken some creative hacking to find them.
The files she pulled up were on a girl who claimed to be home-schooled and had an almost straight C average with the odd B or the rare A through online courses. Her home life barely qualified as acceptable in that there was no abuse, but there was suspicion of emotional neglect from her mother. It wasn't that her mother hated her, but more that she was extremely delusional and lost in her own little world and didn't notice obvious signs of bullying and detachment from her daughter. There was zero positive social interaction with children her own age...in fact the only interaction she had with her peers was generally negative and bordered harassment.
Oddly, there was also harassment from her teachers. Almost every single one of them disparaged the girl either openly or behind her back, and when mentions of her online grades were brought up they immediately suspected cheating.
There was absolutely no mention of her father, and the social worker who had stumbled across the case noted that Tsuki had a fixed interest in getting away from Namimori before she turned eighteen.
Hence why she was given a temporary emancipation, to see if she could handle the world away from a very caustic situation. If they could find the source of all the animosity then perhaps steps could be taken to fix it, but in the best interest of a child being attacked on all sides, the judge had agreed that removal was their best option at the moment. A fresh start, as it were.
The fact Nana apparently had not figured out her daughter was living in another city without parental supervision or had taken online classes to get away did not speak well of her ability as a mother.
"Damn... and here I thought our situation sucked," said Uzume whistling. Poor kid had been through hell before she moved to Shin Tokyo.
"It would seem that barring external problems, the kitten will be here to stay," said Homura. He fully planned to treat her like one of the younger Sekirei.
If Tsuki was confused by the way they were now treating her, she managed not to show it.
Later that night
"Alright you two, exactly what did you find that has you treating her like another Sekirei?" asked Miya pointedly.
Uzume slid a tablet over to Miya.
She recognized Matsu's handiwork pretty quick. The more Miya read the more her frown grew.
"Is this accurate?"
"Matsu had to hack through several government firewalls. Apparently they considered the issue with her home life and school serious enough to issue the temporary order and the grace period. We're probably going to get a visit sometime within a month or so once she's fully settled in," said Homura seriously.
"I really feel for her. A mom that either doesn't know or care about what her daughter is going through and an entire school's worth of people set against her. And her dad apparently isn't even in the picture...they're skeptical if he's even alive or part of the mom's delusion," said Uzume with sympathy.
Miya was rather proud of her Feathers. The way they were going about this was rather mature for them, and even Uzume was taking this situation seriously.
"I'll take her shopping for some actual clothes. What she has now barely fits her and she looks overdue for a proper growth spurt... never mind what'll happen when puberty hits," said Uzume.
Miya looked to Homura.
"Once she has a class schedule and a list of books, I'll go through what's in my room and help her find the ones I don't have at a used book store or something. Notebooks and other basic supplies are pretty cheap if you buy them in bulk anyway," said Homura, scratching his nose.
The landlady beamed at them both. Tsuki might not have realized it yet, but she had pretty much been adopted by all the residents in the inn and she had barely lived there a full week. She could only imagine what Matsu's contribution would be.
Akira Tenoh somewhat enjoyed her job as an advocate for children. But the Sawada case was something that would bother her for a long time.
How that much emotional trauma and harassment had gone unnoticed for so long without anyone raising red flags was a mystery.
About the only good side out of the mess was that at least they didn't have to deal with the vicious "Demon Prefect" directly... little Tsuki had shown a surprising amount of trust in someone she only knew indirectly.
According to the paperwork the girl had sent once she was admitted to the local university (the girl was seriously downplaying her intelligence, if she was able to actually graduate high school before she even entered puberty...) she had managed to secure housing in a small boarding house inside Shin Tokyo.
Seeing the woman with lavender hair sweeping the grounds, she plastered on her friendliest smile.
"Hello, I'm Akira Tenoh. I'm here to inquire about one of your tenants."
"You must be here about little Tsuki-chan. She's currently in class at the moment," said the woman politely.
"That's fine. I'm mostly here to inquire about her living conditions and to see if she's fitting in," said Akira.
The woman nodded and opened the door.
Akira sat down and gratefully accepted the cup of tea.
"Why don't we get down to business. How is Sawada-san fitting in with her new surroundings?"
"My other tenants have apparently decided she's a mixture of a 'pet kitten' and a surrogate little sister. There's been no complaints so far and one of them has apparently taken up the hobby of discreetly kidnapping her."
"Kidnapping her?" repeated Akira in disbelief.
Miya hid a smile.
"She basically takes little Tsuki on outings like visiting the movies or places where she can relax and socialize with others. The fact Tsuki doesn't mind indulging my tenant's cosplaying hobby doesn't hurt either."
Akira relaxed at that... that sounded like innocent behavior of a goofy older sister wanting to spend time with a little sister. And she would admit Tsuki did look ridiculously like a fluffy kitten.
"Another tenant occasionally helps with her homework when he's around. He also helped her acquire the books she needs for her classes and wouldn't hear of her paying him back, since he already had half of them in his room and wasn't using them," said Miya. "However he works odd hours, so their interaction has been rather limited."
"Odd hours?"
"He works as a host," clarified Miya.
"I see. And how has Tsuki been fitting in? It can't be easy for her to be so far away from home for the first time."
"We've come to an arrangement, since most of her money has gone towards her education. In exchange with helping with most of the chores and the cooking, I've agreed to waive most of the rent. It would be rather silly to ask a twelve-year-old to pay for room and board, after all."
"That's rather generous of you."
"My husband would never turn down someone who needed a place to stay, and there was no telling what would have happened if she had kept looking for an apartment she could afford. Besides, she's given me less grief than most of my new tenants."
Akira left the inn with a sense of relief. Seeing how much Tsuki's living situation had improved had lifted a large amount of weight off her shoulders. The girl was definitely thriving in the odd arrangement.