Chapter Twenty-Three
Fuuma was taking great delight in torturing Kakyou. The yumemi had requested that they go to either the aquarium or the zoo, and Fuuma had chosen the aquarium. He had then donned the outfit he’d gotten while they were shopping: the tight, soft leather pants and black and purple mesh shirt. Kakyou had spent the first hour of the day staring at him, and Fuuma knew it. He found this extremely funny.
Kakyou had then taken to walking around looking anywhere but at Fuuma and saying things like “look at the big fish!” Unfortunately for him, Fuuma found this just as amusing. Whether Kakyou had been doing this to annoy Fuuma or to take his mind off the outfit, Fuuma wasn’t sure.
Kakyou then entered phase three of his tortured state, which was, whenever they were in a corner, to rub up against Fuuma for a few seconds and then walk away. Fuuma found this exceedingly less funny.
The two of them left the aquarium in the early evening, having seen about three fish apiece.
Fuuma retaliated by insisting that he and Kakyou go out to dinner. He found a small cafe and a small, intimate table in a small, intimate corner. “So,” Fuuma said innocently, sliding his shoe off underneath the table, unaware that Kakyou was doing the exact same thing. “Did you enjoy the aquarium?”
“Yes, the fish were very . . . tantalizing,” Kakyou said, smiling slightly as Fuuma’s foot started to slide up his leg.
Kakyou pushed his foot aside and started doing the same thing. “Pushy tonight, aren’t we?” Fuuma asked, enjoying the attention.
“No more pushy than you want me to be,” Kakyou said, still with the same innocent smile, his foot now sliding up Fuuma’s thigh.
Fuuma cleared his throat slightly as the waiter came over. “How are you gentlemen tonight?” he asked.
“We’re . . . starving,” Fuuma said, smiling charmingly. He ordered his food, apparently not having any trouble concentrating, despite the fact that Kakyou’s foot was now in his lap. Kakyou did the same. Once the waiter was gone, Fuuma grabbed Kakyou’s foot and started giving him a foot massage.
Kakyou purred slightly, sliding down in his chair so his leg wasn’t stretched out quite as far. He was rather startled, however, as the foot massage stopped and Fuuma slid one hand up his pants. Kakyou was not averse to this in the slightest.
Needless to say, it was a long, torturous dinner. Fuuma was operating on the principle that the longer he stretched it out, the better the sex would be when they finally got back to the hotel they were staying in. He was all right until Kakyou ordered a chocolate sundae and began eating it very slowly.
“You know what we should do tomorrow?” Fuuma asked, initiating conversation on the cab ride back to the hotel solely so they didn’t end up scaring the driver into dropping them on a street corner.
“Go to the aquarium and actually look at the fish?” Kakyou suggested.
“Nah. We should look for apartments. I’m sick of that stupid basement.”
“Really?” Kakyou brightened.
“Yeah, sure. I hate Kanoe, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t spend her money in order to get away from her. I’m not spending the last months of my life crammed into a sunless little room. We’ll have to figure out what to do about Nataku, though.”
“We could get a two-bedroom,” Kakyou suggested.
“Aa, I’m just worried about his lab. I need to check up on him anyway. I’ll have to call him tomorrow. Since I, uh, don’t think I’ll get around to it tonight.”
“I don’t think you will either.”
The cab pulled up at their hotel. Fuuma took his sweet time in paying the man, while Kakyou lingered in the background impatiently. When he finally turned to Kakyou, the yumemi grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him into the hotel room. Fuuma laughed and went along with it, and was somewhat amused when Kakyou shoved him down onto the bed.
“Now remember,” he said sweetly, straddling Fuuma, “the handcuffs are for your protection.”
~~~~
“Did you have fun with Sumeragi-san?” Seimei asked innocently, climbing into the car. Seishirou had deposited him at Senichi’s and said to simply call when he was ready to go. Thus it was now half past eleven, but Seishirou didn’t seem to particularly mind.
“Yes,” Seishirou said. “Yes, I did.”
“Well, good for you.” Seimei grinned at his father, thinking that it was about damn time that Seishirou had fun.
“And did you have fun with Teiji-kun?” Seishirou asked, not bothering to disguise the fact that he was teasing.
“Quite a lot, yes.”
“What were you guys up to so late?” Seishirou asked. “Respectable people don’t come home so late, you know.”
“You didn’t raise me to be a respectable person,” Seimei reminded him. “We were at the mall.”
“Ah,” Seishirou said. “The mall. Such a den of iniquity.”
“I met Kamui. Does that count?”
Seishirou nearly drove off the road. “You did?” he asked, pretending that his hands had never even twitched.
“Dad, does this car have airbags?”
“Yes, two of them.”
“Good. And yes, I did.”
“And how is Kamui?” Seishirou asked dryly, not sure he really wanted to know the answer to this question.
“Apparently quite good,” Seimei replied.
Seishirou raised an eyebrow at him.
“I don’t know, he was on the arm of some relatively cute blonde guy that apparently Teiji knew from martial arts class.”
“Ah,” Seishirou said. “Lucky Kamui.”
“Yes. Yes, he is.” Apparently Seimei found Keiichi rather cute. “Are you and Sumeragi-san going to be seeing more of each other?”
“It’s a possibility,” Seishirou said carefully, not wanting to commit to anything, because Seimei would be sure to hound him if he did. Actually, Seimei was sure to hound him no matter what, but this way might be slightly less hounding.
“When?”
“When I feel like it.”
Seimei raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean I’ll be having dinner with Senichi-san’s family a lot?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Seishirou said noncommittally.
Seimei just rolled his eyes and slumped back into his seat.
“After all,” Seishirou said, “I thought perhaps you might like to come along the next time he’s over for dinner.”
Seimei grinned. “That’d be very nice. As long as he promises to be scary anymore.”
“He’s only scary when I do something to deserve it.” And okay, that was about every twenty minutes, as far as Seishirou could tell, but he could try.
“Maybe you should buy him flowers.”
“Maybe I will.”
There was a few minutes of silence while they drove, each in their own thoughts. Seishirou was searching for a way to ask the question he’d been pondering all night.
“Sei-kun,” he finally said, “do you like Subaru-kun?”
“I don’t really know,” Seimei admitted. “I’ve met him twice. And the two meetings just didn’t correlate at all.” Except that Subaru had seemed to be very mad at Seishirou both times, but Seimei didn’t want to say that.
“Well, I can tell that you want me to see more of him.”
“Well, yes. He seems to make you happy. You know, when he’s not freaking out at you.”
“And you think that’s a good thing?” Seishirou asked curiously.
Seimei just stared at him. “Yes,” he said, wondering what planet his father could possibly be from where being happy was a bad thing.
“Just wondering,” Seishirou said, and turned his attention back to the road.
“Why would you being happy be a bad thing?” Seimei gave into his curiosity and just asked.
“Because I haven’t been the best of people,” Seishirou told him.
“Nobody’s perfect. Most people aren’t even anywhere near close.”
Seishirou just shrugged. “But you think it’s right for him to be making me happy when I may as well have ruined his life?”
Seimei frowned and attempted to phrase his answer. “From what I’ve seen of him, if you two could stop fighting, you’d both be happy.”
“I’m not so sure,” Seishirou said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” Seishirou admitted. “I just don’t think Subaru could ever really forgive me for what I did to him. Nor should he.”
“What does it matter if you’re both happy?” Seimei asked, apparently not getting what Seishirou was saying at all.
Seishirou sighed slightly. “Never mind.”
“No, now you’re going to mope.”
“Said the pot to the kettle,” Seishirou replied mildly.
“I’m not moping.”
“But you have in the past. In copious amounts.”
“Umm . . . sorry?”
Seishirou laughed. “You don’t have to apologize for it. You inherited it from me anyway. God knows I’ve never seen your mother anything close to moping.”
“Nah, she just gets violent.”
“Good to know.”
~~~~
Fuuma thought it was really disgustingly difficult to get a decent apartment in Tokyo. He and Kakyou had been looking since the day started (at eleven in the morning; they’d been up rather late) and now it was nearly three, but they had yet to find one that they both liked. Fuuma thought that it shouldn’t really matter, given that they, or at least he, was only going to live in it for a couple months. But as Kakyou seemed to be blithely ignoring that fact, he was shopping like a real buyer.
The first didn’t have enough windows, the second had disgusting carpets of a vile puke green-orange mix, the third was on the fourteenth floor and Fuuma refused even though there was an elevator on the principle that it was silly, the fourth had a kitchen the size of a small closet, the fifth wouldn’t allow pets, the sixth was so close to Tokyo Tower that it made Fuuma nervous, given where the Final Battle was going to be . . . the list went on. Fuuma was ready to start looking at apartments that were already lived in, and throwing people out if they suited him.
Just as they were ready to give up for the day (and frustrated beyond belief; in the past week, they had never gone for so many hours without sex), the realtor took them to another apartment, saying apologetically that it was the last one on her list for the area.
“Well, I wouldn’t nominate it for the Nobel Prize of housing,” Fuuma said, glancing around, “But it’s okay. The bedrooms are nice and big . . . the carpets are tan. So that’s all good.”
“The windows are good and the kitchen’s acceptable.” Kakyou glanced over at the realtor, who looked ready to cry from relief. “We even have a balcony.”
“And it isn’t likely to collapse in any earthquakes,” Fuuma concluded.
“Always a plus,” Kakyou said with a nod.
Fuuma looked around the very empty apartment. “Hey, we’ll need furniture. For some reason I hadn’t thought of that. And dishes. And . . . and things like laundry detergent!” He looked ready to panic.
“Breathe,” Kakyou instructed him firmly. “We just need to make a list. You and I both have enough money.”
“But I don’t know what people actually keep in houses,” Fuuma protested. “I’m bound to forget something important, like . . . like . . . an asparagus cooker or something.”
“You boil water, you put them in,” Kakyou said. “Equipment needed: a pot.”
Fuuma laughed in spite of himself.
“If you find out that we’ve forgotten something, we’ll wait until tomorrow, and then we’ll go out and buy it,” Kakyou said.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll have to tell Satsuki to bring me in a lot more cash in the next few days.”
“It’s okay,” Kakyou said. “My parents kindly gave me most of their fortune after their house exploded.”
“Without even having to use that tape,” Fuuma said thoughtfully. “Really, I thought they gave in gracefully.”
“Oh, I did too.”
Fuuma turned to the realtor. “Okay, we’ll take it. You’ve got forms for me to sign and stuff, I assume?”
She nodded and whipped out a large bundle of them. Fuuma signed them all without reading, hoping that he wasn’t selling his soul to Satan or anything like that. Anyway, it was Kanoe’s credit card, so he was probably selling her soul instead. The realtor gave him two keys and bustled out, gleaming with relief.
“Well,” Fuuma said, looking around. “You want to stay here tonight? Maybe go out and buy a mattress, then make up our list of things that we need?”
“That sounds good,” Kakyou said with a nod.
“Of course, we need to christen it first,” Fuuma said seriously.
Kakyou’s eyes gleamed. “Which room should we start with?”
“Ours, of course. And we’re not having sex in the second bedroom. God, poor Nataku if he ever found out.”
“No, that would just be wrong somehow.” Kakyou regarded Fuuma curiously. “Are you going to go get him tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I’ll let him pick out dish patterns and some stuff for his room.” Fuuma shrugged. “But it’ll be a few days before he can actually stay. I think Watari said he had four more days left before all the modifications were done.”
“Well, that’s not too bad, for a lifetime of freedom.”
“Yeah,” Fuuma said, “especially when you consider that I didn’t even know it was
possible. I talked to him a bit this morning when I called to check up on things. He really is a genius. Remind me later that we owe Hisoka and Tsuzuki a favor.”
“I’ll write us a sticky note.”
~~~~
Subaru was somewhat disconcerted. Kamui had invited him over to dinner, which he didn’t have any problem with, and he’d blatantly stated that he was going to be grilling Subaru about his date, which he didn’t have too much of a problem with, as long as Kamui didn’t expect the gory details or anything. Unfortunately for Subaru, he somehow found himself sitting with every single other Seal. Even Seiichirou had managed to get away from the editing board long enough.
Subaru walked in, surveyed the scene, and gave Kamui a whap upside the head. Kamui just grinned and smoothed his hair back into place. “Hey, you said you’d come over to dinner someday when everyone was here,” he said.
“I see you didn’t invite Keiichi,” Subaru replied calmly, taking his seat and suppressing an evil grin as Karen giggled.
“How are things with Keiichi?” she asked, and Subaru was quite gratified to see Kamui turn red all the way up to the tips of his ears.
“Yes, how are things?” he asked pleasantly. If he wasn’t going to escape (and he was positive that he wasn’t), then he was at least going to needle Kamui in return.
“We’re doing just fine, thank you,” Kamui said.
“Yeah, and how was your date the other night?” Sorata joined in, putting one of the plates of food on the table and then disappearing back into the kitchen before hearing the answer, which made Subaru fairly sure that Sorata had already asked and was just asking again to irritate Kamui.
“You’re not my father!” Kamui called after him.
“I should hope not,” Arashi deadpanned, walking out of the kitchen with a bowl of rice and putting it on the table. Yuzuriha was close behind with a pot of tea and a precariously balanced tray of tea cups.
“Oh, you had a date?” Seiichirou asked, obviously missing the entirety of the conversation and situation to date. “How did it go?”
“It was very . . . educational,” Kamui said with a smirk.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Sorata muttered, pulling out a seat for Arashi and then taking his own. Subaru was rather surprised to see that Arashi sat without giving Sorata the frosty glare he’d become accustomed to. He could also nearly see Kamui thinking ‘you’re just sore because I’m going to lose my virginity before you.’
“We went to the mall and met some very interesting people,” Kamui continued.
Yuzuriha finished unloading the teacups and took her seat. Everyone chorused “Itadakimasu” and dug into the food. Subaru would say one thing for Sorata; at least he was going after a girl who could cook.
“Interesting?” Yuzuriha chirped. “Like who?”
“Yes, like who?” Karen and Subaru asked in unison, their tones of amusement practically matching.
“Sakurazuka Seimei and Teiji,” Kamui answered innocently, and smiled when Subaru nearly choked on a mouthful of rice.
Yuzuriha missed the reference completely. “Really? Who were they? Are they nice?”
“They seem to be very nice, yes,” Kamui said. “Keiichi and I were planning on going out with them again later.”
Sorata pounded Subaru on the back. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?”
Subaru managed to swallow the rice. “I don’t know,” he said. “I feel like I’ve entered the Twilight Zone.”
“That’s what I felt like at first, too,” Seiichirou assured him. “It goes away. You just learn to ignore most of what they’re saying.”
Sorata gave him an affronted look while Karen giggled.
“I’ll remember that,” Subaru managed.
“Speaking of Seimei,” Kamui said brightly, and Subaru groaned inwardly, “how was your date with his father?”
Sorata gaped at Subaru. “You’re dating someone who’s already a father?!”
Subaru looked pained, and he didn’t deign to respond to that statement. “My date,” he said stiffly, resisting the urge to throttle Kamui because mankind depended on his survival, “was fine.”
“Who was your date with?” Yuzuriha asked, bouncing.
“Yes, who?” Karen was apparently an equal-opportunity needler.
“A man that none of you are acquainted with except for Kamui,” Subaru said, which was nominally true, if a bit of a copout.
“And what kind of man is he?” Karen asked sweetly.
“An idiot with questionable morals,” Subaru replied.
Everyone blinked at him. Kamui began to laugh, and muffled it in his napkin as best he could.
“Don’t choke,” Subaru told him pleasantly.
“What kind of questionable morals?” Sorata asked, eyes narrowed.
“Since when are you everybody’s father?” Subaru asked.
“Since I realized that no one else is capable of it,” Sorata replied. “Besides, I’m practicing for when the Miss and I have ki -- ” Sorata doubled over as Arashi punched him in the stomach, and nearly fell off his chair. Kamui gave him a surreptitious shove which did the rest of the job.
“Thank you, Arashi-san,” Subaru said politely.
“No trouble at all.”
“Well . . . is he nice?” Yuzuriha asked, obviously a romantic at heart and trying to steer the conversation onto less violent topics.
“He has his moments,” Subaru said. “They’re pretty rare, but he does have them.”
Karen leaned over and said something into Seiichirou’s ear, which made him turn a rather bright crimson. Everyone looked at them, and then decided that they didn’t want to know. Even Sorata.
“Are you in love with him?” Yuzuriha asked, still bouncing.
Kamui began to giggle. So did Karen.
“Yes,” Subaru said, feeling a monstrous headache coming on.
“Do you think Kamui is in love with Keiichi?” she continued. “I asked him but he wouldn’t tell me.”
It was Kamui’s turn to become crimson, and Subaru’s chance to snicker. “I wouldn’t venture a guess if he won’t answer,” he said, and then snickered more at the disappointed look in Yuzuriha’s eyes.
“Oh,” she said. Then she brightened again. “Is he in love with you? The man you’re dating, I mean, not Keiichi and Kamui.”
“Uh . . .” Subaru tried not to stammer. “I don’t think he knows. He doesn’t seem to know much of anything.”
“Men never know things like that,” Karen said, and gave Seiichirou a rather significant glance. Subaru blinked at them, wondering what was between them that he didn’t know about. “You just have to keep beating them over the head until they figure it out.” She nodded earnestly.
“I’ve been trying,” Subaru said. “For a long time.”
Kamui was looking superior, so Sorata turned to him and said, “I take it Keiichi doesn’t have the usual guy hangups?”
“Nope,” Kamui said with a wide grin. “Not at all.”
Subaru resisted the urge to dump his tea in Kamui’s face.
“But in all other ways,” Kamui continued, just to needle Sorata, “he’s a typical male teenager. Except maybe a little louder than most.”
Sorata turned bright red. Subaru burst into laughter that he made no attempt to muffle, and Karen joined him. Even Seiichirou was snickering. Arashi watched all this with her usual stone face, but her lips were twitching. Yuzuriha simply looked confused.
When Sorata was done hyperventilating, he said, “I don’t want to know. I simply do not want to know.”
“That’s good,” Kamui said.
Subaru decided it was high time to get Kamui back for all the previous needling. “Don’t worry, Sorata,” he said. “They haven’t.”
Kamui raised an eyebrow at Subaru, ignoring Sorata’s relieved look. “And how did your dinner date end, Subaru?”
Subaru gave him a look. “We had sex right on my doorstep.”
Now it was Karen who choked on her food, mostly because she was laughing so hard. Seiichirou patted her back and hid his smile in his napkin. Sorata blinked. Arashi blinked. Kamui nearly died. Yuzuriha analyzed all of this and then said, “I don’t think that would be very comfortable, really.”
“There are very few things about this man that are comfortable,” Subaru told her.
“Then why do you like him?” she asked innocently.
“Because I think, underneath it all, I’m crazy.”
“Not far underneath,” Sorata was heard to mutter.
“It’s a very thin veneer,” Subaru agreed.
“Was it good?” Kamui asked him with a grin.
“Worth waiting years for,” Subaru said, nodding and looking dead serious.
Kamui examined all his options and decided that, if they were all going to be immature, that he was going to do the best thing possible and flick a spoonful of rice into Subaru’s face.
Within minutes, a full-scale food fight had started. Sorata was valiantly protecting Arashi, who was lobbing things over his shoulder. Seiichirou was less valiantly but much more effectively protecting Karen, who was supplying him with things to throw. Yuzuriha was on her own, but Inuki had thoughtfully transformed into a shield for her. Subaru and Kamui were ignoring everyone else in favor of simply trying to cram things down each others shirts.
Finally, all the food had been thrown and was too splattered to be scraped up and thrown again.
“So, uh,” Kamui said brightly, “who’s gonna clean this up?”
Everyone looked at him and said in unison, “You started it.”
Kamui gave them a horrified look. “But . . . but!”
Subaru snirked. “I have a maid. I’ll give you her number.”
~~~~
Fuuma was wondering how he had gotten suckered into this. He had just come to pick up Nataku and bring him to see the new apartment and go shopping. So how had he gotten talked into having dinner with the rest of the Angels? Seishirou and Kusanagi excluded, seeing as they weren’t really part of the team. But Kanoe was there, and that alone was enough to make Fuuma go into raptures of joy, really.
She was sitting on her ‘throne’ at the head of the table, which wasn’t good, because Fuuma kept looking at it and bursting into fits of snickers. He was on her right, with Kakyou beside him. He was kind of miffed that he didn’t get the head of the table, but that would have involved sitting in the throne, so he didn’t complain. Nataku was next to Kakyou and looking decidedly uncomfortable with the situation.
Yuuto was on Kanoe’s left, and Satsuki was beside him. She seemed disappointed to have to separate from Beast for twenty minutes, and was making up for this by staring avidly at Yuuto. If this disturbed the blond at all, he didn’t give any indication of the fact.
They were ten minutes into the meal (and a sullen ten minutes it had been; Fuuma had started off by saying ‘you know, we could be having sex right now’) when Seishirou walked in. “Sorry. Am I late?”
Everyone blinked at him. He blinked back. “I did get the message you left,” he said, looking at Yuuto. “What are you, the official Angel secretary or something?”
“Yes,” Yuuto answered calmly.
Seishirou pulled out the chair at the far end of the table, apparently not wanting to sit next to Satsuki. He resisted the urge to comment that Yuuto had slept his way to the top, and took a portion of the food. “So what’s the occasion?” he asked.
“Well,” Kanoe said, putting her food aside, “I think it’s clear that Kusanagi isn’t going to join us, so I’ll begin. I’m rather . . . shall we say . . . alarmed, at the lack of work ethic being shown by this group.”
Seishirou stood up, then sat down. “I was going to leave now, but actually this might be amusing, so proceed.”
Kanoe didn’t look very thrilled at being ordered around by Seishirou, so she snapped, “Take off those stupid glass while you’re inside.”
Seishirou slid them off. “Happy now, majesty?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “Let me count back what’s been happening. We have destroyed exactly three kekkai. Nakano Sun was destroyed by Seishirou.” She was faintly disturbed to see that Seishirou looked slightly guilty about this. “Ikebukuro was destroyed by ‘Kamui,’ with help from Nataku.” Fuuma rolled his eyes. “And last week one was destroyed by Satsuki.”
“What?” Fuuma asked. “When? I’m the God damned Kamui, why didn’t I hear about this?”
“You were on your little self-appointed vacation,” Kanoe said, looking disdainful.
“You know,” Seishirou said calmly, “I notice that you’re not saying anything to Yuuto. Is he allowed to sit out because he’s fucking you?”
“Yes,” Yuuto said, apparently not offended by this in the slightest.
“Isn’t that punishment enough?” Kakyou asked dryly.
“Good point,” Seishirou replied. “But I notice she’s not picking on you, either. Is that because she knows that Fuuma will rip her head off?”
“Could be,” Kakyou said. “Or maybe she’s smart enough to know that I’ll rip her head off myself.”
“Ah,” Seishirou said.
Kanoe gave them both a dirty look. “Kakyou is acting in his capacity as Dreamgazer, and that is enough.”
“But I have to go out and blow things up?” Seishirou surmised.
“It would be appreciated, yes,” Kanoe snapped. “We’re supposed to be destroying Kekkai and getting rid of the Seals so we’ll be able to win the Final Day. And yet I don’t see any of you doing much of anything!”
“Look, lady, I’m going to die at the end of this mess,” Fuuma said, his voice rising, “and if I want to spend a week at the beach with my boyfriend, that’s my God damned right and if you interfere, I will take that throne and use it for what it looks like on you. Got that?”
“Ouch,” Seishirou said mildly, spearing a pea pod and eating it.
Kanoe glowered. “You were hardly doing anything before that.”
“Are you and your wobbly-headed sister that eager to die?” Kakyou asked her, genuinely curious.
Kanoe glowered even more. “That’s not the issue at hand, and leave my sister out of it,” she snapped. “Seishirou, Satsuki, Nataku, you proved that you were adept at destroying Kekkai -- what’s keeping you from doing so?”
Nataku blinked at her. “Daddy hasn’t told me too.”
Fuuma shrugged, unremorseful, as Kanoe’s glare landed on him.
Satsuki gave a very similar answer. “I take my orders from the Kamui.”
“You didn’t at the beginning of this week,” Kanoe said.
Satsuki shrugged. “I got bored.”
Kanoe turned to Seishirou.
“I don’t want the world to end,” Seishirou said. “And that’s all I have to say on the matter.” Seishirou had an ask-me-more-questions-and-die look on his face.
“For somebody who gets laid so often, you’re awfully tense,” Kakyou observed, as Kanoe practically began to foam at the mouth.
“You have no idea,” Yuuto told them.
Kanoe practically began to shriek. “You all need to get to work! Or we aren’t going to win!” She looked around. “Nataku, I want you to get the one at the Shinjuku Highrises. Seishirou, I’d like you to take the one at Rainbow Bridge. Satsuki -- ”
“If we go, will you shut up?” Seishirou asked, amused.
“Maybe.”
“Fine, then, I’ll go,” Seishirou said. “I just don’t promise to win the fight, that’s all.”
Kakyou frowned. Really, no good could come of this. Hopefully, Seishirou would at least have the sense to retreat. “You know, Kanoe, you should take after your sister and stop opening your mouth.”
“I’m leaving,” Seishirou announced. “I don’t want to be here for this. Should I report back to Her Majesty after I don’t destroy the bridge?”
“You’d better,” she snapped.
Kakyou picked up a sushi roll and lobbed it at Kanoe. It landed neatly between her breasts with a small plop. Kakyou folded his hands in his lap and smiled.
“Jaa ne,” Seishirou said, and left the room.
Fuuma took the cue from Kakyou and immediately started pelting Kanoe with food. Within seconds, she was covered, and did the only thing she could -- started throwing food back. The other three sat by and watched, a bit bemused.
Nataku picked up a sushi roll and popped it into his mouth. “Aren’t we supposed to eat these, not throw them?” he asked Satsuki.
“Under normal circumstances, yes,” Satsuki answered.
“What circumstances are these?” Nataku asked, puzzled.
“Extreme.”
“Go ahead, Nataku,” Fuuma called over. “Pelt the bitch!”
Nataku examined all his options. “Promise she won’t yell at me later?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You don’t sound so sure of yourself . . .”
“I promise! We’re moving out, anyway, remember?!”
The fight abruptly stopped, and Fuuma remembered with a jolt that Kanoe had not yet been informed of this.
“Uh oh,” Kakyou said under his breath, but he was grinning.
“You’re what?” Kanoe asked in a low voice.
“Moving,” Fuuma said. “Gone. Apartment for me, Kakyou, and Nataku. We hate you. We’ll still come here every afternoon to check on you. Make sure you haven’t snapped your own back with the weight of your breasts. We’ll even give you our number so if you need to be hospitalized, you can call us.”
Kanoe seethed. “Why wasn’t I informed?”
“I was going to, until you hauled us down for this little lecture!” Fuuma protested. “Besides, you would’ve found out when you got your credit report. I’m really surprised I didn’t max that thing while on vacation . . .”
Kanoe was quickly turned red.
“What do you care?” Kakyou asked sweetly. “The world’s going to end soon anyway.”
“Not if you people don’t stop slacking off!” she said, and stormed out of the room, her breasts flouncing.
“Put on a bra!” Fuuma called after her.
The five of them looked at each other.
“Well,” Yuuto finally said, “thank you for coming.”
~~~~
Seishirou contemplated the large wooden doors nervously. He wasn’t quite sure what he was doing, but he thought it might help him feel a bit less miserable about the mess his family was, so he was going with it. He finally lifted his hand and knocked. He was expected, of course; one did not approach Sakurazuka Meiri in her off hours without her permission.
“Enter,” Meiri called.
Seishirou opened the door and walked in, then closed it behind him. He turned to Meiri and bowed deeply. “Clan Head,” he said, giving the title all the respect it deserved.