16 KiB
Chapter 2
"So... Tokyo, huh?"
"Yup!"
"That's, uh, a long distance to move on your own."
"It is."
"Especially in the middle of the school year..."
"Uh huh..."
"What's up with that?"
"I was also wondering that, Hibari. Your father only asked that I could let you say, but didn't seem to want to explain why. It's quite unusual of him, he's usually a rather direct man."
Instead of responding immediately, the girl reached over to grab the bowl of rice. She began to empty some of it into her own plate before replying. "Ibari felt I needed a change of scenery for my last year and a half of high school", she said, that same, slightly amused smirk lifting the corners of her mouth as she lowered the bowl, "in order to deal with my 'immature' behavior. Personally, I think he's being unreasonable, but I'd rather this than some of his other suggestions."
"Other suggestions?" Kousaku asked.
"Sending me to a boarding school, non-coed specifically. A few different ones came up, mostly up in Tohoku. Father hasn't been the biggest fan of some of my actions the last few years, so I guess he just wanted the problem out of the way for a while." She shrugged and continued eating.
Kousaku and Harue were both mildly unsettled by this information. Their new housemate seemed like a kind girl, but did they unknowingly agree to house a delinquent of some sort?
Kousaku's mother asked the obvious question, "If I may ask, Hibari, what behavior of yours did he have a problem with?"
The light smirk turned almost devilish, giving Kousaku confused chills. He didn't know how to feel about such a menacing expression on that cute face. "Oh, just the usual teenage girl behavior, I suppose. You know, teasing my sisters, drinking some of Ibari's liquor, threatening a yakuza member. Nothing major."
Yakuza?
"You're joking about the last one, right?"
Hibari giggled. "A little."
?!?!?!
"What do you mean, 'a little'?!"
The giggles turned into full-on laughter. "Oh, that one he actually had no problem with!" Her laughter calmed down mildly. "He had his own grudges with the guy, anyways." she noted with a shrug.
With.
A.
Shrug.
Whereas this unsettled Kousaku significantly, the elder Sakamoto's reaction was much more mild, bordering on annoyed. "I suppose you can only set expectations so high for the head of the Kantou Oozora Group." she sighed, "I had hoped that your father hadn't been getting you involved in any of that, Hibari. We've had our share of disagreements on some of his own decisions over the years."
Hibari's laughter died down fully, though her smile remained. "Ahh, what a rush." she sighed. "Just kidding! Ibari doesn't want me to be involved in business stuff, honestly. He's always afraid I'll make him look bad, so I'm left out of it usually. As for his real problem: he just doesn't like how I express myself. I'm in a rock band—or at least I was in Tokyo—and I don't always dress how wants me to. He says it's inappropriate for the role I was born in."
Kousaku took a moment to process the rapid whiplash of information. So her dad's a yakuza boss, and mom knew that, but at least she isn't some kinda scary mob freak. If anything, she's kinda fun. It's nice. The thought calmed him down somewhat.
His mother, on the other hand, seemed to only grow more upset. "That seems so unlike him. Sending off his own daughter like that..." She moved to get up. "Maybe I should call him and talk to hi—"
"No!" Hibari suddenly shouted, slamming her hands against the table and surprising both of them. She blushed slightly at their startled gazes. "Um, I'd rather not drag you into this, Mrs. Sakamoto. We've been having these disagreements since junior high school and they haven't exactly been productive. I'd prefer to just let things with Ibari rest for a little bit. I doubt it would make much of a difference anyways, unfortunately."
"I see." Harue seemed to think on this a moment, then sighed. "Well, I won't do anything you wouldn't want me to, then."
An awkward silence descended on the table after that, as the three of them continued their dinner. Hibari still seemed embarrassed about her outburst, while Kousaku was a bit too nervous to try to break it.
By the time Kousaku got the courage to actually speak, the three of them had almost finished their meal and the awkwardness was nearly suffocating.
"So... did you enjoy the food, Hibari?"
"Oh? Yes I did, actually. You made the salad, right? It was pretty good! Do you tend to help with the cooking, Kousaku?"
"I often do most of it, actually."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah. Mom's an author and often works pretty late to make her deadlines. I started learning how to cook over the summer a couple years back and I've just been doing it a lot to make it easier on her."
"That's... actually really nice of you. I imagine you appreciate that a lot, Mrs. Sakamoto?"
Harue smiled. "Yes, it's been a big help these last few years. My workload in general has been a lot heavier and Kousaku has been stepping up a lot. He's truly been everything a mother could ask for."
Kousaku flushed at the praise. "Mom!" he whined.
His mother laughed. "Anyways, I take it you two are done eating at this point?"
"Yeah."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Alright, then. I'll handle the dishes tonight. Kousaku, you should go help Hibari get her things up to her room and figure out what you'll be doing the next few days."
"Alright. C'mon!"
The two teens walked back towards the front door of the house, where they had left Hibari's things before dinner.
She leaned to grab her luggage, rolling it towards the stairs with clear intent to carry it up."
"Hey, uh, wait a second!" He rushed to her side. "That bag was heavy just bringing it inside! You'll hurt yourself trying to drag it up there on your own. Let me help."
Hibari looked at him blankly, almost confused by the offer. "I appreciate the suggestion, but I really can deal with it just fine by myself—at least better than you were doing earlier."
Then she grabbed the handle, and effortlessly carried the bag to the top of the stairs.
With one hand.
One.
What the hell.
She turned around to face him and tilted her head quizzically. "What's the hold up? Bring up my bass for me, will you?" She began to move down the hall, then stopped and turned back around with a light blush staining her cheeks. She looked down at him, a goddamn insanely cute expression of mild embarrassment on her face as she did.
"Oh, uh, which room is the guest room?"
"...first door on the right. My room is the second one."
"Ah! C'mon, Kousaku!"
She left his line of sight from the bottom of the stairs, as Kousaku just stood there for a moment, taking the first moment he'd had all night to process what was happening.
One of the cutest girls he'd ever met was moving into his house for at least a few months, and he was being an absolute mess. He's blowing it. He's barely getting a single word out or... what was it he'd said to Daisuke earlier that day? Getting to know her? She seemed interesting as hell, between the band she mentioned and her dad being a yakuza of all things and her joking about it, and he's just been stuttering all night at every little thing she does. He's barely been managing to respond to her at all.
He hates that.
It's rude! It's lame! It's... unmanly! He can do better, and he will! Determined to get his shit together, Kousaku grabbed the guitar case and carefully carried it up to the guest room, now Hibari's room. The girl had set her luggage down and opened it against a wall and was at the moment just stretching out against the bed. Kousaku pointedly ignored the little bit of midriff revealed by her sweater creeping up as she did.
It was a lot harder to ignore the little moan she made while stretching. "Ungh! Ah, sorry! It's been a long trip here and I'm a little tired." The blond sat up and, upon seeing him, gave him a teasing smirk. "Enjoy the show?"
Kousaku managed to mostly keep his reaction in check, if not without a little nervous fidgeting. He was not going to answer that question, though. "I just, uh, brought up the guitar. Where should I put it?"
"Oh, hmm... I think that corner is probably best." she gestured towards the side of her bed opposite the nightstand. "It's designed to be able to stand, just put it with the flat part down." He did as she asked. "I'll just be in here emptying out my things for a while, Kousaku. I can take care of it myself, so don't feel any need to stay and help." She got up fully and walked over to her bag, getting on her knees and beginning to sort and take things out of it. Mostly clothes, Kousaku noticed.
"I was actually wondering if I could just stay in here and talk? I wasn't planning on doing much tonight anyways and it feels wrong to not, I dunno, help you get acclimated? School doesn't even start back up for a few days anyways... Oh! Would you like to go out with me?"
She jolted up in surprise and looked at him, eyes wide. It took a few seconds for Kousaku to realize his mistake. Foot, meet mouth.
"I-I-I just meant that I could show you around town! Tomorrow! Maybe meet a couple of my friends, that sorta thing. I was gonna see one of them tomorrow to start getting ready for classes, too, so we could help you catch up if you need it."
Her surprise faded as Kousaku explained himself, morphing into a teasing grin.
"O-only if you want to, of course, I just thought it would be nice." he finished, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head.
"Oh, I would love to go out with you, Kousaku. Make sure to show me all your favorite make out spots." He could feel himself heating up. "Pff, you're bright red! Talk about pure-hearted. I'm just teasing you~"
She winked at him and turned back towards her luggage, continuing to unpack. "In all seriousness, that sounds good. You're also welcome to stay, though I get the feeling you might want to be careful about any talking."
He just grunted in response, not trusting his own voice, and sat down on the bed.
The two of them sat in silence for a while, Hibari occasionally getting up to put things in one of the drawers or hang some of her clothes. From what he could see, a lot of them seemed pretty cute. Of course, he still wondered how'd they look on her but he'd already gotten the sense that Hibari was good at coordinating outfits, if what she was wearing in the moment was any indicator.
"So, I've been meaning to ask, you're in a band?"
"Yep! Or at least I was. After I sang for the school cultural festival last year, Takanashi and Matsumoto—they're the other guitarists—thought up this whole plan where Matsumoto faked a broken arm just so they could rope me in. I figured it out pretty quickly, but then they asked me to join and, well, it was fun, so I said yes. They've honestly been my best friends the last few months, especially Takanashi..." she trailed off wistfully.
"At least you could always call them." Kousaku said.
"I suppose, but it wouldn't be quite the same. Father doesn't want me back in Tokyo any time soon, either, so it's not like I could just go for a visit and play with them. I'm just going to miss their antics, I guess."
"Antics?"
"Well, outside of how they got me to join, Takanashi and Matsumoto would constantly make schemes to try to get us gigs. So, Wakaba Academy, my old school, is obsessed with sports, right?"
"If you say so?"
"Yeah, so it's the start of the fall school term and Takanashi goes to the boxing club with a deal: let us play our music at your games and Hibari, as in, me, will fight in any game you want during the season."
"Why you?"
"Their manager has been trying to get me to join ever since I beat their star player—her now boyfriend, funnily enough—in a fight to make him stop flirting with me."
Kousaku would find that hard to believe if he hadn't already seen how strong she was.
"A lot of clubs wanted me for reasons like that. I threw a volleyball just a little too hard at the girl's team captain and next thing I knew she was trying to get me to join." She shrugs. "I had to keep telling her I wasn't planning on doing sports at the time and she wouldn't back off until I won a match against her."
She's amazing... Kousaku thought. "So, uh, what ended up happening with the boxing club?"
"Right. So, what Takanashi didn't realize is that the school boxing club isn't allowed to just have some band play their own music during their matches... so the scheme failed."
"Oh. That's... very anticlimactic."
"Indeed. Still, it was a lot of fun to be involved in stuff like that... I miss her a lot.... I miss all of them."
Kousaku didn't know how to respond to the sudden, melancholy shift in tone. He felt like he was intruding on something more personal than he meant to pry into. He was about to ask her if she was okay, but she spoke again instead.
"Sorry, it's just an adjustment, being here instead of there. Ibari deciding to send me here was sudden, to say the least."
Kousaku chose to stay silent at that admission, resisting the urge to pry. Why was such a major shift sudden? Was there a fight of some sort, bad enough that her father would send her away? Kousaku found himself wanting to know more, to understand exactly what led to this girl appearing in his life.
The two of them sat in silence for the next few minutes. It wasn't exactly uncomfortable, but Kousaku didn't find it quite as comfortable as he'd liked. It felt very awkward to just sit there without saying anything, especially without anything to do but stare at her. He felt weird about doing that.
To his fortune, Hibari finished unpacking pretty quickly, emptying out most of the luggage and only leaving in clothes that seemed a bit inappropriate for the weather. She stood up and stretched out yet again, then grabbed her sweater from the bottom and pulled it off, revealing a black tank top.
She turned her head to look at him, that teasing smile adorning her lips yet again. If she noticed he'd been staring at her shoulders, she didn't comment. "I think I'm going to have to kick you out for the night. I want to change and get ready for bed. As I said before, it's been a tiring day."
He nodded and got off the bed. "Okay. Uh, good night?"
"Good night."
Kousaku walked out of her room and into his own. A quick glance at his alarm clock indicated that it was getting quite late, though not as late as he often slept during breaks. He quickly changed into his pajamas, brushed his teeth in the bathroom, popped into his mothers room to wish her a good night, and ultimately decided to sit in bed and read for a little while.
About half an hour later, he heard a light knocking at his door.
"Come in?"
To his slight surprise, it was Hibari. She'd changed into her own pajamas—a white set with cute pink hearts all over— and had cleaned off her makeup... not that it made her any less pretty.
"I was just wondering when you're planning on heading out tomorrow." She rubbed her eyes, betraying her tiredness, and yawned. "I was about to go to bed when I realized I hadn't set my alarm yet."
"Well, I was supposed to meet Daisuke, the friend I mentioned, to study around... two o' clock? If I'm gonna show you around town beforehand, we're probably gonna want to leave around noon."
The girl nodded lightly, then moved to leave the room again. She smiled at him again, a softer, more fatigued smile that looked especially cute with the way her eyes lidded in weariness. She spoke, "Okay, then. See you in the morning, Kou-sa-ku~", and walked out.
"See you..." he said at the empty space she had occupied. He undeniably felt a little warmer than he had a few moments ago. A quick glance at his mirror confirmed his very visible flush.
Kousaku spent the next 15 minutes attempting to read, his thoughts wandering every few words or so. Eventually, he decided to turn out the lights and try to sleep.
It took a while for Kousaku to fall asleep that night, the blond on his thoughts as his dreams took him. He remembered absolutely none of his book.