FicWad

“Ah, what the hell did you just do? You idiot, what were you thinking?” Inora was on the roof of the house talking to herself, like a crazy person. She had run outside for an escape to clear her head and had found a latter leaning on the side of the house. It seemed like a good place to hide at the time. “Now he’s gonna think you’re a whore!”

In all honesty she really didn’t know what had come over her, she didn’t mean for it to go that far. It’s not like she hadn’t done that before, just never ever that fast. ‘Awesome. And you want to live here? Oh my god you just made that as awkward as possible! Idiot.’ She continued to mentally scold herself. She heard voices and looked down to see Kyo, Yuki and Tohru coming down the path. ‘How long have I been up here?’ now that she thought about it her lower half was stiff and a little numb. She figured she should go inside, but she really didn’t want to face Shigure right now. Even thinking his name made her nervous.

‘What the hell? Why am I freaking out so much? It was just a little fun, get over it. Besides I can’t stay on this roof for the rest of my life.’ She started towards the latter but found the way down blocked by an orange head. Kyo looked up surprised; he said something before he realized that she couldn’t understand him. He finished climbing quickly, walked over and sat in almost the same place she had been. He was really upset about something, but it’s not like she could talk to him about it. So she left him and slowly climbed down the latter and walked to the front of the house.

She got inside and took off her shoes, when she looked up she saw the last person she wanted to see. Shigure was standing in front of her, he looked extremely smug which made her want to slap him, though she didn’t know why. He said something to her in a chipper tone, she just shrugged at him.

“He said he thought you ran away?” Hatsu had come up behind her. She jumped about a foot but recovered quickly.

“Oh, no. It’s not like I have anywhere else to go.” ‘Otherwise I would be there right now,’ she added in her head.

“Is something wrong” Hatsu asked her.

“Yes, but there’s nothing anyone can do now. How was your day?” She sounded a little snippy but she didn’t really care.

“Oh, uh, it was fine…I suppose?” he was trying to figure out what was wrong and if there really was nothing he could do. She appreciated him trying and she made an effort to lighten her tone.

“Well that’s good. I’m glad your back!” she said smiling at him. She forced herself to turn to Shigure “Sorry I just needed a second to myself,” she said to him. She didn’t really look into his face and she tried to walk past him into the house. He caught her arm and turned her to look at him.

“You can’t blame me, for me it was harmless. You were the one in control, maybe not over your own actions, but you were in control of the situation. Do you really think it’s fair to blame me for what happened?” it was the most serious she had ever heard him sound. Hatsu looked, and sounded, seriously confused as he translated it for her. Because of his age she really didn’t want him to know what had happened, so she was going to word her response just right. In the end, however, she didn’t need to.

“I don’t blame you, I blame myself,” she said quietly. She pulled away from his grip and went into the house. She thought about it some more and she really didn’t blame him. And the more she thought about it she didn’t blame herself, these things just happen sometimes. And she did have to admit it, it was fun. ‘What’s done is done,’ she thought.

The rest of the evening passed without too much excitement. Hatsu, Yuki and Kyo kept shooting Inora and Shigure glances, they knew something happened they just had no idea what. Tohru remained oblivious, which Inora suspected she would be even if they told her straight out what happened. Now that that was all pretty much behind her she couldn’t help but worry about the next day. She knew they still weren’t telling her everything, if she couldn’t stay with them what would happen? She knew their secret but there wasn’t anything they could do about that now was there? She tried not to think about it as she got into bed.
**
She woke up the next morning to someone gently shaking her shoulder. She opened her eyes to find Shigure leaning over her. She nodded at him and he left so she could get dressed. She felt kind of bad that he had to wake her up, but she had forgotten to ask what time they had to be there. She hadn’t been able so sleep very well last night because of how nervous she was. Even when she had fallen asleep she kept waking up to a faceless man shouting that she had to be imprisoned for the rest of her life for knowing their secret.

As she got dressed she wondered what would happen to her if this Akito didn’t want her around. Everyone was acting strange so she was forced to believe that something bad would happen if this meeting didn’t go well. She walked downstairs to find Shigure and Hatsu waiting by the front door. Neither of them could find the right words for her so they all just walked out into the morning air silently. She glanced around for a car but then she remembered that in Japan people don’t drive as much as in America. She was fine with that though, the longer it took to get there the better. The problem was that it didn’t take that long.

“Here we are,” Hatsu said. She began to panic, they had just left how could they be there already? They were standing in front of a huge wooden gate. She looked left and right and saw that a ten foot wall surrounded the entire place. ‘Who are these people?’ she thought.

“I thought you said it was a mile or so away?” she said as she tried to still sound calm.

“It was. It took us almost twenty minutes to get here. Though I’m not surprised you didn’t notice. You were really spaced out.” He said with a slight smile. They all walked in and she searched for something to distract her. At first she noticed how inside the wall looked like a little village, the space inside was huge with a lot of buildings. All thinking of that did, however, was remind her of how big and important this family was. She quickly thought of something else, she had noticed something earlier and decided on that.

“Hatsu, if you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?” she asked him.

“I am seventy three, and still kickin’! Why do you ask?”

“Well I noticed that the way you talk is a strange mixture of proper and slang,” she said. He said everything like he was at a dinner party but then he would throw in terms like ‘Spaced out’.

“Ah yes, well you see I learned English about five years ago. And the man that taught me was twenty five. I’m sure you can put that together.” The distraction wasn’t good enough. Her breathing started to get faster as they came up to the biggest of the buildings. When they stepped inside she saw that it wasn’t a home, it looked more like a semi-official building. She could feel it; she was on the verge of hyperventilating.

“I need a bathroom!” she almost shouted. They both stared at her for a moment a little taken aback by her abruptness.

“Go around that corner, go all the way down then go around another corner and it will be immediately on the left… uh, do you want me to show you?” Hatsu asked pointing at the first corner.

“No, no I got it.” She just needed a second to be alone. She turned and went around the corner, there were doorways down the left side and it went down pretty far. She hurried down the hallway and around the corner to the bathroom, and quickly closed herself inside. She had never been this nervous in her life and she really didn’t know why she was. She knew they weren’t telling her something but there was no way it could be as bad as she was thinking. She splashed some water on her face ‘you’re going to feel really silly when you leave here,’ she told herself. ‘You are freaking out for nothing.’ She couldn’t keep them waiting so she calmed her breathing down, with some difficulty, and went back to the hallway.

She headed towards the first corner but as soon as she rounded it she collided with something hard. She heard a ‘poof’ noise and it took her a second to place where she had heard it, from Yuki. She reached out to catch whoever she had just transformed and something kind of scaly landed in her hands. She peered down at it and was at a complete loss for words, it was a seahorse. She recovered quickly and asked the most important question.

“Do you need water?” she asked in a calm but urgent tone, it squeaked at her. ‘Great it squeaks, they probably don’t understand English anyway.’ She thought. She ran back to the bathroom and started filling up the sink. It began to squeak more, a series of squeaks that sounded almost like talking. ‘Wait, it would need air to make noises. Maybe it still has lunges?’ she held it close to her ear and listened hard, it took a second but then she could hear it breathing. ‘Ok so no water. Well maybe I should bring him to Shigure and Hatsu?’ she went back to the hallway and started down it when she stepped on something soft, it was his clothes.

‘Well he’ll transform soon and I’m sure he doesn’t want me to see him naked.’ She knelt down and gently placed him on the floor, and then she grabbed his robe and put it over him like an oversized blanket. She waited with him but it seemed to be taking much longer this time. She started thinking that she should just leave him and go back to the others when there was another ‘poof’ and the man sat up. Her mouth fell open, ‘what is the deal with this family,’ she thought.

This man was even better looking then Shigure was. He was staring back at her and she felt the urge to avert her eyes, she looked down at his robe. Now that she was really looking she saw that it wasn’t a robe, it was a white jacket like a doctor would wear. She looked into his face again.

“Hatori?” she asked. He nodded and said something. She found it funny, she had thought their family doctor would be at least in his fifties, but he looked like he was the same age as Shigure. He continued to try to speak to her, and all she could to was shrug and shake her head. She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Hatsu and Shigure coming over to them.

“Oh here you are! We were starting to think you ran away again! Here it turns out Hatori was the one distracting you,” Shigure said with a grin. ‘He defiantly is distracting,’ she thought.

“We had better not keep Akito waiting any longer,” Hatori said. She noticed that he had a very deep, smooth voice.

“Oh so you are coming,” Shigure said looking serious, Hatori didn’t answer him. Inora saw Shigure glance at her, and she guessed that Hatori being there wasn’t good news for her.

“Uh, I guess we should go and let Hatori get dressed,” Inora said. She really didn’t want to go but she also wanted to seem brave. The others nodded and they walked down the hallway together. She focused on her breathing, trying desperately to keep it even. Too soon they came to a heavily decorated door and stopped, Shigure reached out for the handle.

“Wait,” Inora said. “I wanna know… if this doesn’t go well what will happen to me?” Shigure just looked at her for a second.

“Your memories will be erased. It’s kind of like hypnotism, you will simply wake up and not remember the parts we don’t want you to,” he said sadly. She just nodded; she couldn’t find her voice even if there was something she could think of to say. She really didn’t like the idea of someone messing with her memories but it wasn’t like she had a choice at this point. He nodded back and opened the door, they all walked inside.

“Akito we’re here. Sorry about the wait we were held up a bit,” Shigure said. A man was standing at the window at the far side of the room. He turned to look at them and Inora was surprised. She had been expecting an older man but he was in his twenties, he was also good looking but his features were sharp and cruel looking.

“Well hello. I’m so glad you could make it,” Akito said in a tone that sounded like he wasn’t glad at all. “Why don’t you come in and have a seat?” Shigure walked to a row of hangers and hung up his coat, it looked a lot like a heavier robe to Inora. Hatsu placed a hand on her shoulder and steered her over and helped her with the coat Tohru lent her, she needed it, her hands were shaking badly. He noticed this and grabbed her hand briefly and squeezed it reassuringly. After he took his coat off they all knelt down in a line in front of Akito, from how stuffy and formal it was Inora had a bizarre felling she was underdressed. Inora had Shigure on her right and Hatsu on her left; Hatori entered the room quietly and slid in next to Shigure.

“So I gave this a great deal of thought, believe me,” Akito said, Inora didn’t believe him. “I think this woman presents far too big of a risk.”

“He decided before we even got here! What the hell was the point of having us come down here? To rub it in my face?” Inora said to Hatsu, which he didn’t translate. She was starting to freak out. Hatsu put his hand on her shoulder; she couldn’t help but notice that Shigure did nothing to comfort her.

“Now Akito I think we can find a little wiggle room here,” Shigure said.

“I find it interesting that you seek to get yet another woman into your house Shigure. How long did you know this one before you told her everything?” Akito said coldly.

“It’s not my fault that strays keep finding my house, or that those strays are overly huggy,” Shigure said with a hint of a smile pulling at his lips.

“Don’t test me Shigure!” Akito said, his voice rising.

“Please, I wouldn’t dream of it,” Shigure calmly replied. Inora was starting to think that they were getting off topic.

“Um, if I can say something?” She said looking at Hatsu, he nodded. “Uh, I don’t speak Japanese so how could I tell anyone?”

“You could tell people who are where you are from,” Akito said quickly.

“They would never believe this! Are you kidding me?” she said gesturing around at all of them.

“All it takes is one. I am not amused,” he said starting to get angry. ‘I wasn’t trying to amuse you asshole,’ she thought.

“You could at least give me a chance before you mess with my brain!” she said.

“I grow tired of this. Hatori do it now,” he said sounding bored. Hatori rose and faced her. ‘So that’s why Hatori was bad news for me,’ she thought.

“No wait! There has to be something!” Inora didn’t even have a clue what she was talking about. She looked at Hatsu who couldn’t seem to make eye contact, so she looked to Shigure. They looked at each other for a moment, and he saw the ‘help’ screaming clearly through her eyes. He stood up suddenly and put a hand on Hatori’s shoulder then he walked over to Akito and they had a low, tense conversation. Hatsu wasn’t translating, but she was more concerned about Hatori at that moment. She looked up at him and they made eye contact. His bright green eyes were intense; they showed very clear that he had no wish to take her memories. They continued to stare at each other, but they both snapped out of it when Akito spoke suddenly.

“I have decided that you may stay. Now leave my sight.” Akito said waving them away in an offhanded way. Before Inora fully knew what was happening they were outside already making their way back. ‘How and when did we get here? I don’t even remember putting on my coat again, that can’t be good,’ she thought. She was finally able to clear her head and started trying to figure things out. ‘When he said ‘stay’ did that mean for the year or just until I can make arrangements to get back? And what the hell did Shigure do that made Akito change his mind?’ From the look on Shigure’s face it couldn’t be good.