CLAMP Campus, Tokyo
Imonoyama Mansion
March 16, 2000 — 20:11
Imonoyama Nokoru hung up the phone and sat back in his seat just when Suoh, leaning heavily on his hated walking stick, limped into the room. Nokoru folded his hands in front of his belly, knowing that he was grinning like the proverbial Cheshire Cat.
"You look like you ate the canary again, Kaicho," Suoh remarked, slowly making his way toward the desk.
"How's the wound doing?" Nokoru asked, allowing his concern to show in his voice, while Suoh eased himself into one of the upholstered chairs.
"It's healing. Slowly." The last word sounded offended. "And Akechi says that if I start exercising before he says so, he'll shoot me up with curare to keep me down." Suoh sighed. "You know, your physician gives me the creeps."
"Because he'd do it," Nokoru replied dryly. "So you had better obey him."
"Rest assured," Suoh snorted. "And you didn't distract me. I know that look on your face, Kaicho! That's the one you have when one of your matchmaking projects has worked out. So who's the poor sod this time?"
Nokoru laughed out loud. "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you."
~:~:~:~:~
In another building on the far side of the vast campus area, Kakyo sat on a chair he'd laboriously pulled over to the window. Resting with his still trembling arms folded on the windowsill, he looked out across the campus, the dark waters of the harbor beyond, and the colorful lights of Odaiba in the distance. The window was open. The sea wind ruffled the short pale strands on his head as he leaned forward to bring the brightly lit band of the Ariake docks into his view. He ran an unsteady hand through his hair. At least, it no longer felt like fur. He shivered in the breeze and rested his chin on his arms. A pigeon sat on the other side of the safety net, batting its wings for balance on the narrow ledge...
...feathers, edged in blood, drifted across Tokyo.
The moon, a single eye hanging in the night sky, bathed the Kamui of the Dragons of Heaven in its cold white light. Moonlight that made the blood running down the boy's unsteady legs look black...
~:~:~:~:~
Edogawa-ku, Tokyo
Shinozaki High School
March 17, 2000 — 08:15
Black, parallel shadows fell across the school yard, slicing the concrete field into thin stripes of light and dark. The sprawling four-storey complex of the Shinozaki High School lay forbidding behind its high steel fence. The still-low morning sun glittered off the polished steel palisades. Edogawa hadn't suffered nearly as much as downtown Tokyo, but the events of last year had tightened security even here. The four-fold school bell sounded just as Kamui, panting, reached the corner to see the large school gate closing with a loud, terminal clang. The teacher on gate watch checked the lock, tucked his clipboard under his arm and shooed the last lingering pupils inside to get to his own class. The double doors swung briefly, then the yard was deserted.
Kamui cursed. He'd run all the way from the shrine; the bandaged burns on his arms throbbed with his pulse, and he was too late. Again.
No! He threw a cautious glance left and right down the street, then tossed his brown leather satchel over the fence and leaped smoothly over the high palisades, landing hard on the other side. He grabbed his scratched bag from the concrete and ran for the side entrance.
The attendance register was already being read when he slipped through the classroom door and onto his seat.
"Ookawa?"
"Here."
"Shiro?"
"Here," Kamui answered.
"I see that Mr. Shiro decided to join us today," the teacher commented, looking sternly over the rim of his spectacles. "A welcome surprise. — Suronamida?"
A few moments later, when the teacher told them to open their textbooks on page 748, Kamui found out that Fuma's bento hadn't survived the fence-tossing. The carefully tied lid had come loose and now the thick book on old Japanese literature held at least as much nutrient as content. Suronamida at the next table snickered. Kamui glared at him.
"Shiro! Pay attention! I asked you to open the book on page 748," the teacher scolded. "Why don't you open your book?"
"I'm sorry. I— My bento leaked onto it."
The class burst into laughter. The teacher shook his head, annoyed. "Move over to Suronamida; he'll share his book with you. Let's continue with our work on the Genji Monogatari..."
Friday afternoon was reserved for clubs. The activities on offer ranged from various sports to traditional arts, gardening and computing and attending more than the mandatory two was encouraged.
Kamui skipped clubs altogether. Since he'd "returned" to school in the middle of the last trimester, he hadn't bothered to join any for the few remaining weeks. On Monday, the official exam result lists would be put on display. Kamui knew that he had to repeat the year. He didn't even have all the necessary exams, and the two he'd written since returning to Edogawa had been... well, forming a kekkai around them was probably a good idea. In the tests with one hundred possible points, his scores were close to the one-digit range. He would have stayed at home these last few days before the spring holiday, but after last year he had way too much out-of-school-time on his record. The stigma of being a slacker, a repeater and would-be-freeter stuck already, and it wasn't making his daily life easier. And Fuma—
Kamui walked faster.
The unlit hallway in the Mono house still seemed to be reeking of blood. They'd spent weeks scrubbing and painting it, but no amount of soap, disinfectant and wall paint could erase the memory. Kamui wearily pushed his hair back out of his face, wincing when the bandages around his arm tightened at the movement, and dropped his soiled schoolbag in a corner.
Somewhere in the mess inside it was a teacher's note for "his guardian" about his abysmal scores and lack of attendance. His guardian...
The kannushi of Togakushi Shrine was his guardian. But when his mother had signed that document, the position was held by Mono Kyogo, Fuma's father, not Fuma himself. Not the Twin St—
Fuma.
When Fuma was Fuma, he made him bento, looked after his homework, urged him to study...
When he was the Twin Star, he tried to detonate the central-heating boiler of Kamui's school. If Suronamida hadn't gloated at Kamui that day, telling him he was finally getting what he deserved for his truancy because his guardian only came to school to—
Kamui had found the Twin Star at the last possible moment, moving around the boiler room blocking the final safety valves with broad clamps. By the time he'd squeezed himself through the window to confront the Twin Star, to help Fuma fight his way back, the pressure gauge of the boiler had already been deep in the red, the room filled with the hisses of overstrained valves and the bleeping of alarms and the janitor's pounding on the door blocked by a broomstick.
He'd thrown himself against the Twin Star, knocking him off his feet, and the valve next to them had burst, scalding steam hitting his left arm and almost burning the sleeve of his school uniform into his skin.
They'd barely escaped the janitor by climbing out the same window, Kamui had used to get in. At first, Kamui's arm had been numb, but then...
Later at home, Fuma had been so contrite when he carefully peeled the fabric off Kamui's arm and applied cooling gel and salve. Fuma.
Where was Fuma? Or was he—?
Kamui started to run, burst through the kitchen door, then through the back door... to find Fuma in the white shirt and pale blue hakama, sweeping the shrine's compound. Fuma. Not the Twin Star.
For now.
~:~:~:~:~
Sagano-cho, Kyoto (West)
Sumeragi Family Residence
March 17, 2000 — 16:37
The Sumeragi Estate held several smaller buildings in addition to the main house. One, a delicate but spiritually heavily protected structure guarding the driveway up to the house, also contained a small office. Its walls were lined with protective ofuda and magical markings encircled the low lacquer desk and specifically the telephone on it.
"Sumeragi Estate, public relations office. How may we help you?"
Sumeragi Yimura answered the phone immediately and listened attentively, her pen poised at the ready above a notepad of pristinely white paper. Upon her return from school, she'd actually suggested that they get a computer for managing the cases and the schedules, but the twelfth head would have none of it. Yimura, with her negligible magical talent and the ink on her diploma not yet dried, hadn't been able to say anything, though she still believed that a computer like the ones they'd had at school would made her job easier and reduce the risk of accidentally double-booking someone. Ah well...
She returned her attention to the long-winded expressions of gratitude coming from the former client she had on the line.
=...and please assure Sumeragi-sama that I'd never have insisted on such a quick appointment had I known of his recent injury and—=
"What!?" Yimura leaped to her feet. "Sumeragi-sama has been inj—" She clamped her mouth shut and said in a sweet voice. "I'm sorry, Miozuki-san. There seems to be a glitch in the line. Please be so kind as to repeat your last line."
Yimura's pen flew over the paper as she noted every word the client told her about "the ugly bruise" and "that annoying apprentice" to whom — in hindsight — Miozuki thought she should have been nicer, given the circumstances. Yimura extricated herself skillfully from the call and hung up. She was already sprinting across the yard when she heard the phone ringing again. She ignored it.
to be continued in
Family Matters 06 - April Shower (a.k.a. S-M-S)
Notes:
Freeter. People between the ages of 15 and 34 who lack full time employment or are unemployed, excluding housewives and students. Young people who deliberately choose not to work or cannot find employment due to a lack of marketable skills.