From Sailor Moon Flash!
| Featuring: | Toshiro, Kenrou, Tsurian |
| IC Date: | March 2002 |
| Status: | Completed |
| Summary: | How Toshiro got keys to the Amakusa apartment, how the Terran Faction got their princess, and how Tsurian almost got her earrings back. Directly after Surreal Afternoon, same day. |
The clack-clack, clack-clack of the train was soothing. The car was, of course, packed, but that couldn't be helped at this time of day. Toshiro supposed it was rude of him not to look at Amakusa-san, but in a way, the train made that impossible too. He could feel the heat from the people around him, and usually that never bothered him in the slightest, but today with his nerves singing and that stupid no-mask promise to Ayame still, technically, in effect, he really, really wanted some personal space. And somewhere to hide his face. Too bad paper grocery sacks were not standard subway attire. He could feel the heat coming off Amakusa-san, too, behind him. Clack-clack, clack-clack, clack-CLACK-! He overbalanced and started to fall, and with the train this crowded he really couldn't stop himself without groping som-
Strong, polite fingers caught him, righted him, and immediately withdrew. Maybe this wasn't so bad. He ran through his mental filing cabinet for everything Ayame had ever said about Amakusa Kenrou-san. It was depressingly empty, but he did recall some insinuation about fine or historical art. He tilted his head to talk over his shoulder. He could just see purple out of the corner of his eye.
"Thank you."
"You are welcome."
"Amakusa-san, I was at the National Museum not long ago. I quite liked their traditional art collection, and wondered if you had an opinion on it?"
Kenrou glanced at Giou-kun's back, and considered. "I have not been to the National Museum in some time," he answered, truthfully. The last time he had been there, it had been to see one of his own pieces honored by being placed in the modern galleries. "The traditional art exhibits have likely changed since last I gazed upon them, when it was a display of ukiyo-e, next to a case showing the rise of the Takarazuka actresses from the charade-play of the willow world."
He smiled. Despite the fact that his autopilot had disengaged shortly after the subway doors closed (leaving him to wonder how, exactly, he had gotten on this particular train with this particular person), he did enjoy Amakusa-san's company. It was somehow... reassuring. Calming, once he had decided to give up his struggle to control his surroundings and fallen in line with Amakusa-san's... gravity, he supposed it was. Toshiro had no problems at all seeing this man as a commander of armies in times past.
"I have always been quite taken with the willow world, and with the Takarazuka ensemble. I am a student of costume and of theater, and the willow world manages to encapsule both aspects nicely. I am sorry to have missed it.
"The museum currently shows examples of different periods of sumi-e," he continued after a reflective pause, "and clothing of the Heian era from all classes. It is unusual to see examples of peasant and middle-class garb... so little of it survived, compared to high court robes. I quite enjoyed it."
Kenrou murmured a noncommittal courtesy, nodding to indicate that he had heard.
He smiled up at Giou-kun's back, and inquired, "So Giou-kun is interested in costumery? Perhaps Giou-kun knows clever things like how to remove, perhaps, coffee from fabrics?"
"I am and I do, as a matter of fact. It's not a difficult procedure, if one is careful, as there are several effective products designed to remove such spots. Alternatively, blotting with mild alkaline detergent and warm water, then white vinegar and water, and finally with water should work. Any qualified dry cleaner should be able to handle it."
Kenrou considered this. It was sensible advice, along the lines of something that Tsurian-kun would say (albeit couched in somewhat more polite verb-formations than Tsurian-kun was wont to use; blessed be to the Buddha for her charming Yokohama cant!).
It was likely this hint of Tsurian-kun, this echo of longstanding familiarity, that led him to shake his head and remark, "Giou-kun's counsel is most helpful and meritorious; nevertheless, We must decline his kind suggestion, for this suit is no longer suited for any ordinary occasion. It has been blessed with a portent, and thus must be treated reverently. We will cut it into scraps for Our mother's quilt-basket. Surely filial piety is the least ominous and most balanced of ends for such a portentous stain."
"...right." He combed the conversation for a new thread that was less odd than the obvious one. "Your mother is lucky to have such a dutiful son."
Kenrou glanced at the lighted strip above the train car's door. Only one stop left until he disembarked. He was not sure where Giou-kun would alight - possibly he would go all the way to Roppongi. "Not at all," he demurred politely. "Surely not in comparison with honored Giou-haha-ue, whose child surely adorns her heart with pride in all his endeavours."
Toshiro laughed. "Thank you for the compliment. My sainted mother prefers to take action herself instead receive filial piety. She is very pleased with my sisters and I, though, and our accomplishments."
Kenrou's smile gained half a millimeter on the left side of his mouth, for half a second. Then it was gone entirely. "Giou-kun is most fortunate, then," he murmured. The train was slowing; the train had slowed; the train had stopped.
He stood, and touched Giou-kun very lightly on the elbow. "We are at Hibiya Station," he said. He inclined his head. "Giou-kun is sufficiently acquainted with this route to go safely from here?"
"Yes, thank you, I- you live in Hibiya?"
"We do."
Toshiro blinked hard. "I... see. You are a very fortunate man. What is it that you do, to be so lucky?"
Kenrou reached out and brushed Giou-kun's arm - or, rather, the air half a centimeter above his shoulder - very slightly, guiding him subtly out of the way of several very forthright tourists. "We the August Kenrou simply are," he said, smiling ironically. "And luck falls upon Us, as the universe wills. As to what it does that enables this Kenrou to live in Hibiya, surely Giou-kun knows, for was it not Yoshinaga Tsurian-kun who arranged our meeting?"
The wheels in Toshiro's head came together with a -click- and transformed into something else entirely. Something infinitely sharper and more calculating. His eyes narrowed slightly, though his smile was still polite, and he walked off the train with Amakusa.
"Not... that I was aware of. My sister informed me of our meeting. However, my favorite sister is close friends with Yoshinaga-kun. We are acquainted."
Kenrou was silent a moment, absentmindedly extending a hand and preventing Giou-kun from being clotheslined by a passing over-exuberant high-school student on the down-escalator. He did not speak aloud, because it was unmannerly to pronounce as fact mere suspicion, and moreover because the August Kenrou did not make accusations; he waited patiently for erring persons, such as for example prank-prone assistants, to confess.
It would have been the height of rudeness to slight Giou-kun for a mere suspicion of unorthodox appointment-making, and so Kenrou merely nodded. "We can see as how an acquaintance with Tsurian-kun might result in such information coming about," he said gravely. "Giou-kun is most fortitudinous and laudable in fraternal devotion, deshou."
"Perhaps, but I fear my dear sister is far better endowed with such 'devotion,' and is most adept at using it on me," he almost-muttered. "I fear I was not the most obedient of brothers when I was small." Deep inside he was plotting. The problem with plotting against Yoshinaga Tsurian, however, was that things like shaving her head in her sleep merely prompted a slight shift in her fashion, and a response on her part like dyeing her own eyebrows to match her bracelet and then finding something to SAY.
Infuriating.
"I shall have to find a way to thank Yoshinaga-kun when next I see her," Toshiro continued, eyes flashing as his brain supplied various images involving large power tools. "I've enjoyed our conversation, even though I had no prior knowledge of whom exactly I was to meet."
"Giou-kun is most adaptive, then," Kenrou said. He shelved the culpability of Tsurian-kun for the moment. He was certain that Tsurian-kun, being high-minded and worthy of all honors and merits, had a perfectly honorable and kindly-meant reason for her instigation of this Giou Toshiro, and it only remained for her to come to him with this reason. He navigated through the crowds thronging Hibiya-dori with the practiced ease that comes of dodging tourists every time a journey outside one's home is begun or completed. He reflected, for he strove to be fair-minded as befitted one aspiring to Zen, that it helped enormously that people were kind enough to respect his presence and nearly always stepped back out of his sphere.
He stopped in front of his building, and rapidly calculated the offsetting solecisms that lay before him: to terminate a meeting before the other party had reached satisfaction, or to press undue and unlooked-for familiarity upon a new acquaintance.
Kenrou decided on the latter, and turned to Giou-kun. "We apologize for presuming upon Giou-kun's kindness, but it seems that we have reached a destination without likewise reaching an accord of meeting further. Perhaps Giou-kun would not mind a further presumption upon his time and patience to accompany this Amakusa inwards."
He bowed slightly while he rapidly translated that into normal-speak. "I would be honored, Amakusa-san. It is no presumption at all." Maybe Tsurian would be there. Maybe he could pointedly flaunt her own earrings at her. That would be nice.
Kenrou inclined his head slightly and gestured for Giou-kun to precede him through the door being held open by a cap-brim-tipping doorman. There was a comfortable silence to and inside the elevator; it was only at the occasion of the elevator door opening to admit them to the apartment's foyer that it occurred to Kenrou that he might have checked the studio for Tsurian-kun.
He brushed it aside. There would be time later, when it would not interfere with attending to a guest.
He preceded Giou-kun into the foyer, the better to unlock his front door, and considered whether or not Giou-kun would fit into the house-slippers he usually kept for Mushio-kun whenever it was needful to babysit. It was possible; Mushio-kun was taller than Giou-kun, and it was better for slippers to be slightly too large than to pinch.
"Please be comfortable in these," he requested, indicating the brown slippers in the corner, "and please sit wherever Giou-kun deems most homelike. This one regrets the need to withdraw for a small period; Giou-kun is at liberty. The kitchen is through the door with the blue frame."
Left to himself, Toshiro let his eyes wander over the apartment. There wasn't much to wander over.
Perhaps clarification was necessary.
By city standards (good grief, by ANY standards) the apartment was obscenely huge. Toshiro could smell so much money it was making him light-headed. He considered opening a window to let in the fresh smog and capitalism, just to get a better balance. White carpet stretched like an unending field, undisturbed by anything so mundane as furniture.
Which was what was meant by not being much to wander over. Racks of beautiful (and likely very old and respected) swords graced the wall and floor. The effect hinted that ancestry went with the money. It bellowed that Amakusa-san was not a man concerned over anything so chaotic and unnecessary as interior decorating.
He did have a cat, though. He could see the lovely, tiny thing peering at him from behind the floor-rack in the imperious-yet-cautious way of housecats. The cat relieved him; it brought Amakusa-san out of the realms of the disturbing into the merely eccentric. He knelt gracefully on the floor and held out a relaxed hand to her.
"Hello, mistress. You're very beautiful," he said quietly.
The wee black kitten did not move, but permitted his hand to descend and very lightly stroke over her ears. He decided after a few more pets that this was not a kitten, but a very small cat. She granted him a tiny purr, then indicated that she was finished with her noblesse oblige and would like him to remove himself from her regal presence, and also he must not move too quickly, and he mightbe allowed to come back and do her homage from time to time, if her pet person was amenable to it.
The cat withdrew herself to under the low table that was the only piece of actual furniture (bookshelves and swordracks not precisely counting), just as the furthest door opened and Amakusa-san entered again, dressed in very dark purple traditional garb.
"Ah," Amakusa-san said, smiling. "Giou-kun has been permitted to make Sumiko-chan's acquaintance."
Toshiro smiled, warm and happy. "I consider it a great honor. She is a fine lady, and I am very pleased to have been allowed to greet her." He rose to his feet. "For some reason I wouldn't have thought you would have kept a cat. How long has Sumiko-chan been your companion?" This was perilously close to asking a lady her age, but the only other thing in the room he could competently discuss was Amakusa-san's wafuku, and Toshiro had no idea of how to ask somebody like Amakusa-san about his wardrobe.
Kenrou seated himself on the mats, at the requisite distance from Giou-kun, and held out his hand for Sumiko to come greet him. She skittered close, very shy as befit a tiny girl before company, and at last ducked into the safety and privacy of his haori sleeve; there she curled herself and weighed his arm to the floor. She was not a subtly possessive creature.
As soon as his graceful anchor had finished arranging herself fit to keep him in one spot for a while, Kenrou returned his attention to Giou-kun.
"Sumiko-chan was a gift from the universe nearly two years ago; she coincided with this Amakusa's tenancy in the studio downstairs, and sought to make welcome by hiding herself in Tsurian-kun's desk drawer and emitting pitiable cries when she discovered that she could not easily extract herself." He patted Sumiko to soothe her vanity at this, his mention of her regrettable lack of foresight in jumping into unfamiliar drawers. "Cats," he added thoughtfully, "are much prone to the unexpected places."
Toshiro laughed politely. "They are. I am vain enough to find myself having a small kinship with cats in that regard... I am very rarely home, and I have been told my choice of resting places are sometimes unusual." He let his gaze rest on the curve of Amakusa-san's sleeve where the cat was. "I quite like cats... but as I said I am seldom home, and it is wrong to keep something and not care for it."
Kenrou nodded, and pondered this intelligence that Giou-kun had deigned to let fall before his consideration. In his sleeve Sumiko-chan purred and made plain that she felt the day adequate to her glories; across the mats Giou-kun blinked and shifted his gaze and made it plain that he was not sure what to say. Kenrou judged this most flattering, from a young man who had admitted several times - albeit unvoiced - to preferring the universe to run smoothly before his path.
He therefore granted Giou-kun the largesse of a new point to ponder, in the manner of a zen master gifting a neophyte with a koan: "We wonder idly at the slant of Giou-kun's next conversation with Tsurian-kun." His smile deepened, at one corner of his mouth. "And whether Tsurian-kun will be quite so pleased as she might have thought, at its conclusion."
Toshiro smiled, and nodded. "It is something that bears thinking about." Inside he was giggling and grinning like a madman and plotting how to get hold of a shovel. The silence stretched again, slightly more comfortable with the tacit admission of plotting revenge. He didn't fidget, unless eyeballs counted, but Toshiro found the silence uncomfortable again around the same time he fancied he could hear the cat purring, Amakusa-san breathing, his own heartbeat, and traffic outside. (How was the apartment so quiet? It had to be part of a covenant with some demon.)
He didn't fidget. He didn't start speaking. But he wanted to, very badly. Sitting peacefully together in silence was intimacy, intimacy was frightening, unwanted, to be avoided-- people saw more than you gave them when intimacy started flying about. Part of him said it was okay, just this once, with this person. That it was safe to relax and stop fighting, that resistance was futile and acquiesence was right. And that was downright weird, and made him want to fidget and speak most of all. He tended to forget about it all when there was something else to turn his mind to.
But the gentle, scary silence stretched on.
"Giou-kun would not be a very comfortable bonze," Kenrou remarked, glancing at him. "One might suppose that Giou-kun is more suited to motion and action." It was his duty as a host and as the elder - the proper guide of any batsu, whether properly drawn or hastily configured - to ensure that his guest and junior was comfortable in any situation. He chided himself; the greater zen adepts and most properly-behaved of persons would be able to divine instinctively, based on the shared zen of the group, what was required. Evidently the universe had provided Giou-kun as a further step in his growth, an opportunity to effectively guide and direct proper behavior.
What, then, might be given to Giou-kun as a suggestion? The younger man was behaving most satisfactorily and typically Japanese in his refrain from fidgeting, and yet clearly Giou-kun wanted to be moving. Repose did not suit him as well as it did those of a more reflective bent. The only actions Kenrou felt himself qualified to display were swordsmanship and penmanship, and neither of those appeared to be a great interest of Giou-kun. (Surely, he mentally set aside, Tsurian-kun's agenda in arranging a meeting was ingenius and most subtle, although he now appreciated her role in the universe's provision of a lesson for him. Tsurian-kun and the gracious universe usually worked well together.)
He looked at Giou-kun and it occurred to him that if he were to put Giou-kun in a poem, and he spoke it to another person, the first thing that might come to mind would be ....
"Giou-kun's pardon must be humbly requested; this Amakusa is not often honored by the company of an actor," he said, watching to see if his conclusion was correct. "We share, then, a love for the devices of language, is it not so? Giou-kun must have a gift for the spoken word; perhaps he has a favorite source of lines or story?"
Toshiro's startled look was answer enough. Watching Amakusa-san carefully, he opened his mouth, then shut it, considering. "You are very perceptive, Amakusa-san," he said, then smiled slightly. In defeat. "I do love the spoken word. I am very fond of lyric and poetry, of the play between measured syllables, rhyme, and meaning. I find the Western sestina fascinating, the works of Lady Murasaki enchanting. I love the dance of language in the plays of William Shakespeare, and the compelling drone of Buddhist chants." He paused, reflecting. "Poetry that is meant to be seen is very beautiful, and I appreciate its grace and form; but I find I love best poetry that is meant to be spoken and heard." He grinned. "And I adore dialogue without poetry, the simple battle we engage in every day to understand and be understood... and perhaps to discover what others hide whilst hiding ourselves."
Honesty... direct and tender as a new bruise, somehow seemed vitally important at this moment. He stared into Kenrou's eyes, feeling his blood brim with the thrill and tingle of having given up a fight he knew he couldn't win, of, however subtly, bowing his head in submission. He felt like he had when he'd gotten stuck in a tree as a small boy: afraid to jump, nervous about trusting his father, who'd been at work most of his short life, but wanting to trust him anyway.
Most disconcerting was the realization that this time he wouldn't know if he'd jumped until he either hit the ground or was caught.
Kenrou accepted this victory as he accepted all others: unquestioningly and without qualification or surprise or, indeed, even satisfaction.
He was, however, more than pleased that Giou-kun had offered to let down the walls of tatemae in favor of the bonds of the batsu.
He smiled on Giou-kun with genuine warmth, and in so doing, caught him and set him safely on the ground. "Giou-kun need never hide," he said calmly, and meant it. Giou-kun might hide if he wished to - such was the right of every Japanese adult who had mastered the eight-fold walls of the self - but Kenrou would never give him cause to be afraid notto hide. To do so would be inexcusable, a violation of amae and giri both.
He removed sleeping Sumiko from the inside of his sleeve, setting her carefully on the mats, and rose. "Perhaps Giou-kun would care to visit the studio below," he said blandly. "Tsurian-kun will be most pleased that We have come back before her working hours are finished."
"I would be honored." Toshiro smiled, most of the day's tension draining from him at last. And if there was the tiniest gleam of "YAY REVENGE" in his eye, well, that was his business.
Yoshinaga Tsurian was staring at the ceiling suspiciously.
Boss had left the Starbucks, with Giou Toshiro, and he had not come back to the studio.
He was here in this building; she could feel it. One did not spend twelve years as best friend and nominal caretaker of Amakusa Kenrou without getting a -- as he would put it -- hara gei for his presence, and she could damn well feel that ice-down-the-spine chill from a floor away.
He was here, in this building, and she was going crazy from trying to figure out if Giou Toshiro was with him or not, because she'd gone two and a half years from meeting Boss to being invited to his home, and she was going to be damned if some earring-thief was going to ace her on that.
She chewed on her lip thoughtfully, and tried to concentrate on her invoices.
She hadn't decided what she would do yet, but she was going to make him regret these ... these... these Tanagora tactics.
Somewhere, she knew, Giou Toshiro ought to be shivering from the knowledge of impending withering looks, although she might be inclined to mercy if he proved useful in making Boss behave like a normal person.
Speaking of Boss... she heard the door open.
"How graceful it looks in here... your studio resembles a painted poem in its elegance and simplicity, Amakusa-san."
Tsurian twitched.
"Hi, Boss," she said, with studied casualness. She glared at him, and ticked off all the offending bits: dressed in wafuku, permitting this punk Giou within his three-foot bubble of personal August space, his hair still pulled back in that queue that made him look like a mandarin. Right-oh.
And then her gaze fell on Giou Toshiro, and his ill-gotten earrings, and she decided there was too much to tick.
"Giou," she greeted. "You look like your sister."
'And way too much like a GIRL', she did not add, partially because she doubted he'd care but mostly because she didn't either.
"Thank you," Toshiro said mildly. "I'm aware that the familial resemblance is very strong. To be particularly accurate, though, my sisters and I look like our mother." He smiled slyly. "And how is my sister, Yoshinaga-san? I believe you've seen her more recently than I."
"She's outraged at how her brother is an earring-thi -" Tsurian began to snap, when Boss smiled at her, very mildly.
Oh, crap.
It was Creepy Zen Smile #4, the one subtitled Please Beware Of The Thinness Of The Ice On Which You Tread.
She glared at Boss, whose smile shifted to a marginally more tolerable one, #1, Tsurian-kun Our Much-Loved But Erring Sister.
"She's so pleased at her brother being a guest of Amakusa-sensei," she finished, and considered salting Boss's ink. Maybe Giou would go insane from the pressure of Boss's Bossness and then Boss would withdraw his mandate and Tsurian could reduce Giou to a quivering mass of earring-returning.
There did not appear to be any chance of that happening any time today, however, which arguably proved that there was no god. Or, if there was, her sense of humor was an absolute BITCH.
Speaking of bitch, Giou's smile conveyed self-satisfied waves of "yeah, that's what I THOUGHT, PUNK."
"How lovely," he cooed, "for I was quite honored to be a guest in Amakusa-san's apartment." He smiled for real, briefly. "Sumiko-chan is quite charming."
"YOU DID NOT GET TO GO TO BOSS'S APARTMENT ON THE FIRST OCCASION OF MEETING," Tsurian did not scream in outrage. She did not then add, snappily, "Yeah, damn whore cat will sit in any lap, won't she."
She did not scream and she did not be flippant for the same reason that she worked whenever Boss called her and not merely when she happened to be in this particular studio: she was in possession of a working brain.
More to the point, she felt she was justified in making an assumption about what Amakusa Kenrou had been thinking in permitting Giou Toshiro to set foot in his personal space.
"I'm sure you were," she said, tone indicating that she was done with this topic. She had in fact been done with it from the instant it germinated. "Excuse us for a moment, Amakusa-sensei, Giou and I were just going to have a talk."
She ganked Toshiro by the shoulder and yanked him behind Boss's screen.
"Okay, first things first: obviously Boss has learned his lesson about being gracious at me and he won't do it again, so I will forgive him," she said, glaring at Toshiro from force of habit. "Secondly, if you choose the wise option of helping me keep Boss alive and not mangled by the forces of those who cannot stand his Bossness, I will personally see to it that your life is easier than it could otherwise be and you will get to borrow whichever earrings you want."
Toshiro raised an elegant eyebrow. "You're deluding yourself on the graciousness."
"Yes, probably," Tsurian said. "You may have noticed that he can't help it. Anyway, I forgave him, so that makes me the better person, and anyway I'm not samurai. What you should be saying right now, punk kid, is 'yes of course Yoshinaga I think that you have wonderful ideas and I will endeavour to carry them out and not impede them.'"
Why yes, Yoshinaga, I would be delighted to help Amakusa-san in any way that I can." His grin became the wide, slick grin of an evil little boy about to spring a trap you cannot avoid. Calvin wore such grins. "By the way, THANK you for the 'wonderful idea' of setting us up. I've never met a man like him before." The grin widened. "He does such wonderful things with his tongue."
In the outer chamber of the studio, Amakusa Kenrou heard a very brief, very vehement, and very loud recital of something that was possibly Korean.
He smiled seraphically and continued his meditations upon the koan in Tsurian-kun's desk calendar.
He judged that the small bond between Tsurian-kun and Giou-kun should reach proper harmony in short order.
Back behind the screen, Yoshinaga Tsurian ceased her litany of evils in the most vile language she knew, and looked Giou Toshiro right in the eye. "That," she said distinctly, "is really terribly uncouth and you're not going to mention it again, because ew, and also because if you contemplate it for very long your own brain will implode and you know it will. Besides, it was your sister's idea."
Toshiro's eyebrows shrugged. POINT, Toshiro. The rest of him, head to toe, was one smooth smile. "Of course it was," he said, by which he meant "you deserved that and you know it." Then he gracefully, serenely sidled out from behind the screen and settled himself to one side of Amakusa-san.
Tsurian-kun emerged from behind his screen, and very calmly and decorously closed it behind herself.
"So," she said.
"Tsurian-kun has heard Our views on this habit of saying merely 'So' in a tone that might be construed as unladylike," Kenrou said.
"Yeah yeah," Tsurian-kun said. She took the back of her chair and dragged it out to where she might sit and face them without the monolith of her desk to form a wall. He bestowed an approving glance upon her. Tsurian-kun had the grace of true Nihonjin in recognizing when the requirements of the batsu would condone and indeed sanctify the flouting of tatemae in favor of familial familiarity. That she then turned the chair around and straddled its seat in a most unbecoming display, propping her elbows on the chair's back, he chose to overlook.
"So, Giou informs me that I'm at liberty to treat him as you'd treat him, Boss," Tsurian-kun said thoughtfully. "That is to say, just like a little brother."
The sweet and beatific smile she gave to Giou-kun warmed Kenrou's heart to see. "It would please Us were Tsurian-kun to do so, yes," he replied, and nodded to Giou-kun to signify that this might also be to Giou-kun's distinct benefit. It was a comfort to have Tsurian-kun look after one.
That sweet and beatific smile was a declaration of sibling rivalry on the scale of civil war. Toshiro kept his face perfectly composed, and did his utmost to telepathically convey if you treat me just like a little brother, I will show you why Ayame, who has the patience of a saint, wanted to set me up for revenge and Reika, who doesn't, never speaks to me if she can help it. The trick was in the set of the eyelid and eyebrows.
"Giou-kun already has sisters, does he not?" Kenrou asked, recalling some of Giou-kun's conversation on the train. "And Tsurian-kun is acquainted with Ayame-oneesan, was it not?"
Tsurian-kun looked suddenly nonplused. "That's her," Tsurian-kun agreed. She brightened suddenly, and said to Giou-kun, conversationally, "She's told me about some albums."
"I'm certain she has," Toshiro replied. This was calm, familiar territory. If Yoshinaga thought she was better at needling him with The Albums than his flock of locustsImeancousins she was sadly mistaken. "Our mother is extraordinarily fond of taking pictures." He smiled. "She has several of you, actually, Yoshinaga-san."
Tsurian was unimpressed. "Yeah, I know, I gave them to her," she snapped. "Your mother is worse than a yellow journalist as far as blood-money pictures goes."
To Boss, she deigned to point out, "Giou's mother? Lots better than your mother. She gives cookies and milk, and can be appeased with goofy pictures to put into her albums."
To Giou, she explained, "His mother can only be appeased with human sacrifice."
Boss said, gently, "Tsurian-kun is incorrect; haha-ue shall be made content by the sacrifice of Our pearl-grey suit, cut into suitable strips for quilting."
Tsurian went wide-eyed, then did a very un-Yoshinaga-Tsurian thing: she giggled.
...ten days later...
Ayame watched her brother apply himself to a pile of yakisoba with the singleminded intensity possible only in the nineteen-year-old male, and marveled that he hadn't swallowed his tongue or smeared his makeup. The set of his eyes told her he was probably thinking about rolled hemlines or interfacing or something, and how best to apply them to make a dumpy short man look like a tree.
WHAM!
Both of them jumped, Ayame less than Toshiro, who proceeded to choke on a piece of carrot.
"Yo. Giou. Gimme my earrings, and you can have this key that Boss wanted me to give you." Tsurian glanced over. "Hi, Ayame."
Since her brother was busy coughing and glaring and restarting his heart, Ayame smiled and gave him Older Sister Look #46. "Key?"
"I'll have you know these are MY earrings," he griped. Pause. "But these second studs here do belong to Yukiko. Still. Not YOURS." Blink. Blink. "What key?"
"This key," Tsurian said, holding out a plain brass keyring with several things dangling from it. "Or, actually, these keys. This one's for the elevator, this one's for the foyer, this one's for the front door. Notice you do not have a key for the studio. That one waits until you give back the belt Ayame informs me that you have, the awesome pink one with The Clash's logo on it and the Texas Is For Rockers buckle. Say, Ayame, are those rye crackers? Thanks."
She selected a cracker, chewed it with great determination, and swallowed. Toshiro and Ayame were still staring at her, the former with puzzled features, the latter with an air of indulgence designed to deflect any possible fraternal outrage at this squealing over a paltry little belt.
"Giou, what you do right now," Tsurian advised, "is put out your hand, prefatory to me then placing the keys in it. You will then take out your little stage notebook, write in it 'Yoshinaga wants her earrings back, MUST MAKE THIS HAPPEN ASAP', put away the notebook where you will be sure to look at it later, and continue stuffing your face as if you have no idea what calories are."
Toshiro, an unreadable look on his face and his eyes locked on Tsurian's, held out his hand. Tsurian placed the keys in it, the hand drew back, and the datebook came out. The eyes flicked down, an entry was made, and the book went away. He blinked at the keys as if trying to figure them out, then shook whatever it was off and stuck his chopsticks back into the yakisoba.
"Ayame," he said drily, "put the belt on ME after informing me that it went better with the flamingo sequin barrette than the silver chain one did."
Ayame snorted quietly and mouthed "traitor." The look back across the noodles said "family trait."
"Yeah yeah," Tsurian dismissed. "But you don't get your studio key until I get that belt, and imagine how much of a retard you'll feel like when Boss says, 'grab me something out of the studio and deliver it across town, won't you please', and you'll have to admit that you have no key because you couldn't see your way clear to deliver a belt." She took another rye cracker and chomped on it.
"By the way," she addressed Ayame, "he figured it out, oh no, we are undone, all will quail at the thought that we deliberately arranged for Boss and the boy to meet and become friends with key-privileges, wail and woe and hara-kiri. Pass that bowl of dip."
