Andromeda

Monday came to a mostly uneventful ending for everyone. Apart from Yuki, he could be found sleeping and accidently summoning his Kasou-ryoku powers to alter the classroom in a split second that required Ayumi and Saki to quickly cover up in a very poor awkward manner that everyone noticed, but are conveniently forgetting. So life was normal for Yuki.

Momoko was surprisingly forgiving for Yuki returning home in the manner that he did, as well as being late. He had found the whole situation a little unsettling, but his own mood had been left sullen with the state that they had left Chiharu. The trip in the car he had tried to cheer up Saki, knowing how much it was hurting her, but it did not seem to improve. By class, she seemed to be mostly back to normal, though still a little distant at times. The others did not know what was going on, but Yuki was determined to cheer up Saki today.

Yuki tightened his fists together psyching himself up, pushing away stray thoughts, and approached Saki with a pleasant smile. “Hey Saki! You don’t have practice after class, right?”

It took a moment for Yuki’s voice to reach Saki completely and turn to see that he was talking to her. “Uh? Yuki?”

“Right?”

The look on his face was warm and determined making it difficult for Saki to ignore him. Unfortunately, Saki could only look clueless at him, having not heard what he said. “What are you talking about?”

Ignored and dejected a little Yuki slumped over. “You didn’t hear anything I said?” Her shaking head only made Yuki cry to know that all of his energy had been wasted. However, he was not going to give up and straightened himself back up reinvigorating his determination. “You don’t have practice, right?”

“…yeah…” she said slowly still feeling like she was missing something.

“Good! Then let’s go out!” Yuki exclaimed nearly jumping with excitement over the idea.

Yumi nearby could hear Yuki shouting (everyone in the class heard) making her face turn red quickly and grow short on breath. Her heart went shallow for a moment as though she had just lost something precious and irreplaceable. “…Yuki…Y-Yuki…”

“Yuki and Saki are going out? Since when?” said Katsumi narrowly becoming a little put off by Yuki’s boisterous attitude, even after school was over.

Kaede popped in around Yumi looking at Katsumi with some shock. “Can’t believe it! Though she does hang around him all the time and cover up for his mistakes in class. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” Kaede and Katsumi nodded to themselves in agreement, but when Yumi fell over to the floor they were quickly turned away. “Yumi! What’s wrong?” Together they tried to lift her up as she was not out, but feeling a little lightheaded.

“…Yuki…Saki…”

“Hang in there, Yumi!”

“Don’t follow that jerk into the light!”

Chapter 46 – Strange Meetings

Yuki was quick to rush over to Yumi hearing her friends shouting trying to keep her awake, Saki being pulled along. “Yumi? Are you alright?” Unfortunately, the proximity of Yuki did not improve Yumi’s condition only making her stutter and turn red.

Not even a whole word could make it out of her mouth as her friends pulled her away from Yuki trying to get her to recover. They had been through this enough time that they had become used to responding and dealing with her. “Hey Yumi! President Yori is here!” Kaede announced holding Yumi in her arm while block Yuki out of sight.

“Yori? Brother!” yelped Yumi as she immediately snapped out of her lost state. She quickly started looking around the classroom for him trying to find her brother not wanting to let him see her in such a position.

Katsumi leaned in placing a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. “He must have left. I know I saw him.” The relieving news eased Yumi back down allowing them to talk to her again. “You think you can stand?”

“…yeah…” She slowly pulled herself back up to her feet with Kaede’s help. On her feet again, she saw Yuki next to Saki talking between themselves. There was another jump in her heart as she tried to keep herself calm. “Yuki?”

“Yumi?” he said turning around quickly, with that wide smile on his face still and the excitement of a child. He dropped his hand into the palm of his other hand as an idea came to him. “Hey Yumi! You want to go out?”

‘Yuki…ask me?’ Yumi’s heart jumped again as her face ran red in an instant before she passed out for real this time. Her friends caught her quickly, but Yuki was left confused.

Saki stepped in behind Yuki whacking him in the back of the head. “Yuki! Watch how you talk to Yumi!”

“Hey?! Saki!” Saki stared at Yuki that only seemed to go around Yuki with his confused look. He rubbed his head trying to understand why she had hit him until Saki sighed giving up.

“Give it up Saki. You know he’s not going to get it,” Hiroshi said stepping in from the side of the class along with Tatsuya and Kazuhiro. “I think it’ll be easier solved by just explaining what’s going on. Right, Yuki?”

The weight shifted to Yuki with Saki and Hiroshi looking at him to fix what he started. Yuki still did not understand what they were getting at, but leaving out the details probably was not the best thing. ‘I guess I should let her know what I want to do…’

Everyone gathered around as Kaede and Katsumi worked on getting Yumi alive once more. Once Hiroshi and Saki had settled down Yumi enough so that Yuki could explain he stepped forward. “Let’s all go to this new awesome place in town!” Yuki’s eyes were glowing like a child’s innocent and full of joy as it could be clear that he was imagining things in his mind.

Saki slapped him in the head again noticing that he was losing control of his powers and Hiroshi did as well for another reason. “You’re skipping the details, Yuki…”

“Hey quit hitting me!” Yuki dried up his tears from the pain and returned back to his previous state completely lost in the illusions he was created requiring more reality checks. “Details, alright…I wanted it to be a surprised…” He began to look down at his foot aimlessly fidgeting becoming dejected.

Yumi had been waiting with curiosity to know what Yuki wanted to do, once their misunderstanding had been solved (a little disappointed). The sad expression that Yuki had immediately drew Yumi in to cheer him up not thinking about what she was doing so close to him. “It’s alright, Yuki. I don’t mind a surprise. I might be fun!”

“Something fun?!” Ayumi said cheerfully interjecting herself into the group. She looked clueless and excited at the same time. “What’s going on?”

Yuki perked up quickly with the encouragement from Yumi and Ayumi. Saki sighed to herself looking around at how large of a group that was developing for them. Looking around persistently to everyone, Ayumi tried to get some clue to where everyone was going. “Yuki wants to go to some place he’s heard about from Hiroshi. Hasn’t been able to stop talking about it since he was told about it.” The excitement was starting to be a drain on Saki as she began to regret agreeing with him. ‘Just watching those two is exhausting…how does she do it?’

“Let’s go everyone!” Yuki shouted throwing up an arm in excitement that dragged in Ayumi quickly. Yumi tried to smile and nod while her friends questioned their own involvement, but could not let Yumi go alone with Yuki. Following in behind was Hiroshi with his friends looking a little mischievous. Walking only made it so far as the school entrance before they were interrupted by two short shadowed figures that came running in towards them.

The short figures were faster than anyone could see being only a blur as they rushed for Yuki. Distracted in his excitement, Yuki was caught off guard by what happened until it was too late. The two blurs had attached themselves to Yuki shedding their blackened cover with light illuminating their faces. Ken had climbed up on Yuki’s back hanging off his neck and down his back with a wide grin while Jun silently held on to the edge of his uniform’s coat staring up at him. Once Yuki finally realized what was going on he jumped back as the group divided for him trying to shake them. “What’re you two doing?! Get off me!”

In the struggle Yuki collapsed to the ground with his siblings holding on to him. Jun, intentionally or not, sat down on Yuki’s stomach still just staring at him. The arrival of his brothers made everyone apart from Saki and Ayumi curious and confused. Yumi and her friends moved in taking quick looks at the young children before looking back at each other. Katsumi and Kaede seemed more intense than Yumi with the look in their eye. Yumi knelt down, leaving the two girls, looking over at Jun. “What are you doing here?” she said sweetly.

Ken let go of Yuki for a moment seeing that she was trying to talk to Jun. He walked over to Yumi looking very confident. “We came to see Yuki! I’m Ken and this is Jun! Who are you?”

“Oh I’m Yumi! Came to see Yuki? How come?”

“He’s our big brother! Our big sister let us go play!”

“Brother?” Hiroshi, Tatsuya and Kazuhiro exclaimed together in surprise, never having heard anything about brothers from Yuki.

“So you came to play with Yuki?” Jun nodded in agreement with Yumi’s words. Yumi was taking to the information better anyone else almost as though she knew already.

Kaede and Katsumi behind Yumi held hands smiling to each other. “He’s so cute!” Kaeda said.

Katsumi nodded in agreement glowing with her. “And he looks so cool! Like he’s trying to be like Yuki!”

Ken looked over at Jun giving him a smile with a mischievous sparkle along with a victory sign. Jun pleasantly nodded in agreement with his brother. “Operation Cool and Cute was a success!” Ken declared to his brother, words that went mostly ignored by the others.

Yuki finally pulled himself together with the opening that his brothers left him. He stood up letting Jun down off him and glared back at the two of them. “Momoko’s going to be angry with you two for leaving the house! You know how she is!”

“But I already said she let us play!” Ken said getting a little cocky with Yuki and pointing to his previous words to re-enforce his defense. He then crossed his arms looking up at his brother with a look that said he knew he was going to get away with what he was planning.

Frustration was building up in Yuki as his dreams of having fun with his friends was quickly fading away. “But I’ve already got plans with my friends! You need to go back home!” Jun closed in towards Yuki giving him long sad eyes that worked on melting Yuki. “…Jun…you haven’t seen me lately? But I’m—“

Kaede and Katsumi jumped into the conversation dragging Yumi along as well. “We don’t mind if your brothers come along. Right, Katsumi?”

“Yup, Kaede!”

“…Yuki…it’s fine with me…” Yumi said meekly balancing her emotions precariously.

Jun’s melting stare was working on Yuki in tandem with the girls. Hiroshi and the others did not seem to mind either leaving Yuki looking like the bad guy. “Alright…Let’s all go together!” he half shouted trying to get back in the mood, which seemed to work well on Jun.

The large group of students, plus two elementary students, winded their way through the town. After school hours made the sidewalks their usually busy selves with students. It did not help that Hiroshi’s directions forced them to travel through the busiest and most difficult areas to walk through to reach their unknown destination. Yumi’s friends were the first to complain about the walking and soon by Saki. Both of them seemed to doubt that Hiroshi knew what he was doing until everyone besides Yuki and Jun wanted to leave becoming hungry from the trip.

“This should be the last turn…” said Hiroshi as he checked a paper he had been referencing frequently. He turned his head side to side looking at the alley that they were in left with two directions to take.

“This guy’s been sayin’ that for the last twenty minutes!” Ken said kicking a bottle on the ground into the adjacent wall.

Ayumi sighed heavily developing a pouting lip on her face from being so tired. “I’m so hungry…”

“We’re almost there, guys…” Hiroshi said looking at the paper for a second time. ‘I think…’

“Come on! Hiroshi said we’re almost there!” Yuki said with his never ending excitement.

“You’re the only one still excited…” a long voice said from Katsumi.

Kaede’s eyes were half closed with her eyebrows pulled down in stress. “Where does all of his energy come from…”

No longer able to wait with his excitement, Yuki took a turn and charged down the alley. Saki reached out for him, but had no strength or will to make a real effort as her arm fell limp. The group turned to look around at each other, but mostly at Hiroshi with an implying glare. Sweat dripped down his head as he tried to back away from the frightening looks he was getting. However, they were all interrupted by Yuki returning scream with excitement. “I found it!”

No one seemed to be looking at Yuki as they held their gaze on Hiroshi. “See he found it! I knew we were close, right?” Yuki waved at them before getting a dumbfounded expression on his face confused to the reason for their still sad emotions.

Jun was quick to take Yuki’s side and ran over to him followed by Ken. Kaede and Katsumi’s eyes were turned towards the two boys and they took to Yuki as well. The rest were quick to fall in place as Yuki eagerly directed them to the place that he had found. Yet when they reached the building that they had been looking for everyone just stood still in disbelief. No one could say a word for what they were looking at scattered their preconceptions of what was thought to be possible.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Yuki said oblivious to reason for their reactions.

“…right…” Saki finally said as though she was struggling to pull it out from her mouth.

“…I didn’t think it was possible…” replied Tatsuya as he tried to pull himself away from the sight.

Kazuhiro nodded slowly still wide eyed by the building. “…unique…”

“…is that a skeleton?” Kaede managed still trying to take everything in.

Being called a nightmare of design would still be understating the appearance. The building if all of the decoration was pulled away turned out to be a simple two floor structure large enough for several rooms to fit inside on each floor. Drawing the eye though was the single marble column near the door next to the fake skeletal remains of a bizarre winged lizard like animal. Following opposite of the column and door was a clay surface with Arab designs and a metal wire mesh. All coated in the worst possible color combinations of purple, pink, red and orange. The door seemed almost embarrassed to be present among the rest as it was a simple Japanese wood sliding panel door.

Yuki pulled back by the building lifting his arm up in a presenting manner still ignorant of his friend’s reactions. “Ready to go inside?” All of them stepped back uneasy, including Hiroshi.

“I wouldn’t be caught dead inside that place!” Katsumi said as she hid behind Yumi with Kaede behind her.

“Must be the wrong place, Yuki!” Hiroshi quickly said pulling up his sheet of paper to look at it again. The others were nodding in agreement with him or whispering similar words.

Amongst the discordant voices and distracted eyes the door to the shop opened and a woman in a beautiful green kimono stepped out. She went ignored by everyone other than Yuki, who was politely bowing to her. The students continued to leave her unnoticed until she finally spoke up in a soft traveling voice that managed to be heard clearly to everyone that it shut them up. “Welcome to the Mi Hana Shop!”

She was quick to gain everyone’s attention, especially Hiroshi and his friends. “Woah-um…I mean it would be rude to leave now that we’re here,” Hiroshi said quickly trying to turn the decision, but only becoming suspicious from the girls. The young woman that was greeting was filling out her kimono very well making it difficult for them to ignore or turn down.

Saki was still trying to get over the storefront and looked over at the storekeeper. Yuki had left them in the dark about what the place was they were visiting. “So what sort of shop is the Mi Hana?”

“We specialize in making your fantasies come true!” the woman said with a soft greeting tone.

To be continued…