Part .25

(Sigh.)

It was pouring down rain the day we moved. Had to move.

Damn Chairo anyways.

As for me I was in the house already, sitting in my very empty room listening to the rain pelt the house, and watch as the rest of my family tried to help the one Hired-Mover haul the stuff inside. Why we couldn't hire a big moving crew was really making me wonder. I hated getting wet. But. . .we had to move today, had to leave that town before news got around.

I really hated getting wet, and I didn't want to go outside in that. I'd help and teleport something when no-one was looking, but I suck at teleporting. I can't move much more than a box, and barely myself. And not very far at that.

Besides, Dad already brought in his camera stuff, which was the only stuff that absolutely couldn't get wet, and Mom her music also. Most of it was tucked away in what was gonna be Chairo's closet, cause it was close to the front steps.

Damn Chairo. I didn't want to be upstairs, why did he get a downstairs room?

Said little brother was now hurrying out of the van with a big cardboard box on his shoulder. The thing had to be three times bigger than him. He was probably displacing its weight like he did whenever he changed. When I lost sight of him, I heard his steps on the hardwood entrance.

He was the reason we had to move. I didn't want to. I sure as hell didn't want to.

Well, my empty bedroom was the only one with a window to the front of the house, and it was one of those windows that stuck out and had a bench to sit on, which was where I was sitting. That was nice, but the condensation gathering on the window was getting annoying. My breathing on it probably wasn't helping. Even in the bad weather, I could see one of the main streets from here, and a bit of the shopping strip.

"How many more are there?" I heard Dad's voice pretty easily. My door was open and very close to the stairs.

"About ten," another voice said. Probably the moving guy. "Unfortunate weather," I think I heard him say. His thoughts weren't as formal as his speech, and they we're practically shouting at me.

"I think it blows," I heard Mom say, her footfalls telling me she was coming up the steps. "Kakami-chan!" I didn't bother looking back to her. "Come on, if you don't want to get wet you could help us unpack." Her voice was tentative, and I felt her mind put her hand on my shoulder before she actually did. I really wasn't up to dealing with any of them right now, let alone how annoying Mom got. "I know its not easy, but we have to start somewhere."

"I really didn't wanna go, Ka-san," I said a little weakly. Not my usual tone of voice, but I didn't feel very usual right then.

"I know, dear, but some things have to be. If we want to live near the city instead of in the mountains, then this is one of the risks we have to take." I looked at her, her soft face, and long black hair slightly frayed from exertion of moving. "I know I'm not ready to distance myself so far from the city; mine and your father's work prevent that."

"But if it wasn't for Chairo. .," I started, but she cut me off.

"We already went over what your little brother did, Kakami-chan."

"But everyone knows dogs don't wear school uniforms! He didn't even think when he shifted! And then everyone kept asking what happened to him!" Mom's mouth turned a corner. She was snickering. How could she laugh at this!? We had to get up and move to another part of the whole country! She must've seen the face I was giving her, because she tried to look guilty and put her hand over her mouth.

"I can't give you the answer, Kakami-chan. We're just going to have to adjust. Besides, maybe when it dries up a bit you can go around town and have a look." She hugged me a bit closer. "I'll give you some shopping money," she offered, cheerily.

THUNK

"SONNNOVA~!!!!"

Both of our heads turned to see Dad trying to haul a piece on my bed through the door, but apparently he rammed his hand into the frame `cause it was too narrow.

My bed was hovering in the hall while Dad jammed his hand into his armpit and did a little dance into my room. "Iteiteiteiteitie," he stammered over and over again. Mom went over to him and coaxed him into letting her see his hand. I saw the whole thing kinda detached, and realised my bed was still floating there. What if the mover saw it? I concentrated my power, tapping into Dad's a little, and urged the bed into my room the rest of the way, avoiding my parents.

Why didn't he just float it in in the first place? Why did he try to carry it?

I watched the two of them hold hands, Mom looking at his with a careful scrutiny. Sometimes it bothered me how open they are with each other. Other people don't act like they do.

Stupid me, we're not other people. We're espers.

"Nyyyreaoooom." Chairo came zooming in, making airplane noises and carrying a box in my room. He smiled lightly and then set down the box near me. "Here, Onee-chan. Thought you'd want this back."

Chairo started using his power, and the box top exploded. I shrieked as whatever it was holding was flung at me. When I opened my eyes, I saw a buncha hats aligned in rows on my bed. I must've visibly perked up, cause Chairo smiled and picked the box out of my way of the bed. I went over and grabbed a sun-hat. My little brother followed in suite and grabbed a panama-style hat. I could be said I got a hat fetish or something, but so does Chairo.

We traded hats suddenly, both of us snickering.

Ball cap. Straw hat. Chairo found a top hat I hadn't seen in months. Fedora. I dug up some bunny ears.

After about twenty minutes of time wasting, I ended up wearing a ten-gallon cowboy hat with a big metal star on it, and Chairo wearing a hat with sunglasses and little windshield wipers on them, both of us failing to keep a straight face.

Mom walked by us and picked up one of the red hats. "Funny," she said, her voice getting distant. "This looks familiar." Her mind began spinning a series of images over and over again of a girl.

Dad coughed, and then began scratching the back of his head like he knew something. Before I could give it much thought, Chairo grabbed my wrist. "C'mon, sis, lets go walk around before its too dark."

"It's raining, baka." I barely finished what I said before Chairo jammed a pop-up umbrella in my face. With a weary sigh, I grabbed it. Chairo is kinda hard to refuse when his interest in something is so genuine, unlike most people who double-think.

With his hand over my wrist again, we headed out the front door. The clouds were still dark.

____________________________________

Madoka was spinning the red hat on the end of her finger, sighing as her daughter departed. After a moment, she turned to Kyosuke, who was still scratching the back of his head.

She smiled knowingly at him. "Is it really the same?"

"Yeah."

She put it on her head. "My God, Kyosuke. You kept it the whole time?" He only nodded, a light smile painted on his face. She walked up to him, removing the hat and placing it on his head as she eased her body against his. "I still say it looks better on you." His arms came to rest on his wife's waist, the two sharing in a brief kiss. " even if it doesn't fit."

"Mmm," he exhaled softly as the kiss ended. He looked towards the door his children had departed through only a moment before. "It's going to be hard on her. We still don't understand her powers totally, let alone Chairo."

"Yes. I'm still not sure how much use I may be to you, Anata," she said grimly.

"Well, I'm feeling a little deja-vu to be honest with you." He kissed her cheek briefly. "But trust me, Madoka. You just being here is more than I had when changes hit me."

She sighed contentedly, embracing him slightly deeper. "I hope you're right."

------------------------

My kid brother was just that. A kid still, even though he's only a little more than two years younger. Still, he just so. . .happy, its hard to be anything but nice when you're with him. We left, or rather, I was drug out into the rain just after I heard mushy stuff coming from Dad and Mom's thoughts. "C'mon," he urged. I let him drag me while I was getting wet from the rain, the umbrella in my other hand having decided to give me problems.

"Hang on, dang it!" It wasn't that he was really dragging me, I mean, even for a boy he was kinda short. I was still a bit taller than him even going into the same school. "I can't get my umbrella open! Wait. . " I finally cut him off at the corner of the street and tried working on my stupid umbrella.

"Here," he said, handing me his umbrella, then taking mine. Ugh, how I hated being wet. I shook my neck sharply to get my damp hair off of my face, then took off my glasses to clean them. Chairo glanced at the umbrella, then turned it over and ‘fooomp!' it opened easily. Shaking it slightly, he held it over his head while he looked at me.

"I hate you," I growled. He just smiled back at me, his thoughts laughing at me. I rubbed my glasses on my skirt to get rid of the water and fog that had gathered. "Where are we going, anyways? Isn't there more stuff to unload?"

"They can take care of it. I'm hungry, and I wanted to look around." He said grabbing my hand just as I got finished putting my glasses back on. "Let's go!" he said in his funny voice. My brother was nothing if not sincere.

"Leggo of my hand, this is embarassing," I muttered, tugging at his grip. As sincere as he may have been, he missed more than a few concepts. "And if you're so hungry, why don't you go kill a squirrel or something?"

"Ha ha," he deadpanned and he let go of my hand.

Scenery blurred by me as Chairo led us from our house. Not because of the speed, but more I wasn't really paying attention. (More people with their double thoughts,) I thought to myself. Sometimes my power was annoying more than the gift they all said it was. Sometimes its hard to tune other people's thoughts out, but what always bothered me was people always talked one thing and thought another. People were so dishonest. And now, thanks to Chairo, I've got to put up with a fresh new batch of stupid people.

"Baka," I said under my breath.

"Hey, lets go in here," he said, pointing in the direction of a CD and SACD store. "Maybe they have than new Ikoran Toku concert."

Echk. More music stuff. "Ano. . .you go ahead," I said, motioning towards the store. I could feel the obvious displeasure in his thoughts, but knowing from experience that bugging me about those things was useless, he just let it go and went into the store. The rain continued to fall noisily, casing a fine mist to form just above the ground. Normally I liked rain because it repelled people so I wouldn't have to deal with them.

It didn't mean I liked being in the rain. "Ugh. . ."

The rain began to fall a lot heavier as I waited for Chairo to finish his looking. "Whats takling him so long?" I looked around as I held the umbrella closer to me. This was still kind of residential, but we had walked up a hill to get here. Across the street was a school supply store with a small grocer inside. A woman came out with a rather overstuffed paper bag. She began to get soaked as she tried inneffectively to get an umbrella from her purse

(Oh darn it, my purse is too small. Why don't I just get a bigger-) her thoughts stuttered in my mind with only a mild level of coherancy as I watched her get soaked through.

(That bag can't take much more,) I thought as it got more and more saturated from the rain. The woman seemed to get the same idea as she looked at the bag. Looking around, she ducked into another store.

Or what looked like a store. It was actually a cafe` shoppe with some bright neon in the window.

I was getting bored and cold and wet standing there. Looking back for Chairo, he still seemed occupied by whatever he was looking at in the store. (Twit,) I thought in annoyance, then went to cross the street.

"Almost stepped on that," I said to myself as I listened to the sound of my feet splashing in the wet road.

The cafe was called KyoJo, and its windows were filled with weird neon signs. The only one I could understand was a Cocacola sign, the rest of them were in English letters. I went in and was greeted by a blast of cool air causing me to shiver.

"Iirashaimase!" a call came from inside as I walked in. The cafe was smaller than it looked from the outisde, but it had two bars, one a service bar and the other up against a huge glass wall.

I saw the woman sit down at a table trying to dry herself out, and behind the service bar was another woman. She was kind of heavy, and her hair looked funny. It was spiky in the back, but she had a nice smile as she looked at me and nodded. "Come to keep dry?" she asked, her speech very rough. (Maybe I'll get some kids in again this season,) She thought. I wondered what she meant by that.

"Yeah. Its very bad outside," I answered, putting a smile on my face, for looks.

"I'll say!" the woman exlaimed as she wrung out her sweater-coat.

"Please, sit down," the master offered. Is master what you called them if they're girls? "What would you like?"

"Just a choco-coffe, please," I said.

"New to the area?"

"Uh-huh." (Why did she want to know?) I reached into my purse..

"Oh don't bother, honey. First one's always free at Kojo." she said, putting the drink in front of me on the bar.

"Oh, thank you." I wasn't sure what to make of that.

"Did you just move here?"

"Yeah."

"You don't seem too happy about it."

(Is she a telepath too?) "Well, sort of. . ."

"That's okay. If you ever feel out of sorts, you can just come right back to old Kojo and relax. I used to get people here who'd enjoy the view," she motioned at the big glass wall.

"I didn't see that from the street," I said, taking out a hair brush. "Ow, tangles." Aforementioned wall was lined by the second bar and had what looked more like stool-chairs with back cushions and stuff.

"There's a reason for that. Go look," she said, nodding toward it. (Wait til you see, kid.)

I hated being thought of as a kid. I always got mistook for being younger than I was. I hated being so blind that I had to wear these huge glasses to help with my peripherals. Sighing, I walked over to the other bar, still brushing my hair. I spun one of the nice stools around, sat in it and spun back to the window.

"Waaa~," I breathed. Now I could see the real reason it was called Kojo. This window was buit on the edge of a cliff and spanned a view encompassing most of the entire district. In fact, the view was so expansive, I bet I could see to the next prefecture if the day were clearer. "There's the school I'll go to."

"Thats right, its time for school to start again," she said.

Darnit, I didn't mean to say that out loud. "Uh yeah."

"Well, if studying gets to you, come on back. Troubles stop at the door in here." She made a thumb gesture to herself. "Old Naomi don't mess around." She smlied nice enough. "Okay?"

I smiled back. I seemed to have found a nice person after all. "Okay. I'm Kakami."

"What a nice name. Ah- Iirashaimase!" she called as someone else entered through the door.

I looked back at the scene. It wasn't actually a cliff. Well, it was a cliff, but built below this cafe at the face of the cliff was another store directly underneath to make good use of the space. I couldn't see the sign or anything though. It was a nice view, even with the rain falling.

Hmmm.

_________________

notes: I hope you enjoyed this prequel.

Yes, it's a second generation fic. Get over it. There isn't really a plot to these two parts opening, but I needed to address some character development, story or no story, and I felt this was the best way to do that. Some japanese I used because I felt it wouldn't come our right transliterated. Kyojo literally means ‘the hill top.' IIRASHAIMASE is a call a shop owner says when a customer comes in.

When Kyosuke screams ‘chikshou,' it can mean dang all the way to god dammit depending on how hard its said.

When Madoka Says ‘anata' it literally means ‘you,' but its common for japanese wives to refer to their husbands in this way, much ‘like' the word ‘dear.'

[C&C welcome]

Cast List

Kasuga Kyosuke
Kasuga Madoka
Kasuga Chairo
Kasuga Kakami

Naomi, the Master

[ryougaecho@abraxis.com]