Unstuck Country Chapter 6 part 2

[estirose]

"Oh," Motomura-san said finally. "Then I'll come." He didn't sound very sure about it, but Taiga had a feeling that he'd come anyway.
 
After he got off the phone with Motomura Satoshi, he tried Murakami Kaori once more. This time she answered. "Yes?" she asked. Her strident tone was almost a relief; Mio's other friends had seemed shy. Like attracted like, it seemed.
 
"Murakami Kaori? This is Nobori Taiga." Everyone else had known his name, so he presumed she had too.
 
She was silent for a moment, and then she spoke. "And how can I help you?" It was smooth, almost like she'd slipped on a mask.
 
"Mio's mother told me you knew her." He hoped that she'd be interested in talking. "I was wondering if you'd be interested in having lunch with me and a few others. I'd like to know more about her."
 
"When and where?" she asked. Her tone was overeager, but professional, someone who had spent a lot of time on the phone as a professional. He had to wonder again what the 'wrongness' was that Bishop had mentioned.
 
Taiga gave her the information. "I hope you'll be willing to come."
 
"Of course," she said. "I'll be there."
 
Seemingly oblivious to etiquette, she hung up.
 
"Did you call everybody, nii-san?" Wataru asked, standing in the doorway with a tray of tea. Taiga wondered how long he'd been standing there.
 
"Yes. They're all coming." He wished he could share Bishop's notes with Wataru, but he doubted their mother would have taught Wataru to read Ancient Fangire. "Then we'll get you to that magazine shoot." He should be able to get Wataru there easily enough.
 
 
Wataru moved to set the tray down on the table. "I hope I can do well on both."
 
So modest, Wataru was.
 
"Don't worry about dressing up," Taiga told him. "This isn't a formal interview. We want to befriend these people." His place in the Checkmate Four was a curse as well as a blessing; he wanted them to join him, not be scared of him. Wataru would help with this somewhat - he was rather cute - but it was his responsibility to make sure Wataru didn't get killed before he could be a father.
 
He was almost afraid to let Wataru go off alone, but Wataru wasn't defenseless, as he was sure his little brother would remind him. His brother had had a life before Taiga had come into the picture again, and he was sure Wataru still had one.
 
*  *  *
 
Taiga picked up Wataru at his home. He didn't like being driven, but until he found a replacement for his bike, there wasn't much he could do. It was unlikely the driver would do something stupid, but Taiga had to keep an eye on him anyway to make sure he was going where he was supposed to do.
 
It had been so much easier before everything had happened. He'd been happy as King and President. He'd done what his duty had called him to do, Bishop had been there for him, and he'd had a Queen to look forward to. Of course, at the time, he didn't know what his mother had done, and he hadn't been prepared for the reactions when he started stepping out of line. But Bishop had always emphasized duty to people - and he could hardly abandon Wataru when both of them had been abandoned.
 
He knew it would still be easier if someone like Dawn could get Wataru to accept the Fangire side of his heritage, but he doubted it would happen. If he hadn't succeeded, would she even have a chance?
 
"Are you ready?" he asked. Wataru was dressed as he always was, pretty much. A decent t-shirt, scarf, dark pants. Good enough for the restaurant, probably good enough for the shoot.
 
"I'm a bit nervous, nii-san," Wataru told him, shoving his hands in his pants.
 
"That's fine," Taiga assured him. As good a fighter and violin-maker Wataru was, he wasn't great with the social things. In one of those rare times where Mio had spent time with him, he'd learned that Wataru had been a customer at the restaurant she'd worked at and they'd ended up together through a friend. That conversation had been before he'd known that Wataru had been his little brother, of course, and before he'd known the two were in love.
 
He wished he could resurrect Mio so that he could put them together. But that wasn't even in King's powers.
 
"Just remember," he said, "These people are Fangire. You might be comfortable in between, but not everybody will want to think about that." It was more a warning about the photo shoot people, but he didn't want Wataru freaking out their lunch guests, either. He remembered his declarations to Mio, at the park and at the restaurant, once they'd known, that Wataru was going to be Fangire. He'd had confidence that Wataru would embrace his heritage once he knew about it, like Taiga had. After all, it was the superior one.
 
Too bad Wataru hadn't seen it that way. Taiga hadn't realized what his mother had done, and how much Wataru clung to his human blood as much as Taiga took comfort in the fact that he himself was Fangire.
 
As they arrived at the restaurant, he could see a young man in a kimono, being fussed over by a girl. There was another girl that was chatting with him as the first girl fussed. Taiga got out of the car, Wataru following. As he approached the doors, the second girl looked over at him and nudged the boy. The first girl looked up and whispered something to the boy.
 
The second girl stepped up, bowing, and after a second, the boy followed suit, and the first girl. "You are?" Taiga asked.
 
"Murakami Kaori," the second girl said, her voice as sure as it had been on the phone the day before. She looked a faint bit foreign, and Taiga had to wonder where her parents were from. "This is Miyazawa Koji-san and his older sister, Miyazawa Sakura-san." She tripped up a bit on the honorifics, and Taiga had no doubt that she was used to different ones. Her language was extremely polite.
 
"Pleased to meet you," Sakura-san said. "I'll be going now." She shot a look at her brother as if warning him to behave.
 
Personally, Taiga thought he looked rather terrified, though of Taiga himself or his sister, he wasn't sure. She bowed at him, and then quickly walked away.
 
"We're just waiting for two more guests," he told them warmly. He could see the confusion in Koji-san's face. Kaori-san just nodded.
 
"They'll be here soon," she said simply.
 
"Who's coming?" Koji-san asked, looking to Kaori-san in a way that suggested that she was the one he usually asked. More or less a leader, then. He'd have to keep that in mind.
 
"Satoshi and Imari," Kaori-san answered him. From the lack of honorifics, Taiga had no doubt that they were close friends.
 
It relieved him that Mio wasn't alone, that she had people that she'd liked and was close to. That at least she, unlike himself and Wataru, hadn't been alone. Unlike him, she had been normal.
 
He had to wonder if that had caused her downfall. Mio had been removed from this life, from her friends, from anything that was normal. It had no doubt thrown her to be taken away from her comfortable life to become Queen. He'd been taken away from his mother so long ago that he'd never had a normal life he'd missed, but he realized that Wataru and Mio had.