Unstuck Country Ch 6 part 3

[estirose]

In a way, as he focused back on the two present, he decided he liked Kaori-san from what he’d seen of her. She was organized and took charge. She might be a good personal assistant even if she didn’t work out with Wataru, and he needed one that he could trust. He’d have to keep an eye on her and see how she interacted with the others, and if she was already employed. He might be able to get her to work at Development and Pioneer even if she had a job.

He wondered what “wrongness” she had, and stepped closer to see if he could detect it. He’d worked on being able to sense Wataru’s Fangire blood ever since he’d found out, though Wataru’s dependence  on Kiva had helped his Fangire blood come to the fore. Taiga wondered if there was a sneaky way to feed Wataru Life Energy as was proper, because Wataru would never feed willingly. It was probably why he read more Human than Fangire.

Imari-san took a half-step back, and a look of fear crossed her face briefly before she successfully hid it. But as he studied her, he knew why. She was more adept at hiding it, had probably been fed on Life Energy all her life, but he could read the human blood. Probably a one-night stand, a bastard child, if her mother had been married to a full Fangire. She was young enough to be born after his mother fell from grace.

Another car drove in, and two people got out. The younger one was talking to the other one in a reassuring tone, looking at their group. The older one was scowling at the restaurant, before reluctantly getting in the car and driving away. The girl that was left walked over to them, waving at Imari-san and Koji-san.

“Warm, isn’t it?” she asked Koji-san, and he smiled at her shyly. She then bowed at Taiga and Wataru. “I’m Mochizuki Imari, please treat me gently.”

“Nobori Taiga. This is my younger brother, Kurenai Wataru.” He gave her a slight bow, and Wataru a deeper one. He could hear Kaori-san answering her phone, talking to someone and telling them yes, she was at the restaurant and no, the King was not doing anything inappropriate. “We’re just waiting for one more.”

“Satoshi tends to run late,” Kaori-san said. “He’d be late to his own funeral.”

“But he won’t be too late,” Koji-san added quickly. “He’ll be here pretty soon.”

“We can wait.” They’d wait for the King, he knew. Besides, they were all early.

Before long, one more person walked up, and Taiga knew that he was the last of the group by the way Imari-san was waving at him. This had to be Satoshi-san, then.

“I’m Satoshi,” he said briefly, too out of breath to remember to introduce himself properly apparently.

“Nobori Taiga. This is my younger brother, Kurenai Wataru.” He looked at the group. “Let’s go in.”

Kaori herded the other three in, and they were soon in Taiga’s private room. After the server took their orders, Taiga smiled at his four guests. “As I said over the phone, I wanted to get to know Mio better. Her mother said that the four of you knew her best, so I’d like to hear stories about her.” He didn’t go into how Wataru needed to find a wife, since he wanted to evaluate the girls for Wataru. “Wataru and Mio were dating.”

“She talked a lot about you,” Imari-san said to Wataru.

“I kept telling her I needed to meet you,” Kaori-san added. “Don’t know why she never did it.” She shook her head.

“Our mother broke Queen’s law, that’s why,” Taiga said. It wasn’t like it would be a secret soon. “And even I thought he was human until recently. I’m trying to introduce him to Fangire his own age, which is the other reason why you’re all here today.”

Kaori-san’s eyes widened, and the other three looked surprised.

“Mio didn’t judge him for that and I hope you will do the same,” he told them.

“Of course not,” Imari-san protested. “How long have we been without a Queen?”

“Before I was born,” Kaori-san said. “For sure.”

“I know someone….” Koji-san added, and then looked at Kaori-san and shut up.

“I know,” Taiga said to both Koji-san and Kaori-san. “I’m not going to blame you for your mother’s mistake. You’re Fangire. That’s what matters.”

Kaori-san looked relieved.

“You could be a role model for Wataru,” he told her. “I’d like you to be friends with him.”

“Um.” She looked like she didn’t know what to say, opening and closing her mouth. “Of course.”

“Do you currently have a job?” he asked.

“I’m an office lady,” she said. “I’m very good at it.” She looked at him wide-eyed.

“And the rest of you?” Taiga asked. Might as well find out, and then going back to memories of Mio. It was actually nice to be around Fangire his own age, though that was tempered by his title. He hoped that they’d relax around Wataru.

“I work for my family’s grocery business,” Koji-san said. “Um. With my older sister.”

“I fetch things at a sound studio,” Satoshi-san said.

“And my sister and I have a design business,” Imari-san told him. “Um, my family is well-to-do, so they can afford that.”

He had to wonder how Mio had ended up with this diverse group of friends, and was actually happy to see that Imari-san had wealth of her own. Of sorts. Kaori-san was also a possibility, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to marry Wataru off to someone who was also crossbred. But she still could make a good administrative assistant, should she prove trustworthy.

“How did you make friends with Mio-san?” Wataru asked. Taiga recalled that with the exception of Shizuka-chan, most of Wataru’s friends were Blue Sky people. Wataru knew how to make friends just as well as he did. Which wasn’t well.

After all, he hadn’t bothered much with befriending people at the school Shima had sent him to. He had people he knew, but he didn’t trust any of them. None of them had been up to Wataru’s standards at the time, and he’d been resentful enough to not care.

“I think we were all at school together, either in elementary school or middle school, and stayed in the same high school,” Koji-san answered.

“By which point we’d known each other for years, more or less,” Imari-san added. “Kaori, didn’t you know her first?”

“Yes, we were both shy so we ended up together a lot, and… well, we ended up friends.”

Taiga tried to imagine the woman before him as shy in any way, shape, or form. And failed. “You grew out of it?”

“Not really,” Kaori-san replied. “I’m still shy. I know that the others wouldn’t say that, but I am.”

Finally, Taiga decided the girl was just modest. He’d have to learn more about her, though, if he was considering her for any kind of position.

“For Fangire,” Satoshi-san explained after looking over at Kaori-san, “There aren’t a lot of other Fangire around. There are schools, but a lot of us just go to schools with Humans.”

“Which helps,” Kaori-san said, “If we get hungry. As long as we’re careful, nobody’s going to notice somebody missing.”

Taiga saw Wataru barely suppress a shiver and made a note to talk to him about it later. He might have been part human and raised that way, but for Fangire, this was apparently normal.