Muses won't shut up. Again.

[estirose]

Gou fished his phone out of his jacket pocket. His sister's name showed up, making him frown. She tended to be regular in her calls, and it had to be an emergency for her to call him at this time and day of the week. "Sis?" he asked, answering the phone.

"Gou!" Kiriko's voice sounded strained, and he wondered what had happened. "How are things in America?"

"Um, good." He was still confused, but he figured she'd get to the point sooner rather than later.

"Have you found any ham sandwiches you liked?" Her words made him freeze. This call... 'ham sandwich' was their agreed on code word should either of them run into trouble with Roidmudes. Which meant that she thought the call was being monitored, too.

"Not really. You know me. Picky eater." He tried to sound cheerful.

"Are you enjoying racing?" she asked, probably trying to work her warning into what sounded like a normal conversation.

"Yep." He didn't feel like expanding on that for whoever was listening.

"Do you think you're coming home anytime soon? I miss you." Her tone was something that he didn't normally hear from her, another warning that things weren't right. She was warning him that things weren't safe at home. She'd probably been abducted by Heart and his cronies and forced to answer to her Roidmude 'name'.

"Nah, got a lot of training to do." Had to reassure her that he would keep himself safe.

"Okay, tell your mentors that I said hello, in case we don't talk again soon." She was trying to be casual, but he figured she was being held hostage and she hadn't been able to talk to her own people.

"Will do, big sis. Take care of yourself." He tried to sound cheerful, for her sake.

"Bye!"

He murmured something resembling that, but shut off the phone, his head full of thoughts. Kiriko was the one needing rescuing thing time, and he would make sure she was rescued just like she'd made sure they were safe all those years ago. He'd tell her associates what had happened, but rescuing her was his job.

And this time, he would do it right.