If you have not yet read the chapter, I would suggest you do so, now, before reading further.
This time, Chie chuckled, too. “Let's just get you fixed up,” she muttered, and reached out with one hand to open the dojo doors, the same as Kanji did. The light of morning hit her bright and warm in the face, but it wasn't nearly so welcome as the voices of her friends.
“Geez, Yousuke-kun!”
“Hana-chan! Chie-chan, is he all right?”
“Hanamura-san, what happened?”
“Did you win, kuma?”
Kanji shifted Yousuke's weight on his shoulder as they walked gingerly over the pavement toward his van. “Does it look like he won?” He nodded gratefully at Naoto as she opened the sliding door, then helped Yousuke hop up into one of the back seats.
Yukiko turned to Chie. “What happened? We couldn't see or hear anything.”
Rise put her hands on her hips, shooting Kanji a glare. “Yeah, and somebody didn't keep us updated like he said he would. Did you even have your phone turned on?!”
“I had a lot to deal with,” Kanji muttered, as the verbal chaos started again.
“Kanji-chan, plans are meant to be followed. Each member of a team must do his or her part.”
“Yeah, we totally did our part! Did you hear us up there?”
“Who won, kuma? Was it Yousuke?”
Chie sighed, looking down at her stained sleeves and torso. “Ugh, I'm a mess.”
Yukiko took her by the shoulders. “Never mind that! Are you okay? I mean, did you guys... Did everything turn out all right?”
Chie blinked at her, then smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, it did.”
“Wha-! Th-That's it?” Rise said. “Come on, Chie-senpai! How about details? Did Yousuke-kun pull out any killer moves?”
“What did your father say?”
“Who won, kuma?!”
“Guys!” Yousuke shouted from where he was sitting in the van, with one arm wrapped around his torso. “Can we talk about this later? I'm in a lot of pain here!”
Naoto bowed briskly. “Ah! Hanamura-san, please, forgive us.” She exchanged keys with Kanji, as she headed over to her own car. “We will follow you to hospital-”
“No hospitals,” Kanji told her as he pulled himself up into the driver's seat. “Kumada!” he said, jerking his head toward the van. “Come on; we're taking you home.”
“Chie-chan's home?” Kuma asked, tentatively following Kanji's order as she climbed up into the van.
Yousuke shook his head. “Your home,” he said. “Just for a quick heal,” he added, as he caught Naoto's quick look.
Kuma clapped her hands as realization struck. “Home! Kuma likes having guests!” She blinked her wide blue eyes. “Can we stop for topsicles? There's no food in Mayonaka, kuma....”
“Mmh. Maybe some other time,” Yousuke muttered, reaching over to the door so he could swing it closed.
But Chie put out her hand, stopping the door on its roller. “Oh, no, you don't,” she said. “You're not going anywhere without me.” With a little difficulty, she pulled herself into the van and closed the door. She sat down next to Yousuke, fixing him with a firm but affectionate look. “Never again,” she murmured to him.
“That sounds good to me,” he whispered, easing his arm around her with a smile that was half-wince. He nodded up at Kanji with a snicker. “To Mayonaka, untenshu-san! And don't spare the horses.”
“Home, home!” Kuma clapped her hands from her place in the front passenger seat.
“Hey, buckle up,” Kanji told her.
“I'm buckled, kuma.”
“It's gotta go around your waist...!”
And as Kanji and Kuma argued about nothing at all, Chie laid her head very gently against Yousuke's shoulder and smiled to herself. She was content in this simple togetherness at the moment, because she knew now that there would be as many more as they wanted in the days to come.
I do miss the little character moments here, but I felt that it just dragged the scene on too long. There was originally going to be a scene where the quartet first enter the TV world, as well, but I found that even more superfluous...which is why the scene shifts immediately to them already being in Mayonaka after the temporal break, and Chie just takes a minute to reflect on them arriving.
The hits have just started to come in for this chapter, and it's doing all right (already have 3 positive/semi-positive reviews, too), but I'll have to wait another week or so to see how it fares across the board.
I'm really enjoying this story, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to leave these characters once I'm done with them. I do have an idea that could be a sequel, but it hasn't quite been fleshed out, yet. Plus, I haven't written the big ending to this story, yet, so any potential further-down-the-road stories might change based on how the story eventually ends up.
"Untenshu," by the way, is simply Japanese for "Chauffeur." This is kind of like Yousuke being a smartass and calling Kanji "Jeeves."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment