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K: MIDNIGHT: A K PROJECT FAN FICTION: CHAPTER NINE: HOMRA

December 9, 2008

Mikoto brought me down a narrow stair to Homra's central bar, where a slew of rough and somewhat gritty looking young men had gathered, all of them laughing and joking like old pals. Meanwhile a tall, golden-haired man in glasses stood behind the bar, seemingly above them yet engaging all the same.

Gradually advancing at Mikoto’s lazy pace, I found myself entirely aware that I was not at all a tall and powerful woman (or at least taller to make my lack of an aura seem a little less deplorable). I had no charm to lure them with, no might with which to say, ‘I’m frightening. Stay away, lest you be stricken by my wrath!’ I had nothing of the sort. I had (and, in my mind: was) nothing. Involuntarily, I had stooped, as if my imp-like self could not descend another inch. I greatly felt the small, delicate child that I was.

With so little confidence residing in me anymore, I snatched the lower hem of Mikoto's jacket without so much as a second thought. The great king shifted me a curious glance, impressed that I appeared as that which I had planned, yet somewhat entertained upon discovering that what I'd done was not by my design, but purely by accident.

“Just as I suspected of you, Mikoto,” said the man behind the bar. “I see you went and stole your chance to ditch the rest of the boys. Here, I thought you’d come to take a nap, but I see you’ve got a friend with you,” he added, dropping his attention down my microscopic frame hiding behind Mikoto. I’m sure the sight amused him, for he chuckled. “Gotta admit, that’s not the sort of friend I would have pegged you bringing here. I’d’ve thought, if anyone, Fujishima’d be the one to do that sort of thing. Not that I'm complaining, of course. We could use a change of scenery."

As he spoke, the others turned and stared, every man surprised that I, a little girl who looked no more than seven years of age, was present in a bar frequented chiefly (I imagined) by a gang of street thugs.

In the midst of these, however, a bright and unconventionally normal-looking man comparatively waltzed into view, sending off a theatrical wave that ended in a bow. "Alas! A person whom I might endeavor to befriend!” He exclaimed, smiling vigorously at me. “And indeed, a Princess, no less!”

"Take it down a notch, will ya, Tatara?” A slender teenager in a beanie berated him. “We’re not all characters in some lame-ass play, right Saruhiko?”

The somber character in black whom the beanie-boy referred to as Saruhiko, didn’t say a word, despite an impromptu nudge by his combative, yet otherwise amicable companion.

The animated one thus defined as Tatara simply beamed at me. There was something about his eyes and the gentle nature of his features, the way his hair fell down about his face and the overall keenness of his stature, that told me he was good. Already, I knew that I liked him.

"Who is she, your sister or somethin’?" A different man, the only heavy set one in the room, remarked.

"Don't be an idiot, Kamamoto," the one in the beanie snarled. He issued a swift punch to Kamamoto's arm, this one clearly centered on aggression. The man let out a sudden grunt of pain. "If Mr. Mikoto had a sister, don't ya think he would’a mentioned her by now? He wouldn't keep a secret like that from us! Isn't that right, Mr. Mikoto?"

"But of course, Yata," the man behind the counter answered, his voice droll. He picked a whiskey glass from below the bar and ran a towel over it, polishing it clean. "Mikoto's not the type to keep that kind of valuable info hidden from a group of upstanding guys like you, eh Mikoto?"

Mikoto gave an amused "Humph" and led me into the room.

Tatara met us halfway from the bar and knelt until our heights appeared the same. He looked me in the eye and seemed quite pleased with what he saw. It almost made me wonder for a moment if he saw what Mikoto saw, though something deep inside me told me that it wouldn’t have mattered either way if he did.

“You, miss, are in a high-class establishment, where princesses get extra special treatment,” he declared, “So what’ll it be? Juice? A soda? A sundae, perhaps? You know, we make them special here.” He leaned in close in a private whisper. “We throw extra cherries on top — the bright red ones. Because after all, this is Homra. Red’s our specialty here.” He winked, making me blush. “So how about it?”

I couldn’t help but smile, happy as I was to be a prisoner of such spirited eyes as those that looked at me.

I nodded, suddenly bashful, and he took my hand in his, leading me (after a brief, affirming head-cock from Mikoto) to the bar, to a stool I realized I could not attempt to mount all by myself. Then, to my surprise, I felt myself ascending from the ground by sturdy hands, depositing me swiftly with a plop atop the stool.

The sudden act surprised me, and I thought at first that Tatara had plucked me off the ground. Peering back, I found it was Mikoto, who, on sitting down beside me, shifted me the subtlest of glances. Through this, I could see that he was laughing to himself, even more amused on seeing just how flushed I had become.

“One ice cream sundae for the princess,” Tatara said to the man behind the bar, and a casual, “Mei Oui,” had the four-eyed tender scooping, pouring, dolloping away to my awe and wonderment. Truly, he was a master, I could tell.

My name was promptly asked and given after that. When asked from where I came and why I picked up such an ‘unscrupulous character’ as Mikoto — Tatara’s words, not mine — I answered that Mikoto had, in fact, found me in distress and offered me his aid.

Izumo – for that was the name of the man behind the bar - looked dubiously at Mikoto. “Is that so? You know, they have a word for ruffians like you who pick up unsuspecting females off the street.” He gave scanned another glance in my direction. “And kid females at that.”

I looked up at Mikoto. He knew as well as I that I had sent the probing question onto him, and he then had to answer.

A brief glimmer of aggravation came my way from him, sent deeper into gloominess at my vague inclinations of amusement. “She’s a Strain,” he mumbled sleepily.

Here, Yata - whom I now refer to as Misaki, his first name - cautiously approached. Meanwhile, the others had dispersed. They must have thought the convoluted presence of so many of their character was daunting to a dainty little lady like myself. I didn’t complain.

“Hey, you don’t think she’s got somethin’ to do with those outsiders causin’ trouble in Shizume last night, do ya?” Misaki posed. While his gestures were reserved in my presence, his tone certainly wasn’t. One would have thought he spoke of candy that he’d never had but always wanted to try. Leaning close to to the bar, he said in a not-so-subtle whisper, “Maybe she knows somethin’!”

His eyes met Izumo’s. They both looked to Mikoto. Mikoto lit a cigarette.

The silence seemed so loud all of a sudden. Thank goodness for the sundae Tatara snatched and slid before my eyes. He had lopped on seven massive cherries, and just as he had promised, they were unequivocally the reddest of red.

Then — bless Tatara once again! — he interjected. “Shame on you, Yata, for thinking this cute princess would ever get herself mixed up with a group of very un-princely-like individuals.”

I sent a brief, darting eye to Mikoto, and he to me.

“So you didn’t burn ‘em?” Mikoto asked.

“Oh, well uh — “ Misaki began, but Izumo finished for him.

“There’ll be plenty of time for that later,” he said, inciting tense expressions from Mikoto toward his fag and me to my sundae, yet nothing to Izumo’s unsuspecting eyes. “Right now, we’ve got more important things to consider.” When he paused, I inadvertently crept my eyes to him and found that he was staring at Mikoto.

Then, for the first time, Mikoto met his glance.

This seemed like the sign that Izumo had been waiting for, and his eye flicked back to me. “Well then, Anna. It seems this’ll be the first of many sundaes I’ll be whipping up for you.”

“With my auspicious help, of course,” Tatara smiled.

Misaki looked surprised — dare I say mortified? — and noticeably blushed. “Uh... A girl? Here? In Homra?”

“Hey, does this mean you’ll be joining Homra, little missy?” Chimed a passing young man in a derby. He slung his arm around the then stunned Misaki’s collar, and all Misaki did was hum a startled question through the air.

Izumo laughed at this. “If that’s what the, uh, ‘princess,’ wants,” he said with a nod of encouragement from Tatara.

I can’t deny that, inside, I was shocked. Of course, it was I who had proposed the idea to Mikoto in the first place, but only as a cover. It never occurred to either of us – for, glancing up at him, I saw in him as well – that I might actually become a full-fledged member just to satisfy my urge for secrecy. I suppose I didn’t think it could be done, that by some unspoken law, it wasn’t possible, or otherwise not allowed. I didn’t know exactly how it worked. Perhaps Mikoto didn’t either, or perhaps he didn’t care.

Somehow sensing my uneasiness, the derby man leaned further in and offered me a smile, dragging Misaki in with him. “I think you’re really gonna like it here, Miss.” Giving Misaki a squeeze, he said, “Hey Yata, show her our pride.” Then to me, “If you’re going to be one of us, you need to understand that we’re a family and that we always look out for each another. Isn’t that right, Yata?”

Misaki looked annoyed, but at the mention of his pride, he produced a brazen grin and gladly yanked the neckline of his sweatshirt to reveal a red tattoo in the form of a flame that burned its way along his collar bone. “This is the symbol of our pride,” he declared. “A symbol that we’ll always stand together, and that we’ll always fight for our king, Mr. Mikoto.”

I snatched a cherry up and plopped it into my mouth. One might have thought I stuck an apple in it, so huge it felt, and my mouth not nearly adequate enough. I crossed my dangling ankles, thinking a moment. “Will I also have the red?” I asked, staring at the bar.

Tatara chuckled. “I see you like it, huh? Well, of course you’d have it, too! And just look at all the beautiful things you can do with it.” He held his hand before me and a swarm of glittering butterflies emerged, fluttering through the air and circling around me.

I stared at them in wonder. My eyes — clearly larger than my pathetic excuse for a mouth — spoke wonders and he laughed. “You see? There’s more to having power than simply using it for destruction, as I keep telling these guys,” he said, sending out accusatory stares across the bar. “And you’ll get to decide that, too, Princess. So what do you say?”

I felt a sudden rush of warmth, as though the red were already inside me, and I glowed a happy glow that showed itself to Tatara, Izumo, Misaki, and the man in the derby (whose name, I later learned, was Masaomi). “I’d like that very much,” I nodded, doing my best to avoid whatever glare of chastisement I could only guess Mikoto sought to give me in that moment.

“Wonderful!” Masaomi smiled, and, turning round his shoulder to the bar, said “Hey guys! Ya hear that? The princess is going to be Homra’s princess!”

An instant cheer rung out, surprising me that these same men I deemed as thugs would be so kind and genuine to me, accepting me at once, as though it weren’t an issue for debate but rather preconceived – a fact already known that I was theirs. It was in that moment that I witnessed for the first time what it felt like to be home.

“Well, I guess that settles it,” Izumo said. “Looks like you’re stuck with us, Anna.”

Tatara, having beamed at me again, set his elbow on the bar, chin atop his palm while redirecting his attention to Mikoto, “Hey King,” he said, his voice as like a lion tamer’s, soothing, but direct. “Please be graceful with our princess, okay?”

I looked to Tatara, then Mikoto. I sensed a hidden meaning there, but wasn’t sure to ask.

“That’s right, Mikoto,” Izumo agreed. “You might wanna let up a little on this one.” His eyebrows rose, his stare insinuating.

“Why?” Mikoto asked, hardly pressed by it. He inhaled long and blew a swirl of smoke against Izumo. “She’s gotta prove she’s one of us. If I go giving special treatment, people’ll think I’ve lost it.”

Izumo motioned over to me, as though I needed pointing out. “Mikoto, she’s a kid.”

Mikoto blinked a passive stare. “Really?”

“Now, don’t go faking ignorance this time. It’s obvious — “

“ — How about we decide all this later?” Tatara proposed with a clap, successfully diffusing the situation. “Don’t want to spoil our newest clan-princess’s appetite, now do we?”

Mikoto humphed and took a drag.

Izumo shrugged and shook his head, turning back to readdress a set of stemware underneath the bar.

By then, I’d picked off all my cherries and began to burrow my way into the large scoops of strawberry ice cream (with the distinct realization of how hungry I was) when I felt Misaki coming up beside me, slowly, as though I’d run away - or eat him - if he dared make any sudden moves.

"So, uh, Anna, um... How old are ya anyway?” He asked, shifting his eyes awkwardly to the floor.

I realized in that instant: for all his ample hoards of aggression, he was frightfully shy of girls. These outsiders — candy, in his eyes — were well and good for him, but in my less-than-four-foot tall presence, all his confidence was gone. I found him utterly disarmed. This could be fun, I thought.

"Hmm," I said aloud, tapping my small finger on my chin. "How old do I seem?"

Misaki turned abruptly, mouth and eyes hung open in surprise. “Uh… Huh?” He fumbled out. I merely stared at him, peering hard with interest. In truth, I really was curious.

Misaki’s cheeks flushed crimson and I saw behind his terrified expression, a warm-hearted soul. It made me pleased to see it shine so clearly through the rough exterior he posed.

At last, he resigned himself to look at me more fully.

A moment passed.

He gave a sigh and shrugged, chuckling with nervousness away from me. “I, uh, I guess I can't really say,” he answered. “I don't know what it is, but looking at you now, it's sort of hard to tell. Funny, I-I guess I didn’t notice." He stole a glance back up at me and froze, reddening profusely at the little grin I bore. "Oh, crap. Did I say something wrong?" He stammered in a sweat, and I watched his face grow redder as I stuck my finger out and poked him on the nose.

"You're funny, Misaki. I like you," I said in my most unmistakably girlish voice; and just like that, I saw that I’d wholeheartedly confused him.

Happy with myself, I scooped a hearty spoonful of whipped cream and lopped the whole thing in my mouth.

(Chapter Eight: The Shadows // Chapter Ten: Midnight)

(K:Midnight is an Eso Niko Fan Fiction series based on the anime/manga series K, written by GoRa and produced by GoHands. All fan fiction works written by Eso Niko are categorized as ‘unofficial fan fiction,’ and are in no way affiliated to GoRa and GoHands.)

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