Disclaimer: Map Writers do not possess the copyright to the Harukanaru Toki no Nakade franchise, or any of its components or companion works. They are the sole property of their original artist and author Mizuno Touko, and the companies Ruby Party, Koei and VIZ Media. This manga series has been licensed by VIZ Media; please support the author by purchasing the official publications.

Note: Takamichi’s story, continuing from my oneshot Hachiyou no Nozomi, posted under the Map Writers account. This story will not really make sense until you read that short prologue. Please do, and vote on what other stories in this series catch your particular interest.

Shinjirumono

20FacesChizu

Chapter 1- The Barbed Tongue

It’d been a late night. Well, late night/early morning, because it had been cloudy and Fujiwara no Takamichi couldn’t see whether or not the moon was passed its midpoint when he’d finally dropped on his futon, yukata spread haphazardly around his body, and fallen into a deep, completely undisturbed sleep.

The sleeping night would be short; he would wake at dawn, he supposed…

He awoke with a scream.

Well, definitely not his scream, because it was a racket that was waking him up ever so unwillingly, and he squint his closed eyes fitfully, wishing that whoever it was would just shut up and give him a couple more hours of sleep. But that scream was now accompanied by the pounding of feet and many voices, and one veritably feminine voice that was currently barking in a very unpleasant manner about something that had thoroughly upset her, though he refused to wake up enough to understand why.

“Takamichi-dono! Takamichi-dono, please wake up!” Well, now his father’s chief of staff was here, so that was the end of that. Deep green eyes flickered a little, open and closed, before finally widening enough to see the blurred sets of color around the room that indicated furniture and the many-colored blobs that were people. Hesitantly, and a little sore and stiff from another long evening job, he sat up and reached off to the side, and grabbed his spectacles, shoving them up his nose carelessly before glancing sleepily around the room.

Too much chaos this early in the morning, honestly.

Though it didn’t appear to be very early in the morning, since the sun was already sitting amongst the tops of the trees. Shoot, it was already nearing noon. He was late for work.

From there, his eyes followed the doorframe down to where three of the four people were, and he now noticed that, among them, there was a stranger.

“Is this young lady a new hire?” he asked politely, monitoring his speech carefully as he addressed the unusual guest. The chief of staff, Mei, face-faulted. Well, they were aware that Takamichi was a low-blood-pressure ghost in the mornings.

“No, sire. It appears that she somehow got into the mansion this morning. Did you not hear her screams?”

“I did. I was wondering what was wrong. Did something happen?” Well, the question was directed at her, the girl who currently struggled in the arms of the young lord’s bodyguards. She was rather pretty- her hair was a deep, teal color that reminded him of the ocean, and she was easily as tall as any one of his guards, which made holding onto her quite difficult. Her sharp eyes, a few shades darker than her hair, turned on him menacingly at the knowledge that the question had been aimed at her.

“That’s what I want to know, bastards! Where is this?! What the hell you thinking?!” She cursed roughly, and when one of the guards accidentally touched her breast while trying to restrain her during her renewed escape attempts, she barked out a crass threat that made him back away from her altogether, slightly fearful of her ever-heightening wrath. Well, low-blood-pressure ghost that he was, Takamichi couldn’t find it in himself to be offended by her incredibly poisonous mouth at the moment, so he stood, adjusting his sleepwear a little, and walked up to her with more sleeplessness than patience in his acts.

“I would have you know that you are the one in my home, miss. Would you mind telling me how you got in here?” He looked at her placidly, eyes stinging from their short amount of rest, and she in return glared at him, eyes burning with obvious spite.

“How should I know?! I woke up here, bastard. You kidnapped me for something, didn’t you?! What is it now, has the old man fallen in with the yakuza? Even if he has, I don’t know that drunk anymore, so taking me hostage doesn’t mean a damned thing!” Without warning, she thrust her elbow into her captor’s side, and once released in his pain, she grabbed the front of the young lord’s yukata, her nose coming within and inch of his as she snarled viciously. “If you’ve done anything to my little brothers, I swear-!”

“I assure you I have not touched your family; or you, for that matter.” Well, he was more awake now, but the most he could manage in face of the vicious little hellion in front of him was a tired, almost pouting look. “As for why you are here, I haven’t the slightest. I’m not of the yakuza, and my family is noble blood, moreover, even if I am not a legitimate son.”

Her eyes flickered a little with confusion, but she did not release him, even as he moved and placed his hands gently over hers.

“Then who are you?” she asked roughly. She wasn’t snarling any more, which was an improvement, but she still looked as though she found him completely deplorable. Such a sentiment at this point didn’t make the least of sense, but he sighed and answered her question, wondering if he hadn’t already been over this with her or not, but still too sleepy to remember.

“I am Fujiwara no Takamichi, of the Imperial Archives. May I now inquire as to your identity, my mysterious lady?” She seemed to notice her proximity to him then, and released her grip, pulling away in disgust, her delicate nose scrunched distastefully.

“And if I say no?” He sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose and waving listlessly for the other men to exit the room. Upon the click of the door, he turned again to her.

“And if you say no, I will be forced to name you, because I cannot simply refer to a lady with whom I am not familiar in such a rude manner as I have been already.” The snarl was back.

“And if you were familiar with me, would you act like a chauvinist pig?”

Even if he was still half asleep, that was something he would be able to register. His temple twitched in annoyance as he moved up from the bridge of his nose to massage away the wrinkles that were try to prematurely form between his young brows.

“If I were familiar with you, I would still give you proper respect as a lady, as is a man’s duty. Will you accept that and allow me a name?”

“No. I won’t. Send me home now.”

“To where should I return you?”

“Don’t you damn well know already?!”

“I’m afraid I don’t, as the first time I’ve seen you happened to be when you were struggling with my guards at my door. Shall I return you to the air in the doorway of my room?” he was so exhausted with the banter they had going on already that he couldn’t even be proud of his surprisingly snappy comebacks. She looked about ready to yell at him again, though out of frustration, since she apparently was lost for words on this instance. Instead, he headed her off, looking at her as steadily as possible in light of her intimidating temper. “While you debate whether or not to tell me who you are, my lady, please step out side so that I might make myself more presentable. As much as I would love to understand the you that is such a mystery, I must insist that it happen in more modest apparel.”

She didn’t respond, but her face was less of every emotion in that moment, and settled onto disgruntled dislike. She cursed quietly again, before spinning on her heel and snapping open the door, the frame sounding a disturbing crack as she slammed it shut behind her.

When he entered the dining hall, accompanied (at a distance) by the mystery girl, he was quite surprised to find that he apparently had a surprising guest. It was a rare thing when Tachibana no Tomomasa came to his home specifically, but today it appeared that he also was graced with an unusual visitor, in the form of an evergreen-haired, timid beauty. His uneasy expression showed him for being incredibly disturbed by the situation, though considering his manner with women, Takamichi was even more bothered that he was disturbed at all.

“Tomomasa-san, who is this lady?” he asked politely, bowing to her slightly in acknowledgement. She shied away, great doe-eyes of thundercloud gray looking at him with nothing short of fear and an unquenchable desire to run. To his surprise, the older man grunted, discomfited.

“Is that your visitor, Takamichi?” Behind him, the girl stifled a noise akin to a growl. When he looked back at her, he noticed that her nose was scrunched again, and he laughed nervously, moving from the doorway to sit in front of his friend.

“I’m afraid she has yet to be anything but a mystery woman, Tomomasa-san. She refuses to even tell me her name.”

The girl was already inching her way into the room, just along the edge, but she flinched noticeably when a pair of analytic aqua eyes pinned her critically. It was no trouble to glare at him violently, a silent command that he not look at her in such a threatening manner. In accordance with that command, he glanced away, eyes falling shut in a half-hearted sigh.

“Well, you might as well tell us your name, young lady. You’re going to be here for the next two weeks, according to our princess.”

Her movements halted, shoulders stiff as she froze, before she took the distance between herself and the general in all but a single stride, her knee dropping on to the table with a disturbing thwack, and her hand reaching to grasp the lapels of his kimono. She growled when he stopped her from touching him.

“You bastard! I don’t have time for this! Just tell me where the hell I am and I’ll walk home!”

“I’m afraid even if I did tell you where you are, you wouldn’t be able to walk home, little princess.” Even if the words were teasing, his eyes glinted ruefully. “You’ll just have to settle down and bow you head to Takamichi over there, and be a good little house-guest for a couple of weeks.”

“Like hell I will!”

“You don’t exactly have a choice. Neither does she.”

And the mention of ‘she,’ he jerked his head back and to the right a little, indicating the woman that had come with him. Her eyes were tearing and mournful, looking at the younger girl in a way that almost seemed like she was asking to be saved from something, though she had little hope that she could be saved.

“Her name is Tsukikage Hyourin. Other than that, all I can get are screams and apologies.”

“What did you do to her?”

“Absolutely nothing besides wake up.” Her deep teal gaze returned from the pathetically shivering mess of a woman to the unease man whose face was currently only a breadth of several inches from her own. She examined him shortly, and finally pulled back growling as she pulled herself up to full height.

“Whatever you say, it’s not changing my mind. I have to go back. I have kids to take care of, and no time to be lolling around here.”

“He doesn’t have a say, actually.”

The room’s occupants looked up at the new voice, a pink-haired, green-eyed girl entering the room with a bright smile on her face. Immediately, the two men stood and bowed to her respectfully. The girl smiled at them, and crossed the room, moving to the youngest occupant’s side lightly, her socked feet bouncing across the tatami with only a rustle.

“And don’t worry about your brothers. Kei, Shou and Gin, right? Ryuujin brought them to my house last night. They were kind of confused when they woke up this morning, but believe me, they’ll be fine. I got them to school already, but I had a self-study period this morning, so I decided to come and tell everyone what was going on before you had too much time to wig out. But I have to get back to Fuji-hime-chan’s house here in a minute, so if you’ve got questions, you might ask them kinda quickly, okay?” The boys smiled in nervous amusement at her prattle, but the girl she was currently talking to was simply… flabbergasted, maybe.

“My brothers-?”

“Are gonna stay with me~.”

“And you are?”

“Third-year, class B, Motomiya Akane.”

“And this is?”

“Assuming you woke up here in Takamichi-san’s house, that would mean the two of you are soul mates. Happy early Valentine’s Day.”

AN: I love Akane sometimes. This seems like something she'd do, really it does. If you're lost on what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks is going on, the oneshot "Hachiyou no Nozomi" on my "Map Writers" account is the prologue. If you like Takamichi but he isn't your favorite, I will be doing a story for each of the Hachiyou, and you are welcome to pick your poison. Have fun, and please review~.

Next Chapter: Paperwork