The title search continues.
Feb. 9th, 2006 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sakon76Have decided that after I get this all finished, I need to go back through and trim all sections that are from Subaru's POV. Because the domestic thing, I can handle. The dating Kaoruko thing I can handle. Even the aesthetic moonlit thing in the Tree of Evil I can handle. But the Subaru being verbose thing? A bit too weird for me. Also, need to go back into bunraku research and figure out what play the Tachibana school is putting on. And, incidentally, this thing is at 61K now on four days' writing. The entire last fic (the WK/MTT one) is only 56K and that's with a ton of notes appended into the file. So let's see if this ends up anywhere near Bloodstone which I think is my current longest stand-alone at 120K. Also, I'm having fun with this again now that I've remembered my Prime Directive for writing: "Go where the pain is."
Sakon struggled. Not with the puppet--two others helped to carry and manipulate it and he held and manipulated Ukon, who was not a light doll himself, daily. Nor was he having problems with the play, its material, or its themes. No, his problem was with Kunosuke, who for some reason had always taken offense that Grandfather had chosen Sakon to be the next head of the Tachibana family and bunraku style.
/I know I'm only sixteen,/ he thought rebelliously, keeping his thoughts from his face. /I know I'm inexperiences. And I know that every single member of this troupe has been publicly performing at least five years longer than I have./ He wished he could have Ukon with him. Even Kunosuke had never been able to stand up to Ukon's cutting remarks. But this was practice, and so Ukon slept in his box.
At least there was only one Kunosuke. If the others had rounded as strongly on Sakon as his cousin had, he'd have been forced to give up bunraku, despite his core-deep love for it, and study in earnest with the Sumeragi to see if he couldn't also somehow manage to make magic a living.
Not that Kunosuke or anyone outside of Sakon's immediate family knew about the magic, of course.
Not that Kunosuke would have believed it even if he had. He still saw Ukon, after nine years, as some sort of prop, an indication of a flawed personality.
/There are none so blind,/ Sakon thought, wondering when and how he should end Kunosuke's self-centric tirade. He had the right and (theoretically) he had the authority. Ukon had chided him for putting up with Kunosuke for this long, and even Saemon had mentioned that Kunosuke should have been put in his place by now. But what to say?
Then the answer came to him and Sakon tried not to smile, waiting instead for a suitable pause in Kunosuke's criticisms (it came in the form of a pause to breathe) before simply saying "I'm sorry you feel that way," and turning and walking away.
A murmur of sound, possibly approval from the other troupe members, followed him as he made his way backstage, ignoring Kunosuke's attempts to flag his attention and restart his harangue.
Everyone was right. He really had been letting this go on too long. But, Sakon acknowledged to himself and with a sigh, he /was/ only sitxeen and authority was still new to him. And Ukon would yell at him for that thought, for his lack of self-confidence.
Ukon's yelling, though, Sakon didn't mind.
*
How the afterlife manufactured its fake IDs for its agents Subaru did not know. But the credentials always checked out, and Tsuzuki, at least, was good at charming people into believing he was whatever he was supposed to be. Kurosaki, of a much more guarded nature, tended to fade into the background while his parnter worked. For his part, Subaru tried to stay out of sight--he'd just worked a job in this hospital and while it hadn't involved interaction with very many people, being recognized right now could be awkward.
"He's very good at this," he murmured to Kurosaki, watching "ned doctor" Tsuzuki wrap two station nurses around his finger and ask, incidentally, about his old friend who was also working here. They hadn't seen one another in ages, and was there any chance they knew when Muraki-kun's next shift was? He'd like to surprise him.
"Yeah." Kurosaki shifted against the wall. Half-shadows from a potted palm fern striped his face. A moment later he added, "Sometimes I think he half believes those lies while telling them."
"I never thought Tsuzuki-san was a sociopath."
"Not that way," Kurosaki deferred. "It's... he wants to be normal so badly."
"We all do, sometimes," Subaru said ruefully, remembering a boy with wings. "Not that 'normal' people have it much easier."
Kurosaki looked at him with skepticism in his green eyes. "Normal people don't have to stop and think to figure out if what they're feeling is their own emotions or someone else's."
"Normal people don't tend to fall in love with the assassins who plan to kill them, either," Subaru argued. "That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt as much when their hearts are broken.
Kurosaki looked away again, back at his partner. "I suppose."
"Or mended," Subaru added, drawing Kurosaki's gaze again, but he carefully ignored that, waiting instead for Tsuzuki to finish up. He'd taken the liberty of requesting a more detailed report of the events in Kyoto not only from the Sumeragi administrators, but also directly from Tatsumi. In the late-night reading, certain things had become clear, and Subaru was the last person to object.
People needed one another.
Finishing up his flirting (how did Kurosaki manage not to be jealous?), Tsuzuki bounded back over to them, information secured, and proposed lunch (and dessert, please, Hisoka?) at a nearby cafe.
Watching Kurosaki's half-resigned, half-accepting agreement, Subaru thought that yes, the partners suited one another very well. Which made him somehow happy.
*
"It's him," Tsuzuki said after the waitress had delivered their orders. For himself there was a strawberry parfait. Hisoka had ordered an expresso, and the Sumeragi had green tea and a roll that he scrupulously cut in half and shared with Hisoka. "There can only be so many 'handsome' Doctor Murakis out there with silver hair. He works a night shift, but today's his day off."
"Do we wait, or try to find out his home address?" Sumeragi asked.
Tsuzuki played with a strawberry. "Wait, I think." He looked at Hisoka for his partner's opinion.
The not-teen nodded. "There's no reason to give him the home advantage."
"But won't waiting give him a hospital full of potential hostages?" Sumeragi inquired. "Or, at the very least, potential collateral damage."
"I doubt it," Hisoka said, hands curled around his cup. "He prefers to work one-on-one with his victims." He looked at Tsuzuki. "You didn't happen to find out what ward he works in, did you?"
Tsuzuki swallowed but the berry felt like it went down sideways, and the cream turned to ashes. "Pediatrics," he murmured.
Hisoka's eyes flew wide.
"I take it he specialized in child victims, then?" Sumeragi asked quietly.
"Yes," Tsuzuki answered, working very hard not to look at Hisoka. "Though not exclusively."
"Why do they always choose children?" Sumeragi murmured to himself, making Tsuzuki look sharply at him and remember what he'd once been told--that Sumeragi had been only a child when he first caught the Sakurazukamori's attention.
"Purity," Hisoka answered, toying with his cup. "Something no one else has touched. Something unstained." His mouth twisted. "Ownership."
"I think," Tsuzuki said, "we should visit the children's ward and find out what he's been doing."
*
At lunch Jun pulled out his celphone and dialed home. It rang a few times, then was answered. "Hello?" a childish voice inquired.
He smiled. "Hello, Hinaichigo."
"Wai! Shinku-chan, it's Jun!" she yelled into the background. She turned her attention back to him. "We're all being veeeery good," she enunciated. "Nori said if we were we could have cake later!"
"Hinaichigo, give me the phone" Shinku instructed.
"Right! Bye-bye, Jun!" And the smaller doll handed him over to Shinku.
"Jun," said Shinku into the phone, "aren't you in class?"
"No, I'm at lunch now," he answered. "Has Suigintou come back yet?"
"No." Somewhere behind her he could hear Suiseiseki arguing with Kanaria. "Holie hasn't been able to find her."
Jun sighed. "I'd hoped she'd come back."
Shinku was silent, then replied, "So had I."
He sighed again. Tomoe waved his wrapped lunch box to catch his attention, then wiggled her fingers. "Tomoe says hi. I'll be home later. Tell them not to destroy the house, okay?"
"Goodbye, Jun." Shinku hung up the phone.
"Is there any word?" Tomoe asked him.
He put away his phone and accepted the bento box she handed him. "None."
*
When Suigintou opened her eyes, she found that she lay on a doll's bed, just her own size, with an embroidered pillow beneath her head and a silken coverlet over her. The ceiling far above her was white and smooth, but green plants lurked around the edge of her vision, giving the room a lush feel. Sitting up, she discovered that someone had transformed a corner of a human-sized room into a budoir for her, with brightly painted screens, a doll's wardrobe, and even a table and chairs just her size, the former covered with a lacy tablecloth.
She had no idea where she was.
She stood cautiously and looked around her at all the lovely things. They were beautiful and perfect, exquisitely chosen with the needs of a living doll in mind. Even the bed's mattress, she could feel beneath one hand, was of the highest quality, stuffed with fine eiderdown.
Why had anyone done this for her?
On the far side of the room, behind the screen of ferns, a door opened and then closed. Suigintou watched the approaching legs through the veiling greenery until at last they rounded the row of plants and the man came fully into her view. He was tall for a human, and dressed in pale colors that accentuated his almost albino coloration. His hair, like hers, was silver, but the eye she could see, his other being hidden by a spill of hair, was palest gold. He was not old for a human, but not particularly young either. He smiled when he saw that she was awake. "Would you care for some tea?" he inquired, "or perhaps coffee?"
"Who are you?" she asked.
He knelt on the floor, carefully setting the tray down. "My name is Muraki Kazutaka. I'm a doctor."
She hated doctors. They hadn't been able to fix Meg.
"Please, have a seat," he invited, gesturing at the table. Slowly Suigintou crossed to it as he busied himself with the contents of his tray. "Tea or coffee?" he asked again.
"Coffee," she said, because the other dolls drank tea.
He poured coffee into a doll-sized china cup. It was delft pattern of white and blue, with silver accents. It was perhaps finer than Shinku's. "Do you take cream or sugar?" he inquired.
"Sugar," she replied, because that was how Father had always taken his, "but no cream."
He added the sugar and stirred it in with a just-her-size silver spoon, then set the coffee before Shinku. She stared down into it. It was dark and fragrant. Given everything else she'd seen so far, she was willing to wager it was of the highest quality. Setting the spoon aside on the saucer, she took a sip. It was.
He was watching her from behind his glasses as he sipped at his own cup. He seemed so casual, undisturbed by the existence of a doll like herself when most humans didn't even realize that magic existed. She took another swallow, looking around the small room he'd set up for her, and felt the place in her heart that was reserved for Meg.
This would be a good place to stay, wouldn't it, for just a little while?
"My name," she said finally, answering the question the man hadn't asked, "is Suigintou."
*
Touring the children's ward took several hours. The three of them, by mutual consent, split up early on to examine the children and rooms. While smaller children were entranced by his "magic tricks" (he doubted any of them realized it was true magic), Subaru cast his eyes on them and their environs, not merely the beds and walls, but deep down to the roots of the hospital and out to the grounds and the caging air, examining lines of power and the layered Shinto and Buddhist blessings upon the place. Aside from the vague warping that the pressure of the concentration of illness in a hospital always caused, however, everything Subaru saw looked untainted. As far as he could tell, Doctor Muraki hadn't cast any spells on either the hospital itself or any of the children Subaru visited. As an extra precaution, however, he murmured soft chants of health and protection on each room he visited, watching as those children able to chased a miniature kite, and those unable were chirped at, meowed at, or snuggled by shikigami animals.
The collective "awww"s as he left each room were more than worth the small amount of energy the distractions cost him.
Whatever Muraki was up to, he concluded, the children of the hospital weren't involved in it.
*
Ukon rang the doorbell, then Sakon handed him back the white box. They'd stopped at a nice bakery and picked up some sweets to make up for the inconvenience of their visit. Sakon hoped they were to the taste of Nori and the others. He also hoped they weren't being too disruptive, but he'd never met other doll-hearted people near his own age before and somehow the acquaintance was important.
Nori opened the door. "Oh, Tachibana-san! Ukon-san!" She smiled. "Please, won't you come in?"
"Thank you." Sakon stepped inside and slipped off his shoes.
Ukon offered the box to Nori. "Here. We brought cakes."
"Thank you," she said, accepting. "We were just about to have tea. Would you like to join us?"
"Sure!" Ukon enthused.
*
Okay, so the medium and his puppet were /maybe/ a little stranger than everyone else Jun hung around with, but if so, he admitted, it wasn't by much. He looked around the table, at the four dolls (five if you counted the puppet but he didn't eat) sipping at their tea and nibbling the cakes Tachibana had brought. "Does Ukon go with you to school?" he asked curiously. Because he wouldn't take Shinku to school, but then Shinku was a different kind of magical doll.
"Used to," Ukon answered. "It was boooring!"
Tachibana smiled. "I don't go to school any longer," he explained.
"Oh, you work?" Nori asked. "What do you do?"
"I'm a bunraku performer." It was one of those things that so obviously fit that it made Jun feel stupid for not realizing it from the beginning.
"Our parents took us to a bunraku play once!" Nori enthused. "It was a few years ago. Do you remember, Jun-kun?"
He did, vaugely. Something about a sword?
"What's bunraku?" Suiseiseki asked.
"It's a puppet performance," Nori explained. "There's a man who chants the story while the puppeteers onstage manipulate the puppets to perform it."
"Not too different from what Sakon does with me," Ukon added, "except without the other dolls being haunted, of course."
"It's like Kun-kun!" Hinaichigo enthused, which wasn't quite right but probably as close as she could get.
Shinku set down her teacup. "Jun," she addressed him, "I should like to see some 'bunraku'."
"Um," Jun hedged, feeling all four of the Rozen dolls looking expectantly at him.
Tachibana and Ukon looked at one another. "Well?" Ukon asked.
"I could probably get tickets for you to our next play," Sakon offered.
"Could Grandma and Grandpa come too?" Suiseiseki asked.
"Suiseiseki," hissed her twin.
"What?" she asked Soiseiseki.
"That shouldn't be a problem," Tachibana answered. "Would Kanaria-san and Suigintou-san like to come as well?"
Around the table everyone else looked at one another, or away.
"Somethin' wrong?" Ukon asked.
Hinaichigo was the only one who spoke up. "Um," she said uneasily and unhappily, "Suigintou-chan's gone."
"She left last night," Soiseiseki expanded. "We don't know where she went."
The puppet and puppeteer looked at one another again. "/You/ get to tell Sumeragi-sensee," Ukon declared.
"Is it going to cause problems?" Nori worried.
"Only if Suigintou-san does," Tachibana replied, his mouth set in a line, "I hope."
Sakon struggled. Not with the puppet--two others helped to carry and manipulate it and he held and manipulated Ukon, who was not a light doll himself, daily. Nor was he having problems with the play, its material, or its themes. No, his problem was with Kunosuke, who for some reason had always taken offense that Grandfather had chosen Sakon to be the next head of the Tachibana family and bunraku style.
/I know I'm only sixteen,/ he thought rebelliously, keeping his thoughts from his face. /I know I'm inexperiences. And I know that every single member of this troupe has been publicly performing at least five years longer than I have./ He wished he could have Ukon with him. Even Kunosuke had never been able to stand up to Ukon's cutting remarks. But this was practice, and so Ukon slept in his box.
At least there was only one Kunosuke. If the others had rounded as strongly on Sakon as his cousin had, he'd have been forced to give up bunraku, despite his core-deep love for it, and study in earnest with the Sumeragi to see if he couldn't also somehow manage to make magic a living.
Not that Kunosuke or anyone outside of Sakon's immediate family knew about the magic, of course.
Not that Kunosuke would have believed it even if he had. He still saw Ukon, after nine years, as some sort of prop, an indication of a flawed personality.
/There are none so blind,/ Sakon thought, wondering when and how he should end Kunosuke's self-centric tirade. He had the right and (theoretically) he had the authority. Ukon had chided him for putting up with Kunosuke for this long, and even Saemon had mentioned that Kunosuke should have been put in his place by now. But what to say?
Then the answer came to him and Sakon tried not to smile, waiting instead for a suitable pause in Kunosuke's criticisms (it came in the form of a pause to breathe) before simply saying "I'm sorry you feel that way," and turning and walking away.
A murmur of sound, possibly approval from the other troupe members, followed him as he made his way backstage, ignoring Kunosuke's attempts to flag his attention and restart his harangue.
Everyone was right. He really had been letting this go on too long. But, Sakon acknowledged to himself and with a sigh, he /was/ only sitxeen and authority was still new to him. And Ukon would yell at him for that thought, for his lack of self-confidence.
Ukon's yelling, though, Sakon didn't mind.
How the afterlife manufactured its fake IDs for its agents Subaru did not know. But the credentials always checked out, and Tsuzuki, at least, was good at charming people into believing he was whatever he was supposed to be. Kurosaki, of a much more guarded nature, tended to fade into the background while his parnter worked. For his part, Subaru tried to stay out of sight--he'd just worked a job in this hospital and while it hadn't involved interaction with very many people, being recognized right now could be awkward.
"He's very good at this," he murmured to Kurosaki, watching "ned doctor" Tsuzuki wrap two station nurses around his finger and ask, incidentally, about his old friend who was also working here. They hadn't seen one another in ages, and was there any chance they knew when Muraki-kun's next shift was? He'd like to surprise him.
"Yeah." Kurosaki shifted against the wall. Half-shadows from a potted palm fern striped his face. A moment later he added, "Sometimes I think he half believes those lies while telling them."
"I never thought Tsuzuki-san was a sociopath."
"Not that way," Kurosaki deferred. "It's... he wants to be normal so badly."
"We all do, sometimes," Subaru said ruefully, remembering a boy with wings. "Not that 'normal' people have it much easier."
Kurosaki looked at him with skepticism in his green eyes. "Normal people don't have to stop and think to figure out if what they're feeling is their own emotions or someone else's."
"Normal people don't tend to fall in love with the assassins who plan to kill them, either," Subaru argued. "That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt as much when their hearts are broken.
Kurosaki looked away again, back at his partner. "I suppose."
"Or mended," Subaru added, drawing Kurosaki's gaze again, but he carefully ignored that, waiting instead for Tsuzuki to finish up. He'd taken the liberty of requesting a more detailed report of the events in Kyoto not only from the Sumeragi administrators, but also directly from Tatsumi. In the late-night reading, certain things had become clear, and Subaru was the last person to object.
People needed one another.
Finishing up his flirting (how did Kurosaki manage not to be jealous?), Tsuzuki bounded back over to them, information secured, and proposed lunch (and dessert, please, Hisoka?) at a nearby cafe.
Watching Kurosaki's half-resigned, half-accepting agreement, Subaru thought that yes, the partners suited one another very well. Which made him somehow happy.
"It's him," Tsuzuki said after the waitress had delivered their orders. For himself there was a strawberry parfait. Hisoka had ordered an expresso, and the Sumeragi had green tea and a roll that he scrupulously cut in half and shared with Hisoka. "There can only be so many 'handsome' Doctor Murakis out there with silver hair. He works a night shift, but today's his day off."
"Do we wait, or try to find out his home address?" Sumeragi asked.
Tsuzuki played with a strawberry. "Wait, I think." He looked at Hisoka for his partner's opinion.
The not-teen nodded. "There's no reason to give him the home advantage."
"But won't waiting give him a hospital full of potential hostages?" Sumeragi inquired. "Or, at the very least, potential collateral damage."
"I doubt it," Hisoka said, hands curled around his cup. "He prefers to work one-on-one with his victims." He looked at Tsuzuki. "You didn't happen to find out what ward he works in, did you?"
Tsuzuki swallowed but the berry felt like it went down sideways, and the cream turned to ashes. "Pediatrics," he murmured.
Hisoka's eyes flew wide.
"I take it he specialized in child victims, then?" Sumeragi asked quietly.
"Yes," Tsuzuki answered, working very hard not to look at Hisoka. "Though not exclusively."
"Why do they always choose children?" Sumeragi murmured to himself, making Tsuzuki look sharply at him and remember what he'd once been told--that Sumeragi had been only a child when he first caught the Sakurazukamori's attention.
"Purity," Hisoka answered, toying with his cup. "Something no one else has touched. Something unstained." His mouth twisted. "Ownership."
"I think," Tsuzuki said, "we should visit the children's ward and find out what he's been doing."
At lunch Jun pulled out his celphone and dialed home. It rang a few times, then was answered. "Hello?" a childish voice inquired.
He smiled. "Hello, Hinaichigo."
"Wai! Shinku-chan, it's Jun!" she yelled into the background. She turned her attention back to him. "We're all being veeeery good," she enunciated. "Nori said if we were we could have cake later!"
"Hinaichigo, give me the phone" Shinku instructed.
"Right! Bye-bye, Jun!" And the smaller doll handed him over to Shinku.
"Jun," said Shinku into the phone, "aren't you in class?"
"No, I'm at lunch now," he answered. "Has Suigintou come back yet?"
"No." Somewhere behind her he could hear Suiseiseki arguing with Kanaria. "Holie hasn't been able to find her."
Jun sighed. "I'd hoped she'd come back."
Shinku was silent, then replied, "So had I."
He sighed again. Tomoe waved his wrapped lunch box to catch his attention, then wiggled her fingers. "Tomoe says hi. I'll be home later. Tell them not to destroy the house, okay?"
"Goodbye, Jun." Shinku hung up the phone.
"Is there any word?" Tomoe asked him.
He put away his phone and accepted the bento box she handed him. "None."
When Suigintou opened her eyes, she found that she lay on a doll's bed, just her own size, with an embroidered pillow beneath her head and a silken coverlet over her. The ceiling far above her was white and smooth, but green plants lurked around the edge of her vision, giving the room a lush feel. Sitting up, she discovered that someone had transformed a corner of a human-sized room into a budoir for her, with brightly painted screens, a doll's wardrobe, and even a table and chairs just her size, the former covered with a lacy tablecloth.
She had no idea where she was.
She stood cautiously and looked around her at all the lovely things. They were beautiful and perfect, exquisitely chosen with the needs of a living doll in mind. Even the bed's mattress, she could feel beneath one hand, was of the highest quality, stuffed with fine eiderdown.
Why had anyone done this for her?
On the far side of the room, behind the screen of ferns, a door opened and then closed. Suigintou watched the approaching legs through the veiling greenery until at last they rounded the row of plants and the man came fully into her view. He was tall for a human, and dressed in pale colors that accentuated his almost albino coloration. His hair, like hers, was silver, but the eye she could see, his other being hidden by a spill of hair, was palest gold. He was not old for a human, but not particularly young either. He smiled when he saw that she was awake. "Would you care for some tea?" he inquired, "or perhaps coffee?"
"Who are you?" she asked.
He knelt on the floor, carefully setting the tray down. "My name is Muraki Kazutaka. I'm a doctor."
She hated doctors. They hadn't been able to fix Meg.
"Please, have a seat," he invited, gesturing at the table. Slowly Suigintou crossed to it as he busied himself with the contents of his tray. "Tea or coffee?" he asked again.
"Coffee," she said, because the other dolls drank tea.
He poured coffee into a doll-sized china cup. It was delft pattern of white and blue, with silver accents. It was perhaps finer than Shinku's. "Do you take cream or sugar?" he inquired.
"Sugar," she replied, because that was how Father had always taken his, "but no cream."
He added the sugar and stirred it in with a just-her-size silver spoon, then set the coffee before Shinku. She stared down into it. It was dark and fragrant. Given everything else she'd seen so far, she was willing to wager it was of the highest quality. Setting the spoon aside on the saucer, she took a sip. It was.
He was watching her from behind his glasses as he sipped at his own cup. He seemed so casual, undisturbed by the existence of a doll like herself when most humans didn't even realize that magic existed. She took another swallow, looking around the small room he'd set up for her, and felt the place in her heart that was reserved for Meg.
This would be a good place to stay, wouldn't it, for just a little while?
"My name," she said finally, answering the question the man hadn't asked, "is Suigintou."
Touring the children's ward took several hours. The three of them, by mutual consent, split up early on to examine the children and rooms. While smaller children were entranced by his "magic tricks" (he doubted any of them realized it was true magic), Subaru cast his eyes on them and their environs, not merely the beds and walls, but deep down to the roots of the hospital and out to the grounds and the caging air, examining lines of power and the layered Shinto and Buddhist blessings upon the place. Aside from the vague warping that the pressure of the concentration of illness in a hospital always caused, however, everything Subaru saw looked untainted. As far as he could tell, Doctor Muraki hadn't cast any spells on either the hospital itself or any of the children Subaru visited. As an extra precaution, however, he murmured soft chants of health and protection on each room he visited, watching as those children able to chased a miniature kite, and those unable were chirped at, meowed at, or snuggled by shikigami animals.
The collective "awww"s as he left each room were more than worth the small amount of energy the distractions cost him.
Whatever Muraki was up to, he concluded, the children of the hospital weren't involved in it.
Ukon rang the doorbell, then Sakon handed him back the white box. They'd stopped at a nice bakery and picked up some sweets to make up for the inconvenience of their visit. Sakon hoped they were to the taste of Nori and the others. He also hoped they weren't being too disruptive, but he'd never met other doll-hearted people near his own age before and somehow the acquaintance was important.
Nori opened the door. "Oh, Tachibana-san! Ukon-san!" She smiled. "Please, won't you come in?"
"Thank you." Sakon stepped inside and slipped off his shoes.
Ukon offered the box to Nori. "Here. We brought cakes."
"Thank you," she said, accepting. "We were just about to have tea. Would you like to join us?"
"Sure!" Ukon enthused.
Okay, so the medium and his puppet were /maybe/ a little stranger than everyone else Jun hung around with, but if so, he admitted, it wasn't by much. He looked around the table, at the four dolls (five if you counted the puppet but he didn't eat) sipping at their tea and nibbling the cakes Tachibana had brought. "Does Ukon go with you to school?" he asked curiously. Because he wouldn't take Shinku to school, but then Shinku was a different kind of magical doll.
"Used to," Ukon answered. "It was boooring!"
Tachibana smiled. "I don't go to school any longer," he explained.
"Oh, you work?" Nori asked. "What do you do?"
"I'm a bunraku performer." It was one of those things that so obviously fit that it made Jun feel stupid for not realizing it from the beginning.
"Our parents took us to a bunraku play once!" Nori enthused. "It was a few years ago. Do you remember, Jun-kun?"
He did, vaugely. Something about a sword?
"What's bunraku?" Suiseiseki asked.
"It's a puppet performance," Nori explained. "There's a man who chants the story while the puppeteers onstage manipulate the puppets to perform it."
"Not too different from what Sakon does with me," Ukon added, "except without the other dolls being haunted, of course."
"It's like Kun-kun!" Hinaichigo enthused, which wasn't quite right but probably as close as she could get.
Shinku set down her teacup. "Jun," she addressed him, "I should like to see some 'bunraku'."
"Um," Jun hedged, feeling all four of the Rozen dolls looking expectantly at him.
Tachibana and Ukon looked at one another. "Well?" Ukon asked.
"I could probably get tickets for you to our next play," Sakon offered.
"Could Grandma and Grandpa come too?" Suiseiseki asked.
"Suiseiseki," hissed her twin.
"What?" she asked Soiseiseki.
"That shouldn't be a problem," Tachibana answered. "Would Kanaria-san and Suigintou-san like to come as well?"
Around the table everyone else looked at one another, or away.
"Somethin' wrong?" Ukon asked.
Hinaichigo was the only one who spoke up. "Um," she said uneasily and unhappily, "Suigintou-chan's gone."
"She left last night," Soiseiseki expanded. "We don't know where she went."
The puppet and puppeteer looked at one another again. "/You/ get to tell Sumeragi-sensee," Ukon declared.
"Is it going to cause problems?" Nori worried.
"Only if Suigintou-san does," Tachibana replied, his mouth set in a line, "I hope."
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Date: 2006-02-10 06:25 pm (UTC)Shouldn't that be 'Suigintou'?
I'm enjoying this too, by the way. I like it when you write fanfics for series I know :)
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Date: 2006-02-11 01:37 am (UTC)Out of curiosity, how many of the four series in this story (X-verse, Rozen Maiden, Yami-Ei, and Ayatsuri Sakon) do you know?
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Date: 2006-02-11 10:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-11 05:34 pm (UTC)It did also get made into a 26-episode anime which I adore. I know someone's subtitled it up to at least episode 11, but the last time I checked on animesuki, the first nine episodes had been taken down.
Vaugely out of date page about the series here (http://home.earthlink.net/~nataku/sakon.html).