http://clampfix.fanworks.net/ccd-fix/clan6a.txt </head><body><pre>My computer ate all my revisions. ~_~ So any mistakes you see in here are not my fault. MY COMPUTER DID IT! A Clan-Destine Vacation Part 6a - Akira's Interlude by Kay Willow Akira turned over in his sleeping bag, unable to get to sleep. Depressing thoughts and oppressing fear had kept him awake - thoughts in regard to Takamura-senpai's survival in this insane family, fear that the moment he fell asleep a guillotine would fall from the ceiling and chop his head off. It seemed like something that would happen, here. So instead he stayed awake, and stared at the ceiling, and tried not to wonder if that was a sword-edge he saw glinting in between the rafters. Then he turned to look at Kaichou and Takamura-senpai, but that was no more relaxing because Takamura-senpai's breathing wasn't right and he was holding a long blade in his hand, and now had there was the uneasy feeling that the sword-edge on the ceiling was aimed straight for his throat. Finally, he had to admit that lying awake and staring wasn't working. He stood up, sighing inwardly and moving with unnatural silence so as not to disturb Takamura-senpai's sleep. Thievery was not an honorable profession, but around Takamura-senpai's family the skills were useful indeed. He had to dance across a trip wire lying perfectly low across the ground, but there weren't any other obstacles. That was good - it had taken a lot of concentration to avoid all the traps from earlier, and Akira didn't want to have to go through that again. He closed the door behind him soundlessly, and padded into the living room, where the fire still burned. Two people sat there - Ryoko-san and Omi-san, he recognized. Ryoko-san heard him at once, turning around warily - perhaps expecting some more relatives to pop out of the shadows, Akira figured - but she relaxed when she saw him. "You haven't brought us any food, have you?" she asked guardedly. It had become her ritual greeting whenever she saw him. Akira thought 'Hello, how have you been' was a bit more polite, but Ryoko-san didn't seem too concerned about politeness. "No," he said honestly. "I haven't been to the kitchen." She'd nearly killed him that evening at dinner when she'd found a baby tarantula inside Meri's meal, until Takamura-senpai had told her that he'd had nothing to do with the cooking this time. Omi-san smiled half-heartedly, an expression carefully calculated to break hearts but wasted on his current company. He was wearing, oddly enough, a formal hakama-and-kimono. "Please sit down, Akira-kun. Ryoko-san and I were just talking about things." "May I join your conversation?" Akira asked politely, kneeling to Omi-san's right, across from Ryoko-san. "Certainly," Ryoko-san answered, still keeping a wary eye on him. "You don't move right," she informed him suddenly. "I don't?" Akira echoed, surprised. It struck him after a moment that she was referring to the stealthy, minimalist way that he'd learned to move as Nijuu Mensou. He flushed. "Well... actually... I..." "Come now," Omi-san scolded her suddenly. "What are you picking on this poor kid for? He's not even old enough to shave, he comes from a pacifist family, and you're accusing him of what? Being an assassin?" "Not an assassin!" she protested. "Just... I don't like the way he moves." She glowered at Akira, who hunched in on himself defensively. Omi-san shook his head, amused. "Leave the kid alone. He's probably just trying to avoid all those traps that I KNOW that insane aunt of yours set up everywhere." "What were you talking about before?" Akira said brightly, trying to change the subject gracefully. It seemed that they'd run out of things to speak of on the topic of his movements, anyway. Ryoko-san turned away suddenly. "Our... friends." She spoke hesitantly. "Lovers," Omi-san corrected, smiling. "Don't dance around the issue, Ryoko-chan! Here, now, he's old enough to know what it means!" he added when she glared at him, deliberately misinterpreting her anger at the affectionate '-chan'. <Ryoko-san is shy!> Akira realized, smiling pleasantly. Ryoko-san blinked at him. "I have a girlfriend," he told them bashfully. "We're going to get married one day." "Oh? What's her name?" Omi-san asked, sounding genuinely interested. Akira blushed a little. "Utako-san," he said quietly. "Ohkawa Utako-san." "I've heard of the Ohkawa family," Omi-san said, nodding. "A good lineage, that one. She's probably a wonderful person." "She is!" Akira smiled. <Why, he's not at all like Shigeru-san said he was! He sounds very nice.> "How old is she?" Ryoko-san scoffed. "I can't see much of a romance. You're, what, ten?" Omi-san turned to her, a hint of anger crossing his face. "Love isn't restricted by bounds of age, Ryoko-san. If he says it's love, then it's love." "You're only saying that because today you tried to seduce a girl almost a decade younger than you," Ryoko-san snarled. Omi-san tensed. "It's true!" Akira burst. "I do love Utako-san!" He flushed bright red then. "I... well..." Omi-san relaxed, as though the embarrassment had broken the sudden tension. "I believe you," he said warmly to Akira. "I knew who I was in love with when I was ten, too." "Who?" Ryoko-san said scornfully. "The only person you've known that long is Niisan!" "And if you told him what I just told you, he'd be able to name her," Omi-san countered. "Believe it or not, I do have friends." "How old are you?" Akira asked hesitantly. "I mean, it just seems like you're only twenty, but if you're ten years older than Wakaba-san--" "I'm twenty-four," Omi-san said cheerfully. "Shigeru's twenty." "That means..." Akira blinked. "He found you when he was only six?" "Actually, I think he was nearer to seven," Omi-san mused, thinking back. "But pretty much." "And I thought Takamura-senpai found Kaichou when he was young!" Ryoko-san suddenly began reciting, "Any Takamura worthy of the name shall find the 'someone he would meet one day' by the time he turns ten. From age eight on, the quest for his One shall begin. At his eleventh birthday, should he not find his One, he shall kill himself." "That's terrible!" Akira cried. "No, it is our way," Ryoko-san said with a serene peace. "A Takamura is raised to believe that this is a chaotic and dark world, and that he can not live in chaos and darkness. He is also taught that his One will bring order and light to his universe. Chances are that if a Takamura did not find his One by the time he turned eleven, he would go mad from it anyway." "That may be why the current head of the family is so unstable," Omi-san added. "It's said that she didn't find her One - Suoh-kun's father - until the day before she turned eleven." Akira paled at the thought of cutting it so close. <One day more, and Takamura-senpai never even would've been born!> He didn't even want to think about life without Takamura-senpai. "But that isn't the point," Ryoko-san said. "The point is that Niisan was simply lucky. He stumbled across his One while he was playing around some random day. Usually, it doesn't happen like that. Of course, he's probably JUST as unbalanced as Obasama, because he never learned those lessons that a Takamura NEEDS to become ideal; never felt the chaos or the cruelty that plagued the rest of us and made us only stronger in the end. So I figure, Obasama's a nutcase because she suffered so long, and Shigeru's a nutcase because HE didn't suffer at all--" "But let's not talk about Shigeru," Omi-san interrupted suddenly. "Let's talk about you. What's YOUR lover like?" He leveled her with an arch glare. Ryoko-san turned an angry red. "You wretched little sh--" Omi pointed at the wide-eyed Akira silently, and she stopped. When she began speaking again, she was saying something completely different. "I don't want any more lesbian cracks, you hear?" Akira blinked. "What's a lesbian?" The two of them stared at him for a long moment. Then Omi-san said neutrally, "A lesbian is a girl who likes other girls - in the same way you like Utako-san." Akira thought about this for a moment. "What's so bad about that? It's just love, right?" "Yes, it is love," Ryoko-san interrupted fiercely before Omi-san could say anything. She glowered at him. "And if you want to know, then SHUT UP so I can tell it!" There was another minute of silence, and then Ryoko-san seemed to realize that they were waiting for her to start talking. She turned a deeper red and looked to one side, staring at the fire. "I met her when I was half-way through my ninth year," she finally said, managing to make it sound like she was telling someone else's story. "My mother had taken me to America, thinking that perhaps if I couldn't find my 'someone' in Japan or China, which were the first places we looked, I might be able to find her there." She paused. "America's a big place," she admitted. "It took a while." "What state did you find her in?" Omi-san asked, with a respectful quiet in his voice that Akira hadn't from him before. "I've been to America to model, so I might have been there." "You probably have. California?" "Of course." Ryoko-san turned from the fire, deciding to stare at her feet for a while instead. <She really is shy,> Akira realized. <She's not so bad, either.> "I was hiking among the redwoods, there," she continued slowly, "when I noticed her scaling one of them. Fool girl," she added with a snort. "That's got to be one of the quickest ways I know of to get killed." Akira asked eagerly, "Was it love at first sight?" "No," Ryoko-san answered flatly. "That doesn't exist. But I knew I couldn't let her do that, so I ran over and started shouting at her to get down. She turned around and told me she didn't care, she was going to climb the damn tree anyway. I wanted to wring her scrawny little neck. "I demanded to know why she was climbing a redwood, and she answered 'Because I haven't done it before'. I'm thinking, yeah, you and most other sane people. She kept talking, though, saying, 'I know it's dangerous, but I can do it without fear because I live for the now instead of the future. It's hard, but rewarding, because you never have anything to be afraid of'. I thought she was a lunatic. I headed back to the hotel, feeling like I ought to have hit her with a sack of bricks." Ryoko-san shrugged. "I went back the next day, on a hunch. She was there again, even higher on the redwood then she had been yesterday. I asked her why again, and she gave me the same answer again. I went back the day after, and that was when what she was saying seeped through my thick skull... If you live for the now and not for the future, then there's never anything to be afraid of." Omi-san nodded. "So that was her lesson to you." "Exactly. With that realization, she became my One." Ryoko-san shifted awkwardly. "I still wanted to throw a sack of bricks at her. Love came later." "So Meri-san is your lover!" Akira gasped. Omi-san blinked at him. "You... didn't know that?" He shook his head blankly. Akira noticed Ryoko-san's expression all at once. "You still can't live like that, can you?" he asked gently. "In the now, without fear of the future." "Yeah, well, it's ONLY against everything a Takamura is taught to believe," she responded. "I respected her for being able to do it, but knew I never could." Akira nodded brightly. "I understand. Kaichou lives for the now, too," he volunteered cheerily, leaning forward on his hands. Ryoko-san cocked her head. "Does he?" She smiled suddenly, and there was actual warmth in it for the first time. "If that boy asked you to," she said, shifting to lie on her side, "would you walk knowingly into danger?" "I already have," Akira said laughingly. "And he didn't even ask. He doesn't have to!" "A commendable devotion," she said to the ceiling. "Rather like a Takamura's." Akira felt unreasonably flattered by the comparison - he did think that Takamura-senpai's family was insane, but he couldn't deny that they were loyal. "Thank you," he told her, beaming. Omi-san shrugged. "I suppose it's my turn?" He sighed. "Mine is hopeless, for one thing. There are certain things you can't get when you're a playboy like me, and one of those things is a steady relationship with a nice person. The only people I'm allowed to get involved with is other supermodels - the kind who are eight feet tall and have elbows sharp enough to gauge out eyes - but I don't want any of them. I don't think they're human, anyway." "Who, then?" Akira questioned. He was actually enjoying this conversation with two of the people he'd figured were the least sane in the cabin. "Now, if I told you, it wouldn't be any fun," Omi-san mock-scolded, wagging a finger in reproof. "My major problem in snaring her is--" "Your personality?" Ryoko-san suggested snidely. "Yes," Omi-san answered, unruffled. "That's it exactly. See, I've been raised to believe that having young girls obsess over me is the best thing I could possibly have going for me. And I have a perfect memory - to the point where I can't help but absorb everything I'm taught, permanently. It's part of my training..." He looked thoughtful for a long moment. "Well, even though I have -frankly - no interest in these girls, I have to act as if I do. I wind up drawing them to me, and I don't want them - I really HATE that absurdly empty-headed expression they get right before they start drooling - and not only does it disgust me, it also disgusts the person I most want to impress." "I'm getting a distinct impression, here," Ryoko-san murmured. Omi-san shrugged. "You're lucky." Akira blinked, confused. "What?" "I think I'll go kick Shigeru," Omi-san volunteered, standing and stretching. "If he was any good at what he does, he'd have woken up when I tried to leave. Good night, all." He bowed, his formal attire billowing around him, and walked back to his room. Akira watched him go. "I always thought people like that had an easy life..." he murmured. "Yeah, well, usually they do. Omi just knows himself better than most." Ryoko-san flipped over onto her stomach to stare at the flames. "I'm sorry," she said suddenly. "What?" Akira asked, caught off-guard by the sudden comment. "I'm sorry." She rested her head on her folded arms and looked up at him. "About being such a paranoid bitch." "Oh," Akira began, flustered, "I don't think you're--" "Stuff it. I know you do. And I don't mean to act that way, but it's the way I was raised, you realize." He began to stand. "Perhaps I should go, too--" "I wish, sometimes," she continued, her eyes on his socks, "that I'd had a different way of life." Akira waited, silently. "I look at you..." Ryoko-san turned again, facing the wall now. "You're faithful to him, and he isn't your One. I wish I had that kind of freedom. Or even Suoh-san's kind of freedom. He KNOWS people, understands them... All I can do is be suspicious of them." She didn't say anything else. "Good night," Akira whispered, backing out of the room. When he returned to his pallet, he began to feel sleepy almost immediately. With a yawn, he let himself fall back carelessly onto the sleeping bag. He was asleep almost before he had reached the ground. He didn't notice that Kaichou was missing. DISCLAIMER: Consider that this applies itself to 5 and 4, since I noticed I didn't put one on there. *sweatdrop* CLAMP Campus Detectives belongs to CLAMP, because they put their nametag on it like their mothers told them to when they went off to summer camp. Any excess Takamura lying around with names you may or may not recognize from other anime, and/or their Ones, belong to me and if you steal them Shigeru will hunt you down. ^_^</pre><p><a href="./">Back</a></p><p><a href=http://www.dreamhost.com/donate.cgi?id=216><img border=0 alt="Donate towards our web hosting bill!" src=https://secure.newdream.net/donate1.gif></a></p></body></html>