NOVEL NEXT Chapter 21 - May 13th
Shouri Tomoshibi awoke on Sunday like it was any other. Except, it was unusually cold that morning. The cause of the sudden chill became apparent almost immediately: the two girls whom he normally shared the bed with were missing.
Instantly, the young adult was alarmed; doubly so when he sat up and found one of his two tuners missing, specifically the blue one. The midnight black tuner was still where he had left it the night prior. However, the girl bound to that particular device was also missing. He snatched it up and pressed the talk button.
"Taika?"
"Sh-sho!"
Her startled voice came not from the speaker, but the tiny kitchen he shared with the two girls. Speaking of which – "Where's Pacifica?"
Taika walked around the corner, which revealed she had possession of the missing tuner. "She wanted me to keep an ear out for her while she talked to her parents. She said it was important."
Something felt… off. He wasn't sure what was really going on, but both Taika and Pacifica were their own people. Just because they were his Resonators didn't mean he had to know every little detail about their lives.
"Is she okay?" he asked the only question that mattered to him at the present.
"Si! Si! Perfectly fine!"
Taika was a bad liar, or at least she was bad at hiding the fact that they were up to something. At any rate, as long as his precious Resonators were safe, he'd let sleeping otters and foxes lie. Nature was calling anyway, and he didn't have to pry them off of him this morning, so it was a win on that front.
He did, however, keep possession of Taika's tuner in case she got ideas about making early morning phone calls of her own.
Pacifica kept her eyes firmly on Shouri as the pair made their way down to the cafeteria for breakfast. She was growing mildly irritated – why wasn't he asking about this morning? She had an awesome story spun up and everything!
If she focused on him, she sensed his curiosity, but also…
... he was respecting her space?
Damn him and being perfect!
"Hey," Shouri spoke up suddenly, jolting the otter out of her thoughts. "If you need to do that again, just wake me up. I promise you I won't be mad," he told her.
"Y-yes!" She swooned and just followed along in her smitten state.
They returned to the room with breakfast in hand (probably one of the last they'd have in Riva Sranvi). As they ate Shouri considered their next steps, of which they hadn't solidified yet. With the big Scherzando taken care of there wasn't anything left to tie them to this town.
"Sho."
Shouri was pulled out of his thoughts and back to reality. The boy looked up from his breakfast from Taika and Pacifica's call.
"We want to go swimming," they said together.
With his previous thoughts in mind, that request made sense. If they were to go to a more inland town, the chances of them running into facilities with water elements in mind would diminish. His eyes shifted towards Pacifica. He was concerned about taking her to a less hospitable place for her element, but she had made it out here on her own; it'd probably be fine.
"Oh? Are we going to have a repeat of last time?" he asked with a smirk.
Both girls blushed, recalling their past embarrassment.
"Non!" Taika shook her head rapidly.
"Please? Er, I mean no!" Pacifica briefly considered backpedaling her backpedal.
With a roll of his eyes, he acquiesced to their request. "Fine fine, just behave; both of you."
"We will!"
And thus, the group made preparations to head down to the pool. Swimming gear in hand, they made their way across campus to building C.
It was still hot out even this early in the morning and as such they skipped the hot tubs. Shouri relaxed, floating around the deeper parts of the pool. Every so often he glanced over to see Pacifica continuing Taika's swim coaching. The previous brick of a fox-girl was now able to keep herself above water and do some rudimentary strokes.
What she needed now was confidence. Shouri went back to reading the news on one of his two tuners. Other people swam around him, but the lifeguard nor her Resonators were calling him out, so floating he remained.
The news today was boring, slow even. Which mildly irritated him. Surely someone reported on the big Scherzando they took down last night? But no, not a peep of news about it. "Hrmph." He glared at the screen.
It wasn't worth the energy to get worked up about, but it still made him mad all the same. He let out a sigh and decided to move on from it. Next was the usual check: his last name to see if his parents had done anything stupid. It was always a mixed bag – he never found anything, which was equal parts relieving and scary.
They could be planning something and not brazenly declaring war on him. Maybe it was because of the direction they fled. He'd have to do something about that. They couldn't just broadcast they were going to Canolapra. The last thing he wanted to do was turn this into more of a thing than it already was, and he didn't want to drag Pacifica's family into the mix. Based on the limited knowledge he had of them, they'd surely try to step in, with their daughter being involved and all.
Speaking of…
His final check of the morning was to see if their kidnapper was ever caught. After a few tense moments, he found that no, law enforcement had failed them again and that horrible man was still at large. That man could have killed Pacifica, why was he just allowed to roam around freely?
"Sh-sho!" Taika's shrill cry distracted him for a moment, just enough to look over and see the fox-girl doggy-paddling over to him.
"T-Taika?!" He ceased his calm floating and re-oriented himself to a vertical orientation, just in time to catch the girl. "What are you doing?" he asked, noting she was having a rough time trying to stay afloat.
"I wanted to swim to you," she panted, clinging to her Maestro like he was a piece of debris from a sinking ship.
He looked past the girl he was now keeping afloat and saw Pacifica waving from the shallow end of the pool – most likely the perpetrator of the situation as a whole. "Come on, let's get you back."
Taika blushed as she held him. She stopped focusing on the water and was more flustered about being in direct contact with her Maestro's barely clothed body. His skin felt nice, she decided.
"I thought I told you to behave," Shouri immediately reprimanded Pacifica upon their return to the shallows.
"What?! She wanted to and I thought it'd be a good test to see if she's ready!" Pacifica shouted back in defense of her honor.
Shouri raised a brow, folding his arms across his chest. "And, what's the verdict?"
"She's certainly not sea-worthy, but we can trust her in the kiddy pool," the otter boldly declared, which earned an eye roll from the Maestro.
The trio began to head back to the room, when Pacifica ran ahead of them, spinning around to stop them. "Let's go out for lunch!" she suggested.
Shouri frowned. They were supposed to get a bonus within the week, but… "We shouldn't." He shook his head; it just seemed so wasteful when they were getting fed by the MA Office for free (the food was pretty good too).
Taika grabbed her Maestro's arm. "Please Sho!" came the begging cry.
And Shouri made the mistake of gazing upon her teary puppy dog eyes. "Nngh." He gulped. Too cute. Averting his line of sight was a mistake, Pacifica had also turned on the pleading gaze. "Grk." Closing his eyes was the only strategy. These two were way too much.
"Pleeeeaaaaase Sho." The harmony of both of their voices hit just the right pitch to wear away his objections.
"Fine," he sighed, "Where do you two want to go?"
Pacifica frowned. "Well, I'm not from the west coast," she hummed in thought.
"Anywhere is fine with me," Taika added.
"Hmm…" Shouri pulled out his tuner and began looking over their choices in eats. "Maybe a diner." He stroked his chin in thought.
"G-gimmie that!" Pacifica stepped forward and snatched her tuner away from Shouri.
"Wha-?!" The Maestro didn't have time to react to the device being stolen from him. He could only look on as the water-otter feverishly tapped the touch screen to find them lunch.
"Yeah, okay I got an idea let's go!" She turned and began walking off campus.
Shouri looked to Taika for guidance, but the vixen was quick to follow her otter counterpart. "What am I going to do with them?" he sighed. At least they were both in good spirits. He'd settle on that and follow along.
He found Pacifica and Taika waiting at a bus stop. "What are you two doing?" he braved the question.
"The place I wanna go is across town – I figured we could take the bus there," Pacifica explained. "I already got the route." She waved the tuner she had yet to return.
"I've never been on a bus before," Taika added with an almost child-like wonder in her voice. Shouri shrugged and rolled with it; someone else made the decision for once, and it was a welcome change of pace.
The bus arrived only a few minutes later and the trio boarded. A beep came from the tuner still at his side as they got on. As he sat down next to Taika and Pacifica, he checked what the noise was about. "Ah. They charge you automatically," he noted.
Resonators were half the price of adult Maestros, as long as they had a Maestro. That was handy. Not that it was all that much in the first place. Their total fare for the trip was less than ten notes.
Taika had been given the window seat and had her face pressed against the window the entire time, in awe of all the businesses and landmarks that passed them by. "This is a nice city," Pacifica noted, gripping her tuner tightly.
"You alright?" Shouri asked.
"Yeah, just thinking about last night," the otter replied quietly.
"It went well."
"You scared me."
"Hm?"
Pacifica trembled slightly. "I thought I lost you for a moment," she quietly admitted.
Shouri lowered his head. He knew the feeling well enough. Screaming her name when she went limp in his arms before; the horror of believing you might have watched someone take their last breath before your very eyes.
It was a sobering thought – a terrifying one; both Shouri and Pacifica made each other unintentionally experience that.
"Sho." Pacifica snapped him out of his thoughts. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring you down." A melancholy smile rose on her lips. "Not today," she whispered.
Shouri raised a brow for a moment, perplexed – but ultimately decided to dismiss it. Pacifica still seemed bothered though. After a moment of thought, he spoke his mind: "We're both fine. All three of us are fine. Let's just celebrate."
The gloomy otter brightened upon hearing that. "You're right Sho," she spoke with a giggle.
Taika kept her gaze firmly away from her friends, her expression clouded.
"Here! We're getting off here!" Pacifica shouted to her friends.
The trio disembarked from the bus and once again was led to their final destination by Pacifica. "Oh! There it is!" She sprinted ahead to the end of the block they were on. Shouri raised a brow as it seemed like she was knocking? She was taking them somewhere that was open, right?
"Come on slowpokes!" The otter waved as the door swung open.
"We're coming, we're coming!" Shouri shouted back, picking up the pace with Taika in tow.
Once the trio had been assembled at the entrance, they were allowed in. They were guided to a table and seated.
The Maestro of the group looked around. They were all alone. Not a single other person was seated. The decor was high-class, something he had been used to going out to eat with his parents. The type of place which made one dress for the occasion. They were certainly under-dressed for this establishment. However, there was a lack of other patrons to give them the stink eye. In fact, the only other person they had seen thus far was the front desk manager who had seated them. Shouri gulped upon picking up the menu.
Specifically, he had locked onto the prices.
"3 Courses $120 4 Courses $147 5 Courses $167"
Glancing up at the top of the menu, he found out why: "Restaurant Lawrence Danylo"
He shot an annoyed glance at Pacifica who was behind her own menu. This was one of those hoity-toity restaurants that didn't charge per item, but for whole dinner experiences; all run by a world-famous chef. He was starting to get a grasp of her taste.
Some quick dirty math gave him a total of 360 notes for the three of them to eat. He took a peek at his tuner for finances.