〄Hᴀʟғ-Bʟᴏᴏᴅs' Lᴇɢᴀᴄʏ〄 [Ch. 4 Up!]

[scmarshtacky]

Thank you.

[Muse.]

Love it~ Lol.

I look forward to Fridays. ^^

[scmarshtacky]

That's the goal. ^^ I actually didn't realize how quickly I'm starting to catch up. I've already posted half of what I've written so far. I've gotta get my butt in gear and start writing a little more quickly so I never run out of chapters.

[Muse.]

Hurry up hurry up! xD We wish for you to never to run out of chapters~

[scmarshtacky]

I wish that as well. XD But I tend to get bogged down more during school. Of course, even at the slower rate I've been going, there's still another 17 weeks left before I run out, and that's if I don't write anything more. That will get me through January, and I'll have a lot more time over winter break to write more, so rest assured that you'll still have many more Friday chapters.

[Muse.]

^^ True true. Lol.

Ahhh can't wait for this week to be over already.

[scmarshtacky]

Chapter 17 – Travel Woes

The three girls spent the next couple of hours in light conversation while Kaito mostly looked out of the window at the slowly darkening sky only adding a couple of tidbits to the conversation every now and again.

“What time do you think we will get to Osaka?” Mika asked.

“Well it takes about five or so hours to get there by train right?” Ayako replied. “So I guess around eleven thirty or so.”

“I imagine that it will be closer to twelve,” Kana added. “But close to or a little after midnight.”

Mika nodded. “So are we going to the airport right after that or –”

“No, the plane tomorrow is scheduled to leave at ten I think, so we’ll crash at a hotel for the night.” Ayako began digging in her purse, and after a moment of intense searching, she produced a credit card and held it up for the others to see. “Mom said I could spend up to one hundred thousand yen¹, so we can use it however we want. My mother has already reserved the room, I just have to pay for it.”

“Wow,” Mika breathed. “I can’t believe she just gave you her card like that. She must trust you a lot.” Mika looked at her friend with a new sense of admiration.

“Her mom’s always been like that,” Kana said. “She treats her like she’s already middle aged,” she teased lightly shoving Ayako on the shoulder.

“Yeah, and I’m so glad. It would suck to have an over protective mother.” Ayako dramatically rolled her eyes, and all three of them began laughing again. They were just beginning to catch their breath when the intercom rang and someone announced that the food cart was now open for service. “Shall we go then?” Ayako asked.

Mika and Kana eagerly agreed and Kaito nodded his head once. He trailed behind them, just happy to listen to the trio babble excitedly. “Is something wrong?” Kana asked as she dropped back to walk alongside him. “You’re awful quiet. Even if it’s you, I thought you would enjoy the trip. Was I wrong to persuade Ayako to let you come?” she asked quietly.

Kaito shook his head quickly. “No, I am enjoying myself. I just find it... amusing and entertaining to watch the lot of you.”

Kana stayed quiet for several long moments. “I’m not really sure how I should respond to that statement,” she laughed slightly. “I do hope we aren’t annoying you.”

“Not at all,” he assured her.

“Hey!” Ayako called back to them. “Are you guys coming or what? This is the second time today you two are lagging behind. Get your butts in gear and come on!”

“Alright, alright,” Kana responded just loudly enough for Ayako to hear. “You don’t have to shout,” she muttered fondly.

Mika couldn't help but stare open-mouthed at the variety of food. “Wow, it all looks so good!”

“Doesn’t it?” Ayako replied stacking her own plate high.

The car was set up like a buffet with several long rows filled with a large amount of various foods. The three of them mingled amongst the light crowd picking out what looked the most appetizing. When they had piled their plates as high as they could, they joined Kaito, who only had a large steak on his plate, at a booth. Mika slid in next to Kaito while Kana and Ayako sat across from them. For the first part of the meal, the only sound that could be heard was chewing and the chopsticks occasionally scraping across the plate.

“So you like everything?” Ayako asked finally in-between bites.

“Yes, it is quite good,” Kana replied.

Mika nodded in agreement. “I don’t think I will be able to finish it all though,” she said with a quick regretful glance at her still half-full plate. She scooped up another bite of the fried rice she had. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t try!”

“Just don’t make yourself sick,” Kaito said. “It would make for a miserable trip.”

“I won’t,” she promised. “Is the steak good?” she asked with a meaningful glance at it.

“It is,” he said shortly cutting off another piece. “A little tough, but not terrible. I’ve had much worse,” he said crinkling his nose a bit before popping another piece of the steak into his mouth.

Ayako raised an eyebrow skeptically, “Well I personally love this food. My family and I have ridden on this railway several times, and I’ve always found the food to be really good, and I love the buffet style. Get whatever you want when you want it. All restaurants should have this!”

They finished off the remainder of their food, or what they wanted of it, and slowly began to make their way back to their compartment. “It’s gotten late,” Mika said trying to peer through the now dark window. The light in the compartment was bright, so she couldn’t see through it, just the reflection of the inside of the train.

“You can turn the light down.” Ayako walked over to a knob by the door, and turned it counterclockwise, turning the light off. It wasn’t very dark though. The light in the hallway still shone brightly through the smaller window in the door.

“Turn it on some Ayako,” Kana said. “I brought playing cards. We can use them to pass some of the time.”

Ayako complied and turned the knob slightly back to the right. Although she didn't turn it back on completely like it had been before.

Kana dug around in her bag for a moment, and then produced the aforementioned pack of playing cards. “What do you want to play?”

“Oh, oh! Let’s play spoons!” Ayako suddenly jumped up. “I’ll go back to the food car and get a couple!” With that, she threw open the door and bolted out of it.

“And what is Spoons? I assume it must be some sort of card game...” Kaito asked throwing a sideway glance at the cards.

“I’ve only played spoons once or twice,” Mika said a bit uncertainly.

“It is a card game,” Kana addressed Kaito. “You have one less spoon than the number of people, in our case three, and the goal of the game is to get four of the same card. If you get four like cards first, you grab for one of the three spoons. Once one person reaches for a spoon, you also get to reach for one regardless of whether you have four of a kind. Do you understand?”

“Oh I remember it now!” Mika exclaimed.

“I suppose it makes sense...” Kaito said still a bit dubious.

Ayako returned a second later carrying three spoons. She set them down in the middle of the floor, and plopped down herself.
The others formed a circle around her and she took the cards from Kana and began to shuffle them. “So you all know how to play it right?”

“Kana explained it to us while you were gone,” Mika said.

“It seems simple enough,” Kaito said shortly with a slight shrug.

“Good,” Ayako replied and began to pass out the cards until each of them had four.

Mika took hers up tentatively and glanced at the four cards. Two threes, one ten, and a queen. I guess that means I should go for the threes then...

Ayako began and the race was on. The cards passed from one to another very quickly, but seemed to get piled up next to Mika. The more she tried to hurry, the more her fingers fumbled, and she couldn’t grasp the cards. In the midst of her fumbling, everyone seemed to lunge forward simultaneously and grab a spoon.

Mika looked up still a bit dazed by the speed of the game. “You guys are way too fast,” she said slightly breathless.

They played several more times, but Mika never really did get the speed of the game. She improved with passing the cards around the circle, but wasn’t quite fast enough to grab a spoon. The last game, she had gotten four of a kind, and leaned forward to grab a spoon, but everyone else had seen her move and all three spoons were gone before she could get to one.

“Oh now that’s just not fair,” she whined teasingly. “I’m the one that got four. I definitely think that I should get a spoon.”

“Sorry,” Ayako teased back, but with a slightly undertone of an apology. “Once you get used to it a little more, you get faster at it.”

“Well, I’ll sit to the sidelines this time and watch you three play. I think the three of you would prove to have more of a competition with each other than with me.”

Ayako objected at first, but with a little reasoning from Mika, the three of them faced off against each other. The game started again, but with more space between people, due to the fact that there were only three playing. The game slowed down very slightly because everyone had to reach to pick up the cards. Ayako in particular was very angry about this.

“Kaito! Move the cards closer to me! You setting them right beside you and it’s hard to reach!” she said as she reached for another.

“But if I do it like this, it slows you down and I have an advantage," he smirked.

Ayako clenched her jaw. “You little–”

She reached for another card and at that moment, Kaito lunged forward, Kana hot in pursuit, and they both had a spoon before Ayako had gained enough balance to reach for one. She blew air threw her teeth in a hissing sound. “You’ve done it now,” she warned.

Ayako moved herself closer to Kaito to minimize the reaching distance and they began again. This time, Ayako managed to get four of a kind, and Kana was left without a spoon. They played a couple more times with Ayako and Kana alternating between getting the spoons. Ayako glared at Kaito again after the end of the fifth round.

“Is there something wrong?” he said pleasantly.

Ayako cocked her jaw. “It just occurred to me that Kana and I are unfairly matched against a demon.”

“Yes, well,” he shrugged slightly, “you should have thought of that before you asked me to play.”

“We should change games,” Kana suggested interrupting the two of them. “Have you ever heard of speed?” she asked Kaito.

“No –”

“That’s another speed game though!” Ayako protested. “Obviously he will win.”

“Ayako,” Kana said with mock astonishment. “Are you going to give up before you even try? Where did that fighting spirit go?”

“He – Well I – That was before I knew what he was!”

“And that knowledge is going to deter you from even trying?” Kana asked.

Ayako opened her mouth several times, but nothing came out, so in the end, she gave up with a shrug.

“Besides,” Kana continued, “he’s never even heard of it before which gives you the advantage in this, even if he is technically faster than you.”

Ayako seemed to like this idea, and she got that gleam in her eye that she usually had before competitions. “Okay, I’ll go along with this.”

“Good.” Kana nodded. “Let’s play a game between the two of us first, so Kaito can sort of see how it is played.”

Ayako agreed, and the two of them sat down across from each other.

Kana dealt two piles of twenty cards and handed one pile to Ayako. Then she placed two cards face down in the middle and added two more stacks of five off to the side. They both drew five cards from their stack of twenty and took a good long look at them. “Are you ready?” Kana asked.

Ayako nodded, and they each put their hand on one of the middle cards. “Ready... set... go!” They flipped them over quickly, and began stacking cards on top of the two middle ones.

Ten, Jack, Ten, Nine, Eight, Nine, Eight, Seven... Kaito focused on the middle stack to the right and recited each card they laid down. Then, they both suddenly stopped, but they still had several cards in their stacks.

“Ready?” Ayako questioned.

Kana only nodded and they both placed their hands on the top card of the two stacks beside the two piles in the middle. And again, they flipped them at the same time and began throwing cards on the two middle decks. The game only went on for a couple of minutes. “I win!” Ayako exclaimed as she threw down her last card.

Kana glanced at her as if she had to confirm that Ayako was indeed out of cards. Then, she threw down the last two cards in her hand. “It was a close game.”

“Yeah, it was. It’s been a long time since I’ve played speed. So, did you get it?” she asked turning to face Kaito.

“I think so,” he said slowly. “I’ll just have to actually play it, and see if I do or not."

“So how do you play it?” Mika asked leaning off of the seat to get a better look at the game.

While Kana set up the next game, Ayako explained tried to explain the rules of the game to Mika. “The card that you put down has to be either directly above or below the top card on the stack.” When Mika looked at her still confused she elaborated, “For example, if the top card is seven, then I could only lay down a six or an eight. Make sense? And then when you run out of cards to lay down, you flip the top card of the two stacks off to the side. Got it?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Kaito shifted himself to face Kana. She already had the game set up, and had placed his stack in front of him. He drew five cards from it and glanced down at them all. Ace, Three, Four, Seven, Jack... He looked up at Kana who nodded, and they both flipped the top card.

Six, so then I can lay the seven down... but Kana had already gotten to it. He fumbled for several more seconds before he finally got into laying down his cards. He laid three down and grabbed up another handful from the stack without looking at it.

“You have more than five cards in your hand!” he heard Ayako shout.

He ignored her and worked on putting down the cards he had grabbed, but was more careful when drawing from his stack. Kana stopped a moment later, and Kaito did as well.

“Can you lay anything else down?” she asked.

He glanced at his hand quickly. “No. So we flip these now?”

Kana didn’t answer, but moved her hand to one of the side stacks, and Kaito moved his hand to the other. They flipped them and the game continued.

Despite Kaito getting the hang of the speed and cards mid-way through, Kana still finished several cards ahead of him. He sighed and threw down the cards in his hand. “I promise I’ll be faster the next time I play this,” he said with a smirk.

“Good, cause you’re playing me now.” Ayako lightly shooed Kana away and sat down in front of him. She gathered all the cards, shuffled them well, and dealt them back out.

The game began, and this time, Kaito easily held his own. When he threw down his last card, he was a couple ahead of Ayako. “Again!” she demanded, but the result of all of the games was the same.

While Kaito and Ayako faced off, Kana grabbed another deck of cards out of her bag, and taught Mika how to play it. The card games went on for another hour or so, before the travel weariness began to get to them. Ayako leaned up against the corner and was out a couple of minutes later. She had turned the lights off when they had finished playing cards, so Kana was at the other side of the seat using the light that poured through the window to read. Kaito and Mika simply watched the dark outlines of the trees pass by.

“Is something bothering you?” Mika asked quietly. As she watched him, she could see that his mind was on something else, and he seemed to be concentrating hard on whatever that something was.

“’Bothering’ isn’t really the right word,” he replied slowly. “I’m just thinking that it might be really hard to get a plane ticket. I bet most of the airline tickets to Osaka were booked long ago.”

Mika sat up alarmed. “If they are, what are you going to do? Could you just... I don’t know... do something to make them give one to you?”

“Well I could, but then what of the person that actually bought that seat? When they get on the plane and see another sitting in it, they might be a bit confused.”

“But you could –”

“The point is,” he interrupted, “I’d have to kick out someone else which would be awfully unfair to them, and I won’t do that.”

“What are you going to do then?”

“I’m working on it,” was all he said.




¹¥100,000~ Roughly 1,200USD

A/N~ Another chapter up! I'm really surprised by how quickly I'm moving through my already-typed chapters. I'm going to have to get a move on if I want to stay ahead of my posting. And I really doubt that Japanese people play spoons and speed, but they were the only good and more modern card games that I could come up with. Hope you enjoy! ^^
I am also officially closing the writing competition. No one entered, and I haven't heard anything from those that said they were working on a story, so it seems pointless to keep it up at this point. Oh well, I guess.

<==Chapter 16

Chapter 18==>

[Muse.]

I love reading your story. xD

Very interesting. ^^

[scmarshtacky]

Yay! ^^ It was fun writing this chapter. Of course, I always love the chapters that Ayako and Kaito constantly tease each other. XD

[Duskpond]

Yay! Awesome chapter :3 Can't wait for more