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Tug-of-War	By : thewriterwhocameinfromthecold Category: +G to L > Love Hina Views: 57788 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 6
Disclaimer: I do not own Love Hina or it's associated characters. I am not profiting off this work in any way.

Chapter List
- 12
- 13
- 14
Kitsune hung up the phone and returned to the dinner table.
“Who was it?” Shinobu asked.
Kitsune spooned gyoza onto her plate. “Editor friend of mine. Wants me to go down to Nagasaki and work on a piece about a local band for his magazine.”
“Good for you,” Naru said. “When will you leave?”
“Well, the show is on Saturday night, so I’ll leave a day early to get settled. Then I’ll take the train back on Sunday.”
Shinobu’s eyes became dreamy. “Nagasaki is so lovely in the fall. So warm.” She gave a wistful sigh.
Kitsune grinned at the girl who was fast becoming a little sister to her. “I’ll bring you back something nice.” She turned to her manager at the other end of the table and her smile vanished as he continued to eat as if nothing were going on. Kitsune bit her cheek. A whole week with hardly a word, the silence was driving her crazy. “Hey,” she said harsher than intended.
Keitaro turned to her with a look of distant acknowledgement. Kitsune wanted to wipe that look from his face. If he was pissed at her, he could at least have the decency to act that way. This would be so much easier if they could just have an argument and then try to fix things. Instead, he damned her with his indifference.
“Yes?” he asked, when she said nothing.
“Pass the rice,” she said for lack of anything else to say.
“How fortuitous,” Motoko said, oblivious to the tension. “I shall be leaving on Friday for Kyoto. Perhaps we can go to the station together.”
This time Keitaro sat up. “You’re leaving?”
“What are you going for?” Naru asked.
“I have not visited my family in some time,” Motoko replied, pointedly ignoring Keitaro.
At this, Kitsune leaned forward in interest. Motoko never talked much about her home life, but in the back of her mind Kitsune realised that she would have to have some sort of family. Although when it came to a girl of Motoko’s attitudes and abilities, it was just as easy for Kitsune to believe that the kendo girl had appeared by magic at a shrine one day or hatched fully matured from a fallen meteor.
Motoko went on, “I received a letter from home asking me to return for the weekend. I trust, then, that you will take care of things here, Naru?” As she spoke, she fixed Keitaro with a glare that said “Dogs don’t belong at the table”.
Naru reached under the table to give Keitaro’s knee a supportive pat, but he pushed his chair back and stood up.
“I’ll be scrubbing the hot spring.”
“But you just cleaned the hot spring the other day,” Shinobu said.
Keitaro said nothing as he left.
Kitsune bared her fangs. “I know you hate him, but you don’t have to be so obvious about it.”
“I have made my position clear,” Motoko replied without remorse. “If he is sensitive, then that is his problem.”
“Fine.” Kitsune stood up from her seat. “Be that way.” She marched out of the dining room, fists clenched.
She made stiff strides to the hot spring, but stopped as she heard the sounds of work on the other side of the door. Her hand sat over the latch poised but paralysed. At the sound of footsteps, she turned to see Naru looking at her with an unreadable expression.
“He won’t even talk to me now,” Kitsune said.
“What did you expect?” Naru asked. “After everything, what did you think would happen?”
Kitsune dropped her hand to her side. “That he’d be pissed. Not this.” She leaned against the door. “This sucks.”
Naru scoffed. “Typical. I warned you. I said he wouldn’t go for it. But no.”
“Hey now.” Kitsune pushed herself off the door, ready for battle. “The bet was your idea.”
“So was the plan to ease him into it.” Naru’s features crumpled into a scowl. “I was going to coax him along, but you dove in and just took. No wonder he’s acting hurt.”
“Don’t you dare act innocent with me.” Kitsune jabbed a finger into Naru’s chest. “You’re as much to blame for this as me. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t let it all slip.”
“He would have found out anyway, the way you carried on. Then I’d still have to clean up after you.”
Kitsune’s head rocked back as if she’d been punched. “What the hell does that mean?”
Naru crossed her arms. “It means I don’t want to pick up after your emotional fallout. You’re not the one who had to see him cry.”
“Why is everyone fighting?” asked a warbling voice.
Kitsune’s rage ground to a halt as she turned with Naru to see Shinobu looking at them with watery eyes.
“Oh, honey…” Kitsune and Naru were at the girl’s side in a second. “What’s wrong?”
Shinobu grabbed a hold of Naru’s arm. “Everyone’s so angry: Motoko, Keitaro, you two. It’s like…” She trailed off, but Naru and Kitsune could both fill in the blanks. For Shinobu, seeing people argue was a reminder of her mother and father before they separated.
“It’s all right,” Naru told the little chef. “We were just having a little argument. Friends do from time to time.”
Shinobu looked between Naru and Kitsune with a frightened child’s scepticism. “Why is the manager so angry, and why does Motoko hate him so much?”
Kitsune and Naru shared a shame-faced look as they both searched for something, anything that might reassure.
Even after Keitaro had finished cleaning the hot spring, he made no effort to leave it. For a time, he sat on the stone ledge and stared at the steaming water. He inhaled the thick air deeply, letting it fill every part of him until the irritation and shame that had consumed him for days began to recede. Despite living at Hinata House of two weeks now, he’d yet to set foot in the hot spring since his initial dip. Motoko had had to be persuaded just to let him near the place to do his cleaning, never mind soak in it. Her long-winded talk about the spring being a feminine sanctuary free of male influence rankled – especially since it was his male influence, so-called, that kept the water clean and free of leaves. Maybe she’d like to be responsible for maintaining the sanctity of her sanctuary on her own; he thought as he stripped off his socks and rolled up his pant legs.
He sighed as his aching male feet violated Motoko’s feminine sanctuary. He kicked little waves in the water and smiled as he watched them ripple away. He cast a look back to the change room door. No one would bother him now, he was sure. So he stripped down and dove in, relishing the water as it worked away at his aches and pains. He laughed to himself, savouring his little rebellion as he paddled around the spring on his back and smiled up at the pink evening sky. He couldn’t go on like this. Centre tests were coming up soon, and if he didn’t pass he might as well forget about the university entrance exams for yet another year.
Part of him wanted to pack up and forget he’d ever heard of Hinata, just focus on his studies and forget that he’d ever met Naru or Kitsune. But where would he go? Keitaro sat up in the water and shook his head. After circling this existential drain for a week, he was sick and tired of it. It was a beautiful night. He ought to seize it, and leave Naru and Kitsune to their cynical little bets. Maybe the distance would help him figure out what he was going to do next. He sat in the hot spring until the heat became too much, then he waited and reciting historical timelines until the sun was down. He slipped out of the house and walked off into the night.
A train ride later, he was in Tokyo, transfixed by the lights. After all these years, the city still intimidated him: the crowds, the noise, it was nothing like Hinata; and for tonight there was nothing he wanted more. He strolled about the streets with no direction in mind as he looked in shop windows and watched the people as they passed. Already, his problems were beginning to seem farther off.
“Hey!”
Maybe he should find a bar somewhere.
“Hey, you! Four-eyes!”
Keitaro turned towards the open air video arcade he had been passing to see the most unusual woman. The first thing that drew his eye was her hair: ash blonde, almost pure white; but her skin was a dark brown that made her impossible to miss, was in fact garnering her more than a few stares from passing Japanese unable to hide their curiosity. Her clothes were no less exotic: Byzantium purple, the tight top and flowing skirt gave her the appearance of a belly dancer, an impression helped by her bare stomach that proclaimed the results of millions of sit-ups. Her elegant manicured hands sat on her hips and the sleek features of her face were contorted in a scowl of irritation. To Keitaro it felt as if her cerulean eyes were burning into him; but surely she couldn’t have been staring at him. He looked from one side to the other.
“Yes, I’m talking to you, idiot,” the woman said.
Keitaro jumped as his tongue stumbled to respond. “Oh…uh, hi…What can I do for you?”
The woman gestured behind her at the arcade. “Give me 100 yen.”
If she had told him she was a magical girl, Keitaro wouldn’t have been more surprised.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m out of coins. Give me 100 yen.”
“I don’t even know you, and you ask me for money?”
“Who said I was asking?” the woman said, stalking towards him.
Keitaro’s innards gave a nervous lurch. “What?” He yelped as she grabbed him by his collar and dragged him into the arcade.
“Stop whining. I’ve got a high score to beat.”
She came to a stop in front of the Dance Dance Revolution and turned to him with an outstretched palm. Keitaro knew he had every right to refuse, but one look into this strange woman’s eyes told him that 100 yen was a small price to keep her off his back. When he handed it to her, she let out a triumphant giggle, and flipped and caught the small coin before inserting it into the machine. She mounted the platform and closed her eyes as in deep contemplation as she waited for the game to start.
Keitaro took a step backwards only for the woman to thrust her finger towards him.
“Don’t even think about, little man,” she said with her eyes still closed. “You’re not going anywhere.”
Cursing his weakness, Keitaro settled into watch as the game started counting down. In the end, he would be glad he had. The woman’s brows knitted in concentration as she leapt from arrow to arrow, nailing each move with fluid grace. Level after level passed the same way. Increases in difficulty, far from hindering, seemed only to spur her on to greater heights, and it wasn’t long before a crowd gathered to watch the lithe foreigner. It was a brilliant show, not just because of its technical flawlessness, but because of what she put into it. She writhed to the beat of the song waving her arms and running her hands over her body in a sinuous display that captured the hearts and loins of every man in sight, Keitaro included. Any thoughts he’d had of leaving were vanished. The moment felt almost sacred as he watched her shimmy and undulate, her sweat-slick skin shimmering under the arcade lights.
Then the final level loomed. She stared straight ahead at the screen waiting for the final countdown to end before leaping into action. Her legs seemed to move at an almost superhuman speed as she darted across the platform like a leopard; but it wasn’t her legs that captured Keitaro’s attention. It was the smile on her face as she moved: a look of utter serenity, as if she were on some happy plane far beyond the concerns of the mere mortals who crowded around her. The music reached its final crescendo, and she executed a back flip, landing as soft as a cat on the last arrow. Silence reigned through the arcade as the game came to end, then wild and raucous applause. Keitaro was clapping as hard as he could.
The woman seemed to take no notice of the applause, but wiped her brow as she typed ‘AMLA’ into the first place slot of the leader board. She dismounted the machine and strode up to Keitaro.
“I’m thirsty. Buy me a drink.”
Keitaro, blown away by the woman’s dancing, wasn’t quite firing on all cylinders, but he could still feel jealous eyes upon him. “What?”
The woman jerked him by the chin so he was looking up into her eyes. “The hottest woman in the room just told you to buy her a drink. Do it before I change my mind.” Without waiting for a reply, she dragged him out of the arcade back under the light of the red moon.
- 12
- 13
- 14
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Tug-of-War