"How long more?" Alina asked.
"A few hours." Cole responded. He had said the same thing to the same question an hour ago.
"Hell." Cayne said. He was getting anxious from staying in the car with Linda, Alina, Korū and Hikari, along with his two friends. Things weren't pretty when they had met at a transfer point a few hours ago. They all seemed to have cooled down by now, but Cayne could tell the Hikari wasn't the only one quietly simmering on the verge of exploding.
"It's better than going to school." Liam stated.
Korū and Hikari sat at the back, Hikari eyeing Liam evilly. Korū was only there to hold her back if she decided to go full insane on Liam. That is, if he wasn't busy trying to kill Cole.
Alina sat beside Korū, listening to music, largely ignoring everyone else. The two boys sitting directly in front of her were despicable. The moment they saw each other, the insults started flying back and forth, and soon the fists started flying too, until Linda had pulled them all apart. She had even threatened to castrate the boys and confiscate Hikari's gun and her knife, so Alina was now unbelievably frustrated.
Linda was, of course, driving calmly, with Cayne beside her. The other two jerks were sitting in the middle row.
For some reason, no one was dead yet.
Probably because Korū was doing a pretty good job at restraining Hikari.
Eventually, she fell asleep and Korū could finally relax.
"So, can someone give us a briefing of what we're actually getting ourselves into?" Cole asked.
Alina's head snapped up. "You agreed to come without knowing anything?" She asked incredulously. That was dumb.
Cole shrugged nonchalantly.
"What the hell?"
"Fuckin idiots," Korū snapped. "You don't just go anywhere without knowing anything."
"If it's away from school, then sure." Liam said.
"What- okay whatever, I'm done." Korū muttered.
"What do you guys even have against school?��� Linda demanded. She could catch a glimpse of Cole and Liam exchanging glances, while Cayne shifted in his seat. They had insisted on coming even when Alina had threatened to
Cayne sighed. "They know the basics. As in, we're going to hunt for the Fujihana and try to get them to not kill us and tell us how to break a curse. They don't know the details, and frankly, I don't either."
He had totally ignored Linda's question.
Korū blinked, then rolled his eyes. "Whatever."
Linda continued to focus on the road. "We can start with Alina bursting into the room."
"Right. Screw you, I wanted to sleep." Korū turned to glare at Alina.
"I had something to tell you guys! It's justified!"
"You woke us up at 5.30 in the fucking morning. What the hell."
"I was leaving, okay? It's better than leaving three unsupervised people in my house." Alina argued.
"It's not like we were gonna trash your house," he retorted. "The car ride is going great," Korū thought to himself sarcastically.
"Yeah, sure." Alina scoffed. "Anyway, I woke up that morning fine and dandy. At about 5.30, I got a mindlink from Bloodlust saying that the Gammas were missing and requested that I go back to help, so I decided that it would be a good idea to wake them up before I left.
"Then I decided to have some fun and told them I was waking them for a run. Hilarious. I even got the chance to bust out the ice water."
Korū stared at her with an unamused expression. "What the hell?"
"Anyway, after some very complicated wake up thing happened, we ended up at their house." Alina jerked her head towards the twins.
Korū had given up listening to the conversation and was doing something on his phone.
"Their mum and uncles rushed out, and we left soon after. They all insisted on tagging along and joining the search." Alina continued. "We found more than we intended to, honestly. Their mom and one uncle were discovered dead with our Gammas, and we deduced that it was their grandfather, teamed up with rogue griffins, who did it. There was later discovered to be some werewolves also involved.
"Right now, we are trying to see how we can break a curse that Hikari and Korū are under, before going after them when Night Stalker reports back."
"That's about it," Korū drawled, not looking up from his phone. "Also if any of you are homophobic, get out right now. Someone I know is gay and I swear to God I will kill anyone who hates on him because of that because we're all not in the capacity to tolerate that."
Alina blinked, Linda frowned, and Cayne asked "what?" Liam and Cole glance at each other in confusion.
"No? I don't think so." Liam said tentatively.
Korū, being the absolute bitch he is sometimes, didn't respond and went back to scrolling through whatever was on his phone screen.
"Our first stop after we land is to find a wizard that Alina knows." Linda said, receiving a nod of confirmation from Alina. "And we go in from there."
There was silence for a moment. "Wait, why were Korū and Hikari's family, or at least part of it, found with the Gammas? What the hell were they doing together?" Cole asked suddenly.
"Oh, look. He has a brain." Alina commented. "We may or may not have forgotten to ask Kaito."
"I'll mindlink him now, before we forget again." Hikari volunteered, waking up suddenly, making Cole, who was the one sitting right in front of her, jump in his seat in surprise.
"Yeah, please do." Linda said.
Hikari was silent for a while. "He just said, 'Some things are better said face to face.'"
"Very helpful." Liam muttered. Alina kicked the back of his chair.
"Hey!" He cried indignantly, turning around to glare at her. She glared back as strongly, "You stole my line." She accused.
"Last I checked, this conversation wasn't scripted." Liam shot back.
"Don't be a smartass." She muttered, realising how bitchy what she just did was.