Kaito was waiting for them in the car, another empty one parked beside him. Korū decided that he'd not risk killing anyone by driving, and flopped into one of the seats of Kaito's car.
"Same arrangement…?" Linda asked.
"Shotgun!" Alina and Cole yelled at the same time. Alina glared at him and sprinted for the car.
"Damn."
Kumori and Hikari headed for Kaito's car. "Uh, someone can join us," Kumori stated.
"That's pretty dangerous." Liam said, grinning as he got in the other car.
"What are you talking about?" Kumori said innocently. "It's perfectly safe."
"Perfectly." Linda agreed. "Though the safety when riding with me is even more perfect."
Kumori frowned. "You're legally allowed to drive at seventeen?"
"Real license, fake ID."
Kumori nodded in understanding, then ducked into Kaito's car.
"We're going on a trip…"
"… in our favourite automobile…"
"Zooming through the streets���"
"I hear nothing. I have AirPods. I hear… nothing." Alina muttered, trying to convince herself as three bored, almost-adult werewolves sang in the backseat.
"You're using Sony." Linda reminded her, her white knuckles gripping the steering wheel the only thing betraying the annoyance she felt for her other three passengers. "Focus on the road… Kaito's car… focus…"
"OH MY GOD TURN THAT DAMN THING OFF!" Korū screeched in the other car. He reached for the speaker that was blasting the aggravating sounds from the other car into theirs, but Kaito blocked him, a mischievous smirk on his face. "IT'S GIVING EVERYONE FUCKIN BRAIN DAMAGE!"
Kumori and Hikari decided to be evil and project all the sounds they heard to the occupants of the other car via mindlink.
Both Linda and Alina jumped. "What the fuck!" And blocked the mindlinks. Unfortunately, they could hear the actual sound waves that were entering their ears.
"You know…" Alina mindlinked Linda, "blackmail material?"
Linda grinned and nodded, so Alina started recording.
"OI," Korū mindlinked Cayne. "SHUT THE FUCK UP."
Cayne blinked and stopped, getting weird looks from the other two who had doubled their efforts.
Cayne groaned. "You know, being on the listening end, it's actually pretty bad."
The two of them finally stopped. "What do we do now? I'm bored."
Alina turned to glance at Liam. "A wise friend once told me, 'sleep'."
"Yeah, sleep. If I have to listen to any more of that for the next seven hours, I'm going to kill you," Kumori mindlinked them.
Alina mouthed "how the fuck?" To Linda, who shrugged. Alina narrowed her eyes and stared at the dashboard. Nothing. She glanced around the car and caught sight of a tiny blinking red light underneath the speaker grill on the left side of the car, beside Cayne.
Kaito was going to die if that was what she thought it was. Cayne looked at her questioningly as she stared hard at something just above his left elbow. He, too, caught sight of the red light and frowned. He glanced back at Alina, who nodded. He grabbed his phone and turned the sound up all the way. He typed "baby shark" into YouTube and pressed the search button, selecting the first result.
He mindlinked the people in the car. "Plug your ears, everyone." Alina gave Linda some extra earphones while the guys covered their ears as Cayne pressed the play button, holding his phone as close to the red light as possible.
"ARGH! HOLY FUCKIN SHIT! OJI-SAN TURN OFF THE DAMN THING!"
Alina and friends watched as Korū, Hikari, and Kumori lunged for the speaker in the car in front of them. Kaito, however, wasn't affected, because Alina wasn't the only one who brought earphones. If anyone even bothered to look at his face in that situation, he had this smug look.
Everyone in the second car burst out laughing as they watched the commotion from behind them.
Basically, all they saw were three streaks of black going for a certain spot in the car, while Kaito just chilled in the driver's seat.
"I think we know the mastermind for sure now." Cole grumbled.
It was utter chaos from then on, because Kaito's car wasn't the only one with a speaker, and Alina's wasn't the only one with a mic.
Seven extremely torturous, and mentally exhausting hours later, they finally reached Kanazawa. At least, mentally exhausting for everyone except Kaito. Fortunately, no one tried to kill them on the way there, which was a pity because they were armed and ready. Alina hypothesised that it was because anyone could hear the commotion from a mile away. They pulled up into a space beside a pretty good-looking house, where they were greeted by a man with long white hair and kind gray eyes.
"Haruku-sensei," Kaito greeted him, finally taking off his earphones. The twins and Kumori bowed lightly.
The rest followed suit, unsure of how exactly to act.
"Come on in," the man said, leading them into the house. There, a group of eight people sat around a table. One of them, a woman in her thirties, got up and headed towards Kaito, who went, "oh shoot" and promptly escaped up the stairs. Korū snickered.
"You're here to request for our assistance in something?" the man asked.
Hikari nodded, launching into a brief explanation on what happened.
"Ah, the Okazakis," he said, shaking his head. "They were some of our best students. Those were theirs, you know." He pointed to two of the twelve fox masks hanging from a wall. "Anyway. Akui used to be a part of our Wing. We don't know what happened. He just disappeared one day, and today you tell us that he has killed our students."
"Indeed, we do. The entire Bloodlust pack can vouch for it, for they killed our Gammas too." Alina said, exceedingly formal.
"You can speak normally, you know," Kumori said.
Laughter came from the floor above, which quickly turned into Kaito saying, "Oh my god, you're crazy, Mihoyo. THERE"S NO WAY I"M GOING ALONG WITH YOUR PLANS AGAIN!"
Alina shrugged. "It's kinda fun. And it obviously annoys him." She said, jabbing her finger at Cole, who narrowed his eyes at her, but didn't say anything.
"What's happening upstairs?" Liam asked, glancing upwards.
"Nothing much," one of the men at the table said. "It's normal."
Kaito reappeared downstairs looking kinda disheveled, and headed out the door saying something along the lines of "I'm gonna get some food."
Multiple eyes followed as he disappeared through the door.
"Where were we?" Linda asked.
"What do you need from us?"
Once again, Alina and Linda glanced at each other. "Your turn." Alina said, so Linda gave them a run down version.
Three hours later, they sat around the table, a hotpot in the middle of it. Kaito and Mihoyo were nowhere to be seen.
Cole, Cayne and Liam were all staring at the food doubtfully.
"You've never eaten hotpot before?" Alina asked, incredulous.
There were head shakes and shrugs.
"What. How??" Kumori questioned. "Anyways, this thing isn't spiked or something, just eat."
One by one, they took a tentative bite out of some fish, while Alina dove for the hotdogs, sausages and meatballs. Linda chuckled at her and grabbed some lettuce, to which Alina gave a disgusted look.
"Oi, leave some for us, damnit, and the hosts haven't even eaten," Korū growled.
The nine, no, eight without Mihoyo, people were watching, amused.
"You said 'just eat'." Alina pointed out, thankfully after she swallowed her mouthful of food.
"I didn't say 'just eat'. Besides, even if someone tells you to 'just eat', have some fric- table manners and wait for the hosts."
Alina blinked. "Ah. Sorry." She mumbled, looking down at her food guiltily. "In Bloodlust, our pack doesn't start eating until the guests do."
"No, no, it's alright, eat." Haruku said.
"Thanks for the food." The five of them said, looking a little ruffled.
"Itadakimasu," Korū muttered, with the girls echoing.
Kaito finally reappeared, looking extremely done with Mihoyo, who sat down opposite him with a smirk.
Korū and Hikari reached out for the same sausage. He smacked his sister's chopsticks away with his and took the sausage, earning an annoyed glare from Hikari.
The guests ate in awkward silence, still not recovered from the immense amount of rude they must have appeared to be.
Korū was in a fairly good mood, despite being wrapped up in bandages and having Hikari's gaze bearing into him because of that stolen sausage.
"So, tell us about yourselves." Mihoyo said, even though she already knew all about the twins and Kumori. And Kaito. Definitely Kaito.