All of them whirled around. It was either Mrs Ishikawa or her twin. Linda was betting that it was the twin.
"Ms Fujihana?" Alina asked. The lady nodded. "I am Alina Moore, a friend of Richard König's. This is the company I come with."
"Shōhei Akiyama."
"Hikari and Korū Hitagaki," Hikari added.
"Linda… Jones?"
Alina snickered. "Linda Carper Jones?"
Linda coughed and glared at her, "Jones." she stated firmly this time.
"That's Cayne Dylan," Shōhei chipped in when Cayne didn't say anything.
"Hi?" He said.
"I see." Ms Fujihana said, her eyes appraising them. "An unlikely party, don't you think? An Okhrana, a Gamma, hybrid twins, a young Alpha, and a dragon."
"The diversity suits us well, I think." Alina said, raising both eyebrows challengingly.
"You hope," Korū muttered.
"Hm," Ms Fujihana responded simply. "Follow me, then. We did promise to hear you out, didn't we?"
"I hope you had a fun time during the freefall. It was my brother's idea to add it. Greta sometimes goes back and forth for the sake of it." she smiled slightly, which none of them could see from behind.
"This one panicked, this one shoved me in, this one's brain died. Very enjoyable." Korū huffed.
Linda snorted. "I think you screamed all the way."
Alina sniggered, "I could hear as I fell through. Pure gold."
"Death threats and screeching in fear are two different things."
Alina gave a short laugh, "You know what else is different? Screeching death threats in fear."
"The fuck?"
"Just leave it," the Fujihana said, "My grandfather's through here." she rapped her knuckles on the door sharply and opened it.
"You have guests." she announced.
In the room, sat a tall, white-haired man, his face full of wrinkles, though his eyes sparkled. He seemed to be in the middle of a game of international chess with a middle-aged man.
"Hello." the old man greeted, "Seems like you managed to find your way here, in the end."
"...Pretty intense," was all Shōhei could say.
Both men chuckled. "Well, come in and sit, all of you. Good to see that you do have the letter with you." the old man said. "I'm Rihito, and this is my grandson Tsukiyama."
Shōhei nudged Korū forward to sit him in a chair, or he'd probably end up standing the entire time. Hikari lowered herself into another chair next to him.
Once everyone was seated, Rihito spoke again. "So, you came to ask about a curse?"
"Yeah," Shōhei said. "Apparently, as far as we know, anyway, a few generations ago, someone in the Okazaki line was cursed and everyone started dying before they turned forty. So if you could help us, that'd be great. I'd very much prefer to keep my friends alive."
Rihito hummed thoughtfully. "Do you know who was the one who did it?"
They nodded. "Chikara Fujihana, I think." Alina said, remembering the name the twins had given her before.
Both Rihito and Tsukiyama chuckled. "Why am I not surprised?" Tsukiyama said as he kept the chess set away. "She was always the rash one, and flared up more easily than any of us. At least, that's what I was always told."
Rihito nodded, "Quite a legend, really. Even within the family. Well, lucky for you, she always noted down who she cursed and why."
"Really?" Linda asked, slightly skeptical.
Rihito smiled kindly, "Really."
"Why…?" Korū questioned.
"We like to give people an out, you see. It's kind of like a family practice. Especially since, like you seem to be experiencing, some of us, namely Chikara, had a tendency to punish the people who are related to the 'offending' person, even if they are totally unrelated to whatever happened."
"Oji-san!" Some random girl, also 17, pranced into the room like she owned the place, slamming the door open. Well, technically she did own the place, but still. She dragged out the words out in an annoying singsong voice.
"What do you want, Ichika? Haven't I told you to stop barging in like that?" Rihito reprimanded the girl, shaking his head slightly.
"Ichi-" Korū and Hikari spun around at the name. "-ka?"
Startled by the twins' reactions, Alina, Linda and Cayne also turned to see what was wrong.
Tsukiyama looked surprised. "You know each other?"
Korū's didn't register anything Tsukiyama said in his shock. He looked like he'd just witnessed a death or something.
Alina poked him cautiously, "Anyone in there?"
He blinked twice, regained his composure, and shook his head. "Tch. The one person I hoped I'd never see again." He looked bitter, so fucking bitter.
Ichika, also stunned for a moment, curled her lips back in a smile. "It's been a while, Korū-san."
Linda's eyes travelled between the two rapidly, and as her eyes widened, she heard a choking sound coming from Cayne, followed by him coughing as Alina thumped his back, hard.
Hikari glanced at them. "Don't die."
"I'll be glad not to." Cayne muttered.
"Don't be so surprised," Shōhei said softly. "He's not heartless. It's normal. As in, being in a relationship is normal."
Cayne gave Shōhei an annoyed look. That wasn't the point.
"Korū-" Hikari started.
He ignored her, getting up and stalking out the door without a word.
"I never said it's not normal." Cayne said after he stopped coughing, then he glared at Alina. "Why'd you hit me?"
"You were choking. I was being a good friend." She claimed.
"Okay, I'm gonna pretend this is normal." Tsukiyama muttered.
"This is perfectly normal," Shōhei clarified.
"For you, not for everyone else." Tsukiyama pointed out.
"Do we want to check if Korū is still alive?" Alina asked.
Ichika was still there, watching with silent amusement.
"I'll go." Linda said.
"Thank you for your sacrifice." Alina said, earning a second Cayne glare.
Rihito was just sitting there, watching quietly.
At that point, Hikari and Ichika were staring each other down.
Tsukiyama cleared his throat. "What did you want, Ichika?"
"Just wanted to see you, Oji-san."
"God, stop sucking up to people. It's been, what, two years? You haven't changed for shit," Hikari muttered.
"Be nice." Rihito said tiredly.
"I'm not doing anything," Ichika said innocently, a little patronisingly.
"Well, damn, shut up." Hikari's eyes were narrowed. "You're fucking annoying, you know?"
"Oh, don't give me that shit," Ichika drawled. "You're just stressed, don't take it out on me, hon."
"Take it out on you?" Hikari snarled. "Bullshit. Or have you forgotten what happened in school?!"
"Ichika." Tsukiyama butted in, "you've already seen me, so unless you have something constructive to say, please go out so that we can finish our conversation."
Ichika either didn't hear him or she didn't care. "Hikari-chan, I didn't do anything wrong." She insisted in an uncaring way. She was getting a kick out of this.
"Huh?" Hikari was refraining from killing someone in her own home. "You hurt my brother, you fucking homophobic bitch!"
Tsukiyama had had enough and stood up, dragging her out of the room. Ichika gave Rihito a woeful look as she was pulled away. Rihito just maintained eye contact, his eyebrows slightly elevated in a very unsatisfied way.
Hikari was still seething and extremely close to chasing down the other girl and tearing her head off.
After the two left, he turned to Hikari, Alina, Shōhei and Cayne, "I'll go see if I can convince your friends to come back. Wait here, and please try not to destroy anything. I would appreciate it if you don't touch anything." He then stood up and made his way out of the room too, leaving the chess set on a shelf near the door.
"So…" Cayne muttered. "What do we do for the time being?"
"Do what you want, I guess. Just don't destroy the place," Shōhei said. "Hikari, you okay?"
"NO. THE BASTARD."
"Calm down. We can kill her after. Priorities, Hikari." Alina said, looking comfortable in her seat.
"Hmph."
"Do you think Linda still exists?" Cayne mused.
"Yeah, I mean, Korū won't randomly kill someone for trying to comfort him." Shōhei said. He frowned slightly. "I hope."
Cayne snorted. "I'll pray."
Just then, the door opened again and Rihito appeared, Linda and Korū in tow.
"My faith has paid off."
Korū was stiffer than ever, his eyes fixed on either Hikari, the floor, or somewhere far, far away.
"Let's continue, shall we? I'm sorry for the interruption." Rihito apologised
"It's okay, Fujihana-san," Shōhei said, because neither Hikari nor Korū were gonna speak. "It happens."
"Okay, where were we…? Ah, yes, the records. Um…" he glanced around the room before standing up and making his way to a shelf before pulling out a thick, leather bound book. "How old is the curse?"
"A few generations. We don't know exactly how many." Shōhei glanced at his friends. "Right?"
Korū muttered something that sounded like a yes.
"Hmm…" Rihito was silent for a moment. "Almost everyone in the family cursed at least one person every few months, until about one or two generations before me. And our family is huge. Meaning that this book has the information of many, many, many curses, arranged based on the date it was cast. I need to know a more specific year, if not we'll be here forever."
Hikari considered for a moment. "Five generations...? So... A hundred and twenty-five? I don't know, my math is trash."
Rihito sighed and brought the book to where they were sitting. "With the numbers you're giving me, we might as well look through all the curses that Chikara had cast her whole life."
"It can't be that bad, can it?" Alina asked.
"Maybe?" Shōhei guessed. "He seems pretty done, so."
Rihito chuckled. "This is the section with all of Chikara's logs, from the oldest to the most recent. I'm not really in a hurry, so I guess it won't hurt to know how many unresolved curses there are out there, anyway."
"That's... Thick," Shōhei said, frowning.
"I already warned you."
"Well, it's obviously a lot to read, so let's get started, shall we?" Linda said.
"Mh," was Korū's only response.