The woman sitting in the shorter chair suddenly twisted her expression from confusion to pure shock. It didn't seem to come from Miyo's sudden declaration to somehow turn the orphanage into a 'hideout' or from the fact that she said she wanted to connect the town to her company. Tomoe did find this all puzzling, and the meaning of Miyo's ideas wasn't fully open to her, but she didn't concentrate on those anyway. Instead, something else the little woman said caught her attention.
"Did...did you just say 'Fufu and Aishi'?...Do you mean...you want to adopt both, Fudo and Aiko?"
"Is that a problem? You may try, but you won't keep me from taking them! I love 'em way too much already!" Miyo answered as she explored the table's drawers. Tomoe hadn't changed her expression, though. She didn't seem as if she would try to convince Miyo to stop what she wanted to do. It was rather a look of utter disbelief.
"N-no, not at all! If Fudo decided to go with you, then you'd be the first person to have achieved that! Every previous adoption ended in Fudo declining. He always said something along the lines of: "I won't betray her." But no one knows who he means...I always thought that he meant his biological mother...but if that should be the case, then I wonder why he'd suddenly go with you."
"I doubt he's that attached to Suzaku...what about Aishi? He said they were together pretty long, so it'd be more logical if he would stay here because he doesn't want to let her be by herself, correct?" Miyoko proposed the idea in a way that sounded as if she already knew she was correct while she didn't look up from the drawers only once.
"We thought of that as well, it even became a topic to the other boys, but we don't know why that would betray... wait, I never told you his mother's name, did I?" Miyo kept looking through the drawers. One of them contained a stack of children's drawings that were all kept in perfect condition. "I work for her. He described his mother, and it was basically a perfect description of Suzaku, even the little thing she always does with her bangs... but anyway, we have other things to discu-."
Again Miyoko wasn't able to get to her original topic, this time being interrupted by a knock from the outside. She sighed impatiently and annoyed before she let her forehead fall and hit the table, but Tomoe seemed relatively relieved from not having to talk about it. She stood up, walking over to the door as she hoped to get away from Miyo for a moment.
The moment she opened the door, a small face gazed up at her. A young boy that was probably not over 7 years looked around the room with a worried scowl, his black hair dangling just a little in front of his face. "What is it, Sasara?" The woman asked, crouching to be a little closer to the boy's height. "The...the woman that big brother and Aishi bought is crying."
From all the messages that Tomoe would've expected the child to bring her, this was definitely not one of them. She was left speechless, she was sure that Sasara meant Kaiyo with it, but just from her image, Tomoe couldn't imagine anything that would make her cry. She stood up and turned around, wanting to see Miyo's reaction, but just before she could say a word, the woman still sitting on the table let out a loud snort.
"I think we should go look after that, huh?" She said, trying to keep calm and not break out into laughter. It was as if this was nothing new and rather something Miyo was looking forward to seeing.
They all left the room, following after the boy. Since Miyo was so calm about it, Tomoe didn't rush anything either all she showed was a bit of worry on her face. Fudo did say that she could trust Kaiyo, but Tomoe felt a bit of concern thinking of her around children.
"Say, Mrs. Miyoko, are you sure that your wife won't hurt any of my children?"
"I'm feeling like you don't like my woman very much." Miyoko didn't say more, keeping that as the only answer to Tomoe's question. Other than before, she seemed to be rather offended by the question, seeing it as an insult towards Kaiyo more than a simple matter to relieve Tomoe's worry. She even pouted slightly before they stepped into the room that Sasara came from, and in the very moment, the pout didn't take even one second to turn into a wide smirk.
"M-miyoo~!" The woman cried out, reaching both her arms towards Miyoko. Her eyes were watery, and she wanted to run up to Miyoko, but she seemed unable to move. She was sitting on the bed closest to the door while two young children were sleeping on her legs, both leaning up against her body.
"And? Fell in love again?"
"I-I can't move...I...I'll wake them up."
"I told you I can just pick them up! The twins don't wake up by just moving, you don't need to cry because of that!" Aiko whispered to break into the conversation. Fudo and Aiko were both standing just beside the bed that Kaiyo sat on. Fudo already had another oversized white jacket on and a small bag strapped onto his shoulder, but Aiko seemed to be taking her time packing.
Tomoe tried to register all that was happening, figuring out what to ask first, but every time she thought she came to, another question raised in her head. She walked up to Kaiyo and picked up one of the children. "They didn't hurt you in any way...right?" She didn't believe that she cried because of pain, but this was a way to start a conversation at least.
"They...they were nice...calm...they slept nearly instantly as they sat down." She answered, sniffling while patting the child on her leg.
"Then...why exactly were you crying?" Tomoe asked her while she was putting the boy she carried into one of the beds in the back. The bed having a sign hanging down its rear saying "Haruka and Natsu."
"I can explain that in her stead," Miyo chuckled, "Do you know that feeling when a cat or dog falls asleep either on or next to you, and you can't move anymore or else you'd disturb them? Kaiyo's legs are strong enough to kick a rock like a football, but once a kid's on them, they're suddenly immovable objects. Now take a Kaiyo that wants to move but physically can't and boom: tears."
"That...makes no sense, if I may say so...Fudo, can you bring Natsu over as well?"
"That's also what all the boys say when I tell them I like meat bags instead of meat sticks, crazy how the human mind works, right?" Miyoko cheekily answered, watching Fudo carefully lift the other child off Kaiyo's leg. The room became quiet again. Fudo carried Natsu over to Tomoe, Aiko continued packing her bag, and Miyoko began petting Kaiyo's head in order to calm her down, seeing how she still looked after the two children.
"I still don't know how anyone could think you'd attack a child...seriously...your love for them makes me jealous sometimes..." Miyoko thought to herself. The prejudices people had on her were something that hurt Miyo way more than Kaiyo herself.
"Oh, by the way, why did you want to stand up so bad you cried?"
"O-oh, right! Aruna wrote. Zen finished packing, and he's coming to bring everything over. I wanted to tell you to get ready with the adoption...but then the little twins crawled up on me and...you know."
"So there's someone else you're acquainted with coming over?" Tomoe listened in to their conversation, coming over from the bed of the Twins. Fudo still sat on their bed, tucking them in while making sure they are comfortable.
"A close friend of ours, yes. He's the only free person we can trust with it, so he'll come and take the two back to our house in Kyoto while we end up everything we have going on here!" Miyoko quickly answered so Tomoe wouldn't start stressing them again.
"Zen is sure to take care of them. He's been working under me longer than anyone else. I'd say he's better than any professional bodyguard there is." Kaiyo added, seeing how Miyoko acted on the woman's question.
"...I'd still like to meet him first... Fudo and Aiko seem to trust you, and it's not mine to judge that, but I have known you for less than 10 minutes, and by all means, that's not enough to entrust my children with you. All I know from you is that...you have some kind of strange, unexplainable ability."
Suddenly, Aiko looked up from packing, hearing what Tomoe said last. "You saw her esper?... Does that mean you believe in them now? Do you believe me now?!" She eagerly jumped up, running towards the woman with a light in her eyes glowing brighter than ever before.
"W...well, I still think it's... weird. I did certainly watch Ms. Miyoko fall through the ground and walk into a wall... but a ghost... I don't know." She answered, scratching the back of her head, but the one difference was that this time Fudo was on Aiko's side and not on Tomoe's.
"Didn't he hit Zen before?" He stood up from the bed, walking towards Aiko. "Trigram, right? Can't you... tap Mama a little? Just... show them you're here?" To both Sasara and Tomoe, it looked like Fudo was poking the air above Aiko, but the others saw the way that the blue orb moved away from Fudo's finger.
"Fudo... I know you want to support Aiko, but isn't this going too far? Pretending to see gho-...?" She suddenly stopped talking. Tomoe felt something lightly hit her cheek over and over, but nothing and no one was close enough to do so. She felt her cheek, or at tried to at least. As she tried putting her hand on her cheek, she instead felt something in the shape of a ball touching her hand.
"What...is this?
"That, my friend, is that none existent ghost. Say hello to Trigram, who apparently has lived with you as long as Aishi did." Miyoko said, trying to grab the orb as well. "And now that we got this over with, we can't really wait for you to observe us, or whatever you do to learn if someone is to trust, isn't there a way to speed up the process?"
"I don't know how you expected a child adoption to work, but you can't just choose a kid here and take them home. It is true, I'm doing this all by myself, but I tell you again that this doesn't mean that adopting a child is as easy as adopting a pet."
"Kaiyo...in a fight one against many, how many people can you take on?" Fudo asked suddenly. Tomoe seemed to already know what he was going for.
"Fudo, stop this."
"Depends on the type of people...though, I'd say it doesn't go below triple digits... why are you asking?" Kaiyo was already back to her usual self, though it seemed as if her answer made Tomoe worry even more.
"Fudo, this is going too far! You know what happened last time!"
"Last time was just because I was too weak! This time we have them! They can help us with Tsubasa! That'll show you that we can trust them!"
"Fudo, we will keep our distance from him and continue to answer his demands. That way, no one will be hurt, and no one has to be at the end of a gun again, did you understand?!"
"At...the end of a gun, yeah?" Kaiyo stood behind Tomoe. She put her hand on the woman's shoulder. It was as if her eyes were glowing red as she stared down at both of them. "What kinda guy is that? I wanna know it all."