Eichirou was still yawning when he went down to the living room, still in his pajamas. It would appear that the preparation for the photo exhibit that he was planning was a really taxing one. Erika soon handed him a cup of coffee.
"Good morning, Eichirou-san," Erika greeted as soon as Eichirou took the cup from her hand.
"Good morning..." the photographer replied quite lazily.
Erika could only shake her head and proceeded once again to the kitchen where she saw Shuichi talking to Hideoki. At that, she couldn't help frowning. What could they possibly be discussing? But even from her position, she could tell that it wasn't anything grave or something.
"You woke up early, Erika."
The pianist turned around to the direction of that voice, only to see his brother reading the music sheets that was on his hand.
"I couldn't sleep," she said nonchalantly. But it was more than enough to catch her brother's attention.
"What do you mean? Are you having nightmares?"
Erika shook her head and smiled. "It's nothing like that, Onii-chan. I was..." Wait, should she even tell the truth about that?
"You were what?" Itsuki asked, coaxing her to speak more about it.
Though the tone that Itsuki used was placid, she could sense an underlying worry in it, as well. She sighed because of that. Why was it that she had a brother like this guy, anyway?
But then, this was her brother. It was to be expected since he was the only one left that she would call her immediate family. They only had each other all this time, together with the others who now became her teammates.
"I was just worried about Helen-chan." There. She said it.
For some reason, she already expected her brother's sour reaction upon mentioning her childhood friend's name. But she couldn't understand why Itsuki would react like that towards Helen when she hadn't even done anything ill towards her brother.
"Onii-chan..." she called out, using a tone that would immediately state her point.
Itsuki sighed and tapped Erika's head. She didn't resist this time and allowed him to do that. "I'm sorry. But I can't really do anything about my opinion to your childhood friend. Unless something will happen that could make me see the reason why I should trust her, don't expect me to treat her the same way as the others. Okay?"
The pianist sighed dejectedly at her brother's answer. But since he already stated his point, she might as well respect it. She couldn't do anything about it for now.
Well, the reason why Erika was worried about her childhood friend was because Helen didn't sleep in the mansion but somewhere else that she had no idea about. Even though Hideoki offered the other girl a room that she could use for the night, Helen decided not to take the offer for the reason that she already commissioned someone else where she could stay for a while. Not only that, she also noticed that Helen was pretty quiet for the majority of the time that they were together in that mansion.
I wonder what's wrong with her. I hope she's okay. It was a natural thing for her to worry about Helen even though they hadn't seen or even communicated with each other for the past ten years since the hotel fire. And for some reason, she couldn't help feeling a bit bothered about the fact that Helen knew about the Vessels and the Tareans.
Could that be the same feeling that Itsuki had about Helen?
All Erika did was to scratch her head because of so many questions lingering in her mind about her brother and her childhood friend. But then again, it wasn't like she was going to find out the answers anytime soon, right?
"It looks like everyone's here," Hideoki said as soon as he entered the living room where the Vessels were gathered that morning.
"Good morning, Hideoki-san," Erika greeted that the said historian responded with a nod.
But before she could take her seat on the sofa, her expression brightened when she saw who was walking just behind Hideoki.
"Helen-chan!"
"Good morning, Erika," Helen greeted with a cordial smile. "Good morning, everyone."
With the exception of Itsuki, the other Vessels greeted Helen in a similar manner. The composer only looked at Helen placidly and proceeded with reading the music sheets on his hands. Erika sighed and shook her head because of that. She was about to apologize to Helen but the said girl just winked and smiled an understanding smile.
"Don't mind that. I already expected it, anyway."
Now that had confused Erika but immediately put that thought aside when Hideoki caught their attention. All of them soon found a place for them to seat so that they could listen to whatever the historian would say to them.
"Alright. Starting today, Helen will be staying here with us. But it's only temporary just until her job here is finished."
The Vessels didn't mind the fact that Helen would stay with them. But the one thing that caught their attention were the words "temporary" and "job". Though before any of them could say anything as a response, Hideoki spoke once again.
"One of her job here is to teach you on various aspects of Reikarajutsu, considering the fact that she was trained earlier than the rest of you when it comes to utilizing Hasureiki. And I want you to pay attention to her when she's teaching. Are we clear?"
At the moment, Hideoki wasn't speaking to them as a head of the Mizuhashi household. But more of a strict mentor. The Vessels just nodded with that thought in mind because they didn't want to be scolded severely just because they weren't paying attention at all.
"That's amazing, Helen-chan! You're going to teach us about Reikarajutsu," Erika couldn't help saying in glee.
"It's not that amazing, Erika. I'm just glad that I could help you in some ways, especially now that you're dealing with the Tareans. They're not exactly that easy to deal with, you know."
"We know that, Helen-chan. Trust me, we've already proven it a few times that we encountered them," Eichirou soon said in which Misae agreed on.
It was then that Helen noticed something. "Come to think of it, where is Hiwara-san?"
The others looked around and that was when they finally realized that the biker was indeed missing. And in the middle of the announcement, at that.
"As for Shuichi, he already asked my permission to leave early," Hideoki responded that made the Vessels and even Helen looked at him. He sighed and pointed at the calendar. "You already know what day is today for him."
With that, they looked at the calendar. From there, they saw the date that day was encircled in red ink. The four Vessels nodded understandingly as they faced each other. Helen eyed them curiously.
Misae faced her and spoke. "It's actually the date that Shuichi was anticipating since it's the day that a new novel of Hanasaki Kikue will be released."
"Eh? Could it be that Hiwara-san...?"
Misae nodded with a smile. "That's right. He's a big fan of Hanasaki-sensei."
"Come to think of it, Hanasaki Kikue-sensei is the second generation of the Hanasaki novelists, right?" Eichirou wondered to himself.
"Yes," Hideoki answered. "Hanasaki Kaoru was the first of the fantasy-adventure Hanasaki novelists, as you call it. But she suddenly disappeared in the writing world fourteen years ago, only to find out that she was killed."
Of course, the last part surprised most of them. However, Helen was surprisingly stoic about that and Itsuki couldn't help noticing it. Hideoki continued speaking.
"The novelist that Shuichi was a fan of was said to be the protégé of Hanasaki Kaoru who decided to continue her legacy in the writing world, making Hanasaki Kikue the second generation of the Hanasaki novelists."
"Dad, you sure knew a lot about the Hanasaki novelists," Eichirou couldn't help commenting that only made the girls smile.
"I was a fan of Hanasaki Kaoru, Eichirou, in case you're not aware of it."
Helen smiled at that while the others couldn't hide the surprise that they felt because of that small revelation. It seemed that Hideoki knew Hanasaki Kaoru quite well if they were to base it from the way he said those words.
"Well, at least Shuichi has something good to look forward to," Eichirou commented soon after in which the others only replied with a nod. "Let's just hope he still has the same energy he has now for him to keep up with the training later."