16"Please?" Kado looked up at Tenten's face.
"No." She turned back to scrub at the dishes while Hotaru watched the spectacle. It was entertaining.
"Pretty please?" Kado puckered his lips and looked at her. His father used the same expression when he was trying to get something. "Pretty please Tenten-sama?" Hotaru saw the woman shrug her shoulders; she was weakening…
"Pwease?" The child voice; he was puling out all the stops. The woman seemed to growl a little. Hotaru knew that their plan had backfired.
"If you ask one more time, Kado," she threatened, "I'm going to ground you! And don't say I can't; your mother said I could if I had too!" Kado slinked over to the chair next to Hotaru. After a near grounding two days before, they had dropped the subject and had waited for the perfect moment to spring their backup plan. The scheming duo had failed again to get some word out of Tenten. She was pretty resistant; even their mother had trouble refusing that face most of the time.
"When's Dad getting home?" Hotaru asked, playing with the loose string on her sleeve. "He wanted so much to be here when she got home." She yawned on the last word and her brother stifled a laugh. He had buried his nose in his last book; the rest had been finished the last two days (there had been ten of them).
"He said he was thinking about meeting her at the gate…" Tenten looked up at the clock; they should be home in about an hour. Great…more time with the children who teamed up to get their information…
"So what are we going to do?" Hotaru asked, swinging her feet like a child.
"That's up to you," Tenten replied, drying the last dish in her hand, "You could always go do some studying. Your test is in three days and you need to be prepared." Hotaru grumbled; she was the least likely person in her class to need extra study, her mother had made sure of that.
"Or you came help clean this place up before she gets home." The woman eyed the overflowing trashcan, "Seeming, as you can't cook anything that doesn't have charcoal in it…" Hotaru jumped off her chair and her feet hit the cold floor.
"That I can do," she chirped; she didn't mind cleaning, "Dad doesn't clean up very well…" She grabbed the trash and heaved it outside before running back to work on the living room; books were scattered everywhere.
"Kado!" He brother came running. Tenten watched in amusement. I should take them to my place, she thought.
After ten minutes of picking up books and paper, the living room was presentable. Kado ran upstairs to do his own room in a hurry (Hotaru always kept hers clean) while the still pre-pre-teenager yanked open the door to her parent's room. It was a regal mess; Kyra wouldn't be happy if she saw this. In fact, she would probably take all her time cleaning it than catching up on sleep like Lee always wanted her to. Clothes were slung over the back of the desk chair and the edge of the bed, papers where piled haphazardly across the desk with some spilling over the edge, and the bed's sheets were lying on the floor next to the bed they should be on.
"I have my work cut out for me…" Hotaru muttered to herself. She set to work, starting with the clothes-most of which where thrown in the hamper- and moved to the desk to organize the papers. She was shifting though the stacks to find the end of the dojo papers and the start of her mother's old experiments when an old leather book fell off the shelf underneath the desk.
Hotaru finished sorting out the papers into their rightful stacks before she bent to pick it up, turning it over in her hands to find the title; there was none. She flipped open to the first page to find her mothers neat handwriting. It was a sort of journal, not so much different from her own except for the dates starting back from more than thirteen years. She hesitated as her hands moved to the back of the book; did she really want to look at this? It was her mother's private thoughts for her and, most likely, Lee.
"Hotaru, I'm done!" Hotaru closed the book and set it back on the shelf. "Hotaru?" Kado stuck his head in the door; she turned around to face him with a smile.
"Help me with the bed and we're done," she said, "Tenten took care of the kitchen and hallway already." She grabbed the first sheet lying on the floor and her brother grabbed the other corner, pulling it over the bed. After both of them made the bed the way Kyra had taught them, they ran back out the door. Hotaru took one last look at the desk before she shut the door.
…
"Sorry we're late!" Kyra ducked through the door that Lee held open from her, slipping her shoes off right next to the door. Kado hit her first, tackling her around the waist and sending her backing up into her husband. "Okay Kado," she laughed, "let me breathe first." He released her and went to the kitchen to wait for them and avoid any questioning.
"How as the mission Mom?" Hotaru asked, taking the bag in her mother's arm. She saw that it had been the reason for them being late; they had stopped to pick up Kyra's favorite snack.
"It was okay," she mother said, "Nothing special about this one." Lee slipped in behind her, closing the door and taking off his own shoes. Kyra's travel bag was slung over his shoulder; Hotaru knew that it was heavier than it looked. "So how many books does Kado have left?" Kyra asked walking down the hall with her daughter as Lee deposited the bag in their room.
"One…" Kyra laughed as she entered the kitchen; it was a lighter sound than usual. Tenten came over to say hello. "Would you like to eat with us, Tenten?" She shook her head and smiled.
"No thanks," she replied, "I have someone waiting for me to cook back home." She winked at Kyra and they laughed; Lee rolled his eyes slightly and Kado pretended to choke himself. "I'll see myself Kyra," she continued, "I think they've been waiting to eat until you got home." She chuckled and closed the door behind her when she left.
"You guys haven't eaten yet?" Kyra asked skeptically, grabbing the apron from its hook on the wall. "What am I going to do with you three?" Dinner passed and everyone settled in the living room. Hotaru sat on the couch, her study books and scrolls once again pushed up on her lap, while Kado playing Shougi with his mother. Kyra sat on Lee's back while he did pushups. It was the normal evening routine. Many times, Hotaru would look up at her mother, her expression somewhat puzzled. She always looked away before her mother saw her. She kept having thoughts about the little book…
"Hotaru?" She looked up at her mother's face; she was looking at her with concern, "Something wrong? Or is the work just frustrating you?" Hotaru nodded and shoved the papers onto the table.
"Yeah." She twisted to lay on the couch with her face looking over the edge. "It's hard to believe I only have three days left before I become a Genin and get assigned to my cell."
"If you even become a Genin," Kado injected. Hotaru threw pencil in his direction; he caught it easily. "You never know…"
"I highly doubt I won't pass," she argued, "Sato and I are the top two in our class, we're shoo-ins for Genin." Kyra smiled at her daughter's confidence.
"But there's always that if dear…" Hotaru sighed and looked back at her mother.
"I know." Lee let himself drop to the floor suddenly, sending Kyra sprawling. She rolled to her back and kicked Lee's shoulder lightly as all of them laughed.
Here's a longer chapter that took some time but was a fun thing to write. OH THE MYSTERY! WHAT'S IN KYRA'S JOURNAL?! Lol, I'm alittle bored and the story should start taking shape now that 1) you have a basci understnading of Hotaru and Kado and 2) It's about the right time to anyway...
See you next Chapter!
-Kyra Odayashi
Review (Cry cry, I only got one):
Acea - Of course I'll continue! Though I must let you know that this is a sort of writing exercise for me. I'm developing better/more realistic characters that are also older than my usual group, More realistic families, better plots, better writing skills/forshadowing...AND YOU HAVEN'T UPDATED YET! Blah!