Strings [Kara no Kyoukai]

[SpoonyViking]

I really wouldn't say so! Not only does it serve a purpose, but it's genuinely enjoyable to read. :-)

[tsugumi]

I liked it

[Prix with a Silent X]

I liked it

Yay! I was hoping you would since your comment was one of the things that helped me decide to finish a new chapter.

[tsugumi]

I just wanted to say I keep thinking about this story and I look forward to the next chapter.

[Prix with a Silent X]

VII. Expectations




Anything but truly late, Touko sits perched on her bathroom counter-top. Ready with bells on, or so it would appear -- black nylon stockings, a dress that will flower if she spins, and well-appointed jewelry. She considered going without her glasses, making an even greater show of her preparation, but she decides she might need them.


It occurs to her that she doesn’t know how Kayneth will reach out to hold up his end of the bargain. There is a phone, sitting on its cradle, in the other room. However, some magi prefer to use other creative means for communication, and he had not asked for her number. On the other hand, he had done his research about her ‘six generation’ family.


It turns out that he opts for more flare. A few moments later when she has pressed her feet into classy heels, she feels that same eerie creep of cool air at the back of her neck, sending a shiver up her spine. The fact that his primary discipline is spiritual evocation is not lost on her, when she fully recognizes what the sensation is.


It strikes her as an underhanded tactic: to drive a woman out to a waiting car by haunting her house with some captive spirit.


Character judgments are not really what Touko is meeting Kayneth for, though.


She doesn’t bring anything but herself and a house key. She does not expect to be asked to pay for anything with money.


In front of her building, she sees a dark car waiting for her. She half-expects another captive spirit to know how to drive the car, but instead, an older man in a simple suit sees her coming and opens the back passenger door for her. She slips inside with a polite little nod. He nods back and closes the door behind her, walking around the car to take his place back in the driver’s seat.


The doors lock with his press of a button, and she wonders how much of this remains a choice. Not that she has much reason to fight it, anyway.


The car’s movement is steady and lets her watch the damp, dirty, and glistening streets as they pass by, reflections quite sharp at night in glass window panes. Her chauffeur does not offer conversation, nor does he project any interest or malice.


As she considers what Kayneth seems to want, her mind’s eye slips her a fire-damaged photograph of someone else who’d poured blood on her hands. At least Kayneth is only likely to offer some stone with appropriate pedigree.

◇

The journey is longer than she expects, but by the time they arrive up the long drive with a grand loop at the end, before the mansion with a high roof in the center and parallel wings, her curiosity is piqued enough to chase away boredom. Before the driver can come around to open the door for her, she reaches down and finds that the locking mechanism gives her no trouble, and she is able to elbow her way out of the car. Some captivity is imagined, while the opposite can also be true.


She thinks she hears some elderly grunt of protest from the man, and she tries not to bestow any guilt upon the old man who’d not overstepped. Instead, she climbs the few elegant steps to the front door and reaches out to use the brass knocker.


She finds herself pleasantly surprised when Kayneth answers the door, rather than another servant, but quick reflection reminds her that this likely only means that he has servants preparing them dinner, given the scent of the air.


She tilts her head at him and smiles sweetly.


“You come all this way every day?” she asks, punctuating her impertinence with a continued mask of sweetness.


“Of course not. I have a flat in the city, should... need arise,” he replies. He steps behind her as if he might divest her of a coat she is not wearing. His hand finds her bare shoulder instead. It does not demand anything. Not yet. Nevertheless, it is warm, soft, and entirely too familiar for a man who hardly knows her. Then again, don’t they all?


He clears his throat in a way that might suggest some nerves, which makes her think that he might not be so confident in presumption as he seems.


“Do you have my query?” she asks him pointedly. “I hope you have documentation to show that you didn’t just slip into one of the New Age stores...”


“Of course,” Kayneth chuckles. “What sort of cooperation might I establish with you if my first errand proves false?”


She turns around, neatly making him stop touching her but looking up into his eyes.


“I would rank the honor among magi just below that of thieves,” she comments, and the smile he gives her seems entirely more green than the smirks she’d seen flashed in the pub.


He starts to reach for her again, thinks better of it, and claps his hands together with a muffled effort and sound. He looks too jolly for himself, and then nods for her to follow before extending his arm in a more polite gesture.


“This way,” he says.


She looks at him and scoffs softly.


“You can lead the way. I don’t know my way around,” she offers -- a few more inches of rope.

◇

The agate stones are a deep-toned rainbow, each a different shade and rough-tumbled, showing their color but demonstrating in kind that they were not yet prepared for commercial sale. Touko immediately has a good sense of them, though stones are not her usual medium. They are presented to her in a box that suggests if Kayneth sought help from outside the world of magi that it would more likely have been from a jeweler than a woman with more whimsy and cats than thaumaturgic ability.


Satisfied, as she sits upon a comfortable, soft couch before a coffee table, Touko looks up at Kayneth with a slight nod. Her hands are back upon her knees.


“And the documentation?” she asks.


Kayneth reaches for the box and pulls up a panel of reinforced velvet to show the printed documents beneath.


Touko tilts her head and looks at them long enough. They do not look like nonsense or forgeries. She relents and his finger slips the panel back into place.


While he closes the box, she considers the shape of his body. Tonight, he has no jacket to swallow him whole and wears suspenders that give him most of the credit for his remaining youth.


He is nothing like Araya. In fact, the longer she watches him, the more she thinks he is almost honest and plain. It seems boring, compared to his petty pride before others in the pub.


“You know this errand was not of a personal nature, for me?” she needles, if only to see how he will react. Part of her is trained to believe that it will be with disappointment and privation of the thing she happens to need that is already within her reach.


“Ah. You don’t care for stones?” he surmises in yet another underwhelming show of willingness to understand.


“They are not my best medium,” she informs him, learning better what is just-enough to share.


He sits in an armchair near her. His lack of urgency surprises her.


“We can take supper whenever you would like,” he offers her.


She does not quite let herself relax against the back of the seat. She hadn’t thought they’d be sitting that long.


“How do you know about my ‘six generations’?” she asks. Part of her is still looking for some way to take offense, to become angry with him. She wants to stop being given reasons to offer weakness and charity in the face of his obvious remaining interest and desire. Her fingers clutch in the fabric of her skirt.


“We have a Hall of Records. You did gain entry to Clock Tower, after all, on the basis of your family history...”


This sets Touko’s jaw at least, but it is not enough.


“I have no desire to add to their legacy. Only to my own,” Touko confesses with sharpened tone.


“That means that you are a good magus, one would wager,” he says.


“I don’t think anyone would want to bet on knowing what I’ll do,” she insists.


Her blood simmers beneath her skin with unresolved desire to lash out. His kindness -- if it can be called that -- irritates her.


“Would you like to take a walk?” he offers suddenly. He offers his hand in a gentle, cradling gesture.


She thinks that if she doesn’t move, she might set the room on fire, so she takes his hand with a swallow.


He leads her to the eastern wing of the large house. There, he shows her things fit for a museum, and rooms that are ready for use, clean but obviously presently untouched.


“I offer you a look at what could be yours, should you see fit to continue some... negotiation of interest. I do not mean to insult you. Only to tell you now that you are... more than ‘good enough.’”


At last, he says something that makes Touko bristle enough to almost return to calm.


She looks up at him, studying his light eyes and scoffing a little as she looks away again.


“Is this how you woo all your dates?”


“Most certainly not. Most of them aren’t to the standard my bloodline demands. They know this, but they go into such arrangements with the understanding that they can try to convince me.”


Touko rolls her eyes and then her shoulders back.


“Let’s not keep your servants’ efforts waiting.”


She turns around and follows her nose toward a kitchen. Short of it, she finds the dining room and takes her own seat.


Kayneth follows her with his tail a bit tucked. She can’t tell if it’s with bared teeth or a whine.


He takes his place at the head of the table, where she’d sat to one side. It only has chairs for six and places set for two, but it is obviously a table that could be expanded for more guests.


They are served their dinner by a woman in an apron and a well-made uniform with slacks, which mildly surprises her. When the woman leaves again, once more without a word, Touko picks up her fork and pokes at her dish.


“Are they alive?” she asks.


“What?” Kayneth splutters softly.


“I thought you did most of your dealings with ghosts.”


“They aren’t the best with their hands,” Kayneth suggests. He gives her a look that better fits the cockiness that better suits him than compromise. He taps his finger on a wine glass, takes a sip. Another tap, and the glass fills back to its previous state as the invisible spirit puts down the heavy base of the bottle with a bit of an inelegant noise but without a spill in sight, suggesting in turn that Kayneth might well be good with his.


---
I felt like updating... something... and tsugumi's last reply to this thread and the relative lack of baggage made this the winner. We'll see if I update again in the next five years.

[tsugumi]

The way my heart stopped when I got this notif. Itadakimasu. Kept going "kyaa" the whole time. Awesome stuff.

[Prix with a Silent X]

The way my heart stopped when I got this notif. Itadakimasu. Kept going "kyaa" the whole time. Awesome stuff.

Thank you!!! I was worried I would wake up regretting yolo-writing and posting.

[tsugumi]

No way; there's a lot of points where I was nodding along and thinking "Yes, that's so true, I completely agree. Yes, it's like that!"