"Michiru! Stop that!" Ki scolded. Michiru, now three years old, looked up sheepishly at her mother. "Stop what, mama?" Ki took the crayon from her hand. "I told you, we're going to the store. You can color when we get home." "But I wanna color now, mama." Michiru's blue eyes were wide and pleading. "Pleeeeease?" Ki continued to frown as she took the crayon and put it back in the box. She then took the coloring book and put it up high on a counter where Michiru couldn't reach it. "We're leaving _now_." "What about Kirei and Suteki and Kanzen and Genki and Kanpeki?" Michiru asked, gasping a bit for breath when she finished. "They're already in the van, now come on. Your little sister put her crayons away when I asked, you can too." Michiru pouted and followed her mother into the car. She sat next to Kanpeki and Genki in the middle row, the five year-old Kirei and seven year-old Suteki in the back row, the nine year-old Kanzen in the passenger seat. Kirei reached over the seat and tweaked one of Michiru's pigtails and giggled. Michiru grabbed onto Kirei's ponytail and frowned at her. Kirei stuck her tongue out, then Suteki hit the back of her head. Kirei dove at her older sister, pulling her long hair tight. "Owww! Mama mama mama! Kirei is pulling my hair!" "Am not, onee-san!" "Are too!" "Are not!" "Please can I color when we get home, okaa-san?" Michiru called above her older sisters' arguing. "I'm scared... and I'm tired..." Kanpeki whimpered. "I want to go home..." "Both of you, hush!" Kanzen shouted at his arguing sisters. "Onii-san's bossing us around again!" "Why is everyone being mean?" Genki murmured, covering his ears. Kanpeki started wailing loudly, as she was prone to do. Ki gripped the steering wheel tightly in her hands, her lips compressed in a thin white line. One more word... "SUTEKI IS..." "Everybody hush, now!" she barked. The car fell quiet except for Kanpeki's whimpering. Ki exhaled loudly as they pulled up to a red light, and turned around so she could face all her children at once. "I am trying to get us safely to the store. I cannot do that with everyone making noise all at once. I need it quiet in here to get us there safely. Understood?" "Yes, mama," the oldest five said in unison. "But I'm sleepy," Kanpeki whined. Ki continued to drive, her children finally falling silent... wellll... Briefly, tiny, quiet whispers could be heard of, "You did too!" "Did not!" "Oh, hush, both of you!" "You shouldn't fight..." "... can we go home?" "I just wanna color..." ********** "Paaapaaaaa!" the little five year-old wailed as she ran inside. Katai looked up from his newspaper irritably. "What is it, Haruka-chan?" Haruka sniffled and pointed downwards to her knees, her sandy-blond bangs falling into her eyes. "I fell down on the sidewalk and hurt my knees." "Sunao, Haruka fell down again! Could you get her a bandage?" "Coming!" Katai set the paper down and walked over to his daughter. "Haruka-chan, this is getting to be quite a habit of yours. How'd you do it this time?" "I was just walking and fell down." Haruka looked up at him, her teal eyes full of innocence. "Honest." "Haruka..." Katai growled. Haruka sighed and looked down at the floor and mumbled, "I pushed Sai and he shoved me down on the ground." Katai looked at her bloodied knees. "This wouldn't keep happening if you wouldn't be mean to the other kids." "I'm not being mean!" Haruka protested. "I was just trying to play with 'em and they wouldn't let me!" Sunao came in as Haruka was finishing. She carefully bandaged Haruka's knees and smiled when Haruka threw her small arms around her neck and gave her a hug. "Thank you, mama!" "Your welcome." "Let those be a reminder of what I told you," Katai said. "If you don't want it to happen again, try to get along with the other kids. You can go back out to the park now." Haruka nodded and ran out to the park across the street from their house. "She's just full of energy," Sunao commented. "Hopefully she'll calm down when school starts." Katai rubbed his temples and muttered, "We're going to have to find a bigger home if we want to contain all that energy." Sunao laughed, "Katai, this home here is nice, and our neighbors above us are quite friendly." "I was just kidding. This house is great already, nice and big. Still, she is a handful, isn't she?" "Mmmm hmmm... I'm going to fix some lunch now. I should be done in twenty minutes." Katai picked up his newspaper again and muttered to himself. "Haruka is never going to learn how to make it in the world if we aren't rougher on her! We can't just sit back and hold her hand all the time!" "Sai-chan!" Haruka yelled. "Sai-chan!" Sai, a brown-haired five year-old who was tall for his age, turned to look back from the swings he was on. "Haruka-chan, what are you doing back here?" Haruka stopped running and smiled slightly. "I'm all better, my mama put bandages on my knees." She then bowed her head slightly to him and said, "I am sorry for pushing you, that wasn't nice." Sai laughed and said, "Sorry I pushed you, too." Haruka smiled and ran to another swing next to a short girl with red hair named Cindy, who was six years old. Cindy was born in Japan and was brought up like a Japanese child, but her parents had been born in America. "Hi, Haruka- chan!" she said with a grin. "Hi, Cindy-chan, how's it going?" "It's good. My sister's still sick though... she's always got a bit of somethin', but my mama says she'll get over it. She runs good and fast." "Maybe we can play with her later... Hey, can we meet both your parents today?" Haruka asked. Cindy's mother was always the one that came to get her from the park, and none of the kids knew her father. Cindy-chan frowned and looked up at the sky. "I'm not sure... mama said she and papa don't want people to know about them, but I don't know what that means." Haruka frowned as well and pushed her bangs back out of her face. "Why can't we meet your papa?" "Yeah, Cindy-chan," Sai broke in. "Why doesn't your papa ever come to get you, just your mama? No one's ever seen your papa." "She says that lots of people don't like that kinda thing, but I don't understand _that_ either. Grown-ups are weird." "_You're_ being weird!" Sai said. "What do you mean?" "I asked you about your papa and you're talking about a girl." Cindy tilted her head to the side. "But my papa _is_ a girl." "Your papa's a girl? I thought papas were boys," Haruka said. "Papa and mama say it doesn't matter. Mama says papa isn't my real papa though, but she said she can't explain it to me now because I'm too little." "I hate when big people do that," Sai-chan commented. "They always say 'wait till you're older,' or 'it's a big kid thing; you wouldn't understand.' " Haruka kicked her feet in the sand as she swung and said softly, "Hey, Cindy-chan, Sai-chan? Can we stop for a bit?" "What's wrong?" Cindy asked immediately. They all stopped swinging, Sai and Cindy looking over to Haruka's worried face. "I heard mama and papa talking once, 'bout someone named A-... Akara... Akarui, yeah... They were saying stuff about missing him and wishing he could have lived. What do you think they were talking about?" Cindy and Sai glanced at each other knowingly, then looked down at their feet. "Well, umm..." Sai scratched his head guiltily. Cindy blurted, "My mama said that when you were born, you had a brother, but he's dead!" Haruka looked at them in shock. "Huh???" She didn't get another chance to talk when Cindy heard her mother calling. Sai and Haruka turned when Cindy ran to her mother, whom they recognized from her red hair and hazel eyes, but didn't recognize the tall, pretty black-haired lady next to her. Cindy and her mother waved, the other lady just looking over quizzically, Cindy shouted bye loudly, and they left. Sai told Haruka, "Maybe you should ask your parents... I dunno about that stuff." Haruka ran home, breathing hard when she opened the door. "Mama? Papa?" She walked around and found them in the living room, watching t.v. Sunao patted her lap, and Haruka crawled up and sat in it. Sunao smiled and hugged her daughter. "What is it, Haruka-chan?" "C-Cindy-chan told me she heard that I had a brother and he's dead. Is that true?" Sunao and Katai's faces paled and they flinched in shock. "Haruka..." Katai came over and sat by her. "Haruka-chan, this'll probably be hard for you to listen to, but she's right. When your mama had you, she also had a boy named Akarui. Akarui got sick and died several minutes after he was born. We didn't tell you because we didn't think you would want to hear things like that when you're so little--" "Papa, what did he look like?" Haruka blurted. Katai looked puzzled by her question. "He was small, with brown hair and black eyes... why?" "Well... I was just wondering. I'm not really sad, but I'm not happy or anything, y'know. I don't know him so I don't really know what I think... But you seem sad, papa, so I wanna know what he looks like because maybe you'll feel better if I learn about him and if I miss him too." Katai and Sunao both blinked in surprise. "Haruka-chan... umm, it's your nap time," Sunao murmured. "Go up to bed. We'll talk more later." "Okay, mama, love you, and love you too, papa." Haruka bounded up the stairs to her room. "She says such strangely insightful things sometimes," Sunao commented. "It's as if she has a perception of things beyond her years." "Hmmm..." Katai rested his head on his palms and sighed sadly. "What is it?" Sunao murmured, rubbing his shoulders soothingly. "I just wish he... you know." "I know, I do too." "Why did it have to be him that died? It's not that I don't love our daughter, but I would have wanted a son if I had a choice in the matter." "I know, you've told me before. But things will work out one day. You'll see. Maybe we can't have Akarui back, but we can still have a baby, maybe we can have a son." They hugged each other tightly and comforted each other. Haruka, who had snuck out of her room, sat at the top of the stairs, watching, trying to understand just what it was her parents meant. ********** Goban Yobi-ko was a very large, exclusive school, where only the best could attend. Kanzen, Suteki, and Kirei attended various levels of it. Recently, a kindergarten section had been added, so the Kaiou family eagerly enrolled the triplets into it. Ki and Tadashii could tell their children were bright and wanted them to get ahead quickly. The three were placed in separate classes. Michiru walked carefully into her new kindergarten classroom, looking from her new teacher to her classmates with wide eyes. She clutched the tiny straps of her backpack as she walked to a seat. It wasn't time yet for school to start, but she was the last one nevertheless. She took a seat near the back of the room, with an empty seat on either side of it. She carefully set her backpack down and unzipped it, putting things inside her desk before she zipped it again. She pushed a loose strand of her wavy hair back behind her ear and smoothed her pigtails, then adjusted herself in her seat. She carefully clasped her hands in front of her on her desk as she looked forward with a calm look on her face. The teacher tapped her finger thoughtfully against her chin. "Well, class, as I was saying, I want everyone to tell me your names and your interests when class starts, which is after the bell rings." "Mushi-sensei!" a little boy wailed. "I need to go to the bathroooommmm!" The teacher blinked rapidly. "Er, all right, make it quick." The boy dashed from the room while most of the kids giggled. Someone turned around in their seat to look at her. "Hi," she whispered to Michiru. "I'm Niwa. Who're you?" "Hi, I'm Michiru." Michiru glanced over the girl quickly, noting her bright orange hair and wide green eyes. Her uniform was a bit wrinkled already. Michiru noted that with a bit of disdain. The girls' sailor uniforms had a blue skirt and collar, and a red bow, which didn't match this girl's hair well to begin with, and when it was messy like that, it looked worse. Ureshii was teaching Michiru the basics of art, and she had learned about color quickly since she loved coloring, and knew that since blue and orange were compliments, they looked unusually bright, even garish together. Niwa proved this theory. "Boy, you're quiet," Niwa commented. Michiru had been silent after her greeting. "Are you--" The bell rang, interrupting Niwa, and the little boy ran back into the room. "Okay, I want everybody to go in order and say your name and interests, and something else about you too. Why don't you go first?" Mushi-sensei pointed at someone in the front row. Michiru was in the back, so she had a good wait until it was her turn. She took out a coloring book and crayons from her backpack and started coloring a picture. When it got to be her turn, she stood up quietly and said, "My name is Kaiou Michiru. I like coloring and drawing, and my mom wants me to learn violin. I have two older sisters, an older brother, and I'm the middle of triplets, another sister and a brother." She sat down, and started coloring again. "Can we see the picture you're coloring?" someone asked. Michiru shyly held it up, and several kids "ooo"ed and "ahhh"ed. "Wow, she can color in the lines!" "That's pretty!" Michiru smiled and put her coloring book and crayons away since class would most likely be starting now. "Well, I know this is everyone's first day here, but we should get cracking on our schoolwork now so we'll have time for fun later! We're going to start to learn about hiragana everyone. Does anyone know what 'hiragana' is?" Michiru raised her hand and answered, "It's our basic written language." "That's right, Michiru-chan. I'm going to teach all of you how to write your names in hiragana, ok? Let's start with you, Michiru-chan, since you got that last question right." Mushi-sensei wrote her name on the board, then turned. "See, everyone, this first character stands for 'mi', and the last for 'ru'. Does anyone know what the middle is though?" "Chi?" someone called out. "Actually," Michiru started, then stopped because she hadn't raised her hand. "It's all right, Michiru-chan, go ahead." "Well, that character is actually 'ti', but it does stand for 'chi'." Mushi-sensei looked completely blown away. "How'd you know that?" "My parents taught me how to write hiragana." Mushi-sensei's eyebrow twitched. "Er... well... okay, let's go on to someone else now, shall we?" Michiru sat, bored, while the teacher went through everyone's names. Mushi-sensei never did call on her again, Michiru noted. Maybe it was because she thought that all the other kids would learn better if they figured things out on their own. Oh well. At the break between classes, Michiru sat by herself. All the other kids seemed afraid to go near her. She could hear some of them talking as she was sitting there. "--knows much more that us! She can color really good!" "She's spooky, she knows hiragana already. I can't even write my name yet!" "She said she's going to learn violin, and my mama says violin is really hard. She's really weird." "She doesn't belong in kindergarten! She's too smart for us." "She's a... a tri-- a truh-- a--" "Triplet, stupid. Kanpeki-chan's in my class, and she's really weird, just like Michiru-chan." "Genki's weird too. They're a wacko family." Michiru sighed and tucked her knees under her chin. Everyone thought she and her fellow triplets were weird. Oh well. She freed her wavy hair from the pigtails, for the moment, and looked out at the clouds, trying to see pictures in them. She didn't really need to talk to those other kids anyways. ********** Haruka yawned loudly, causing several kids to turn around to look at her. It had been a few months now since she had started kindergarten, and she found it really boring. For starters, she had to wear a funny sailor uniform with a gray collar and skirt and black bow. Then there were her classmates, all very boring. They never talked with her much and made no attempt to become friends. Sai was going to a different school, and Cindy had moved to a new neighborhood, so Haruka didn't have anyone to talk to anymore. They didn't learn anything interesting in school either. The only part Haruka was enjoying was the fact that they took physical education. Haruka loved to play and run, and this gave her the chance to do it. Forget learning hiragana, adding and subtracting, and how to be a good little kid; having fun was what she loved to do the most. She did hate, however, how her skirt made it hard to run sometimes, and how her bangs fell in her eyes despite her efforts to tame them. At least she didn't have long hair to whip into her face like most of the other girls; her parents let her wear it short. She couldn't imagine how she'd look with braids or pigtails. Haruka leapt out of her seat as soon as the bell rang for dismissal. Kotori was picking her up today, and she was going to start teaching her how to play something called a "piano." "Hi obaa-san!" she told her as she got into her car. "How're you?" Kotori smiled. "I'm fine, Haruka-chan, you?" Kotori pushed a strand of wavy white-blond hair behind her ear; her hair was once a darker shade, but age was starting to lighten it, and her blue eyes had faint wrinkles around them. Kotori started the car and they pulled out of the parking lot to go home. "I'm all right. School was boring, as usual. So you're gonna teach me to play a piano?" "Well, not all at once, but today we'll start." "Is that the big shiny black thing with white and black bars?" "Keys, they're called keys, but yes, that's it." "I like how it sounds. Do you think I can make it sound nice?" "I'm sure you can." Haruka grinned and got up on her knees so she could see out the window. She was tall for her age, but she was still small enough for it to be too hard to see out a window in a car without sitting up some. She watched everything pass by quickly, as usual, fascinated by the speed at which things went by. "You like going fast, don't you?" Kotori asked. Haruka nodded quickly. "It's really neat to watch everything, and it's fun when you're running too, cuz you can feel the wind hitting your face. I like the wind." Kotori laughed. "I should hope so. It's part of your namesake after all." Haruka cocked her head and thought about that. "Oh yeah, your last name ..." Kotori smiled. "I'm glad you actually remembered it. When you were younger, you thought it was..." Kotori winced slightly, "Kare." Haruka giggled. "I know, I'm sorry!" "It's all right, you're entitled to make mistakes." Haruka smiled a bit, then went back to watching the world go past. Kotori pulled up in the driveway and opened Haruka's door. "There you go," she said. She always kept the childlock on so kids wouldn't accidentally open the door while the car was in motion. As soon as they entered the house, Sunao came and hugged Haruka and her mother. "Thank you so much," she said. "I'm glad that you agreed to teach her piano. She needs _something_ to do, after all." Kotori just laughed and told her, "Don't worry, I don't mind at all! It will be lots of fun to teach her, and I'm sure she'll enjoy it, right Haruka-chan?" Haruka looked up and nodded slowly. "C'mon, let's get started!" Haruka followed her grandmother silently into the room with the piano, and sighed to herself as she sat down to start learning how to play. ********** "No! No, pay attention! Play it again!" Michiru quivered and lifted her violin again. The young girl was only seven, but Ki had insisted that her father, Miyage, start teaching her at this young age how to play the violin. While she enjoyed to play it, she did _not_ enjoy the fact that every mistake she made was harshly criticized. She bit her lip and started to play again, this time correcting her previous error. "Michiru-chan! You corrected your mistake only to make another one!" Michiru gritted her teeth. She wished she could just throw that music in his face and do things the way she wanted to. She sighed bitterly and resigned herself to the fact that she was going to have to do it _his_ way or not at all. She played the selection again, this time playing it perfectly. "Good, Michiru-chan. Play it once more like that or better and then we'll be done for the day." She played it again and got it right. She carefully put her violin away while Miyage was going on and on about music and things, but she really wasn't listening to him, she was remembering voices from earlier in the day. She'd been made fun of again by the kids in her class. She usually ignored them, after all, they were just jealous of her and were saying these things as a ridiculous attempt to try and bring her down to their level, but today they struck a nerve that still ached from their words. "Are you listening? I'm trying to help you." Michiru blinked rapidly and looked up at him. "I'm sorry, I was thinking. What did you say?" "I was suggesting that you try holding it more like this--" Miyage demon- strated with his own violin, "--and you might get a better tone." "Mmmm. Ok." Michiru picked up the instrument case and started to leave the room. She stumbled and fell to her knees, jarring her mind with deja vu. Earlier that day, she'd tripped in front of her classmates, and they'd all laughed at her. "Little Miss Perfect finally screws up!" "Did the rich girl skin her knees? Too bad." "Can't even walk right can you? All you do is sit there, drawing and reading and doing schoolwork. Serves ya right." "You should have just been Siamese triplets; three heads are better than one of yours!" Michiru quickly picked up the case and dashed out to her room, shutting and locking the door behind her. She set the case down and flopped down on her bed, trying not to cry. She hated all those kids. She was smarter than them, she knew that much, and she was definitely more mature and skilled. Why did they all hate her then? No one ever tried to be her friend, ever since kindergarten. Why did they have to shun her for such silly reasons? She rolled onto her side, her aqua hair getting ruffled and causing her headband to slide from its usual position. She hugged herself and tried to ignore everything. Just bottle it up, she told herself. Don't let it get to you. You don't need those jerks. You don't need anyone. She trembled all over and buried her face in her hands as she sobbed. ********** "Everyone have everything packed?" "Yes, papa!" Tadashii smiled as he rounded up his six children into their van. Michiru struggled some with her suitcase, and he tenderly took it from her and put it away himself. "Thank you, papa," she said softly as she climbed into her seat and buckled her seatbelt. It was the summer Michiru was in second grade, and Ki had convinced Tadashii that a trip to the beach was in order. Kanzen had bragged to Michiru that he'd gone with his friends before, but Michiru knew he was lying. The sparkle of anticipation in his eyes betrayed him; he always got it when he was going to experience something new. She pressed her forehead against her window and watched everything rush by while her older sisters argued, as usual, over a pillow. Kanzen was studying and muttering to himself between notes. Genki was trying to nap and wasn't succeeding. Kanpeki seemed lost in her own world, as usual, staring blankly into space. Ki was reading a book between checking the map and commenting to Tadashii, "Are you _sure_ you know how to get there?" to which he would grumble in retort, "Yes, dear, I'm sure." Michiru yawned softly, puzzling over things in her mind. She didn't know much about the beach. It was a sandy area by the ocean, and it was supposed to be lots of fun. The other things she knew all had to do with school related things, like about the animals in it and whatnot. "Yiiiii! You're grabbing my hair!" "If you'd just give me the pillow I wouldn't!" "Grrr... LET GO!!!" Kanzen sighed while Ki tried to calm her older daughters. He leaned over to Michiru and commented lightly, "Such babies, aren't they? You seem to set a better example for them than they for you." Michiru giggled and blushed slightly at the compliment. "Thank you, Kanzen. I can't believe you've put up with them for so long." Kanzen laughed with her, then went back to his reading while Michiru looked out the window some more, then fell asleep. "We're HEEE-ere!" Tadashii announced, stirring Michiru from her rest. "Everyone head to the bathrooms to change, then meet back at the car." As they piled out of the car, Michiru got her first glimpse of the ocean. She gasped in delight when she saw it. "Oh wow, it's so pretty!" she squealed, eager to race over to it. She grabbed her swimsuit, ran to the bathroom, changed in record time, then impatiently waited for her family. Tadashii was the first out. When he saw Michiru pouting, he studied her sad face a moment, then went over and bent down to her level. "How would you like it if we went ahead of the others?" Michiru looked up at him with an excited expression. "Really?! Yay!!" She started running for the beach, Tadashii laughing as he followed along behind her. She didn't even pause when she reached the water, immediately plunging into the waves. She splashed around happily, ducking under several times, until Tadashii pulled her up out of the water. "Michiru-chan! Be careful! You haven't had swimming lessons yet!" Michiru looked up at him. "So? It's just water, it won't hurt me." "You could drown if you aren't careful. Stay by me, all right, and don't go under!" Michiru pouted again. "I was doing fine!" "Just to be on the safe side--" "Paaapaaa... can't I go under if you're watching me? I'll be careful, I promise!" Tadashii rubbed his temples, exasperated. "I'm trying to convince a child ... *sigh* fine..." "Yay!" Michiru held her breath and ducked under the waves again, kicking her legs. When she surfaced, Tadashii seemed very astonished. "Did you take lessons and I'm somehow forgetting?" "No, papa, never." He shook his head. "Figured out on her own how to swim..." Michiru didn't know what he was getting at, so she turned away and started swimming some more. "That girl is too smart for her own good..." Ki came out soon and led the other children out. Kanzen seemed mildly amused, Kirei and Suteki both confused and a bit scared, Genki just looked tired and didn't care, but Kanpeki was overjoyed. She raced for the water, and splashed around up to her ankles. "Wheeeeeee!" "Silly," Michiru said, sticking her tongue out. "You have to _swim_, you can't just splash." Kanpeki frowned and walked in up to her shoulders, then stopped. "Baby." "I'm the same age as you," Kanpeki retorted, sticking her tongue out. "No, I'm a few minutes older." "That doesn't make me a baby!" "Girls," Tadashii warned, "there's no need to fight." "She's teasing me cuz I won't swim!" "Well, if you can't swim, don't try it." Kanpeki frowned while Michiru grinned triumphantly. "I won," Michiru said. "I won I won I won--" "Shut up!" Kanpeki shouted. "KANPEKI-CHAN!!" Ki hollered. "Don't say such things to your sister!" "She won't stop teasing me!" "Just ignore her!" "But I can't," she whined, glaring at her triplet. "You'll have to learn to. She's smart and she'll try to play mind games with you." Kanpeki mumbled to herself, "How come no one notices I'm as smart as her?!" "What was that?" "... Nothing..." Michiru just sniffed and went back to swimming.
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