Road to Ruisea

❆ ❆ XXXIX. CHIRO ❆ ❆

"NAOMI!"

Then Chiro hears the door slam and whirls around in horror, to see Jae opening the door wide open, calling, "Kumari!"

"Oh no," Chiro figures he should run after her, and he does, but Jae stops to say, "No, you stay here! Fix it first!"

"O-okay," Chiro turns back to his sister, who looks wide-eyed and genuinely afraid of him, and he feels so bad...

"Naomi," he sighs, wrapping his arms around her. "I missed you a lot, you know."

She sniffles softly, "I missed you too. I'm sorry I made Kumari run away."

"You... Are?"

"She doesn't deserve to deal with me right now," she sighs. "If all that Jae said is true, then she's been trapped in a castle all her life and is now on the run from her parents. She's way too tired for this..."

"Why did you act that way then?"

"I'm just," she frowns heavily, choking back a sob. "Jealous. I guess."

"Jealous...? Why?"

"Because I haven't seen you in a year, and you went and found some girl who's my age, and she's a lot prettier and smarter and cooler than I am. She's a princess! I'm just your dumb boring old sister.

"Naomi," Chiro bends down and grabs her by the shoulders. "Naomi-chan. You are my sister. Yes, Kumari is all those things, and I love her, and she's very close to me, and I call her my sister because she reminds me of you... But that's just it. She reminds me of you. A little silly, a little quirky, but pretty and smart and all those wonderful things. You are all of those things Naomi, and as special as Kumari is to me, that doesn't make you any less."

"Oh, Chiro," Naomi starts sniffling even more. You're just as much of a sap as I remembered. Thank you..."

"Of course."

"You should go after her," she gestures towards the door. "She needs you."

"I promise I'll be back."

"Try not to take a year this time, big brother."

Chiro smiles a small smile, then bolts out the door and races down the steps, pushing outside, only to realize...

...He has no idea where Kumari could've gone.

Oh, he is so tired of losing track of her whereabouts... Last time it was shadow spirits, who knows what she'll have run into this time.

"Kumari?" He calls, as he walks through the streets, forgetting all about her undercover status. "Jae? Please come home...!"

Home. That's an interesting word he used.

Hardly matters though, because just before he has time to ponder his word choice or the location of his friends any longer, he's interrupted.

"Ohayo," says a male voice, and at first Chiro thinks it's Jae, but then he remembers that Jae doesn't speak Qilucan.

"Ohayo?" Is Chiro's reply, as he turns around to see who it is. Please don't be shadow spirts, please don't be shadow spirits...

It's not shadow spirits though, at least, not as far as Chiro can tell. He appears to be a regular Qilucan civilian, same age as Chiro, and hair color, too. Red-headed, but his eye color's different, green instead of gold. He's dressed like a ruffian, for lack of a better word that could've come to Chiro's mind, with a dirty, ragged old jacket, and sagging pants. Most notably, there is a bandage across the bridge of his nose.