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Sweat fell off the boys’ foreheads, staining their clothing with unsatisfying splotches. It had been a day where the sun decided to shine its glorious light to the citizens of Japan.
“Abeno-san, I don’t get it. No matter how hot or cold it is, you still wear your kimono. Don’t you ever get uncomfortable in that?”
Instead of being met with a gruff sigh or a click of a tongue, he was met with a harsh stare. One that always sent the worst fear down his spine.
“It’s best to maintain professionalism.”
Even with the answer still lingering in the air, it was obvious that the boy was suffering in the heat as well. His usual golden eyes were half-lidded, and one could see the sweat slowly trickle down his forehead and down into the fabric of his kimono.
“Mononokean, come.”
Once the two had crawled inside, they were each assaulted by a fuzzball. Instead of the usual nuzzle and wagging tail, it’s eyes widened, before leaping off their shoulders. It didn’t seem like Fuzzy liked the heat either.
“How was it?”
With a small sigh, the young master rose to his feet and leaned against the wall, ignoring the employee who was splayed out on the floor.
“It took longer than expected, but we got it done.”
The bell chimed once again, ringing it’s usual ‘happy-go-lucky’ tone. “I’m glad.”
For a short while, no one spoke, and the only sound that was heard was the sound of a prancing fuzzball and a male employee’s giddy laughter. The fuzzball ran around in circles, attempting to prance onto its moving target, skillfully shifting its body in an assortment of ways. (Well, the only ways it can. It’s a fuzzball after all.)
“Abeno-san, do we have work tomorrow?”
Ashiya turned, looking at his boss with his enlarged, curious eyes. Fuzzy seemed uninterested in the question, proceeding to pounce onto Ashiya’s hand when the boy let up his gaze. The young master seemed to stumble, before muttering softly.
“No.”
In the instant the word left his mouth, Abeno could see the excitement flooding into his employee’s eyes, and he gained a very bad feeling about what was going to happen next.
“Really?! Then that means we could go to the beach! We haven’t had a break in ages ! It’s hot, I already talked to Zenko, she’d be here and we could-”
At the sound of the boy’s usually loud voice, he jumped. The sense of dread that he felt whenever his employee perked up was unnerving. Sadly, this bad feeling never dissipated.
“No, we have a job.”
In the midst of Ashiya’s useless rambling, he paused, eyes wide with a questioning look on his face.
“But you just said we didn’t have a job tomorrow.”
The scowl that quickly appeared on the master’s face was obvious, and it was clear that something was brewing underneath his stoic expression. He knew he shouldn’t have said anything. He didn’t want Ashiya to tag along. He just wanted a job that he could handle in peace.
“I do. But I don’t need your help.”
The happiness that sprouted from Ashiya’s face drained instantaneously, and it took quite a bit for the master to admit that he was slightly guilty of that. However, the words that left his employee’s mouth next made him irritated at the fact he even felt guilty in the first place.
“Every time you say you don’t need help, you get hurt. I’ve said this once, and I’ll say it again.” Ashiya’s expression hardened, and a visible layer of tears welled up in his eyes. Sometimes his determination was frightening. “I’ll protect your life with my own.”
The room fell silent, with Fuzzy now looking between the two of them, clearly confused and distressed. It took a few moments for either one to look at each other, but when they did, it was clear that both of them had no intention of talking. In an effort to combat the awkwardness that filled the air, they looked towards the Mononokean, who gave no reply as well. After what felt like hours, the blond gazed back at his employee, and clicked his tongue.
“You take it too literally. It’s just helping a yokai win a game of Hide-and-Seek. Nothing special. I don’t need you.”
They stared at one another for a few more seconds before Ashiya settled back down. His eyes never left his master’s face.
“Fine. But if it’s that simple, you can come with us to the beach.” He paused and brought the worried fuzzball up to his lap. With soothing strokes, he finally let out the words that were caught in his throat. “Can’t you?”
Ashiya could see the dismay that spread across his boss’s stoic face, and used his hand to cover the laughter that escaped his throat.
“Mononokean-”
“I agree with Hanae. I think you should go.”
When the words appeared on the scroll, Abeno staggered, and Ashiya could tell just by the way he was reacting that he had some other plans in mind. What other plans other than the job, he didn’t know. In that time, Fuzzy leapt off of Ashiya’s shoulder and crawled onto his master’s shoulder instead, nuzzling him intently. It appeared as if the fuzzball with no mouth, teeth, or smile, was agreeing with the scroll.
“You can’t-”
“If you’re worried about your strength, no worries! I can come along and do most of the work for you. Then you’ll have enough energy to come with us to the beach!”
Abeno stumbled once again, tripping over his own haori and falling to the floor. It was quite funny to see the master so visibly flustered.
“See? This is why you need me.”
The smug look on his employee’s face made it tempting to stand up and whack him, but instead all he could muster were the words, “And this is why I don’t need your help.”
Ashiya stared and let his jaw drop, before putting his arms to his waist to let out an irritated sigh. This wasn’t a common sight.
“No, you do! If you fall, I could catch you!”
“I fell because of you!”
“No you didn’t, you just tripped and fell! Plus I’ve been working here for months! You should be used to me by now!”
“Your mistakes get worse day by day, I don’t-”
“Hanae, it’s late. Your mother might be worried about you.”
With the conversation at a complete stop, the pair stared at the scroll, before Abeno decided to stand up once again.
“Yes, you should go home now .”
With this remark, Ashiya puffed up his cheeks and sighed once again.
“Fine. But you better get the Mononokean to meet me at my door by noon tomorrow, or I’m coming to get you.”
Instead of scrambling to his feet to grovel on the floor, he continued to give his accusatory glare, turning towards the Mononokean for hopeful support.
“No-”
“Mononokean, is that alright with you?”
They paused, and watched the bells chime.
“That is alright with me. I’m opening a door now.”
Ashiya hesitated for a moment before getting to his feet, looking at his boss with a worried face.
“I’m going... Bye.”
Neither waved to each other as the door closed. Only a few moments passed before the Mononokean gave its distinctive ring.
“You should rest, Itsuki.”
He woke from his small trance, and picked up the worried fuzzball that stood on his feet. He had no energy to respond.
--x--
Ashiya wanted his morning to be peaceful, and to be able to rest without worrying about homework or yokai related affairs. However, he came to the conclusion that him being impatient and waiting in front of his door for an hour for his boss to potentially show up wasn’t going to do him any good. To try to give himself a semi-productive morning, he forced himself out of bed to go pack some food that would suit a nice day at the beach. However when he walked towards the fridge, he remembered that he hadn’t bought anything that would suit the day, and the only food that he could use without inconveniencing his mother were the fruits that sat at the back of the fridge. He stuck his hand out, managing to grab a few white peaches, persimmons, apples, pears, and some grapes.
Did he forget to contact Zenko?
He was determined to not mess something up again, and to make sure he didn’t, he scrambled back into his room to alert his friend.
“Zenko!” He screeched at his small device for a short while, angrily tapping at the screen. “Pick up! Come on, I need you to-”
“Hello?”
A small, quiet voice appeared on the other line.
“Zenko! Did I tell you about our trip to the beach today?! Zenko!”
He rambled on for a short while, with Zenko casually listening in on the other side. She didn’t seem to mind him rambling, and called him an alarm not too long after.
“Hanae, you don’t need to worry. I’m packing the rest of my things now. You don’t need to panic.”
After a more ‘quiet’ talk with Zenko, Ashiya proceeded to slice up some fruit to slide into containers to give to his friends on the trip. That only took 20 minutes or so, leaving Ashiya to wonder if he should pack extra food for his friends. Suddenly, the worry that there would be nothing good to choose from from the stands that littered the outer-edge of the beach seemed to fall upon him. To ease the stress that buried itself in his veins, he settled on packing some snacks in his bag, for ‘extra security’.
--x--
By the time noon came around, he had opened his door around 5 times, checking whether he could see the familiar tea room. All of those times had proven to be fruitless, and it was giving him little to no hope that the Mononokean would actually fulfill its end of the ‘bargain’.
When he opened his door for what he could believe was the 26th time, he was surprised to see his beloved fuzzball, and a somewhat worried scroll.
“Fuzzy! Oh Fuzzy-wuzzy, how are you!”
He let his laughter and joy of seeing ‘Fuzzy’ fill his entire being, and allowed it to quell his stressed mind. When the rush of joy finally died down, he noticed the light tingling bell attempting to get his attention.
The scroll didn’t respond for a few moments, before giving the unsettling news. “Itsuki hasn’t returned yet, or bothered to summon me. I’m concerned. He promised that it would only take an hour at most.”
Ashiya looked towards the scroll, with his happy expression falling off his face like the water that falls off a leaf during a nice summer storm. Ashiya was always known to be expressive. Sometimes a bit too expressive for his own good.
“I’ll take you to him now.”
The bell chimed, and Ashiya crawled out of the door. To his surprise, he witnessed an assortment of trees, all surrounding a small rocky pathway. He inhaled slowly, and attempted to settle the fear that welled in his chest. While he was walking down the path, he came across an irregularly shaped structure that seemed to be made purely from flowers. It was more like a tunnel, with the light filtering through the small cracks between each and every petal, providing an interesting shadow on the rocky floor. As beautiful as the flowers were, he was aware that that wasn’t his reason for arriving.
“Abeno-san! Where are you!”
There were times that he desperately wished he wasn’t so terrible at sensing yokai’s presences’, and this was one of them.
“Abeno-san! If you don’t come here, I’m-” he paused. For a moment, he stared at the long tunnel of flowers, watching petals dance around in the wind before touching the floor. “I-I’m going to get the- the Legislator over here…!”
It only took him a max of 3 seconds to figure out how absurd he sounded. If his boss didn’t hear him, he would certainly look like a fool to the potential yokai around. If his boss heard him, he either was deliberately ignoring him, subconsciously ignoring him (which Ashiya hoped would not be the case), or was just too far away. Regardless of that, he kept on the ‘trail’ and wandered around until a voice spoke behind him.
“Abeno… sama?”
The voice was almost ‘dainty’ and had a light ring to it. This was a voice as clear as day. He spun around, and saw two pointed ears falling behind a small opening between the flowers.
“Hey! Are you looking for Abeno-san?! Hey! Wait!”
With petals flying into his hair and on his face, he shook his head and rushed into the rough opening the yokai had slipped through. He was determined to catch up to it. However, by the time he ran into the forest covered land, he began to realize that following the yokai may have been a terrible mistake.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
A small voice chirped behind him.
“Abeno-sama?”
Ashiya turned around and sprinted forward, grabbing the stunned yokai by its tail.
“You’re not Abeno-sama..?”
The yokai had long, deep purple ears, that resembled a mix of a fox and a lynx. Its eyes were more of a deep magenta color, with the rest of its coat being an unsaturated baby blue. Its tail, which Ashiya had grabbed, had deep blues, magentas, purples, and tints of bright orange.
“Are you looking for Abeno-san too?!”
The yokai flinched, before lifting itself off the ground to sprint away. All Ashiya could see were its brightly colored tails disappearing in the thicket of flowers. But then it clicked. This must have been the yokai that Abeno had to play with.
“Hey! I need to look for Abeno-san too! Please! Come back!”
--x--
Sometimes he forgot how useful a phone could be. At the very least he could tell what time it was. Now, he had to just look towards the sun and debate whether it was noon or morning. He was aware that if he wasn’t back soon, he’d have his annoying employee stomping around right after him. He surely didn’t want an extra headache that day. To combat those ‘unnerving’ thoughts, he closed his eyes, and focused on sensing his client’s presence.
It wasn’t too hard to figure out where they were, but to keep them entertained, he’d always walk as slow as humanly possible when he got close. The yokai had presented itself as a shy, fearful spirit who just wanted to have some fun in the human world, since the Underworld was ‘scary’. It had spent years running into people, hoping they would play with it, only to come to the realization that no one could see them. Unlike the hairball, it heard of the Mononokean, and how its master would help fulfill the requests from yokai, and it decided to look into it and hire him. If he had to be honest, it was probably the most relaxing game of Hide-and-Seek he had ever seen. (Not that he had ever played Hide-and-Seek with anyone but Yahiko.)
When the yokai had run farther than he expected, he grew concerned. Although the place they stayed in was safe, it was surrounded by the streets filled with cars, and he knew he wouldn’t be strong enough to haul them into the Mononokean if they ever got injured. With that new thought burning through his mind, he continued following the presence.
--x--
“Please! I just want to help you!”
Ashiya had been mindlessly chasing this yokai for ages, before running into it again and cornering it. He felt awful for making the yokai tremble in fear, but he was worried for his boss. After all, if he collapsed, he would be stuck in the forest for hours, and it would be impossible to locate him. Perhaps he should have tried to figure out how to summon the Mononokean.
“Hey, I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m a friend of Abeno-san, and you want to be exorcised, right? Well, I can take you to him.”
Ashiya knew he had no clue where his boss was, but from what he could tell, this yokai had some sort of affiliation with him, and that was enough to start the chase of cat and mouse.
“Don’t take me to him! I… I want to win this game! I need to win!”
Ashiya paused.
“What do you mean?”
“You… You’re just going to help him! Then I can’t win! I want to win!” The yokai was already on the move, weaving in and out of sight.
You’re not going to get away! I almost had you!
Putting on a last burst of energy, he grabbed the yokai, and let them both tumble on the soft, grassy floor.
“No! Get away-”
“I’m not trying to make you lose; I’m just trying to find Abeno-san.” He paused, and released the yokai. He hoped that they would finally get the message. “Please.”
Ashiya looked towards the frightened yokai, and stood up beside it. Its tails swayed gently in the breeze, catching the purple petals that fluttered in the air. When he got a chance to look at the yokai closely, it seemed more like a hybrid between a phoenix, deer, and cat.
“I’m not trying to get you sent to the Underworld; I just want to find Abeno-san. Can you do that for me?”
It paused, and stared back at Ashiya. It awkwardly pawed the ground for a short while, before lifting its head to return the gesture. “Sure.” For a moment, it looked at the sky and closed its eyes, as if it were taking in the sunshine. When the yokai bounded away and called for him to follow, he knew that he had a new ally on his side.
--x--
It had been another 10 minutes, and he couldn’t figure out why the yokai had run so far. The two had set boundaries around the area, but Abeno was well aware that the yokai knew the place better than he did. He decided that the best course of action was to just keep on going from where he was at, and hope that the yokai would slip up and run right into him. Then he could potentially escape from a ‘day at the beach’ with his sworn ‘enemy’.
“Abeno-san!”
The dreaded words spewed out of an empty spot in the flowers. He mentally facepalmed. Ashiya had found him. How? He didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. Ashiya was going to drag him to the beach. How fun.
“Abeno-san! You’re okay!”
When the words left his mouth, Ashiya ran full speed at him, and threw his arms around him. If it weren’t for the fact that he was exhausted all the time, he would have punched the guts out of his employee any day. Instead, he settled for his usual ‘tsk’ and shoved him off. It was somewhat amusing to see the surprised look on his face. Not that he would ever admit it.
“You actually came.”
The happiness melted right off of his face, and he could see the guilty expression that appeared.
“Of course I did. It’s 12-” Ashiya yanked out his phone, and stared at the time. “No! It’s almost 1! Almost. One! I was looking for you for half an hour! Are you okay?! The Mononokean is worried! Did you lose your sight-”
He was angry. “I was playing with a yokai.”
Ashiya tilted his head in a confused manner, before piping back up again. “I know that! But you were taking so long, and you promised the Mononokean you would only take an hour!”
“I forgot my phone.”
He paused. Ashiya looked towards him, and you could see his eyes narrow as he stared at his pocket. Whatever Ashiya was thinking, he certainly didn’t want to know.
“Abeno-san doesn’t forget stuff. Are you really the Master of the Mononokean?”
Abeno flinched. When Ashiya had something in mind and wanted to fulfill it, he wouldn’t stop until the job was done. Sometimes, when Ashiya started picking up on something, he wouldn’t stop until he figured out what or why.
“Of course I am you-”
“Then summon the Mononokean.”
It wasn’t a question; it wasn’t an answer. It was a demand. This type of situation put everyone on edge. Not only because Ashiya was now as condescending as a mother is to a naughty child, but also because he had an extremely fierce fire burning in his eyes.
“Fine.”
He walked over to the sides of a nearby building, and felt his energy pulse into his hand.
“Mononokean, come.”
With that, a small door appeared, and Ashiya started to smile. Out of sheer instinct, Abeno opened the door, only to be violently shoved right in, and have Ashiya follow.
“Ashiya!”
“Mononokean! I caught him!”
When he was just a few feet in the Mononokean, he felt a small fuzzball attack him. It rubbed its ‘beautiful’ fur onto him, and made sure to show that he was happy with his master’s return.
“You idiot ! The yokai, where the hell is the yokai?!”
Per usual, Ashiya flinched, backing into the nearby corner of the tearoom.
“What happened?”
“Please don’t hit me!” Abeno watched his employee shield his face with his hands. His wailing was irritating. “I found the yokai, and I asked them to find you! I know you were playing Hide-and-Seek with them! I told them that you were overtime, and they agreed to take me to you as long as they weren’t found!” Ashiya paused again. “Please don’t hit me!”
“Are you sure that they were okay with this?”
“Yes! Yes! Of course! I made sure-”
He decided to smack him. There was really no better way to shut him up. And evidently, he started to cry.
“I just wanted to find you! I’m sorry-”
“Alright! Alright! I’ll go to your damn beach thing .”
Ashiya’s eyes lit up.
“Did you pack?” Without much hesitation, Ashiya turned to the Mononokean. “Mononokean, take me to my house! I’ll get the stuff! Oh! We are going! Come on! Abeno-san, you have to pack!”
And with that, Ashiya shoved him into his closet, before leaving the Mononokean to run back home.
--x--
After a bit of fussing, Ashiya got his boss to pack the proper things he needed to have on the beach. It was scary, considering that Ashiya had to nitpick his own boss, who was more like an angry, snappy crab. One that didn’t want to stop pinching. To Ashiya’s dismay, he didn’t have any clothes for swimming. As a result of losing a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, they settled for Abeno not going into the water.
By the time they grabbed Zenko, Yahiko, and Okina, it was 1:30. All of them were huddled in a small area on the beach, with a few towels spread out between them. It was fun to see Fuzzy floating around in the water, Okina sitting with Abeno under the shade of their umbrella, and Yahiko dragging buckets of sand towards Zenko.
They spent the day snacking, playing around in the water, and playing all sorts of tricks on one another; including splashing each other, destroying sand castles, and freaking the hell out of their ‘master’.
Whenever he fell asleep for over 30 minutes, they would take turns grabbing a bucket full of water, to splash on him. The first time they attempted it, Yahiko mixed a couple shells he found, with the water in the bucket. The water didn’t seem to bother the snoozing master, but when the shells hit his face, it got him to jerk right awake. It was suspected that he knew that something was coming, since he didn’t bother doing anything to Yahiko. Zenko didn’t bother trying, so Ashiya aided Fuzzy in one round. Together, they hauled a massive bucket of water at him, but didn’t get him to do much but jerk awake. In the end, Ashiya was the last one to attempt it.
He walked right onto the shallow part of the water, and filled his bucket full of seawater. (He was cautious to not have anything but seawater in his bucket.)
When he hauled over the bucket, and lifted it over his head; he dumped it right onto the snoozing sleeper. What he didn’t anticipate was for him to wide awake, and ready to kill .
“ASHIYA!”
And with that, the rest of the day turned into a game of chase on the hot sand, with Ashiya being the primary target.