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Looking at his gloved hand-a less sullen look than usual on his face-the white-haired man flexed it before looking side to side on the Sky Noah’s balcony, where he was currently sitting with Adel.
“I still can’t get over this place. How big is it again?”
“Four hundred meters long,” the large blond man replied. “The equivalent of about twenty stories tall, or around 60 meters. We don’t have that nearly that many floors for living space, as you saw, since most of that is reserved for the engine area and all of the other technical stuff.”
“Four floors, is it?”
“The main living areas, yes. The flight deck is sort of a fifth, but that's not for living space.” It was where a lot of the fights on the Sky Noah took place, however. "Then there's the basement. Below that is all of the guts of the ship."
K’ snorted, shaking his head. “Goddamn.”
“One of the family’s many eccentricities.”
“I guess,” he muttered, grabbing his drink-a fine cognac-and sipping it. He usually didn’t drink such good fare. Looking out at the overcast field where they were docked, he saw Kula and Seirah running about with the panthers; one fully grown one, Gwan, and one of the cubs that he had produced. The rest were at a sanctuary, but Adel had chosen one-or, well, the small cub chose him-which he named Cinder, due to his reddish-orange eyes. Inside, Maxima and Henrik-Adel’s longtime butler-were enjoying another game of chess, while Heidern was examining Adel’s extensive expensive alcohol collection, as the man was a connoisseur of fine whiskeys along with his favored black beer. Mostly, they had stopped by to visit the new cub, who Kula was quite keen on seeing.
Adel smirked at him. “You aren’t as nervous as you used to be.”
“Yeah, I see how nice the cat is now.”
“I told you, he was a good fellow. Can’t blame you for being a little concerned at first, though.”
Chuckling under his breath, he shrugged. “I guess most are.”
Nodding, Adel crossed one long leg over the other, grabbing his own drink. “I’m surprised you entered this year.”
“Kula can be quite convincing,” he snorted, though tried to hide his smile. “And Seirah wasn’t helping.”
“Poked you to enter, too?”
“Yeah,” he grumped. “She wasn’t gonna enter since Heidern wanted one more person on the floor with him, and she knew how well Leona and the other two stick together. She works really well with you and Heidern, anyway.” He looked at him a moment, peering over his glasses. “Why didn’t you enter?”
“I just didn’t feel like it for once,” Adel said. He tried not to be egotistical, but he usually fought entire teams for practice, and this was a one-versus-one.
“Must be nice. Doesn’t your little sister try to push you?”
“She used to,” he said. “But nowadays we’ve hammered things out.”
“I guess I’m still catching up with Seirah even now,” K’ said. “Or more like…we started new.”
Adel nodded. He knew the story well; in a way, they had only really been reunited for four years now, and their memories of the past were about nonexistent. K’ continued, seeing Adel letting him talk. “Of course, she does make it a point to let me know who the older sibling is,” he said with a low chuckle.
“Oh, I can tell,” the other man said with a smirk.
“The hair ruffling, right?”
“Yeah.”
He looked at his drink again. Deciding to slide off his sunglasses, he set them on the table, though did not make a lot of eye contact with Adel at the moment. “Despite having gone through similar things…we’ve lived much different lives,” he said. He looked up at him finally. “You probably know what that’s like, though.”
“I do,” he said. “Despite even growing up together, it was very different between us.”
“We were separated,” K’ said, “Probably because they didn’t want us to remember. And it worked, damn them.” He sighed. “But, well, no use thinking about that now. We’re catching up. She escaped and hit up the military. I found my buddy, and then we eventually got Kula out. You know how it went, I’m sure.”
“Yeah, I do,” he said. “Seirah told me.” Down on the field, Gwan pounced on her, causing her to laugh. He knew exactly what was happening and smiled softly. Kula scratched the panther behind the ears after the big cat gave Whip’s face a lick. The small cub was following Kula around, looking like he wanted to eat again soon.
K’ looked down at them, smiling softly himself; it was a ghost of a smile, which was about all one would usually get from the young man. “Took some time to get used to. We never lived together-I’d just go to the base.”
“A year passed between the first tournament we hosted, I think?” he said.
“About that?” K’ replied, slumped into the chair, his leather jacket worn open despite the weather being a bit chilly where they were sitting. He looked over at him again. “What do you mean you ‘hammered it out?’ I remember your sister used to be…uhh…”
“Sort of crazy? Yeah,” he chuckled, shaking his head and sighing. “After that one tournament…I said I wasn’t doing the bad stuff anymore. Taking out her enemies. Then we all know what happened.”
“Yeah. Boy that was a wild time,” K’ said.
“I don’t think I’d have ever discussed dealing with Those from the Past a “wild time,” he laughed, “But it’s as good a description as any.”
“You and Heidern took care of things, though. Seirah, too.”
He shrugged. “Had to try.”
“I am not sure I call her ‘sis’ very often,” K’ said thoughtfully. “Maybe once in awhile…but I'm still trying to get used to it. Kinda the same with her, it seems.”
“She always talks highly of you. Always did.”
“Really?”
“Of course,” Adel said.
“We went out to some diner a couple of times,” he said, rubbing his hair as the crew outside seemed to start heading toward the entrance to the Sky Noah to come in; the cub was likely hungry again. “Just some place in the US when we were passing through. Looking for something or other…I don’t much remember. I remember we sat there for awhile, though, just catching up.”
“They have to go around there often enough.”
“Yeah,” K’ said, sipping more of the cognac. “Was cool, getting to sit and talk for real. I think this was only a couple of years ago?”
“Wasn’t it…close to that Christmas party?”
“I think. Seirah and I…we hadn’t really reconnected that long before that. About a year. It was slow going. I think she came here to work that thing with Heidern…that summer?”
“Yeah.” Adel would, of course, never forget that summer. He grinned. “Some months later she mentioned…”
K’ actually spared him a small smile at this. “I mean, I was happy for her. You seemed cool, Heidern trusted you, and if they trusted you I had no reason to be weird about it. I know you were goin’ through your own sibling bullshit then.”
“Ohhh yeah. You could say that,” Adel said. “Up until that tournament right before we met, when I first met Heidern, she was used to kinda being in charge. I was older, but I never wanted to deal with her attitude, so I just let it slide. For too long.”
“I’m glad I never had to deal with that.”
“Heh. It took some time…then everything happened at the last tournament. After that, we had a very, very long chat. She deals with the nobles, like she wants to. She runs by anything…questionable by me first. I deal with other business, and sometimes we entertain guests as a family. It lets her have the life she wants, and lets me have the one I want.” He leaned toward him. “And we’ve not gotten along better. We'll have coffee or tea together now just for fun. That would have never happened before.”
The white-haired man nodded. “I mean, it makes sense, I think, even though I’m not one to really know.”
“Yeah. We have our family business, and we have our own interests. Before, she’d always nose into my business while keeping her own secrets, all while trying to control the family.” No one really had to say where that came from. “Once everything was laid out and we started living our lives, it was just what we needed. We still argue, of course. We’re just different people and are bound to butt heads.”
“Seirah and I had a spat or two,” he said. “Mostly about us refusing to finally settle down instead of living on the road.” He rolled his eyes, though Adel could tell he wasn’t angry. “I’m sure you’ve heard about those, though.” It wasn’t a secret she would get Adel to help them out with resources. “I finally gave in, I knew I wasn’t gonna win that one.”
“I guess you’re doing what you feel you have to,” he said.
“I don’t feel right settling yet,” he said.
As he finished his sentence, they heard the door open on the balcony; Kula walked up, Cinder-the new cub-nestled in her arm.
“Hey, guys,” she said, smiling. She dumped the cub into K’s lap, where he immediately started kneading at him with his paws, sniffing around for food.
“What made you think I wanted this?” K’ grumped, his hand scratching the cub’s head anyway.
Whip also walked in, her jacket still on, though worn open. She ran her hand through Adel’s hair affectionately, before touching his cheek lightly. Gwan glanced at her, causing her to kiss the top of the blond's head to make the panther nudge her for more attention and making her laugh.
“Have fun out here?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Adel said. “Probably need to be heading back soon, I imagine.”
“Indeed. Heidern said the bouts are starting up again, and that we should be in place.”
“Good. Let’s get this over with,” K’ muttered, standing…though he still had the small cub in his arm, to Kula’s amusement. He wandered inside, letting the other three chuckle as they prepared to head in themselves.