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It was two weeks until finals: enough time to study but also enough to panic, and just enough to have a quiet date night in. It had been Judal's idea: movies and popcorn and sloppy makeouts under the pretense of a study session. Hakuryuu had agreed on the condition that he got to pick the movie. After the "glory" of Judal's last choice, a Nic Cage and John Travolta B-movie extravaganza, Hakuryuu had banned him from picking movies.
Judal showed up dressed in his best, as always: cute, slightly too short shirt, a stylish accent scarf, pants that rode low on his fabulous hips and teased the tattoos there. Hakuryuu was happy to have him by his side to snuggle on the bed.
“I can’t believe I only have one year after this! Fucking finally, you know?”
Hakuryuu shoved him playfully. “Speak for yourself; I’m only halfway through. And that’s only if you pass all your classes.”
Judal shrugged and stole Hakuryuu’s candy as he flopped down onto the bed with Hakuryuu. “Eh, I’ll be fine. You worry so much!”
Hakuryuu snatched his bag of candy back before Judal could devour all of it. He whined but curled further into Hakuryuu’s side to take from their shared bowl of popcorn instead.
“I just want you to do well,” Hakuryuu said affectionately.
Judal kissed his cheek. “I know, and you’re sweet. But enough about finals! I want to actually see you this summer. Three months apart is too long.”
Hakuryuu sighed. “You don’t want to visit me. My family-”
Judal cut him off. “Yeah, whatever! Come on, Hakuryuu, you’ve met almost my whole extended family and half of them live in China still.”
Hakuryuu paused awkwardly. “Yes. I know. But my family is weird.”
“Everyone’s family is weird!” He laughed. “What, are you ashamed of me?”
“Of course not!” Hakuryuu answered immediately. “I just. I like you a lot. And I don’t want them to ruin anything between us.”
“How would something like family ruin something between us? I haven’t slept in days and I still want to be here with you instead of napping.” Judal laughed.
Hakuryuu frowned, stroking Judal's hair. “You should really get some sleep.”
“Whatever, then I’d miss time with you.” Judal rolled his eyes.
Hakuryuu wrapped an arm around Judal’s shoulder to hold him closer. They lapsed into a comfortable silence as their movie played through tinny laptop speakers, a welcome distraction from their discussion. He had nearly pushed all talk of his family from his mind when his phone buzzed with a text from his sister.
Hakuryuu had to resist the urge to sigh in frustration at his phone. As always, his family never listened to his own needs. He had finals to study for, and instead his sister wanted him to come along on some ridiculous hunt. Not to mention, Judal would be suspicious of him running off with no notice.
Hakuryuu set his phone to silent and put it down on the bed. His sister would just have to deal. He had a full evening of movies and snuggles planned, and possibly some makeouts and more after that. He didn't have time to run around chasing after giant mind-altering bugs. Not when Judal was snuggling even further into his lap, fingers reaching up to fist in his hair and pull Hakuryuu down for a kiss…
Someone knocked at the door, shattering the moment.
Judal made a noise of annoyance. "The movie isn't even on that loud!" he shouted through the door.
"Hakuryuu, I'm coming in," came a gruff voice from outside the door.
Hakuryuu froze, shoulders locking up in a hybrid of terror and absolute, uncontrollable embarrassment. Hakuei couldn't have. "No," he whispered to himself, too soft to be heard. Then, when he realized that his inaudibility might be taken as invitation, he said it again: "No! No, Kouen, go away. The door is locked. You can't come in!"
The handle to the door jiggled, as if Kouen didn't believe him. Judal glanced at Hakuryuu, one eyebrow raised and his mouth open to say something, when Hakuryuu's dorm door splintered inward in a confetti shower of broken wood and bad life choices. Through the wreck stepped a broad shouldered man Judal had never had the pleasure of seeing before. His eyes were the hard, narrowed eyes of a man who means business, or, perhaps, direly needs a new pair of glasses, and Hakuryuu made a strangled little noise of despair at the sight of him.
Judal whistled. "Damn, Hakuryuu! Is that what you're gonna grow to look like, because I could get used to shoulders like that."
Hakuryuu buried his face into his hands and sunk into his hoodie. "I'm going to get in so much trouble with the school for that. You can't just. My door."
Kouen grunted and picked the innocent fixture up off the floor, propping it up against the doorframe. "Hakuei asked me to come get you." He folded his arms across his chest. "And so I'm here."
Hakuryuu made an aggravated noise. "I already told her I can't come! I have finals!"
"Can't come where?" Judal asked, perking up his seat. "Woah, woah, where are you going? I wanna come!"
"No," Kouen and Hakuryuu said in perfect flat harmony. "Absolutely not."
"Whaaaat?" Judal looked devastated and flopped dramatically backwards into the pillows of Hakuryuu's dorm bed. "Why not?"
Hakuryuu glared down at his phone and angrily typed out another text to Hakuei.
Kouen, at his poor reception, had the decency to look a bit awkward. He shifted from foot to foot and coughed, glancing from Judal's whining sprawl to Hakuryuu's closed, angry texting. When neither of them looked up, he coughed again. "We have a long drive ahead of us Hakuryuu. We really should get going."
Hakuryuu glanced up and glared death at Kouen. "Fine." He got up off the bed and began aggressively throwing every textbook in sight, even some of Judal's, into his backpack. "Fine. I'll come along on your stupid family reunion, and when I miss my finals and fail out of college it'll be your job to explain to the Dean why I'm a failure of a human being." Hakuryuu bitterly wished Kouen would explode, or die, or perhaps just rewind time and not have busted down his dorm room door. He felt rather much like a tantruming child, and he hated it.
"Wait a minute," Judal said, sitting back up. "You're going to visit your family? Like all of it? Fuck what Squinty Goatee McGee here said, I'm coming too!"
"Absolutely not," Hakuryuu repeated. "My family is an embarrassment, and I don't want you anywhere near them." He threw a few more books into another bag, to make a very loud, thumping point. "Besides, we shouldn't both have to risk throwing away our academic futures for one of my family's stupid whims."
"Fuck that! If I pass, I pass, if I fail, I fail. It's academic serendipity at this point."
"Judal, no," Hakuryuu said, pausing in his tantrum to plead with Judal. He couldn't come. He just couldn't. "It's not 'academic serendipity.' You still have two weeks to study, and you can't graduate unless you pass at least one English class at some point."
But Judal just shrugged and grabbed his bag from the floor, shoving his clothes for the next day back into it. "Whatever, Hakuryuu. I'm a goddamn mad scientist super genius at my field, I doubt they're gonna keep me from graduating over one little English class, mediocrity in my other subjects notwithstanding." He tossed the bag to Hakuryuu and breezed past Kouen. "Let's get going! I wanna meet the family!"
Kouen stared after Judal and then looked back at Hakuryuu. "He can't come."
"Yeah, I know." Hakuryuu shoved all of his bags onto Kouen and jogged after his boyfriend. "Judal!"
"I'm coming no matter what you say," Judal announced, bouncing down the hall and dismissing any further arguments with a wave of his hand. "And if you or Mr. Bad Facial Hair back there try to stop me, so help me god, I'll scream so loud every R.A. in a ten mile radius'll pop out of the woodwork and then we'll all be in trouble."
Hakuryuu made a strangled noise and looked back to Kouen, who was rehanging the door, passing a hand over it to remake the splintered, broken sections. Stupid magic family. Stupid monster hunting family business. Kouen opened his mouth to object to Judal's presence, but Hakuryuu shook his head. "Let's just go, Kouen. I would like to get this over with as quickly as possible."
Kouen grunted, apparently satisfied that Hakuryuu was at least coming along now, and shouldered all the bags he had been handed.
Once outside, Judal was quick to call shotgun as they all piled into Kouen's cherry red sportscar. This left poor Hakuryuu squished in the postage-stamp of a backseat alongside all his bags.
Judal barely left time to breathe with all the talking he did in the car. He yammered on about his classes, and then some of his hobbies, followed by the plot of a TV series he binge watched his freshman year. Hakuryuu wondered how he could remember every detail about some minor character but struggled to keep track of what day of the week it was. Kouen, meanwhile, sat in tightlipped silence, judgmentally listening to Judal’s stories.
They drove away from the lush green of their college campus onto the almost unending bland highway, and Judal’s voice rattled on as a comforting background noise to the awkward air between Hakuryuu and Kouen. Despite being cousins and despite him unfortunately being Hakuei’s boyfriend, Hakuryuu never considered them close. He had no idea how to spend hours in a car with Kouen, as he watched the open, barren deserts of the West slowly transform into golden cornfields and rolling pastures.
“Can we stop at the World’s Largest Catsup Bottle?” Judal asked in a moment of silence between his stories.
“No,” Kouen answered firmly.
Judal whined and looked forlornly out his window. “It’s only 263 miles that way,” he tried to explain, gesturing vaguely down the road.
“It’s out of the way.”
Hakuryuu ruffled Judal’s hair from behind, and he could almost hear him purr. “I told you not to come along. It’s not going to be fun.”
“Yeah, you keep saying that, but I’ve wanted to meet your family.”
They lapsed into another silence as they continued to drive into the night. Judal counted cows, and then angry religious billboards, until they finally left the main highway.
“You know, I didn’t expect you to be from Sticksville,” Judal said as he stared at the signs along their exit.
“What?”
“Some backwards nowheresville.” He twisted around in his seat to laugh at Hakuryuu’s confused expression. “You just strike me as a city kid.”
“Oh. I’m not from out here,” he explained.
Judal cocked his head to the side. “Then why are we out in the boonies?”
Hakuryuu froze, scrambling to come up with an acceptable lie.
“Our family likes to travel,” Kouen answered gruffly. “We hold our reunions in new places every time.”
“Well, you picked a lame place this time! Jeez, who even wants to be out here?”
“Not me,” Hakuryuu grumbled under his breath.
After countless twists and turns down back roads, Hakuryuu was beginning to wonder how Hakuei had found this place at all. They finally turned into the parking lot of an ill lit and nondescript motel, nestled between two towns on the closest thing to a major road this part of the country had.
“We’re here,” Kouen announced unnecessarily once they were parked under a flickering light. Judal immediately lept out of the car.
“Finally! My legs can be free!”
Hakuryuu, on the other hand, had to crawl out of the backseat with his multiple bags of books. He may have packed too many, but he certainly wasn’t going to say anything now. His sister had to understand how much this was inconveniencing him.
Hakuei stood in the doorway of a room, and her excited expression shifted to one of confusion when she noticed Judal. “Hakuryuu, I’m glad you made it. Is this your friend?”
Hakuryuu shifted one of the bags on his shoulder and winced from the weight. “Yes. Um. Judal, this is my sister, Hakuei. And this is Judal, my boyfriend.”
“I see. Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said warmly, shaking Judal’s hand. “I’m not sure if these are the best circumstances to meet under, though.”
“I told him not to come, but he threatened us,” Kouen interjected.
Judal grinned. “Hakuryuu has kept his family hidden too long, and I wanted to see you all!”
Hakuryuu recognized his sister’s expression: the thin, polite smile she saved for people she was socially obligated to be nice to, but disapproved of internally. Fantastic. Of course no one liked Judal. Now he had to deal with their disappointment and Judal’s inevitable horror at his family’s crazy quirks.
Judal, thankfully, didn’t know Hakuei well, and continued to look pleased with himself. “So, where are we staying here? Hopefully not some single room ordeal because I like my privacy too much for that. Like, Hakuryuu and I can’t even share a dorm room and we’ve been dating for a year. Even if I do spend tons of time in his, which defeats some of the purposes of separate rooms, but-”
“We do have two rooms,” Hakuei said, interrupting Judal before he could go on an even longer rant.
“Sweet!”
“Koumei is supposed to be arriving with Kouha and Kougyoku, but I’m not sure where he is. So I suppose you two can have their room, and we can sort something out when they get here.”
Hakuryuu took the keycard from her hand and Judal snatched it nearly, immediately, leading the way to their room. Had she been expecting him to stay with her and Kouen if Judal hadn’t come along? That sounded like a nightmare; he was suddenly grateful for Judal’s presence, if only to save him from the horror of seeing Kouen and his sister in bed together.
Hakuei caught his arm as he attempted to follow Judal. “Come back to my room once your friend has settled. We have to discuss our plans.”
He shrugged out of her grasp. “I will,” was his curt reply.
Judal was already flopped on one of the small beds when Hakuryuu got to the room. At the sight of Hakuryuu, his face lit up. “I kind of expected something a little classier than this,” he said, poking tentatively at a pillow. “Are you sure this place isn’t full of roaches?”
Hakuryuu sat next to him. “I told you, my family is very strange. This is the only place to stay for miles, I think.”
“Lame. It’s whatever, though,” he assured Hakuryuu. “I’m looking forward to your family reunion thing.”
"I'm not." Hakuryuu said flatly.
Judal rolled over closer to Hakuryuu and hugged him around the waist, nuzzling him. "Come on… If they're as crazy as you say they are, we can have fun laughing about them later. Speaking of which, I heard a buncha names tossed around. Care to give me the pre-emptive lowdown on who these people are?"
Hakuryuu sighed heavily. "Will you remember if I do?"
"Probably not!" Judal gave him a big stupid grin and pulled him down onto the bed for a snuggle. Hakuryuu found himself smiling back in spite of himself.
"Kouha, Koumei, and Kougyoku are my cousins," he explained. "They're Kouen's younger siblings, though Kouha and Kougyoku are only half siblings." Judal nodded, the picture of an attentive audience. "Koumei is only a little younger than Kouen, but Kouha and Kougyoku are only a year older than me."
"So many Kous!" Judal laughed. "I'm gonna get all this shit mixed up."
"Good, they're jerks anyway."
Judal's laugh grew to a spiteful, excited little giggle. "Well, sounds like fun at least. Any other folks I should know about?"
Hakuryuu dragged a hand down his face with an ugh, thinking. "I have a lot of other cousins, but they don't tend to come to these things… So probably just those three. And my sister and Kouen."
Judal bit the tip of Hakuryuu's nose. "And you."
Hakuryuu made a face and laughed. "Well, yes. Of course." His phone buzzed in his pocket. "Ugh… but speaking of my family, my sister wanted to talk to me before I went to bed…" He dragged himself from Judal's arms and straightened his shirt. "So I'm going to go take care of that. Don't wait up, okay?"
Judal rolled his eyes. "Hakuryuu, I am a manic bundle of nerves and science bullshit. Do I look like I know how to go to bed at a reasonable hour?" He snagged the remote off the bedside table and turned on the tiny tube tv. "I'll wait for you."
Hakuryuu sighed, not wanting to argue, and trudged to Hakuei and Kouen's room. The two of them were waiting there, Kouen in the hideous desk chair, and his sister perched on the edge of the bed. They both looked rather annoyed at having had to wait, and Hakuryuu kept his smirk of pleasure inward.
"We called you here because we have an issue on our hands," Hakuei said, all business.
"Mind carpenters. You mentioned." Hakuryuu racked his brain for what, if anything, he knew about the monster of the week. There wasn't much that came to mind. He had of late been rather deliberately neglecting the study of things that go bump in the night in favor of studying more interesting things, like art and Judal's incredibly narrow field of study in physics, which was largely focused on making things explode in new and exciting ways. "I can't say I know much about them."
Kouen took over here, because expositing was a gift he did not possess but practiced at every opportunity. "They're ant like creatures that alter the thought patterns of humans. They make them docile, robotic almost, so that they're easier to use as a prey species. They farm humans."
"That's at least somewhat speculation," Hakuei cut in. "The most efficient way to get rid of a mind carpenter infestation is to burn the whole affair, because killing the queen won't take care of the whole hive. Any surviving carpenters will just migrate to the next nearest hive or re-establish their own."
"So," Kouen said, "fire."
"And it's hard to study the machinations of burned out corpses."
"Regardless of their intentions, they're incredibly dangerous to go up against in close quarters." Kouen waved a hand dramatically. "Which is why we need all hands on deck. Koumei, Kougyoku, and Kouha should be arriving on the morrow, and once they're here we will head out as a group to destroy the colony."
"Without sending the entire town up in smoke if we can," Hakuei laughed. "Koumei and the others were supposed to arrive earlier this evening, but they were delayed by traffic."
Kouen snorted, and Hakuryuu had to force himself not to do the same, lest he seem amenable to the whole affair. "Traffic" was common Koumei code for "Felt like taking a nap more than I felt like driving through bumfuck nowhere."
Texting Judal was a grounding experience. As horrible as it was to be here, in bumfuck nowhere with his family, getting to read Judal's words made Hakuryuu feel almost at home.
"So how did you find out there was a mind carpenter here?" Hakuryuu asked without glancing up from his phone.
"Well we were driving through town looking for gas…" Hakuei began, "when we realized that everyone in the town was acting strangely. And not the way you might expect either. It's like… well it's like a fifties sitcom around here!"
Hakuryuu laughed and looked up. "What?"
"Mowing their lawns all at once. Eating dinner all at the same time. Mothers with perfectly curled hair who stay home, and fathers who come home at the precise same time." Kouen grunted. "Different colonies of mind carpenters can sometimes produce different effects, building their human chattel into whatever pattern best suits their needs."
"So they were all mowing their lawns at once. It was probably just a coincidence, or maybe it's some sort of, I don't know, social event for them."
Kouen's frown deepened. "A child said 'golly mister' to me after we accidentally collided on the sidewalk."
Hakuei sighed heavily. "There have been other signs as well: an overabundance of anthills, sinkholes appearing in town… The colonies are subterranean, and their tunnels often compromise infrastructure."
Hakuryuu nodded, tucking his phone into his pocket. "Well. Thank you for catching me up on the situation, sister. I'll be retiring to bed now."
"Not so fast." Kouen caught his shoulder in a tight grip. "We still have work for you."
Hakuei rose, crossing to the door. "We're going to take advantage of having the three of us here early to perform reconnaissance and try to pinpoint the mind carpenter queen. Killing her may not get rid of the rest, but it will give us an idea of the extent of the colony, as well as a good place to start our hunt."
Hakuryuu's face fell. "Sister, I have finals in two weeks! I need to study! I-"
"We need your abilities, Hakuryuu," Hakuei said, her tone dismissing all possibility of argument. "Your connection to the natural world through your arm will be imperative in tracking the queen down. Now let's get going."
Hakuryuu pulled out his phone with a scowl. "At least let me say goodnight to Judal…"
That completed, Kouen and Hakuei lead him from the hotel and down the main street to survey the town. The two of them had already done a fair amount of recon, and they paraphrased their findings (the times of the men's "work," when children came and went, the location of stores and warehouses and offices) as they walked. Hakuryuu dropped the magical disguises from his left arm as they walked, reaching out to try and find the mind carpenter.
Hakuryuu's left arm was the easiest thing to point to when trying to explain why he wanted nothing to do with the family business. He'd lost it in a hunt back in high school, when a demon's curse had infected it and rotted it off to the bone. It was the sort of curse that would have killed him, had his family not been so lucky as to have a powerful nature spirit who owed them a favor.
In all honesty, the arm didn't bother him that much anymore, especially with how convenient it made his plant keeping. He would never be able to keep half the exotics he kept in his dorm room without the additional magical help his arm afforded him, nor would his plants grow quite so hale and hearty.
Unfortunately, Hakuryuu did not know precisely what a mind carpenter's magical energies felt like and was unable to instantly pinpoint where they needed to go. The trio made their way down Main Street until it bled into a quiet residential neighborhood. Hakuei paused sadly at a fence, staring through a bay window to watch a family of four sit down to dinner. Kouen and Hakuryuu slowed in time to watch with her. The people moved like sleepwalkers, and when they all laughed in unison, they shook like poorly made automatons.
"We have to help them…" Hakuei murmured softly. "No family deserves to have this forced on to them." She gripped the fence tightly. "They should be together and laughing because they love each other, because they've worked hard to understand and be together. Not because some horrible overgrown ant has wormed its way into their minds."
"Oh, so you only like fake-happy families when you make them?" Hakuryuu grumbled, just loud enough for Hakuei to hear. He was feeling particularly unkind after Hakuei's cold welcome to Judal.
"Hakuryuu!" Kouen snapped. "You can't say those things."
Hakuei sighed heavily, holding up a hand to stop Kouen. "He doesn't mean it." She gave Hakuryuu one of her worried, sisterly smiles. "I know you're not happy about being interrupted during the school year-"
"Yes sister, I know that you know," Hakuryuu replied coolly. He took a couple steps onward, trying to start them on their way again. "You always understand exactly how I feel. It's why we get along so well as of late."
Hakuei let go of the fence with an aggravated sigh and strode past Hakuryuu. "I'm not having this argument with you again."
"Argument? Sister, I would never-"
"Save it."
Hakuryuu quickened his step so he could glare at Hakuei as they stormed down the street. "Sister, there are a lot of things I could say right now that I'm 'saving.' All I'm saying here is that perhaps your idyllic fantasy of our family's togetherness is a little overstated."
Hakuei drew her lips into a tight line. "And that we're like these pathetic automatons? I can read between the lines. We aren't like these people, Hakuryuu. Our family is very close."
"Are we?" Hakuryuu scowled. "Admit it, ever since the fire-"
"It's always about the fire when you want to win arguments, isn't it, Hakuryuu?" Hakuei snapped. "I keep saying you should go to therapy and-"
"I go to quite enough therapy, sister." Hakuryuu replied coldly. "You should stop dismissing my legitimate grievances about how horrible our family is with your snide little remarks that I need to change. Face it, this family has been a sham ever since we were children, and if you all could just respect my wishes that I don't want to be part-"
"You don't get to just not be part of a family Hakuryuu." Hakuei was as firm as steel, and she was practically stomping, the two of them attempting to passive-aggressively out quick-walk the other as though having the fastest, most aggressive stride would make them the winner in the argument. "That's not how family works. Families should always be there to support each other."
"Well maybe you should support the fact that I don't want anything to do with this family! Any of you!" Hakuryuu shouted, planting his feet soundly in the ground. Hakuei turned, reeling from the shock, and stared at Hakuryuu. For his part, he did at least look a little embarrassed and shocked at the coldness of his voice. "Wait. Wait, sister, I-"
Then Kouen gave a shout, and a great crack split the air. Hakuryuu and Hakuei whipped around just in time to see Kouen swallowed whole by a great rift in the road. In his wake came swarms of tiny things on skittering legs with gleaming eyes. Mind carpenter drones!
Hakuryuu and Hakuei spared each other only a moment's glance as they leapt into action. Hakuei cast a great gust in the direction of the wave, sending the drones flying and skittering back, and Hakuryuu twisted his fingers to feel the life and structure of their twitching, massive hoard.
What he felt chilled him to the bone.
They were not, as he had assumed or as Hakuei had informed him, single creatures operating under whatever swarm psychology enabled them to warp the minds of men. Instead what Hakuryuu found was a shambling amalgam of chitin and muscle twisted around a core of damnably magic, damnably pervasive, and disgustingly robust fungal life. Bodies more shell than life, more fungus than creature. Hakuryuu shuddered, staggering away from the swarm to hide half behind his sister. Now that he'd felt it, he realized he could feel the fungus all around them- in the yards, in the houses, and he realized in horror what the mind carpenter really was.
"Sister…" he whispered, "we have to keep those things as far away from us as we can. And cover your mouth."
Hakuei yanked the front of her shirt over her mouth without question and held it there with her free hand. "Done." She waved her hand again, blowing the drones back once more. "You figured something out."
Hakuryuu nodded, grim. "The carpenter is all around us. It's not the ants- it's inside them."
Hakuei's brow creased as she processed that. "Oh." She stared in horror and disgust at the ants before slowly looking towards the houses. "Oh god." Then her eyes went hard, and she turned to the drones again. Her hands and lips flickered, too fast to follow, and another maelstrom, this one tinged with her holy magic, sliced through a wave of the drones, cleaving their bodies in twain and turning the fungus to so much glittering, purified ash. Yet there were more climbing from the hole Kouen had fallen from, more surging towards them.
Hakuryuu tried his best not to be furious with his sister. She hadn't known. But now- god what if these things cropped up other places, if they came after Judal? What if the motel, which was most certainly full of mold, was already full of the carpenter's spores?
"Hakuryuu!" Hakuei snapped, trying to bring him to attention again. "I need you to help me! I can't fight this many of these things on my-" The ground cracked beneath Hakuei's step, and Hakuryuu grabbed her as she fell, tumbling in right after her. Hakuei twisted, pulling Hakuryuu into her grasp to pillow his fall. Even with the small gust she used to slow her own fall, they still hit with a bone-jarring thud.
Hakuryuu groaned, rolling off Hakuei and raising his head. "Sewers?"
Hakuei groped the ground beneath them. "No. It looks like they made this tunnel."
Around them there was the soft, terrible noise of skittering feet, and Hakuryuu shuddered at the what he could sense but not see. He slowly shifted over Hakuei, trying to cover her. He clenched his fist, preparing to try and manipulate the fungus within the drones swarming towards them. Fungi were not plants, but he could try, he could do his damn best and go out fighting. He only wished-
"Fire in the hole!" shouted a familiar voice, and the darkness around them seemed to pull together, forming dark spears and lancing the oncoming swarm into a shattered mess of fungus and tiny fragmented exoskeletons. Then Judal jumped down from above, making an ungraceful landing and practically rolling in the stuff. His fashionable scarf was tied around his face, and he gave the two of them a cheeky thumbs up and a bow. "Your saviour has arrived!"
Hakuryuu stared, slack-jawed, as Hakuei struggled back to her feet. Her own expression was no less stunned. Judal, however, just brushed his shoulders off and tossed up a ball of light, illuminating the dark, low-ceilinged tunnel.
"No need to thank me, really, your stunned, stupid faces are thanks enough!" Judal strode up to them and slapped Hakuryuu on the back, pulling him into a one armed shoulder hug. "Why didn't you tell me your family was like super awesome cool monster hunters? This is way better than watching It's a Wonderful Life with chinese subtitles and hanging out in my parents' tiny apartment!"
Hakuryuu couldn’t stop staring at Judal in shock, trying to find the words to express what he was feeling. If he was being honest with himself, he wasn’t quite sure what he was feeling in the first place. Excitement, yes, but also confusion. How did Judal find them? How could he use magic like that? Why wasn’t he freaking out about the mind carpenter?
“Yo, Hakuryuu, you still in there?” Judal waved his free hand in front of his face. “I know I’m gloriously impressive and all, but really. You don’t have to be this dumbstruck.”
“Thank you,” Hakuryuu managed. “How did you do this?”
“Aw, this was nothing! I was following you and it looked like you needed help, so bam! Problem solved.” Judal was still grinning from ear to ear, obviously incredibly pleased with himself.
Hakuryuu, however, caught on to something else. “You were following me? Why?”
“Well, duh, of course I was. You were acting all weird and secretive, and I wanted to know why. It’s not like you noticed me, so no big.”
“How, then?” He’d deal with Judal’s trust issues later, away from his sister’s prying looks.
Judal looked at him like he was a moron. “In the shadows, how else?”
“Ah. Of course.” Hakuryuu sighed. He was rapidly discovering that Judal had the habit of skipping all the inbetween steps and giving only the conclusion in both school and magic. “Details are important, Judal.”
He flailed his arms around. “You know, in shadows! I just go in and out, and I don’t know how else to explain it.”
“Sorry, I just… I’m a little blown away, that’s all.”
“Yeah, well, you should have told me about your awesome magical arm thing you’ve got going on.” He ran a hand over it appreciatively. “Mm, you’re gonna give me an amputee fetish with that thing.”
Hakuryuu flushed brightly. “Judal!”
“What? Oh, I guess we should focus on this mess for now,” he said, and gestured at the crumbled exoskeletons around them.
“Yes. That.” And my sister still here, he added silently, mortified at Judal’s casual mention of anything intimate between them. For now though, Judal’s magical abilities and careless mouth were not quite as important as the fungus spores still littering the area.
“You travel through the shadows?” Hakuei asked.
“Jeez, I thought we’d established that by now!”
“I just wanted to clarify. Could you perhaps track someone or something through them?”
Judal pondered for a moment, shifting from foot to foot. It was the absence of sound, of any crunch against the remains of the carpenter’s drones, that caught Hakuryuu’s attention. He realized that Judal wasn’t on the ground, but was instead floating slightly above it. Had he ever done this before? How had he never realized that Judal was more alike than he could have hoped?
“Probably!” Judal finally answered. “You lost goatee man, huh? I guess I could hunt him down for you.” And with that, he melted into the shadows effortlessly, leaving Hakuryuu alone with Hakuei and the splintered remains of the drones.
Hakuei stared. "Well, why didn't he mention he could do that earlier?"
"I guess he was hiding from me just like I was hiding from him." Hakuryuu couldn't help but sound a little hurt when he said it.
Hakuei put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze. "I'm sure he wasn't trying to hide anything from you…" She bit the inside of her cheek and forced a smile. "He probably just wanted to protect you, just like you were trying to protect him."
Hakuryuu nodded. "I'm sorry Kouen got snatched by horrible fungus monsters in ant bodies and may be having his brain turned to jelly as we speak."
Hakuei sucked in a tight breath and let go of Hakuryuu's shoulder. "I'm trying not to think about it. Kouen's strong though, so I'm hopeful."
Judal rematerialized from the shadows, a grin on his face. "Found him! We're not too far off, thankfully." He twirled in the air and then shot off down the passage. "Follow me!"
Hakuei and Hakuryuu nodded to one another and tore after him. Hakuei put the wind to their heels, pushing them forward to keep up with Judal's flight. "First things first," she said, "I'm saving Kouen. After that, I'll focus on getting rid of the spores," Hakuei said. "But purifying winds are harder for me to maintain. It's going to fall on you and Kouen to figure out a way to really take care of this thing."
Hakuryuu nodded, and said nothing of the possibility that Kouen might be dead. "Once the queen and the drones are neutralized, we can figure out a way to purify the people together."
Judal turned midair, floating backwards in a relaxed slouch. "And what's my job, huh?"
"Try to stay behind us so that you may remain safe," Hakuei said.
Judal blew a raspberry at her. "Well that sounds lame!" He winked to Hakuryuu. "I bet we can come up with something better than that!"
Hakuryuu laughed awkwardly but made no promises. In all honesty, he also wanted Judal behind them for safety.
As they ran, the tunnels twisted and turned, gradually leading them deeper and deeper below the town. Hakuryuu's ears popped with the pressure change, and he could tell by the face Judal made that his did too. The tunnels down here smelled of moist earth and the acrid smell of the fungus. Judal stalled up ahead, holding up a hand.
"Down this way." He dipped into the shadows and reappeared behind Hakuryuu. "Be careful."
Hakuei took the opportunity to do the exactly the opposite of that, tearing ahead with a shriek now that the queen was nearly in sight. Hakuryuu winced. "Sister!" He shouted and ran after her. Judal shrugged and followed along.
Judal's path lead them to an upper entrance to the queen's chambers, but the high entrypoint did nothing to deter Hakuei. Kouen laid in a motionless heap near the queen, and it was up to her to save him. She lept from the opening, diving straight down with a blade of wind at her heels, diving straight for the queen, diving to Kouen's rescue. Judal and Hakuryuu arrived at the opening in time to see the mind carpenter queen screech and scuttle aside, fearing the sting of Hakuei's wind. It cleft a deep gash in the packed floor of the ground.
Judal whistled. "Daaamn. Your sister's something else."
Hakuei gathered Kouen in her arms, patting his face and trying to rouse him. "Kouen, Kouen, can you hear me?"
Kouen groaned, his eyes fluttering open and rolling half back into his head. "Hakuei?"
She smiled gently down at him. "Don't worry, you're going to be all right." She ran a gentle hand down his face, burning what toxins she could feel away with holy purifying magic. "Just hold still."
The carpenter queen rallied herself, drawing up to her full height and preparing to strike. Judal had other plans. From above, he called down a wall of ice shards, barricading Kouen and Hakuei from the queen. Then he gripped Hakuryuu tight and stepped into the darkness.
They emerged on the other side of the queen. From this close, they could see her every detail. She was not a purely insectoid creature. It went beyond the soft shelves of fungus that curled from her cracked thorax; her face and limbs bordered distressingly on human. Her chiten insect's legs replaced with bone- all hands and arms curled up with sinew and fungus- and her face was a pock-mocked mockery of the fifties look she imposed upon this town. Judal whistled loudly.
"You are one ugly mother!" He glanced at Hakuryuu. "You ready to try and keep this bitch busy?"
Hakuryuu nodded. "Of course."
"Why must y̶o̵u͟ ̧h̕umanś ̵b̕e̢ so im̡pe̷t̨uous͠?" the queen asked, her voice lilting and alien. It rattled not from her mouth, but from the fungus along her sides. "I̕ ́onl̛y̴ se͠ek to͟ gi̕v̡e y̡o͢u o͠rder."
Judal shuddered. "Well, that's the creepiest sound I've heard all fucking week."
Hakuryuu nodded, but didn't reply beyond that. He was concentrating, feeling what drones he could throughout the nearby tunnels. With whispered words and a bit of blood, he willed his gifted magic in reverse. He could feel the sting of death coursing through the tunnels, and it made him smile in triumph.
The queen did not smile. "What a͞r̡e yo͜u doing?" she said softly. Then again, louder, more desperate: "W͜h͠a̴t̴ ̛ar͡e ͝you doi̕n͡g̡ t͏o my͞ c͢ḩi͢ld̛r̷en?̵!"
"I think you know the answer to that…" Hakuryuu panted, continuing to concentrate on weaving the death outward through the colony.
"N҉̺O̡͓̩̘̲͍!" The queen shrieked, releasing a wave of spores into the air.
For a moment, everything went candy-colored. Judal could swear he smelled peach cobbler in the air. Hakuryuu felt the overwhelming urge to go to business school. On the other side of the wall of ice, Kouen and Hakuei embraced each other, staring soulfully at one another. There was a way that each person there needed to behave, they knew, and they should not be quarreling but-
"Enough!" Kouen shouted, blowing a hole in Judal's wall of ice to shoot a fireball at the queen. The spores in the air sizzled to ash. "I've no interest in following the whims of some overgrown sack of bug bones and weeds!"
The queen snarled and reared to strike Kouen, but he was having none of it. He made a quick gesture, and the queen exploded in a pillar of fire. Her body crumpled when the flames parted, and Kouen did much the same, collapsing into Hakuei's arms.
"Kouen!" she cried out. "I just healed you! Don't push yourself so hard!"
Judal grinned widely and leapt high into the air. "Yahoo!!! That was awesome!! Did you see that Hakuryuu? We were like shnk shnk you shall not pass, and that thing was like SCREEECH and then your cousin was all like-"
Hakuryuu laughed and yanked Judal from the air for a kiss. "Yes, I saw, I saw! Now come down here."
Judal laughed as well, nestling himself in Hakuryuu's embrace. "I guess I should lead us back."
Hakuei smiled across at them. "If you don't mind."
Judal removed himself from his perch around Hakuryuu and disappeared to find a good route to the surface. Hakuryuu awkwardly walked over to Hakuei and peered at Kouen.
"Is he going to be-"
"I'm fine," Kouen snapped without opening his eyes.
Hakuryuu jumped. "Ah. Of course." He looked at his sister. "When we get to the surface… I think if we combine the techniques we were using, we'll be able to cure the townspeople without risking any casualties."
Hakuei nodded and smiled, looking only a little tired around the eyes. "I would like that."
It wasn't much long after that Judal returned once more and guided them back to the surface. They seemed to walk for far longer than they had before, but no one dared to question Judal. Hakuryuu did, however, make mental note to tease him about it later.
The town was bathed in pale light of pre-dawn as they emerged. Hakuei and Hakuryuu softly conferred on the best way to weave their spell of cleansing, and Judal and Kouen found a reputable section of wall to hold up. As Hakuei and Hakuryuu cast, the sun peeked over the horizon, slowly bathing the four of them in the light of dawn.
It was satisfying, Hakuryuu had to admit, to watch everyone in town come back to themselves, each resident waking not just from a night's slumber but a strange, waking nightmare that few dared voice aloud. It slowly transformed from an eerily perfect sitcom reality to a quiet, if somewhat backwards, small town, with its own unique residents.
Judal slung an arm around his shoulders. “Look at us, saving the day! We’re heroes.”
“You’re magical,” Hakuryuu said softly, leaning into his embrace.
“Sure am. I was worried you’d freak out when I eventually told you but damn this went so much better! You’re a badass already in your own right, so we can skip all the awkward ‘but is magic actually real or are you just crazy?’ bullshit I was expecting.”
Judal’s joy was somewhat contagious, and Hakuryuu couldn’t keep the smile from sneaking onto his face. “This does make things more convenient,” he said, twining his fingers in Judal’s.
“Koumei is finally here,” Kouen announced, interrupting their peaceful moment. “We’re heading back to the motel now.”
Hakuryuu and Judal followed Kouen and Hakuei back through the town, catching glimpses of dazed but happy families as the did, until they reached the motel. Koumei was dozing in the desk chair in Kouen and Hakuei’s room, and startled awake when they arrived.
“Hey,” he grunted sleepily.
“The problem has been resolved,” Kouen replied, and Koumei looked relieved.
“Great. I’m off to get my own room and a nap, then. That drive was too much.”
Kouen punched him in the shoulder. “You just got here! We have a lot to discuss.”
“But there’s no pressing time issue now, so I can sleep first.”
“I have to get back to college,” Hakuryuu began, but Koumei had already left. Kouha and Kougyoku came in after him, and Kouha grinned excitedly when he caught sight of Hakuryuu.
“Ah, Hakuryuu, I haven’t seen you in too long!” Kouha exclaimed. “Damn, is this your boyfriend? How’d someone like you get this mega hottie?”
“Hey! Hakuryuu is super hot!” Judal argued loudly. “So don’t you insult him, shrimpy!”
Kouha just laughed. “I like him!”
Hakuryuu waved politely, more interested in getting back to his room to pack up his bags and triple check that all his books (and the few of Judal’s he’d accidentally grabbed) were present and accounted for. His sister followed him to keep him company, and attempt to offer some polite conversation.
“See, that wasn’t so bad. And it’s good to see some of our cousins again,” she began.
“I think you see far too much of one of them,” he snapped, and his eyes flickered over to Kouen briefly.
“We are not having this argument again,” she said firmly.
“Why bother? You never listen anyway.”
“I know you don’t approve, but you are not in charge of who I choose to date.” Hakuei sighed. “Just as I can’t tell you who you should or shouldn’t be seeing.”
He shoved a book forcefully into another bag. “I can tell you don’t like Judal.”
“Hakuryuu, that is not at all what I said.”
“Really? I can tell when you don’t like someone. You’ve barely even met him!”
“I’m still withholding judgement. Not everyone is as quick to judge and irrationally hate as you are,” she told him condescendingly.
“I am not-”
“Man, I am so excited to spend the summer with you guys!” Judal said loudly, bursting into their argument. “Cause I’m totally spending the summer with you guys. You do all this crazy magical monster hunting and you’re a riot to be around!”
“Judal, no,” Hakuryuu began, but he could see that it was already a lost cause.
“Too late! There’s no way I’m sitting in my parents’ apartment all summer when I could be out hunting with you. It’s like you don’t know me at all.” He gave Hakuryuu a kiss on the cheek. "Besides, you owe me big time for those cuddles you missed."