Ink Stained

73: every day*

She held out her hand for a pinkie promise, showing off the silver-amber ring on her curled forefinger. "On."

Shiori smiled and hooked her own pinkie around Pai's before going back to the list. "Necklace?"

She didn't exactly know what the point of taking it with her was. Kanou said that it took the aura from Hengen around her and mixed it all up so that her own aura resembled that of Ayakashi. How would it work if there weren't a lot of Hengen around, wherever they were going?

She lifted the pendant out from beneath her white-and-blue checkered shirt, as reassured by the coolness of its surface as she was when she rolled her ring around on her finger. "On."

"Get yo bling on," Haru grinned, waggling his dark eyebrows at her over his glasses as he looked up at her upside down.

Instead of answering, she reached down and flicked his forehead. It was not too hard, but she was growing her nails out again. She did it hard enough that he yelped and turned his back to her, curling his body as if he was a child being reprimanded. "That hurt, Pai-chan!"

Utterly deadpan, she mocked, "'Get yo bling on'?"

Shiori laughed. "And in this instance I do not mind at all that you're using my move."

"I do!" Haru protested balefully. "I'll get a bruise now! How am I going to get a date if I have bruises all over my face?"

"What date, you don't know anyone to date," Shiori deadpanned. Haru rolled onto his back again with a hand to his chest in offence, a look of pity adorning his face. "Anyway, moving on because we don't have years to joke around," she added with a meaningful glare down at him. "What kind of clothes did you pack?"

Haru reached over and poked at the bulging bag lying against Pai's leg. "Looks like you packed a lot of stuff," he commented.

"I did," she gave the bag a forlorn look as she leaned forward and settled her elbows on her knees. "I did not know if I should pack summer clothes or warmer clothes. So I did both."

"Better have everything than nothing, huh?" he replied with a quick pirate's grin. He sat up abruptly then, and she watched him push himself to standing and brush off whatever dust might have clung to the back of his flashy red-and-black kimono patterned with colourful dragons that reminded her of the one tattooed on Shin's back. "I'm heading off. Kaede's just challenged me to a dare."

"What dare?" Shiori asked suspiciously.

"Who can finish teriyaki chicken Yuki-chan just made before she gets back from an errand with Kanou-san."

"Oi, come on, stop always eating the food Yukiji makes. That's mean." Shiori squinted up at him. "And how the hell did Kaede tell you that? He's not even here."

"He's in the kitchen." Haru grinned mischievously and tapped his left ear. "I've got much, much better hearing than you do, Shiori-hime."

"It," she reached down and yanked her slipper off her socked foot.

"Is," at the same time Haru began rapidly backing away, hands up in defence as if he was facing an angry police woman. His face was broken in a broad grin stretching from ear to ear, and it only served to infuriate Shiori more.

With one miraculously well-aimed shot, Shiori lobbed her slipper at Haru's half-turned back as he started running. "Only Shiori!"

The slipper thwacked! on his back with a satisfying sound before falling to the ground as Haru disappeared round the corner and inside the house with a belly-laugh that brought an instinctive smile to Pai's lips. She just barely caught Haru's harried, "Bye Pai-chan!" before he was gone.