an over-achiever,” Naoto said.
‘Naoto acts like you do with Jessica. Is Shou his brother?’ Kou asked.
‘No. Just friends.’
“What did you two end up doing?” Shou asked. David jumped at the question, his head snapping to look at the shorter boy.
“We were at the Estate with everyone else,” Takumi said, covering for David. “Not all of us get to go on ski trips during winter break.”
‘Yikes, I thought he meant us for a minute there. Takumi is getting way too sneaky.’
“Hey! My Dad got a promotion. He wanted to celebrate or something,” Naoto said, rubbing his hair with one hand and looking away. David noticed his shoes and belt were new, and the hand in the hair gesture was one hundred percent embarrassment.
‘Naoto seems to be a bit uncomfortable with his new home life. I think he was used to hating everything.’
‘I bet he’s wishing he had studied more. Now that his parents are loaded they are going to want him to go to a good school!’
Naoto and Shou eyed David as he began laughing. They were used to him zoning out at random, something that had started after Kou had awoken. His friends even ignored the occasional times he finished or started conversations that made sense to no one else. It was the more overt strangeness that still caught his classmates off guard.
All of Class 2B had noticed the odd things, like when he twitched his head at sounds no one else could hear, but they strove to ignore it. Unfortunately for David, they had all met Jessica. The fact his sister had fit in so well, even without speaking any Japanese, had shown them David’s weirdness was not just because he was a gaijin.
David had become good enough at sports, classes, and with his friends, that they overlooked a number of quirks. They were especially accommodating when their own grades improved from his homework help. Only the twins and Natsuki knew that the strangest of his quirks were due to his possession by a kami. Kou shared his mind, an alien presence that never completely faded.
Not all David’s classmates welcomed him and his changes with open arms. A cadre of third years led by a boy named Koji had marked David for humiliation during his first month. Several more run-ins had only stiffened Koji’s resolve to end David’s newfound popularity. The incident had only isolated Koji, making him more dangerous.
David shrugged off thoughts of Koji and returned his focus to walking down the school halls. Kou pulled at David’s attention until he noticed that their group had grown. Natsuki was keeping pace near Takumi as they all walked together. It was the closest he had seen them in public since the previous year.
‘I am just glad we don’t have to deal with Natsuki all the time anymore. She’s so much more civil this way.’
‘You cannot fool me. I know you miss having a partner, even if you pretend to like the freedom more. Do not worry, we will find someone worthy.’
“Here,” Natsuki said, handing David a folded bit of paper.
“What?”
“It’s a list of the best songs right now. Jess wanted to know what music she should download, right?”
“You know, if you’re going to be pen pals maybe you should practice English rather than send everything through me,” David replied.
“She’s your sister,” Natsuki said smiling. “Besides, it’s fun giving you more work.”
With an innocent grin, Natsuki led Takumi and the others into the gym. David sighed and thought of his sister as he waited for the bottleneck at the gym entrance to clear. It took everyone a few minutes to find and change their shoes at the entrance, so he read over the list. At the top was AKB48, an all-girl group with nearly one hundred members. While it was true he had noticed many of his classmates listening to their music, he did not want to point his little sister toward their idea of fashion.
Once everyone was in the gym and had lined up by class and year, the ceremony began with greetings and bowing led by the vice-principal. After about an hour, the ceremony ended and their teachers released them to their normal classes.
Back in the classroom, their homeroom teacher Mr. Moriyama explained that most of the beginning of the semester would be devoted to getting ready for their school trip to Kyushu and the Cultural Festival just after. The rest would be getting ready for finals.
‘Great. Tests, homework, and monsters for who knows how long. Maybe we should just sneak off and go hunt Chul Soon.’
‘If we had done as I suggested, we could have tracked him. By now, he must be too far gone for me to hunt. We will just have to hope the monsters they send do not injure your cub mates.’
Class 2B’s schedule for the next two weeks had them focusing on all things Kyushu. In Social Studies, they learned about the history of the most southern of the four main Japanese islands. They also studied the geography of Kyushu’s Prefectures and the history of Nagasaki and its exposure to Western culture through the Dutch. In science, they covered the region’s unique animals and plants, while in Japanese they studied dialect differences.
After school, David joined with the twins and Natsuki in the gym. David laughed at their shivers and complaints about the cold. Just a few weeks before, the team had sweated through each practice complaining about how hot it was. With the change in weather, the entire team had invested in new Yonex HeatTec clothing to keep in their body heat. Even Takumi muttered as he zipped up a full tracksuit. David’s choice of shorts had most of his teammates wondering again if he was sane.
On the courts, they all worked through their usual warm-ups and drills. Takumi and Natsuki’s constant practices together on the Estate showed most when they played together. Few could challenge them because there was such synchronicity in their movements. Their badminton playing, more than anything else, began the rumors that they were dating, though no one dared whisper such things around either of them.
After badminton, David walked the few kilometers back to the Matsumoto Estate with his friends. He opted for a human dinner, much to Kou’s annoyance, then joined the others for evening practice.
Unlike in the mornings where the focus was on physical martial arts, David spent most of his evening practice time repairing the damage he did to the forest trees while practicing with his Seikaku. It took him nearly double the time to fix or create something than it took for destruction. Masao never smiled when he assigned tasks, but David suspected he enjoyed giving exercises that were ever more intricate.
Since the Matsumoto’s swords were in high demand and with Nakano villagers often seeking Masao’s advice as the local Shinto priest, there was also significant enough traffic on the Estate to require the extra time David spent fixing his accidents. Yukiko reminded him of the fact when she came back with a giant radish that still had a rather large wood shard in it. David fixed the vegetable, then left Rie and Natsuki in the forge so that Kou could run with Reimi through the Estate.
“Don’t forget to write about the kappa,” Yukiko called after. David groaned.
“Yet another page in your own Jitsugen Samurai Diary,” Takumi said. “You can title it ‘My heroic near-drowning.’” David lunged after his host-brother, but he disappeared into a puff of smoke as Reimi took wing. Growling, Kou chased after the gray bird.
