Neko shook her head to clear it of Tenshi's cries. She didn't believe it for a minute. The only person Tenshi loved was herself. She just couldn't stand to have everyone in the palm of her hand. Neko knew better than to think anything decent of her.
So why was she so crushed now?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"You going to school today?" Mi-chan asked Tenshi as the blonde handed her Kimahou's bag out of the trunk.
"Probably� maybe.... I don't know, probably," Tenshi answered. "What about you?"
"No, I think it'd be better if Neko-chan and I played hooky for the day." She glanced at Neko, who was being doted on by Chibi and Kimahou. She was hanging on every word that came out of their mouths and asking a hundred questions a minute.
"Yeah, I think it's best that we take a day off. I can prepare her for school then. She's so not ready." Mi-chan could only imagine what Neko'd be like at school. Her wide-eyed curiosity would be obvious enough, and her shyness around people she should know would definitely clue them in that something was up. Plus, Neko was practically a genius and if she started staring blankly at her teachers when they asked her a question, they would figure out pretty quickly that something was wrong with her. For now it would be better if they just laid low. At least until their parents came home.
Which reminded Mi-chan that she should probably call them after she took Kimahou and Chibi to school.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Neko watched Tenshi drive away with a sense of relief. Now she could relax and try to reclaim her life sans Tenshi.
"Hey, is it okay for me and Ki-chan to go inside," Chibi asked, moments away from entering the house.
Neko blinked at him. "Why wouldn't it be?"
"'Cuz you were sick. Isn't that why we were at Haruka-sama and Michiru-sama's?"
"No, I just didn't trust you two alone," Mi-chan said, giving Chibi a noogie for no apparent reason.
"Quit it!" he complained, slapping her hand away.
"Behave, or I'll tickle you too," Mi-chan warned him. Neko watched with interest how the two interacted. She had never seen Mi-chan be so playful before. Throughout the whole quest she had been so serious most of the time.
"Anyway, Mom said it could only be transmitted directly from Neko-chan. Besides Tenshi-kun was already here yesterday, and she didn't catch it. So you should be fine." She pushed open the door and let them in.
Neko followed her siblings, glad to be somewhere she recognized a little. This was where she had spent the morning when she had first woken up with no memories. Mi-chan had taken her on a tour of the house, and as Neko had been committing everything around her to memory, she probably could find her way around the house with minimal effort.
Mi-chan had been great. Right away she had told Neko all sorts of important info - their Senshi status, their psychic link (which Neko still hadn't completely figured out how to work yet), certain differences between the two of them, her way around the house, and so on. She had really taken care of her, making sure she was okay, not letting her make a fool of herself in front of others, making sure she ate something.
She was still just as considerate. Leading them into the kitchen, Mi-chan asked, "You hungry, Neko-chan?" Neko nodded. They hadn't eaten since early the day before, and that had just been a piece of candy. Mi-chan took a couple apples out of a basket of fruit behind the kitchen sink. She tossed one to Neko and bit into the other.
"Hey, we have to get to school soon," Chibi said urgently, surprising Neko with his eagerness.
"School?" she repeated. She hadn't thought about it before. School was like this apple. She knew what it was, but beyond that she couldn't tell you anything about it.
"Yeah, yeah," Mi-chan brushed him off. "As soon as I get Neko-chan settled in, I'll take the two of you to school."
"Oh, can I come?!" Neko's face lit up at the prospect. She wanted to be a part of everything.
Mi-chan seemed to think about it for a minute before saying, "On the off chance I get caught trying to skip and get dragged to class, I'd rather you stayed here. Okay?"
Neko nodded. What other choice did she have? She just prayed Mi-chan didn't get caught. What would she do all day by herself?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Mi-chan had set her up with no less than twenty photo albums to look through while she was gone. Some of them were really interesting. Neko had to laugh as she and Mi-chan posed on the beach for about thirty photos in the first album she opened. But it soon became sort of monotonous. How many pictures from Chibi's piano recital did she need to look at? And for a while Neko tried to remember the different guys Mi-chan had been in pictures with, but shortly decided that all she needed to know was probably Jian-wa, Mi-chan's current boyfriend,
and considering how many were in this album, he'd probably be in a different one. And without Mi-chan to tell her things, like who this girl was with long black hair that occasionally was in photos with the twins, Neko felt just as lost looking at them as if she were standing around the house with nothing to do.
She did notice some interesting things. It looked like the pictures in this album were taken at another house. She wondered if they were all back on Mercury. If so, were all the extra people in the photos back there? Was it worth it to ask about them? She wasn't sure.
She fingered her necklace, the blue heart pendant that she had put on a new chain she had found in their room shortly after Mi-chan had left. She hoped the chain was hers. But she noticed that the photos didn't have the necklace in them, nor the tanzanite ring she wore on her right ring finger. She wondered where they had come from. At least the blue heart earrings she was wearing appeared in these photos. Did she have them before the necklace that seemed to match?
She put down that album and picked up another, her curiosity piqued again. As she opened it and began to peruse it, she realized it was much more recent than the last one she had been looking at. Some of the pictures had been taken at this house, which she was certain Mi-chan had mentioned that they had moved into only a little more than a year ago.
She smiled at the pictures of either her or Mi-chan racing on a dirt bike, winning a trophy. She suspected it was Mi-chan - she seemed a lot braver than Neko was most of the time.
Feeling rather proud of her twin, she turned the page. But this page wasn't as happy as the last one, at least not for her. Certainly, the couple on the page looked happy enough.
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