12 Jul 2021, 22:50
Home Again
Mentioning/Interacting:
Outfit
Languages (Kage Suzuki): English, German, Japanese
Languages (Emi Suzuki [Kage's mother]): English, Japanese
There had been nobody to say goodbye to, boarding the Hogwarts Express, and no one to say goodbye to, leaving the Hogwarts Express. Well actually, that wasn't quite true. There were a few friends. A few, as in one or two. Now that she thought about it more, Suzuki couldn't even remember what she'd actually achieved in school. Sure, she'd gotten into the Quidditch Team- a great improvement, learned a few spells, but altogether, the whole year felt like a giant drag.
Searching around in her pocket, Suzuki fished out a set of almost brand-new brass keys and inserted them into the keyhole of the almost brand-new-looking house that stood out like a white tooth among a bunch of greyer, shabbier ones.
The door swung open.
"I'm home."
No answer. Of course not. What was she expecting? Throwing the keys into a small glass bowl sitting on a set of drawers, Suzuki dragged her trunk in, kicked off her sandals, and hoisted it up the stairs to the third floor, where she fussed around with a lever and managed to get the ladder to her tiny attic room in the place. She sucked in a breath as she lifted her trunk to her shoulder, and staggered up the ladder, throwing the tiny hatch open, climbing into her room.
Reducio
Kage's Room:
A lever later, the hatch was closed, and the ladder was gone. Suzuki lay panting on the cool Japanese-style floor. The trunk was not light, and she had had to carry it all over London on account of spending the rest of her money for a book at the nearest Muggle bookstore.
She started unpacking, throwing both clean and dirty clothes in her closet, then piling all the books on the small table next to her bed. Suzuki would clean up later. She didn't care enough to clean up now.
Now she was hungry. Great. Time to run down to the first floor to search for something to eat. Hopefully, there were a few packs of instant ramen left. Or better yet, cold leftover Katsudon. She opened the hatch, and jumped out, landing on the carpet floor rather painfully.
Nothing in the pantry but expired crackers. However, there was some leftover sushi in the fridge that Suzuki ate quickly, returning back to her room to read the new book she'd bought.
A few hours later... (10 pm)
-~-
Outside, Suzuki's mother, Emi Suzuki, searched through her bag for the keys. She was sorely disappointed as she pictured a pair of brass keys sitting on her desk at the Ministry. She'd forgot to bring them home. Great.
Now she was looking at a walk back to the Ministry.
Amazing. She didn't have the time for this. What month was it, anyway? March? It felt like March. Wasn't March a few months ago? Then it'd be July. July something. That was more like it, although it felt nothing like July. July meant the end of the term for Hogwarts. Which meant... Emi sighed and rang the doorbell hopefully. She was not going back to the office.
Sure enough, the door was opened by a very tired-looking Kage, who let Emi inside.
" You just came home today?" Emi asked, although the answer was quite obvious. Kage nodded, and took her bag for her. " Thanks." Emi reached around and hugged her daughter, then headed to the living room, where she flopped down on the couch and sighed.
" How was your first year?"
"Fine," Kage replied, leaning on the couch, watching her mother pull Ministry reports out from her bag. "How was your day?"
" Busy. About that trip I promised to Japan... I don't think I'll be able to make it, sorry, Kage."
Already prepared for this statement, Kage just shrugged. "It's fine. You're busy." She pulled out her book from her pocket, and took a seat on the couch next to her mother, and continued from where she had left off.
" Learn anything interesting? I heard you got in Gryffindor."
"Yeah, I did. I just learned a few spells, nothing more. Now I won't need a flashlight anymore."
" What, for reading under the covers?" Emi added teasingly, tousling Kage's hair, laughing as Kage shifted away from the evil hand.
So this was it, huh? The beginning of the dreaded, boring, meaningless summer. Apart from reading, doing homework, wandering aimlessly around the streets, loitering in the bookstore(s), there wasn't much else to do around London. Kage had pretty much seen all there was to see in this section of London. Which left the eastern side of London city, and East London, which was the ancient part of London, with all its Victorian or whatever style houses and castles. That would be a nice place to explore, but Kage didn't really look forward to walking the kilometres all the way to the opposite side of town.
" You should get to bed. It's late." Kage's mother said, glancing at the clock on the wall.
"I guess." Yawning, Kage headed up to the attic, letting the book drop on the mound of blankets that she called a bed, and digging around in her trunk for a stack of parchment. Despite that yawn, Kage didn't feel much like going to bed, instead choosing to start on summer work.
She preferred not being bored to being bored, and halfheartedly wondered if she should save some work for later, in case she were to be bored again. Nah. Dropping the fat textbook down on the low table, Kage pushed away a crusty mug (the leftovers of who-knew-what pasted to the base), and found a pen, which, after finally getting used to the feel of using a feather to write, felt weird now. She reached in her trunk again, and got out some ink and a quill. That was better.
Much better.
Last edited by Jack Warren on 28 Jul 2021, 19:26, edited 1 time in total.
viva la vida
7 Aug 2021, 15:34
Home Again
Mentioning/Interacting:
Outfit
Languages (Kage Suzuki): English, German, Japanese
Languages (Christian): English
Kage woke the next morning, head slumped on the low table. Listening intently for any disturbance in the house below, she quickly concluded that she was the only one home. Typical. It was still dark outside. Kage checked her watch. 5 am. About an hour or so until sunrise. Perfect. She had originally planned to get up around 1 in the morning, but all that had gone up in smoke when she’d fallen asleep while working. At least the ink bottle hadn’t toppled over. It would’ve been just amazing if she had woken up to a giant ink stain on her cheek.
Shoving the window open, Kage climbed out, gazing at the steep drop below, wondering whether she would actually look like a pancake if she fell. Probably not. She landed carefully on the ledge below her window, and shimmied over to the roof, grabbing the gutter for support and pulling herself onto the rooftop, the wet tiles slippery under her bare feet. The sun had just begun to make an appearance, a few clouds hiding it from complete view. She reached into the pocket of her flack jacket, and pulled out a book. It was pleasantly cool outside, unlike the damp heat from yesterday night.
It was one of the reasons she preferred being at home to being at Hogwarts. Kage was sure students didn’t climb onto the rooftop to watch the sunrise (and the sunset, too) at the school. From the height of her house, everything below her looked perfectly perfect. All the houses seemed to be perfectly square, perfectly grey, perfectly aligned. There was a calming aura to it, although Kage would’ve chosen the beautiful scenery of Japan’s countryside to the grey dampness of London any day.
It was still nice, though. To be up early, only when crazy workaholics like her mother were up. She pulled out her earbuds from another pocket, and plugged them into an iPod, one of the Muggle appliances used to listen to music. Kage wondered what it was like to be a Muggle. Boring, probably. What did they learn at school, anyways? Apart from Arithmetic and Physics? How to wash dishes by hand? How to pay taxes?
After about three chapters and eighteen tracks later a bird flew over, landing on the edge of the roof. The bird’s presence reminded her of a certain white-haired bird lover. A bunch of years ago, this whole world was an endless garden, from one end to the other. Kage hadn’t understood his obsession with birds- she had always been an analytical person, all numbers. It was just a bird. There were millions of them. What was so special about them? It wasn’t like they were super smart or advanced species. Werner was probably sweating his skin off in that tiny concrete slab of a house back in Germany, wondering when and if his father was ever going to come home. But of course, there was that. The truth. The sad, stupid truth. His family had probably suffered from him leaving the house for nearly a year. Even the little bit of money he could earn around their tiny town was something.
Stupid man. Couldn’t he see?
Never mind. It wasn’t Kage’s business, poking into others' lives. Even if she knew the truth, it wasn’t like she could make things suddenly improve for them. Plus, she had her own boring life to worry about. Boring, boring, boring. That pretty much summed up her summer. Maybe even her whole life, if she wasn’t careful.
Just then, there was a small thunk, and a tall raven-haired boy dropped onto her roof.
“Hey- I knew I’d find you here!” It was Christian, whose mother was a close friend of her mother’s. He was a Muggle sports fanatic.
“What do you want?” She replied rather crossly- for he disturbed the solitude. There was a reason she watched the sunset from up here rather than on the streets.
“Is that anyway to greet me? And after a whole year?” He jabbed her in the chest. Kage brushed his finger away.
“Yes. It wasn’t actually a full year. It was a few months off.”
“A whole Hogwarts year, then.”
“Too bad for you I don’t care.”
“What book is that?” Kage shoved the cover up into his face.
“Hmmm. ‘A Guide to Astronomy.’ Don’t you already have like fifty copies of that book?”
“I have only one copy of this book.”
“Of course you do. Do you plan on loitering here all day?”
“I don’t know. Do you?” Kage retorted, rather sulkily- for he was ruining the peace, in more than one way.
“All right, all right, I’ll leave. Catch you later! See you!” And with that, Chris leapt off her roof and onto the neighbouring roof, slid down the gutter, and disappeared down the street, leaving Kage to her solitude.
A few hours of sun-watching later, Kage slipped back into her room, drenched from the new onslaught of rain.
viva la vida