Web of light. Part 1.2

In fabrics, as my mother used to say, no self-respecting woman can afford to rely on the price tag. Well, the finishing touches: black hair, shining green in the sun, braided in such a gorgeous braid, for the possession of which you can strangle... tied up in black... shoe stores... With a shoelace! It was... so gorgeous... such an intriguing mystery that only by a monstrous effort of will could the young Kaname not lick her lips! "Yuto-Yuto, if I met someone like that on my first visit to you... Like this... such... You can"t give such gifts on your own birthday, you can"t! It"s so necessary to seduce an innocent girl, so cruelly! If the riddles don"t stop there, I don"t even know how I"m going to hold back anymore!"

Despite such a long description, all these glances under the door took about ten seconds, after which the girls synchronously "froze off", and Hiroe asked first:

"Hi! Are you going to Yuto-kun"s too?"

"Hi. Yes, I"m going to Yuto-kun. He invited me to visit, so I came." The snake replied a little sarcastically.

"Great! My name is Hiroe, shall I introduce you?" and Kaname Jr. extended her hand in a European handshake, another small test.

Shizuku. Mizuchi calmly shook the outstretched hand, noting how warm it was. Wow, it"s almost thirty-seven degrees. Snakes and ordinary ones can feel heat well, and the water demon is subject to differences in fractions of a degree. Are we calling? The short-haired woman nodded at the door intercom.

The River Goddess nodded and pressed the call button.

[Kuzaki Rinko, the kitchen of the Amakawa house]

Rinko hummed a tune of her own composition to herself — as usual, she was caught up in the special, cozy spirit of this place in the kitchen, regardless of the house. The girl took her time chopping vegetables with a knife and mixing ingredients for future meat roasting, put water on the hob to warm up and began to thoughtfully sort the products for the third. A celebratory dinner? No, come on! Yuto doesn"t celebrate his birthday, just not on the day his parents die. As he sadly joked last year, "minus on minus, they hope to give a plus not only in mathematics." The death of his closest relatives changed the guy — from an unsociable and introverted child, he turned into an extremely purposeful young man, and the obstacles that stood in his way seemed to only give him a reason to pick up speed towards his goal. Towards a strange, dangerous, and incomprehensible goal: either hope for an incredible future, or an incredible, deadly danger coming from literally every corner.

Who would have thought that when Yuto called her for that "serious" conversation, she didn"t believe him at first. Some kind of exorcists, yokai, magic, how can you even believe in this nonsense in the modern world? It"s like this idiotic story was invented by some mangaka, and then half the boys in the class read this stuff... However, it is possible. Yuto gave a very convincing demonstration... and then she saw a strong spirit with her own eyes. I even talked to him. I even gave out nuts and one pineapple! Smiling, the girl touched the hairpin with the back of her hand: the heavy gold object always felt pleasantly cool against her skin... and it has become a serious protective amulet.

Yuto, Yuto, well, who would have thought that this happens in life: your neighbor is suddenly a prince, the heir to an ancient family of magicians. The last survivor of the clan, his parents renounced their ancestors. And they died. An amulet that blocks magic and hides the heir of the family from the world, but only for the time being. Sixteen years will come, and young Amakawa will have to find himself with his own world, the world of yokai and magicians who live so close — and as if beyond the glass... but this is self-deception. That thing from the park... which she barely remembered, scary, ugly... Hungry. Yuto"s strange power manifested for the first time, hacking the monster in one blow... and by getting rid of the illusions that you can hide inside yourself from a part of the world. At least by saving Yuto, she herself could not accept for a long time that such a cozy and beautiful city of theirs could at any moment become the refuge of a monster or monsters.

Yes, Yuto was smart, not like her. Yuto takes care of her so much, constantly trying to protect her. And Yuto wouldn"t be left alone with his world, not when he"d let her in on everything! Maybe if she were some kind of boring aunt from a melodrama that her mother loves to watch so much, she would wring her hands and scream "how useless I am", and in the end would only add to Yuto"s headache... But she"s not a stupid grown-up aunt! That is, she is already an adult... Well, almost... although, when looking at Midori, I really want this "almost" to become at least a little more! but definitely not stupid.

"The power is not in magic, the power is not in the Ferry of Light, the power is in ourselves. A hundred years ago, people were dying of colds and pneumonia, and forty years ago they went into space." That"s what Yuto said. Yuto is right. Personal strength is not a cudgel, it is the ability to get results. This requires brains — and the desire to use them. Even in kendo, where bokken is sensitively hit in the brain from time to time, this principle applies... and the enchanted clothes of Prince Amakawa, who, his remember, called the result of "pumping" underwear his "most senseless feat", are very much in demand! Stupid, stupid Yuto, he doesn"t understand anything. In training, he "flies" to "these places", sometimes leaving absolutely monstrous-looking bruises... and very, very uncomfortable! But Rinko can"t just tell him about it?!

The girl"s cheeks turned treacherously red, and it took her a long time to notice the soft beep of the phone. What else is this, it doesn"t look like an SMS, and she couldn"t send such a signal to anyone... The map! Kuzaki dashed to the table, picking up her cell phone. Damn, damn, damn, the signal is right in front of the house! How could she not have heard the sound earlier?! Of course, it doesn"t cost a strong spirit anything to travel such a distance in a minute, but what would it be unnoticeable? What should me do? Yuto! Call... turned off. Damn it, meditation! What to do, what to do? Okay, take it easy! Yuto had warned her that he had invited a yokai he had met in the forest... how she"d sandbagged him back then, that he"d managed to get into trouble out of the blue... however, with benefit, the friend managed to partially restore, partially guess to a part of the memory... The area in front of the gate should be visible from the second floor! Rushing down the stairs, she looked out the window. Girl, black hair, braid, matches! And this... Hiroe, damn it! What is she doing here? And how capable she is of driving the spirit with her completely shameless tricks, only a corpse in front of the door was not enough! And it"s not funny, Yokai are not toys. Yokai — trouble! Rinko went down the stairs, opened the front door and went to the gate. She was holding a frying pan in her hand, which she had automatically grabbed from the kitchen and grabbed a la bokken. This is how she appeared before the two visitors, a little disheveled, in an apron with a chicken and with a frying pan in her outstretched hand. The "Meeting night" was definitely a success!

Interlude 9. Part 2. The kitchen of the Amakawa house, a somewhat unexpected selection of characters

I guess I should introduce myself: I"m Rinko, Yuto"s neighbor. Kuzaki led the girls into the house. Yuto is currently in extra classes and won"t arrive for three hours. So make yourself comfortable! The girls sat down at the kitchen table, Rinko poured a glass of juice.

"Shizuka," the snake introduced itself, and immediately asked with slightly narrowed eyes, "just a neighbor and that"s it?"

"I"ve been helping Yuto around the house since his parents died two years ago. Car crash. It"s the anniversary today, and Yuto hasn"t celebrated a birthday since."

Everyone fell silent. Rinko was sad, Shizuka was sympathetic, and she could hardly remember how she felt about the day of mourning for her murdered relatives in the early years. Hiroe thoughtfully looked at the kitchen, the products laid out in the cooking process, and nodded:

"Clear. And the dinner you"re cooking right now, it"s certainly not festive. I would call it an "everyday dinner." From an expensive restaurant. And you"re doing great, girlfriend!"

Rinko"s cheeks turned slightly red against her will. By tacit agreement with Yuto, they did not bring up the topic of death and celebration, but she was sure that the guy was grateful for her efforts...

"I see," the Goddess of Rivers said now, "I think since we came uninvited (a quick glance at the haircut), we just have to help the hostess. You don"t mind?"

"Er-er-em, I thought you"d want to wait for Yuto, but if you want to help, I don"t mind at all. Even for!"

It"s an amazing thing. They say that there cannot be two housewives in a kitchen, because women secretly consider the kitchen to be their territory. Perhaps that"s true, but it"s too unusual for representatives of the "weaker sex" to gather at the Amakawa house today. And that"s how you look at it. If the kitchen has 45 square meters, and the cutting table above the cabinets stretches for eight meters, then, perhaps, six people can cook! Rinko went back to roasting, leaving the rest to the guests, watching their actions out of the corner of her eye: you never know, they took it upon themselves to help, but they don"t know how to cook themselves? However, knowing Hiroe, one could safely assume that the scheming schemer could cook, and very well, and apparently loved it, otherwise she would have found some excuse and would have run away to inspect the house. Rinko found the special attention to subjects and the ability to draw conclusions about people based on these observations quite annoying, but she endured it. Everyone has their own hobby, although she would be ashamed to "get into the heads" of people around her. She was much more annoyed by the short-haired woman"s apparent favor for her Yuto. Under the pretext of "talking to an intelligent person," she began to visit their class often during recess and generally showed increased attention. Rinko was a little scared of this — after participating in the "plan" to raise the rating of the journalism club"s news, this little girl, without lifting a finger herself, forced the half-naked director to climb a tree at camera sight, and a couple more minor adventures planned by this terrible man, which Rinko herself learned about only through admission into the "inner circle" of the school reporter"s hangout. She didn"t know what to expect from Hiroe Kaname at all. Right now, her came with a "gift" type bag, and her can"t put it out now. However, Kuzaki admitted to herself, she wouldn"t have exposed it anyway, because arrogance is arrogance, but it"s very difficult to get a grudge against such a person!

On the other side of Rinko, near the sink, Shizuka settled down, who took over the dough for desserts and the preparation of tea. Confident, well-honed movements, spices and sugar measured without looking, even Rinko spoke about yokai"s rich experience in cooking dishes. It was a little strange to see the most ordinary girl acting so confidently, she looked to be the same age as Kuzaki herself, but that just doesn"t happen in life... unless you can see the thin blue halo around her figure. A spirit can disguise itself, but it can"t disguise itself at all, as Yuto once said. Even such a weak "illumination" was enough for the sensors of the map to visualize the presence of the spirit. However, at the same moment, Shizuka finished mixing the pastry ingredients, and furtively looked around, trying to detect the presence of exorcist magicians nearby (yeah, through the walls with absorbing "firmware"!), and lowered her shields slightly. With a single movement of her hand, Mizuchi"s magic filling the water became visible in the vision spectrum of the glasses for a moment, and flour and water became the most perfect-looking dough Rinko had ever seen in her life! Damn, it"s enviable! And what about the other side? Hiroe was cutting lettuce, and her movements were like a perfectly tuned chopping machine: perfectly even pieces remained on the cutting board, the girl smiled slightly. "This way my dish will be the easiest to taste! — the girl next door broke out in a sweat, — well, never mind, I have all my desire to make the perfect meat for Yuto! Who said that even pieces or magic guarantee an amazing taste?! Let"s see who"s who!" Rinko stole a glance at her rivals and came across similar looks. "Challenge accepted!"

"Ha ha!" Hiroe thought as she continued chopping vegetables, "this is more interesting than I thought! And if Rinko presented a surprise only in terms of cooking, then the second girl, whom Kuzaki and Amakawa seemed to be waiting for, is very interesting!" She didn"t look at the dough trick in as much detail as Rinko, and she didn"t cook often enough to consider herself a good cook, but! Only her mother could match her in cutting salads, but the soup... we must try to screw up the first one badly.

Light meditation — and now the movements of the knife acquire the necessary uniformity, and young Kaname could see exactly the size and proportions as well as her mother. Innate! By the way, Hiroe studied meditation with another teacher only because she was female, and her mother wanted to make sure that her daughter"s education was as effective as possible. But Kaname"s worthy daughter perfectly saw the atypical behavior of the water, which easily rinses the wildly sticky sweet dough from Shizuka"s hands, then almost instantly drips off her hands, leaving the latter dry and clean. Yes, and these are the movements of a woman in her forties, the dawn of experience and before the beginning of the sunset of power... In general, Occam"s razor insisted on admitting that the third comrade in their team was not a human being. I should give Rinko a hint... Although, considering how carefully she keeps an eye on the guest, she may be aware of it. The mystery! Hiroe hurriedly put a piece of apple in her mouth to lick her lips! By working together, they put the prepared dishes in the oven and on the stove, and the salad in the refrigerator, after which the girls suddenly discovered that they had not said a word to each other during the entire cooking except "please pass me this." There was an awkward silence.

"Ahem",— Rinko cleared her throat, "maybe we should do something while Yuto is gone."

"You come here a lot, don"t you?" Hiroe asked innocently.

"Each... quite often!" Rinko was embarrassed and started making excuses. "Since Yuto is alone, I"ve been helping him with the housework."