[Shaman King] Hoshi ga Hoshii desu * chapter 37: his whereabouts

[lucathia]

Title: Hoshi - ga - Hoshii - desu
Chapter: 37/45

Author: lucathia_rykatu
Email: rykatu@yahoo.com
Series: Shaman King
Rating: PG
Genre: General
Feedback: will be highly appreciated
Spoilers: end of anime
Disclaimer: Shaman King belongs to its rightful owners (which does not include me!)
Archive: livejournal / fanfiction.net

Summary: "I want the stars" -- An amnesic Hao only remembers that the word "Hoshi" is special to him. Found unconscious in America, Hao takes on the name of Hoshi and eventually returns to Japan. This is his story after the anime.

-----chapter 37: his whereabouts-----

The pink-haired girl knelt down on her knees and spread out her work in front of her. Anna-sama stood by the door, making sure that no one else was going to enter the room. Tamao’s two spirits, Konchi and Ponchi, drifted by her sides.

“Please don’t mess this up, Konchi and Ponchi,” pleaded Tamao.

Her diaper-wearing spirits snickered, but seeing the look of concentration on Tamao’s face, they refrained from making jokes. Besides, the glaring Anna silenced even the smallest of their snickers.

Tamao closed her eyes, willing for Hoshi’s whereabouts to come to mind.

Her eyebrows furrowed as her hands moved across the ground.

Finally, after a silence so great that even a pin drop could be heard, her lips parted in a whisper that cut sharply through the heavy silence.

“Bank.”

She opened her eyes gradually and glanced towards Anna.

“Bank in Shibuya.”

Anna uncrossed her arms. “So, Hoshi will be in a bank in Shibuya tomorrow?” More questions ran through her mind. What was he going to be doing there? Was he...going to be taking money out of Manta’s bank account?

Tamao looked down.

“...I...I’m sorry that my reading is so imprecise. I don’t even know if what I said is accurate.”

Anna shook her head.

“No, this is fine. It’s a good lead.”

Anna was about to leave the room, but she paused before stepping out.

“Tamao, can you keep this information from Yoh?”

Tamao’s eyes widened. Keep this information from Yoh-sama? As a constant observer of Yoh-sama, Tamao knew how much he wanted to find Hoshi. To keep such information from him...she couldn’t imagine doing that.

“Please Tamao. This is important.”

Anna-sama’s expression was grim and her posture didn’t seem all that confident. Even though Anna-sama wasn’t one to show nervousness, Tamao could tell from the slight discrepancy in Anna-sama’s usual posture that Anna-sama wasn’t all that sure of herself either.

She couldn’t go against Anna-sama’s pleads.

-----0-----

At dinner time, both Anna and Tamao ate silently. Anna was still thinking about Tamao’s words, wondering why Hoshi would be in a bank. Tamao was feeling guilty about keeping information from Yoh. Both girls were silent, but no one thought their silence strange.

Yoh and Tsuki’s obsession with Hoshi’s earrings probably contributed to that. They were both happily talking to each other about how the earrings were coming along, so they didn’t pay attention to the silent Anna and the equally silent Tamao. They were only thinking about how they had smoothed the front of the earrings out. Now, Yoh needed to carve a moon out of the remaining parts of the earring. After that, they were going to apply a new layer of yellow paint on the star and a layer of red paint on the moon, and their masterpiece would be finished.

Anna’s iciness and Tamao’s shyness also contributed to their image of silence, so Manta didn’t think that anything was out of the ordinary either. Manta just thanked Sora as she refilled his bowl. He loved the food that Sora made. It gave him warmer feelings than any food that his own mother had ever made for him.

But, Anna finally did break her not-so-strange silence.

“Manta, has money disappeared from your bank account lately?”

Still chewing, Manta shook his head. He finally gulped his food down.

“No, why do you ask?”

“Never mind.”

Anna returned to her silence, eating her dinner without another word.

However, she had already spiked Manta’s curiosity. Manta spent the rest of the dinner observing Anna. She couldn’t have asked him that question without a reason. Did her question have something to do with Hoshi? Last time he checked, no one had touched his credit card accounts and money certainly hadn’t disappeared from his bank account. Did Anna think that they could track Hoshi through his money usage?

Even though he tried to watch her, he couldn’t figure out anything.

And once Anna found out that he was watching her, she glared at him so ferociously that he quickly averted his gaze.

-----0-----

The two men from Patch stood in their run-down apartment. Their attempts at selling their crafts had been futile, so they hadn’t raked in any money. The light hanging from the ceiling flickered and swayed as Kalim pulled the switch on.

Silva quickly attempted to clear a space for them to sit down in by kicking their junk out of the way. He then rummaged through the pile of junk and carried out a black box...er, a television actually, even though it was barely recognizable.

He placed the television in front of them and then plugged it into the only available outlet.

When he turned it on, all he got was static.

“Hey, give me a hand here, Kalim.”

The tall, grim man knelt in front of the T.V. and began tweaking the antennas around and changing the channels.

“Yomigaere!” screamed a female voice as the song began playing.

“...wrong channel,” said Kalim nonchalantly.

Kalim then changed the channel again, and suddenly the two men from Patch were facing the image of a short, old lady. Her age was evident in her sagging skin, hardened by the years. Like Kalim, her expression was fixed with furrowed eyebrows and a frown. She also had an intricate bandana around her forehead, with several feathers sprouting out of it. Two thick strands of her grayish-white hair were pulled together in the front. She had her arms clasped together behind her back.

The two men sat down and began updating her on their assignment. At the end, Silva voiced his worries.

“Goldva-sama, are you sure that everything is going as planned? We saw him today, but he didn’t seem like he has changed much.”

The old lady nodded.

“Don’t worry. Everything is going according to the will of the Great Spirits.”

-----0-----

After school the next day, Anna stood at the entrance to the inn.

“Yoh, look after the inn while I’m away.”

With only those words, or rather, that one command, Anna left the inn.

When the door closed behind her, a puzzled Yoh was left in the room. Where was Anna going? He asked Tamao, who quickly averted her gaze and muttered a jumbled “Idon’tknow” before rushing off to her room.

Yoh shrugged and went to stand behind the front desk to handle business while Anna was out and Sora was busy cooking.

It was too bad that he couldn’t work on the earrings, not when everyone else was busy and couldn’t look after the inn for him. He probably should have invited Manta over again. Ren and Horo Horo’s help would have been nice too.

He rested his chin on his arms, staring off into space.

He hoped that someone was searching for Hoshi while he was stuck at Funbari Onsens, doing utterly nothing...other than staring off into space.

-----0-----

Someone was indeed searching for Hoshi while Yoh was stuck with the most boring job ever. That someone was his fiancée, Kyoyama Anna.

When Anna got off at the station, she shaded her eyes as she looked at the towering buildings of Shibuya.

She clenched her hands.

She was doing this for Yoh.

She hoped that her venture wouldn’t end in disappointment.

She headed off to the nearest bank.

-----0-----

“Excuse me, have you seen a boy who looks like this but with longer hair?”

Anna shoved a worn-out photograph of Yoh in front of the bank employee. This was the fifth bank she had gone to. So far, all of the answers to her question had been negative.

It didn’t look like she was going to have any luck at this bank either.

Although Anna wasn’t that polite, the employee was actually pretty patient as she studied the photograph in front of her.

“No, I haven’t. Why are you looking for him? Is he your boyfriend?”

Anna retracted her hand sharply.

“The person in the picture is my fiancée. The person that I’m looking for is my fiancée’s brother.”

She turned around and left the bank, leaving a somewhat confused bank employee behind.

She didn’t know why she felt the need to make the relationship between them clear to a stranger, but somehow she couldn’t tolerate any misunderstandings.

She trudged into the next bank and repeated her question.

When the answer turned out negative again, Anna left the bank, her eyes wandering towards the sky.

The sun was setting.

It was getting late.

How long had she been in Shibuya, wandering through the numerous banks? Was Hoshi really in Shibuya? Was he really going to be at a bank? Had he even gone to one?

Was Tamao’s prediction wrong?

-----to be continued-----

next chapter: bank in Shibuya