His Place

Shinichi was back, and waiting for her when Danika pulled herself out of the VR-medi pod after her assistant notified her that her scheduled time off had started. She wasn't scheduled to work until mid afternoon on Sunday, so she basically had an entire day off.

"Hi," she said a little shyly, and hurried into the bathroom. Then she came back out to get the clothes she wanted to change into for the dinner with his father. Shinichi just grinned at her as she pulled the door shut again.

--

On their way he told her, "I'm all packed and got everything I could think of ready, so we can do whatever you want until you have to work again."

"Nice," she said happily.

She didn't add anything else so he told her, "We're not eating any place fancy tonight, but you look really cute."

When they arrived she seriously doubted his words. They drove into the underground parking beneath what was obviously a very secure and private apartment building. The driver looked used to it, and drove sedately back to the entrance as soon as they were unloaded.

Danika had at least half expected Shinichi to drive. She hesitated but then remembered her promise to ask things and asked, "You don't have a driver's license?"

"I do, but I have hardly any experience, or a car," he admitted. "What about you? I mean, I'm pretty sure you don't have a vehicle since your place doesn't have parking."

"I don't have a license either, I'd need a customized vehicle anyway," she pointed out.

"Any of the automatic ones would be fine wouldn't it?" he questioned. "Even I would probably be fine without much experience in one of those, since they do pretty much everything except choose the destination these days. Some of them can even reserve their own parking spaces ahead of time."

"Room for my chair?" she asked. "And even if I can transfer into the seat, it's not like my chair will load itself."

"Oh, right, sorry," Shinichi apologized.

Danika reached out and squeezed his hand suddenly. He looked down at her questioningly. She grinned up at him and said, "Thanks for being able to forget?"

"Danika let's," he began quickly, but then stopped and said, "no sorry, it's too soon to ask."

She expected him to be leading her to the elevators, so when they passed them she stopped and asked, "What's it too soon to ask, and aren't we going up?"

"No, I mean, we could enter from the top, but the living area is on this level anyway," he said quickly and pointed to the door in the wall ahead of them. She had taken it for a maintenance room door. "It's too soon to talk about what kind of vehicle we might get when we live together," he muttered with embarrassment a moment later.

She couldn't help it, she giggled, even though she didn't mean to laugh at him. "Maybe so," she agreed, "but now I'm even more curious?"

He stopped beside the door and covered his face with his hand for a moment. After a second she realized that he was blushing. She opened her mouth to apologize and try to reassure him, but he spoke first. "I was just going to suggest that if you might want to drive eventually, let's just wait a few years until I'd be able to get the kind of fully customized automatic vehicle that could slide the front seats back to make room for your chair, so either of us could drive it."

He couldn't seem to bring himself to meet her eyes and his hands were out of reach, so she reached out a little hesitantly and placed her hand against his hip. He jumped a little and looked down at her finally. "That sounds good?" she agreed.

She wasn't prepared for the way he dropped to his knees and kissed her. After a minute she pushed him away and complained, "This is really embarrassing." She couldn't even explain why it was so embarrassing, since she couldn't see anyone else around.

"Sorry," he apologized quickly. He reached up and brushed her hair back from her cheek and then stood and opened the door before she felt like she'd regained her equilibrium. "We're here," he announced as he held the door open for her.

Danika took a deep breath and then entered. Ryuske smiled at her from where he was just getting to his feet across the large open room. She recognized him immediately but she blurted, "You look so old!" She wanted to snatch the words out of the air but all she could do was exclaim, "I'm sorry! I didn't, I only mean compared to your character!"

Ryuske laughed, and the familiar rich sound startled her almost as much as his aged appearance had. "Don't worry, I'm not offended!" he assured her.

He walked over and offered her his hand while Shinichi closed the door behind them. His fingers were warm and he didn't shake her hand, but bowed over it, just as Ryullusion might have. "Welcome at last," he greeted her and glanced at his adopted son and whispered teasingly, "I hear you already have your own key."

Danika blushed scarlet and Shinichi protested, "Dad!"

Ryuske just winked at her and told her, "Make yourself at home, and let me know when you're hungry. The food is already here, but it will keep for awhile."

"Want to look around a little first?" Shinichi suggested nervously.

Danika surveyed the large open floor plan. Beside the door they'd entered, which looked far more like a front door from the inside, a set of stairs rose to where a balcony ran along all sides of the story above them. The ceiling high above was bright and airy. The whole place was decorated in white tones with silver accents, but there were no windows anywhere.

The floor they were on had a small open kitchen area, a carpeted living area with plush white couches and a dining area beside the kitchen space. Three other doors opened off of the big room. The place was enormous.

She asked a little nervously, "You live in an underground mansion?"

"Only this floor is underground," they answered in unison.

Ryuske explained, "Because the recording studio is down here."

Shinichi offered, "Come upstairs? My room is the smallest, but has the corner windows." Danika looked at him, and he added quickly, "We're already standing on the new elevator."

"What?" she asked blankly.

Ryuske laughed and stepped back behind the area where the border indicated that the entrance ended and the kitchen began. "The controls are beneath the light switch beside the door," he said, and pointed to the wall behind her.

Danika turned around and Shinichi pressed the up button. The border stripe around the entrance rose out of the floor and became a guard rail around them. Danika stared in amazement and turned back to look across the room as the floor beneath them rose until they were level with the balcony, and then the guard rails on either side of them dropped, so that the floor they stood on completed the fourth side of the balcony around the room.

She turned to Shinichi and demanded incredulously, "This is 'not any place fancy'?!"

"When you ask like that, I remember how amazing it seemed when I first arrived," Shinichi admitted. "But I've gotten pretty used to it, and it's really not very fancy compared to some of the other residences in the building."