4 Anime Tropes

"Tomoe, no bullshit. Be straight with me; what's going on here?" Tomoe's dad was a man of thirty six years named Shuku, and he could probably take down the prime minister's elite guard if he fought them one at a time.

"Well..." Suddenly, Tomoe came down from the strange high he'd been riding, and it all smashed back into him. He was an angel? He'd almost watched a girl die, who was an angel? ANGELS WERE REAL? Furthermore, what was this crap about him agreeing to try and take on a pair of demons? He knew that they were out there, but he wasn't even sure that he'd ever actually seen one!

"The truth, Tomoe, and nothing but." Shuku spoke quietly and seriously, but not angrily. He was, at a glance, merely confused by what looked like a pair of angels, one of whom was his sweaty, dirty son.

"Well, dad, everything was going normally until I got home from work..." Without leaving out many details, Tomoe filled his dad in on what had transpired this evening. Thankfully, Tomoe was aware that this concert and this idol had nothing to do with his father, but still, the security guard's jaw went slack with surprise. At some point, Aine and Tomoe both stowed their wings, and as Tomoe related to the older man about his original plan to dub Aine an orphan in need of a place to rest her head, Shuku frowned slightly.

"Well... I mean, this is all so much, I don't even know how I ought to begin to react! Part of me wants to forbid you from going anywhere near that concert, but if what Aine says is true, you should be relatively safe... but even so... ugh, this is too much, and I'm tired out of my mind after today. You two said you were going to shower and head to bed, right?"

"Right."

"Right!"

"Alright. Then we'll all get up early and talk about things over breakfast. For now, the two of you should get cleaned off and go to sleep."

"Dad... you're really okay with that?" It seemed surprising, how well Shuku was handling the news that his son had become an angel.

"I'm not really okay with any of this, Tomoe, but what exactly can I do about it? So I'll say it again; you two should shower and get some sleep, and then we can talk more about this over breakfast. Now go, your mother should be home soon and I'm going to need the next few minutes to think of what the hell it is that I ought to say to her."

"Alright, dad, thanks for... being so cool about this."

"We'll see if it sticks," Shuku muttered softly, rubbing at his temples as Tomoe and Aine slowly slipped past him and up the stairs. The darker haired of the two led Aine down the hall, to a fork, and then gestured for her to stay, walking to the door at the very left end of the hall.

"This room is mine, either of the others can be yours as far as I know, we don't use either one for anything, really. Don't touch that door, it's a guest bathroom."

"Then, I'll go for this one," Aine answered spritely, walking to and resting her hand on the knob of the door next to Tomoe's.

"Alright. I'm kind of dying, so I'll see you in the morning. Don't even know for sure that I can make it through the shower," Tomoe admitted with a quiet laugh, half joking.

"Alright, well, good night, Tomoe." Aine smiled sweetly. "If I hear you collapse from exhaustion in the shower, I'll get help, okay?"

"Indeed, I must thank you." Tomoe chuckled and wished her a good night, then slipped into his room without looking back. Indeed, he barely made it through his shower, and in the end crashed helplessly into bed, falling deeply asleep. It wasn't the most restful sleep he'd ever had, but Tomoe was very tired, and come morning time he wouldn't remember the dreams he'd had throughout the night.

~~~

Rolling out of bed around sunrise at the sound of his alarm, Tomoe slapped the thing off, slowly stretching. He'd slept in boxers, too tired to drag any additional fabric over his person, and so now he hurriedly dragged on his uniform slacks, white button-down, and blazer. As he headed down the hall, rapping on Aine's door in passing, he knotted the green necktie he always had to wear... and went downstairs, entered the kitchen. At this point, everything after he'd returned from work seemed like a fever dream.

"Good morning," Tomoe's father grinned where he sat at the table, nursing a mug of coffee. "Your mother already had to leave... she was adamantly against it, but, emergency with a patient of hers, something about a cortex tumor. So... you wanna just, tell me I had a few too many drinks last night, and hallucinated everything?" As he said this, the man waved to the counter, where a massive stack of waffles, a tub of butter, a plastic knife and a bottle of syrup were sitting.

"No, dad... it might be easier that way, but it isn't what's going to happen. I'm honestly not really sure what I signed myself up for, Aine just gave me a speech about the wrongness of angels sitting by with the power to help, and I can't help but to agree with her." Silence for a moment as Tomoe filled his plate, buttering and drowning the waffles... and then, as he returned to the table, Tomoe watched his father give a slow, reluctant grin.

"Tomoe, we've spent half our lives believing angels don't exist. I won't pretend to know what's going on in its entirety, because there are details we don't know yet... but I do know that you and that girl are trying to save upward of a thousand lives, so, although half of me is screaming to lock you in your room until Monday, I do know that this is for a good cause. Plus, how many fathers can say that their son is about to go off and battle the demons that have plagued us for over three centuries? You've got an experienced angel, you're only going to play support... I trust you, even if I don't know her," Shuku said softly.

"Dad..." Tomoe didn't know what to say, but he was, admittedly, somewhat surprised by this earnest belief in him and his capabilities.

"I trust you, Tomoe, let me say it again. Just know that if you die, I'll bring you back to life using satanic rituals just to kick your ass. Then I'll have to kill you again, because necromancy never works out in the long run." He chuckled, making a very odd joke for a dad... but Tomoe laughed as well, rolling his shoulders. The two ate in silence, Tomoe assuming that Aine was still asleep, but soon, he'd be proven quite wrong.

Knock, Knock, sounded the door.

"Hm? Who's that?" Shuku stood, walking to the door, unlocking and opening it... Aine stood there, wearing the uniform of his, Tomoe's, school; black jacket, half buttoned to offer a view of her respectable white blouse and short green necktie, and then a plaid, jade colored skirt under those and above her stockings and shoes.

"Aine? I thought you were kidding, when you said you were thinking about transferring into my class?"

"Well, I was... but I was curious, and did some research into the whole anime thing... it seems like the transfer student cliché is very popular, so I wanted to give it a try!"

"Where did you get the uniform??" Shuku was the one to ask, this time.

"Um... I pulled a little no no, but it isn't technically a sin, so, it's totally fine as long as nobody knows, right? Specifically nobody at the shop~" With a soft laugh, Aine walked inside, almost blatantly saying that she'd stolen it.

"Well..." Tomoe sighed softly, nodding and standing up. "Are you hungry? We've got waffles."

"Thank you, but I'm not yet, I grabbed a muffin while I was out in case I didn't get back in time. I hope that isn't rude of me, I just didn't want to hold anyone up...!"

"No, it's fine," Shuku said quietly, not seeming to mind. "Then, I suppose you're ready to head to school, the two of you? I can wash your plate this time, Tomoe, I don't have to go into work until three; Yuna is appearing at an uptown party this evening, so I'll need to be there. In fact, your mother and I will probably both see you for a bit when you get home... I'll try to answer as many of her questions as I can to keep some of them off your shoulders."

"Thanks, dad, I can always count on you," Tomoe said, going in for a hug, which was returned tightly.

"Stay safe, kid." It was true that Japanese people weren't usually overly physically affectionate, even among families, but Tomoe's parents believed strongly in physical affection, and Tomoe had been raised not to be afraid of handshakes, hugs and so on.

"Alright, well, I'm off," Tomoe said, shouldering his bag, which he'd left at the door when he'd returned home, and paused at the door frame. "Dad, I'm sorry to be a pain, but would you mind throwing my uniform jacket in the wash? The pants don't need it yet, but I spilled some Windecks on the jacket, and there's a blue stain."

"Sure thing, kid. Have fun at school!" Shuku waved, and Tomoe thanked him, headed out with Aine.

~~~

"So, Tomoe, I'll be counting on you to show me around school grounds," Aine said playfully as they walked.

"How... what, did you just magically implant some papers that label you a transfer girl?"

"Well, a long, long time ago, angels were all over Earth! When we stopped descending is when the demons started to go wild, or in the eyes of humans, when they started to appear. So, there's a department on standby in Heaven, just in case we ever start swarming down here again. I called in a favor, and they implanted the papers for me... I'm actually locked out of Heaven right now, but I can still get messages through, every Angel can once they learn how," she added, grinning sideways at Tomoe. "Don't you go trying to call up an angel harem now, got it?"

"What...?"

"No? When I was researching anime last night, I read that harems are a really popular trope! I was trying to joke...!" She seemed disheartened, and Tomoe chuckled, shaking his head.

"Sorry, Aine, I should have realized. So-" He was interrupted, though, by a voice that could only be trouble; coarse and gruff, decidedly perverted. Turning, he saw a gang of five men there, wearing tattered clothes that screamed the word 'punk', all with greasy, oiled hair. Immediately, Tomoe knew this wasn't going to end well... but somehow, he suspected that things were going to be fine on his end.

"Hey, kid... you got a nice piece of ass with you. Since you're CLEARLY some virgin who doesn't know how to handle a bitch like this... why don't we take her off your hands, show her a good time~?"