Chapter 6: You know, you are really lucky

POV Hori san

That witch she sent me away for shopping because she wanted some alone time with him. It was almost time for Zura to come, and she seemed overexcited since yesterday about meeting him. Man, I hope she doesn't bring up something weird. Why did I not think of this earlier ?...

POV Katsura

The person who opens the door is unfamiliar. Yet I feel like I have seen her before. Those eyes, the hair, she was unmistakenly Hori sans mother. "Ah, Katsura kun, its nice meeting you. I have heard a lot about you from Kyoko and Souta." She tells me as I walk in. I bow politely, I don't know what to say. I wish Hori san were here. She would have managed the situation. Where was she anyways?

"I sent Kyoko to run some errands. She should be back soon." She says, almost as if reading my mind.

Well,…if I called Hori san with her surname, what should I call her. It would be too weird to call her Hori san too. Man! the entire family would be Hori san. My head felt dizzy, thinking about it.

We sit in the living room. She asked me all the basic questions, about my parents and stuff, and I gave all the basic lies, which I was taught. I didn't want to lie, but it would be too much of a hassle to explain the real stuff right now. I needed more time.

"Do you want some cake" I ask her pointing to the packet I brought. I wanted to change the topic drastically. The conversation was a 'me' spotlight. It made me uncomfortable. "I would love to, but I need to leave soon" She says apologetically.

"No worries" I say.

"You know, Kyoko hasn't brought a friend home for a long time. You must be really special" She says. Her tone amused.

I blush a little, I don't know what to reply to that. I keep my head down

"That girl, she doesn't say what she wants, always toughing it out. Thank you Katsura kun for taking such good care of both of my children. You know, I have been busy for quite a while, and they don't see me much, and Kyoko, she has to sacrifice a lot. I really appreciate you helping round the house" She says earnestly.

I shake my head. "You are already doing your best. I know how hard someone has to work to put food on the table. Hori san and Souta really love you for that. They respect you. The way they talk about you, its really inspiring. I just merely try my best, actually Hori san helps me a lot more than I do her" I say. I really mean it. The resilience of this family was awesome.

"Oh my, what a polite young man…" she says, praising me like a child. I didn't hate it. Actually truth be told I liked it a little.

"I know, you are good person, you know a mother can sense these sorts of things" She adds.

I look up at her. A good person huh. I am surprised. Was a really deserving of such a title. All I ever do is lie and kill. I was made this way, good…. A word I am familiar with but also very alienated from.

"By the way, since you are already calling my daughter 'Hori san'. You can call me by my first name" She says, jokingly.

I look up at her inquisitively.

"Its Yoriko" she says. "Try saying it aloud"

"Yoriko san…" I say it out loud, not trying to mess up with the pronunciations.

"Yes, that's right. Oh my! Look at the time, I really need to leave now" She exclaims while getting up.

And just like that, in a flash, she went inside the house, and within minutes, she was waving me a goodbye before leaving.

I heave a sigh of relief. At least she didn't hate me. Most normal people tend to sense something off about me, most stay away, my experiences here were almost a stark contrast to what I experienced throughout my life. I smile to myself. Souta enters the room and greets me. He sits at the table with me, with his crayons and paper, engrossed in drawing, while I delve deeper into my train of thought.

POV Hori san

"Ehh.. she is gone already" I exclaim. Zura and Souta were sitting at the table, with empty plates. Probably left after eating cakes.

"She didn't bring up anything weird, did she?" I ask fearful, what she might have told him. If it was something embarrassing, I feel flustered just thinking about it.

"Your mother loves you guys very much you know" Zura says, with that thin mystic smile of his.

Huh… what did he mean by that. Could he be even more vague. Well thankfully, he didn't look at me funny, so probably that meant, that she didn't bring up any funny business. That's a relief....

POV Katsura

"Video games?" I ask Hori san. We were sitting in her living room where Hori san and Souta were showing me a gaming console.

"Yes, people are quite into it nowadays" Hori san says

"Well, I got a console back at home, it probably has a few games loaded in it, but the thought never crossed my mind to play them" I say. Thinking about it, I have seen others play it, but I never tried it out. I remembered looking at one rich guys son playing a FPS game, on a security detail. I felt it was a ridiculous, from the perspective of a real first person shooter. In my line of work, you generally didn't have extra lives. One shot would decide your fate.

"Well, I must say, I never took you for a gamer, Hori san" I say. Astonished.

"Its nothing like that, I am not any gamer or anything, I just play on the weekends, casually" Hori san says blushing.

"So, what sorts of games do you guys play?" I ask

"Its this super popular gacha RPG, many people from class play it. Even Toru and Yuki have an account. I mostly play with Souta though" She says

"Isnt Souta too young for this sort of thing?" I ask

"Actually he is better at it than me. Come I will show you" She starts off the game. The screen had a nice scenery on it. The animation looked good.

"So, first of all you need an account, do you have an email ?" Hori san asks me.

"Yeah its.." I recite my email and password

"Stop stop, why are you telling your email and password to me, it should be private" She exclaims

"Well, as long its you guys I Don't mind. Anyways, I don't get tons of email. This account is actually quite new" I say. 

"Still, you shouldn't trust others with data like this. Would you like it, if I poked into your mail" She asks.

"I wouldn't mind. Just like I said, I don't have any friends, for that sort of chat" I say again. A phantom like me should always be a digital ghost, that's what I was always taught at the academy.

Hori san looks at me pitifully. "Don't say something like that. You have us now. Here I will share you my email too, and Yuki and Torus too. They wouldn't mind." She takes my phone and registers the IDs.

"Thanks" I say.

"Back to the topic, how would you like to design your character" Hori san asks, putting in my details.

"Well, since I am a boy, I think I would prefer to select the male one" I say.

"Good choice, if you picked a girl I would have headbutted you, I cant tolerate boys who act as girls online" She says with a dangerous edge to her voice.

Souta and I hug each other. Hori san was scary this way. Eeeek.

"This will look good, and this … and….." Hori san mutters as she puts various accessories on my character, by the time she is done, my character looks just like me, but taller and with weird accessories and a hat.

"So, will this do?" she asks. I nod. Frankly I didn't have much of a design sense. As she is about to hit save, I say "Wait"

She stops and looks at me. "Can you please add something like aviator sunglasses. I always wanted to try them out, but never got a chance" She takes a look at me, she doesn't say anything, did she think me weird, but still she puts a pair on. I like this model. It looked good.

She saves the attire and starts the game.

By this point Souta gets up. He asks "Sis, can I get a yogurt?"

"Sure. Bring one for me and Zura too" Hori san says without turning towards him.

He leaves.

Hori san hands me the controller, our fingers touch

"Yoshikawa san was right, your index finger is double jointed" I say, amazed, I have only read about this, never seen it, so I am more surprised than I should be.

"Oh this" she looks at her finger. "Did you break it while you were young ?" I ask.

"No, I have this since birth" She sighs. "I wonder what the bones look like underneath" I say.

"Well, for that we probably need an X ray scan" she says

Suddenly without any warning she puts her palm against mine, opening mine up.

"Huuh.. its actually pretty amazing how big your hand is compared to mine, although mine are clearly bigger than Yuki's" She exclaims.

Our palms touch and she closes her palm around mine. I don't know why but I do the same. Her palms feel nice and soft to touch. I don't feel my spidery hands worthy of this. They have done a lot of deeds in my entire life, but this was a first.

"I love you.." I could swear I heard her say that. I look at her surprised. Suddenly she gets all embarrassed. Her cheeks turn red and she quickly says. "Your hands, I mean your hands. They are comfortable".

"I love yours too" I say. I smile a bit. Yeah I think I shouldn't hope for too much.

She quickly gets up and mutters something along the lines of "I need to use the washroom" and leaves quickly.

Did I make it awkward. I wonder. For some reason, I felt happy.

Souta comes back in. The little guy missed the whole show. "Fruit or classic ?" he asks

"Huh?" I reply confused.

"The yogurt nii san, which flavour do you want?" he asks again. He was confused.

"Oh.. you can give me the one you don't want, I don't really have a preference." I say

"Then have the classic one" he says, almost relieved to get rid of it.

We take off the lids and start without Hori san. Souta starts to show me the ropes in the game.

I actually seem to like it. Pretty soon we are both deeply engrossed.

POV Hori san

What is wrong with me ! Why did I have to say it out loud. Man! He sure thinks I am weird now. What should I do. Knowing Zura, he will be too polite about it he probably wont keep it against me. Yeah.. that's right. I shouldn't worry too much. I wash my face and leave the washroom.

POV Katsura

"Oh you are at the wishing point already!" I hear Hori san excitedly say it behind my back.

I turn towards her. She seemed a lot more relaxed now. Thank god I didn't make it too awkward for her.

"Wishing spot?" I ask confused.

"Oh, it's the spot, where you summon your first character. Although mostly people get four stars. I mean, all of us got that" She explains.

"So what do I do ?" I ask turning to Souta.

"You just need to press this button and.." Souta says. My fingers move faster, so before he could complete, I had already pressed the button.

The screen turned gold, after some images of random weapons, I see the screen flash with the image of a handsome knight like character. I could see Souta and Hori sans eyes gleaming like crazy. I didn't know much about video games, but this clearly was a rare occurrence.

"Man, Zura, you are soooo lucky, I wanted this character since day one" Hori san cries out.

"Yeah nii-san, its one of the strongest characters in the game, please let me use him for a while" He begs.

I didn't know what was so special about this, but they both seemed so excited, I couldn't help but join in. Soon, we were all hooked into playing the game

'Lucky', Hori san had called me. I must say, I never believed in luck before now. Probably never had any reason to. In a combat, luck was important, but skill was ingrained into my dna to remove luck as a factor. But now… now… it feels different. Playing with them, spending my day with them, almost being a part of their family. For some reason I cant help but feel lucky.