After the initial fright, an endless onslaught of frantic questions and demands were not what Karma's Mother had issued. She'd rushed forward the very second she seemed to collect herself, her usually bright expression instead narrowed in frantic concern. She didn't bother asking anything further – She had more important things on her mind.

And then, once she'd ascertained that her son was unharmed in spite of the blood he had managed to get over him, she then launched into a frantic investigation into Amaya's own condition.

Within less than thirty seconds, the woman had ended up practically dashing back into the other parts of the expensive and expansive apartment, dragging Amaya along after her.

Into the bathroom she was dragged, and everything else escaped her.

All she knew was the usually pleasant and mischievous woman wasn't happy right now, and she fussed beyond anything Amaya was remotely used to.

Everything else was a blur to Amaya.

Exhausted far beyond following the events around her, she did as she was told when she was told to do something, though nothing more.

Until eventually, she was granted the ability to disappear into slumber.

She'd awoken at least once as far as she knew, her heart racing to the point of inflicting pain and her breath almost completely lost.

But somehow she'd ended up calming down before long, and she would fall back to sleep.

The world of consciousness soon came to retrieve her from her reprieve, to bring her back to the pain of consciousness before she could protest.

The gentle shaking of her shoulder, the sounds of a familiar voice attempting to get her to respond with frustration evident.

And then, as the shaking stopped, she consciously heard the one thing that didn't fail to catch her notice.

'If you don't wake up right now Amay, I'm going to stuff you with Caramel.' A bitter redhead commanded with severity, conviction clear in his tone.

A familiar threat, though she didn't dare test him.

So groggily, she opened her eyes to find that she was in a blue-coloured room, though her eyes were merely upon the wall right in front of her face.

'Amay!' Karma's impatient form ground out at her apparent lack of response, bringing her to turn her head to look up at him over her shoulder.

The boy was knelt over the edge of the bed she was on, his brow furrowed as he straightened up slightly. From his appearances, he'd been awake for at least a short while.

He was particularly moody, almost agitated for some reason she couldn't comprehend, and her showing that she was awake now didn't appear to make that any better.

'Get up.' He told her sharply, his mood souring. 'My mother wants to talk to you.'

She blinked momentarily, lifting a hand to rub the sleep out of her eyes.

She had no idea how long it had been since she had last been entirely conscious, only that it had been quite a while ago.

But groggily, she did as she was told.

Her head ached as she dragged herself upright, right at the temples she found with a wince.

It felt like she'd been asleep for more than her healthier set of six hours, much much longer – She was at least familiar enough with this kind of headache to have an educated guess into its cause.

The impatient redhead stood over her, practically emanating a sour mood she couldn't hope to fathom.

In fact, the severity of his mood made her wonder what was upsetting him so much.

'Hurry up.' He ground out, grabbing her by the wrist to tug her to her feet.

Her feet ached at the sudden movement, though not as bad as it had been of late.

Over a futon on the floor she was almost dragged by the grip he still had of her wrist, through the door and into the hallway connected to it. She vaguely began to recognize certain features of her surroundings, enough so to put together the fact that she'd been here before.

Numerous souvenirs from overseas, the odd photograph here or there.

And faintly, she could hear the smallest of whining - Samuel, she eventually realized.

She was dragged to the right, through a doorway that opened up into the kitchen where Karma's parents both were.

The woman's long, wavy red hair stood out brightly at the table where she sat reading, and Karma's father stood at the kitchen counter, his gaze upon a mass of paper on the counter top.

And then a second later, an excited squeak echoed with an almost painful pitch before a small, waist-high form latched onto her with a lunging embrace.

And from how tightly they clung, she knew they weren't about to let her free any time soon.

The redhead with his tight hold of her wrist cast the boy a rather exasperated look, before he dropped her wrist with a sigh.

Probably a good moment for that, too.

The form Amaya recognized to be his mother looked up from what looked like an electronic tablet in her hands not a second afterwards, her gaze shifting towards the two teenagers standing in the doorway.

'Good morning, Amaya.' The bright-featured woman greeted her, lifting a mug from the table in front of her. 'Have a seat.'

Well ... that was going to be hard right now.

She would if Samuel wasn't currently latched onto her.

She tried to pry him off of her, but found he only moved to stubbornly tighten his grip of her.

'Oh, and Karma dear?' The woman added brightly, earning a sour look from her son in response. 'Can you please go and pick those things up for me?'

'Right now?' He questioned pointedly, almost disbelieving.

'Yes, and take Sammie along with you~' She added with a hum at the end of her sentence, not the least bit bothered by her son's annoyance. 'Some sunlight will do him some good.'

'What?!'

'That's not a request, sweetheart~'

Karma said nothing, though he did click his tongue as he grabbed Samuel by the back of the shirt and tugged him away from Amaya with surprising ease. An indignant and rather upset squeak escaped the frail boy, and before he'd had an opportunity to form some kind of protest, the door of the apartment slammed shut with a distinct bang.

'Take your time~' Karma's mother sung out with amusement clear in her tone, all the while Karma's father remained silent in the kitchen, sipping a cup of coffee, she guessed.

And then it hit Amaya like a ton of bricks.

She was here all alone in the Akabane residence with Karma's parents.

This was not only awkward, but rather frightening.

'Honey~ Did Karma leave his phone behind?'

'I expect so.' Karma's father responded to his wife's question, lifting his gaze from the newspaper in front of him. 'I'll turn it off.'

'Oh, is the key still in the urn?'

'Most likely.' He responded.

'Can you get it for me while you're up?'

'Nope.' He responded with the smallest semblance of a smirk across his face.

And with that, he left the room with his cup of coffee in hand.

Amaya remained standing in her place to the side of the kitchen doorway, the discomfort of her current situation beginning to increase with every passing second.

'It's turned off.' Mr Akabane called out, his form then walking past the doorway as a small chuckle escaped his wife. 'If I find out he thought we wouldn't have expected that, I'll be insulted.'

'He's just upset we're keeping Amaya-chan to ourselves right now~' Mrs Akabane remarked with amusement, her gaze lifting up to look back at Amaya. 'Come on, you already know we don't bite as bad as Karma does.'

Perhaps, but that didn't mean they didn't bite to begin with...

This was more awkward to her than anything else, though.

She sucked in a breath before she forced herself to take up the chair furtherest away from the papers and other items situated on the dining table, her gaze shifting furtively to land on her hands in her lap.

She didn't fail to notice that Karma's Mother was still looking at her with a small smile.

In fact, it was a little embarrassing.

'Here, you should have something to eat for breakfast.' The bright-featured woman remarked as she leaned over the table, lifting what looked like a plate of pastries from the other side of the mountain of paper. 'Karma and your brother shouldn't be back for at least two hours, though I don't doubt he will find a way to shorten the time by a large margin.'

Shouldn't, meaning she'd sent him out to get something that wasn't immediately available just anywhere.

Jeez, was this streak of cunning a hereditary thing in Karma's family or something?

At the strengthening smile from Mrs Akabane, Amaya hesitantly lifted the smallest of the pastries from the plate the woman had placed in front of her. They looked to be some kind of breakfast pastry on the sweet scale, with fruit in it.

Amaya hesitated with the one she'd picked up, inwardly wondering what the heck these even were.

She couldn't claim to be a connoisseur with food.

All she knew was that it certainly wasn't something she'd seen before.

A few seconds later, Mr Akabane returned with a set of keys, which he placed on the table next to his wife.

'I thought you said you weren't getting the key for me?'

'I changed my mind, obviously.'

'Really?'

'I stopped to consider that I will be stuck sitting next to you on a plane for several hours today and thought better on it.' Was the quick reply Mrs Akabane received.

She scoffed, though an amused smile did play on her lips.

'That sounds likely.' She remarked as she flicked through the keys she had.

So ... they were leaving later today, were they?

Amaya maintained her silence as she wondered just why the two adults had sent Karma elsewhere if they weren't going to be here for very much longer.

'Here we are.' The woman announced with a small hum in her tone, unhooking a key from the keyring before she slid it across the table towards Amaya. 'That's a key to this apartment, Amaya-chan. And I want you to keep it on you from now on. In fact, I certainly wouldn't object to you staying until your new home is completely sorted out.'

The silent girl blinked in surprise, lifting her gaze to look up at the brightly featured woman in an almost owlish manner.

'...Wh-why ...?' Amaya managed to ask.

The woman's smile faded ever so slightly at the cracking whisper of Amaya's voice, though she didn't seem to find the question all that perplexing – She answered almost immediately.

'We've told Karma countless times to give you one when you both started middle school, even more-so after you were locked out of your own home by your siblings and had to stay the night here back in May.' She explained, a patient smile growing across her lips. 'But of course seeing as he gets his painfully stubborn streak from his father, he refused to so much as mention it to you, I expect.'

'Careful dear, I do happen to have ears.' Mr Akabane remarked with a remarkably pleasant tone as he returned to his newspaper.

'You were supposed to hear that~'

Amaya remained motionless, somewhat struggling to comprehend just what was really going on right now.

'Anyway, back to what I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted.' Mrs Akabane remarked, dismissively waving off the bemused look her husband threw at her. 'Keep that key, we have given it to you so you can come and go more or less as you please. Though I expect you to visit every now and then when we come back from work.'

To come and go whenever she wanted ...

That felt like something she really shouldn't do, just in case it would give an irate sadist an excuse to torture her with caramel again.

But ... she guessed while she was homeless to an extent, having a key would probably be very helpful to her at the moment.

She'd sneak it back in later when she wasn't stuck in limbo.

'And also, I would like your cell number.' Mrs Akabane continued, pausing just long enough to take a sip of what seemed to be tea of some sort. 'There have been times that I've asked Karma for it, but as with the key, he once again refused obstinately.'

Amaya didn't miss the glimpse she caught from the corner of her eye of Mr Akabane shaking his head with a wry smile.

'I ... umm, don't have one...' Amaya mumbled, lowering her gaze to the pastry she still held intact perfectly in her hands.

It was either destroyed or discarded somewhere inside that Okinawan facility.

Otherwise, she would have called Koro-sensei to rescue her and Samuel constantly during the time she was forced out of the country.

'I believe Karma mentioned something about that, dear.' Mr Akabane spoke up, earning his wife's attention. 'That would explain why he was looking for that spare phone when we got back.'

'Oh, I see. That does make sense.' The brightly featured woman mused, her thin brow furrowing slightly. 'In that case, I guess I will just have to give you my own cell number so you can give me your new one when you eventually get it.'

Silently, Amaya nodded her head, though she was a little uncertain of that.

It felt horribly awkward to all of a sudden be given all of these things in regards to Karma's parents and the apartment.

Though on the other hand, it wasn't anything more severe in a breech of privacy as Karma has had for a while now.

He'd had both Yuta and Reiko's numbers for a while now, and no thanks to Yuta, he'd had a key for well over a year now.

'Good.' Mrs Akabane remarked, quickly foraging through the sea of papers on the table to pull out a keycard sized piece of paper from somewhere in there. 'I think that's about everything I wanted to sort out before we go ...'

Amaya glanced up from the pastry in her hands, chewing nervously on the inside of her bottom lip as she thought.

There was just one question she really wanted to ask the woman, it was tugging at her thoughts almost excessively.

But as she found herself struggling to find the words to voice it, she found herself asking something completely different.

'...Why did you send Karma away ... if that's all you wanted to talk to me about?'

The moment the words had left her tongue, she felt like she had something horribly impolite.

However a bright chuckle escaped the firey-haired woman instead, confusing the girl even more.

'It's entertaining to play with his suspicions every now and then.' Mr Akabane remarked without lifting his gaze from his newspaper. 'He tends to bite rather well of late.'

Oh ... like the last time, they were just messing with him.

She wasn't sure if she was going to be able to defuse what she was beginning to suspect was an imminent interrogation the very second Karma's parents had left.

In fact, Amaya was fairy certain any attempts she made at telling him nothing was spoken about would be shot down before the words would even leave her mouth.

'In any case, Amaya-chan, you should probably eat that pastry.' Mrs Akabane remarked with an innocent smile, causing a flinch to tear through Amaya's spine.

That innocent smile was just like the one Karma would always use on her, and she found herself feeling like she was in a worse predicament than before.

Karma's evil streak had to have originated from one of the two adults in the room with her, and she wasn't about to shrug either possibility off has improbable.

It could be very dangerous for her if she did.

The pastry turned out to be rather sweet, as Amaya found as she bit into it.

Reiko would adore these things, what with her sweet tooth.

Though for Amaya, she found it rather hard to eat it, though she did her best.

In fact, the anpan from the vendor she occasionally visited on the twin's behalf wasn't anywhere near as sweet as these were.

She thanked her unusually mild luck that she'd picked the smallest of the pastries.

Minutes passed with not much else being discussed or happening – Amaya slowly ate her one pastry for breakfast all the while Karma's parents set about doing things they needed to before their apparent flight.

Organizing their luggage, their papers, amongst other things.

And every few minutes of silence or so, Mrs Akabane would ask her something that seemed entirely random.

What were her favorite animals?

What was her favorite food?

What were her hobbies?

Generally, things that gave Amaya the impression that they were trying to fill in some of the blanks they might have had about her as a person, though there was one part of her that felt like the onslaught of questions weren't for that reason at all.

It was almost like ... a distraction?

From what, she didn't know.

Her thoughts weren't exactly working all that well for her right now.

There was one point that Karma's father remarked that she seemed to share quite a lot of traits with cats, which earned a wince that neither adult had failed to notice.

Of course, that had brought up the speculation that if she was cat-like, then she certainly wouldn't like dogs.

Out of an attempt at derailing any further insinuations of a cat-like nature, Amaya adamantly lied about her dislike of dogs, claiming that she had never had any instances with them to know whether she did like them or not.

Needless to say, it certainly did not work.

She suspected that Karma had already done enough damage with whatever he'd said about her to his parents.

Though it wasn't just Karma and his parents apparently seeing her as a cat-like person.

Maehara often called her Myaya-chan to tease her, and Isogai had remarked on her food preferences to be rather cat-lile, too.

It was as if the whole world was conspiring to make her loathe cats with every inch of her body.

Then finally, after what felt like far too many questions from Mrs Akabane into her likes and dislikes, it appeared that Karma and Samuel had gotten back.

She'd heard a child-like whining in English about how Mister Bell-Pepper was being mean to some other person, which said enough.

'That was faster than I expected, Karma.' Mrs Akabane remarked as a clearly agitated Karma practically marched into the kitchen and dumped what looked like a rather large assortment of items onto the table with more force than was really necessary. 'You didn't happen to forget any of the things I wrote down on that list, did you?'

'What do you think?' He questioned bitterly, eying his mother with a rather sour look.

'I was just checking.' Mrs Akabane remarked with an innocent smile, lifting one of the bags so she could sift through it.

Amaya had no idea what had happened, but it was very clear that Karma's mood had worsened in the time since he'd left just under an hour ago.

'Big Sister Meow!' Samuel squeaked out in glee as he spotted Amaya past Karma.

Unfortunately for Amaya, the very second the words had left Samuel's mouth, Mrs Akabane started giggling.

Amaya's right eye twitched ever so slightly as she was practically leaped upon by the excited boy.

If it wasn't one thing, it was another entirely different thing.

Why was everyone conspiring to call her a cat?!

'Perfect! Thanks for getting everything for me, Karma~' Mrs Akabane spoke up as she gently set the bag on the floor next to her, her amusement over Samuel's name for Amaya still written across her face.

'Are you done?' He demanded bitterly.

'Am I done with what?' His mother questioned innocently. 'If you mean packing, yes we finished hours ago~'

And all the while, Amaya remained silent as Samuel tightened his hugging hold of her.

'Big Sister Meow, Mister Bell Pepper is really mean...' Samuel confided, his voice hushed as Karma began to utter a rather colourful string of words towards his thoroughly amused Mother.

Yes, she already knew Karma could be very mean.

One usually had to do something to at least earn that kind of treatment from the redhead, though.

'...What did he do?' Amaya reluctantly asked, making sure to keep her voice down, lest Karma heard her.

Samuel seemed to shuffle slightly closer before he spoke.

'Mister Bell Pepper made this person drink really bad tomato sauce...' The boy whispered rather frantically, glancing furtively at Karma in case the redhead was listening in. 'It was so bad the person cried for ages and their face went red...'

Amaya was silent at first, stewing on the story that Samuel had told her.

Until she realized that Karma might have decided to give Tabasco a try for torture.

'That wasn't tomato sauce.' Amaya eventually responded, earning a surprised look from the boy.

'Its not tomato sauce? Is it Strawberry?'

No, not even close.

But Amaya didn't know if she wanted to get too much into this topic right now.

'That doesn't matter...' She responded with a small breath. 'Don't worry about it.'

'But Big Sister Meow--'

Whatever else Samuel was going to say was lost on Amaya – In fact, she had no comprehension of anything going on the moment she felt something latch around her left elbow and drag her out of the chair she was sitting on.

'Come on!' Karma spat as he dragged her along, a startled Samuel releasing his hold of Amaya as she was dragged out of the very kitchen.

'Wait! Mister Bell Pepper don't take--' Samuel had begun, however Mrs Akabane chose that second to intervene by waving the plate of pastries in front of his face with one of those innocent smiles of hers.

An excited squeak from the boy was the most Amaya had caught before she was dragged out of sight.

Yes, he was definitely a hamster.

Or at the very least, he was something that could easily be distracted by food.

'Try not to get up to any mischief~!' Mrs Akabane called after the two teens, a particularly bright tone to her voice. 'Or we'll have to delay our flight to make sure nothing happens~!'

The grip around her elbow tightened painfully at that remark, bringing Amaya to manage to look up at a rather livid Karma as he dragged her through the door at the end of the hall.

The door slammed shut behind her, and before she'd even managed to catch a glimpse of her surroundings, she found Karma standing right in front of her, that livid look still written across his face.

His undivided attention was upon her as well, making for a remarkably uncomfortable situation.

'What did they say to you?' He questioned her, his tone more measured than she'd expected.

In fact, she hadn't expected that question first of all to begin with.

'S-say...?' She repeated hesitantly. 'Nothing much ...'

She knew her answer wasn't going to go down well with him, even if it was honestly the truth.

But she didn't like the way his gaze narrowed suspiciously upon her.

'Really?' He questioned her in disbelief, the sarcasm clear in his tone. 'I hope you don't expect me to believe that.'

He meant it as a sarcastic rebuke, but unfortunately she didn't know what to actually say to that.

It was the truth, but ...

'They, umm ... said they were just playing on your suspicions ...' She explained, trying her best to conjure up her recollection of the remark Mrs Akabane had made. 'Apparently yo--'

'Oh Karma dear~!' Came the thoroughly amused voice of Mrs Akabane through the door as it opened right behind Amaya, bringing Karma's glaring gaze away from Amaya. 'You forgot something on my list~!'

An innocent smile was forced upon Karma's face as his mother peered in through the door at him.

'I didn't forget anything.' He responded easily.

'Oh~! But that other list I wrote up this morning--'

'Was pointless.' Karma cut in over her, his even tone beginning to come apart from his growing frustration. 'You don't need me to go buy those things for you.'

A strangely musical laugh bubbled in the woman's throat as she leaned in and handed the piece of paper and key Amaya had left in the kitchen.

'Here, don't forget these Amaya-chan.' The woman spoke, ignoring her fuming son's remark, it seemed. 'If you lose them, you'll have to wait for Christmas before we can give you a replacement.'

'What is that?' Karma demanded.

'Just the key to the apartment and my cell number, like I've been nagging you to give her for over a year now.' She responded easily, flashing Amaya a cheeky smile. 'It's not like you were going to quit being stubborn and get around to giving it to her, is it?'

Silence.

'And don't you go and make her lose the key, either~!'

'Is that all?' He questioned bitterly.

'I think...oh! That reminds me, before I forget.' His mother remarked, an innocent smile flashing across her face. 'Did you remember to buy yourself a better sense of hu--'

Her words were cut off as Karma just shut the door in her face. Though the sound of dispersing, chiming laughter on the other side told Amaya that the woman was far from insulted.

Either which way, there was just one thing that Amaya found herself entirely convinced of.

And that was the fact that Karma didn't appreciate being teased so relentlessly, unlike how he picked and tormented on other people just as much.

A mere few seconds of awkward silence passed before the still-fuming boy turned his attention upon her.

And then, less than a second later, pain flared to life in the sides of her face as she was pinched.

With his agitation shown in a rather tangible, obvious form, it was honestly all Amaya could do to try and pry his hands away from her face.

She prayed that his mood would eventually improve, though there was no way of her knowing, either which way.

---=[Authors Note]=---

Yeah, sorry for the late as hell update guys, life stuff decided to rear its ugly head and wreck me around. I tried to make the chapter as long as I could without making it go beyond comfortable reading. And I'm sorry I haven't replied to everyones comments all that much since the last update - I've read them all and I will reply shortly, its just been so busy for me of late (Doesn't stop me from being bored, though T_T)

In any case, hope you enjoyed.

No translation notes today, because the title should pretty much not need a translation ^^

All the best guys~!

<3 Loki-Roki