2013-10-31 - Grounded For Good Reason

NOW:

Hisae's phone goes off.

She flips it open to a text message from her mother, that reads: 'YOU'RE LATE. GET HOME, NOW.

Oh no, oh no, oh NO--

Hisae bursts through the front door of her house, bellowing up the stairs, "MOM, I'M HOME!" Only fifteen minutes after the text message too. With the way Hisae is wheezing, she seems to have ran /all the way home from Yamanote./ Kicking off her school shoes, she staggers up the stairs, leaning against the doorway at the second floor landing as she attempts to regain her breath.

Hitomi Musumi is standing there in the hallway, bowl under one arm, whisking away as she stares at her fifteen year old daughter. Or at least, she stares. Hisae's grey eyes have found the floor and she is studiously examining the crack in the wooden floorboards while waiting, hands clasped nervously behind her back.

"Cell phone."

"Mom, no, I promised Kinzo--"

"/Speaking of Hiroyuki-san-/" Hitomi glares at her daughter, causing the tall teenager to wilt like she's five years old again, shoulders drooping. "I believe I will be having a conversation with him before you see him again. With your father there, too. Now. Cellphone."

"Mooooom!"

"Hisae Musumi, are you talking back to me?"

Frost forms around the edges of the doorways on the second floor, and everyone else in the house - younger brother, older sister, father, and the magically mysterious bunny rabbit mascot by name of Puff - have decided that right now is not the time to be within five hundred meters of Hitomi Musumi.

Hisae guilps. "No, Mama."

"Cellphone. You'll get it back in twenty four hours. Now, go to your room, and I better not hear a hint of you doing anything but homework and practicing until tomorrow night."

Hisae hands the cellphone over, bowing automatically. "Yes, Mother, my apologies, Mother." Hisae gives her one last pleading look, before dragging herself up the last flight of stairs to her room, where Puff waits for her.

He has one comment to make: "Trying to do everything sure is hard, isn't it?"

"... you have /no/ idea."