Fushigi Yuugi Fan Fiction ❯ Legend ~ Book Two: Misadventure, Mayhem & Really Hot Guys ❯ One: Reasserting Reality ( Chapter 1 )

   KC regained consciousness by slow degrees. A familiar, musty smell of dust, mildew, and ancient books permeated the air and threatened to make her sneeze. When she opened her eyes, she found herself sprawled uncomfortably on the hard, rough surface of a concrete floor. Her face felt wet and she reached up to wipe her cheek, discovered with embarrassment that she'd been drooling. "Urgh. What a headache," she grumbled as she stiffly sat up.

   That was when reality finally reasserted itself, all of her discomfort instantly forgotten as she realized where she was. She was back! She'd actually made it home! She allowed herself a very girlish squeal and a full-body wriggle, kicking the floor excitedly for a few moments. The library basement was a welcome sight, and she heaved a sigh of relief that she had gotten back to the right place. To her surprise, both of the heavy books she'd pulled off the shelf with The Universe of the Four Gods still lay on the floor where she'd left them. The small red book lay open, and she cautiously nudged it closed with her foot, not willing to chance any more surprise trips to the past just yet.

   "Doesn't anybody ever pick up around this place?" she griped as she re-shelved the two thick volumes. She reached for The Universe of the Four Gods, then hesitated. She didn't really want to let the book out of her sight. She debated with herself for a moment. For one thing, who knew if she'd be able to gain access to the basement again once she left it. For another, if she'd found it, who was to say someone else wouldn't stumble across it, as well? By the looks of the place, people didn't come into the room very often, but was she willing to chance the book disappearing on her?

   Then again, would it really be a horrible thing if it did?

   Not for the first time, the small, traitorous thought slipped into her mind. An idea that she could just slide the book on its shelf and leave the room and never look back again. Nobody would ever have to know. She clenched her fists and gave herself a stern mental shake. But she would know. And the people who waited for her in that other world, the ones she called friends, would also know. And no doubt they would hate her once they realized she was never coming back.

   Right. That's it. KC nodded to herself with newfound resolution. The book would just have to come with her. She looked around until she located her backpack, propped against the shelves a few feet away. Relieved to see that it had once again safely made the trip with her (No chance of recovery if it ever fell into the Twilight Zone), she pulled it to her side and opened it. There was barely any room inside the overstuffed bag, what with everything else she had crammed in it. Her textbooks, her purse, and other personal belongings. A few small trinkets from Konan. She managed to rearrange things enough to slip the book between the pages of her water-stained sketchbook, making sure it was well-hidden from potential view.

   She paused and shook her head. "Fantastic," she snorted. "I've stooped to stealing a dusty old book out of a library. What an impressive start to my life of crime."

   Everything seemed in order. She slung the pack over her shoulder and headed for the door, already thinking up potential excuses to explain away her long absence. She knew she'd never get away with waltzing into her house after a month as if she'd just come home from the mall or something. Her mom would be frantic. There might be police there. Or reporters.

   Or maybe nobody, because everyone thought she was dead and had moved on with their lives.

   She grimaced and gave herself another shake to shed that particular idea from her brain. She wasn't dead. She was back. And she was gonna have a hell of a lot of explaining to do once everyone figured out those two facts. She didn't even know what to say that wouldn't make her sound like a complete loony. Maybe it would be best to just claim amnesia about the whole experience since any other excuse would probably earn her a one-way ticket to the nearest padded room and a fashionable I-love-me jacket.

   She saw her coat draped over the back of a chair and snatched it up as she passed … and abruptly froze in her tracks. She gaped down at the garment in her hands. Her coat. Still slung over the back of the chair. Exactly the way she'd left it. As if it had never been touched. Her confusion grew, taking form in an inarticulate, "Whu—?"

   Something was seriously … off about this. First those old books, still on the floor. Now her coat, still over the chair. It was right in front of the door, no way anyone could have missed it coming in or out. If they knew it was hers, they'd have taken it for evidence or something, wouldn't they? Had anyone been in the room at all since she disappeared? Her mutilated corpse could be rotting down there, for all they knew!

   More than a little mystified, KC hurried through the creepy part of the basement and snuck up the stairs to the first floor, trying to avoid any noise. She cracked open the door, relieved to see the overhead lights were still on. It meant the library was still open, which meant she could sneak out without looking too suspicious. She crept out of the stairwell and shut and locked the door behind her, then tiptoed her way through the stacks until she could see the huge, ancient grandfather clock that guarded the main doors. It read four-forty-five; fifteen minutes before closing. She could see through the glass doors that it had grown dark outside, settling into winter twilight.

   She heard somebody whistling, but before she could hide, Charley turned the corner, in the midst of making his rounds. His flashlight swung idly from one hand as he paused to offer a friendly smile. "Afternoon, KC," he greeted, tipped his security guard cap politely before moving on. "Merry Christmas!" he called over his shoulder as he turned a corner.

   KC gaped at his retreating back. "M-Merry … Christmas?" she repeated dumbly as she slowly turned and headed for the librarian's desk. Mrs. Potter wasn't there, but that wasn't unusual. She only worked a few days a week. Cathy Franks must be the attending librarian today. She generally spent more time in the stacks, making out with her boyfriend or texting on her phone, than she did at her actual job. That was fine with KC. It meant she could put the keys back and sneak out without anyone asking a lot of nosy questions. She slipped behind the desk and opened the drawer to drop the keys inside. And that was when she noticed the one-a-day calendar sitting atop the box-like computer monitor.

   She froze. Blinked, rubbed her eyes repeatedly and looked again. The date continued to read Tuesday, December 23. Exactly the same day as when she'd left.

   "What is going on here?" She slammed the drawer shut and jumped at the resulting bang, cringed and nearly bolted for the front exit before anyone came looking to see what the racket was about. She burst through the front doors into the … really frigid winter air. It hit her like a sack of needles and drove a flurry of snowflakes right into her face. "Cold!" she yelped as she cringed back into the doorway and hastily donned her coat. After spending so much time in the tropical-like Konan, she had almost forgotten it was still mid-winter in her own world. Now she nearly regretted coming home as she hunched her shoulders against the chill wind and made her way to the nearest bus stop. She really hated the cold.

~*~*~*~*~

   On the short walk from the bus stop to her house, KC pondered her odd dilemma. By her calculations, she'd spent nearly a month in Konan, but barely two hours had passed in her own world since she'd been gone. How was that even possible? Unless Taiitsukun had used some kind of time-travel trick to send her back to right after she'd left.

   That made as much sense as anything, she supposed, but wasn't it a bit dangerous? What if Taiitsukun accidentally sent her back to before she'd actually left and she ended up running into herself? According to almost every sci-fi movie she'd ever watched, couldn't that cause some sort of implosion in the space/time continuum and completely alter the universe as she knew it? Plus, she'd like cease to exist or something.

   Of course, maybe that couldn't happen, because it already would have. She would've already seen herself before she'd left and would've imploded or … something. Which meant Konan never would've happened and now she was giving herself a headache. KC grimaced and rubbed her forehead. How did Kimiko always think like this without her brain imploding?

   At that moment, KC's house came into view and all thoughts of sci-fi and time travel and imploding realities vanished as she gave a little squeal and broke into a sprint. She suppressed the sudden urge to hug the house mostly because she'd never get her arms around it. Plus, the neighbors would look at her funny. She skipped up the narrow path to her front door with its decorative, obligatory Christmas wreath that looked as if it had seen better days a few decades ago, unable to keep the huge grin off her face as she threw it open and bounced over the threshold with a resounding shout of, "I'm home!"

   Of course, nobody answered her; it was only five-thirty and her mom wouldn't be home from work until seven, at least. Still, it just felt so good to say that again.

   When she pounded up the stairs she made as much noise as possible, flipped every light switch she passed (because she knew her mother hated it) and threw open the door to her bedroom. She opened her pack and pulled The Universe of the Four Gods from its hiding place, tossed it carelessly onto the desk. Just for extra measure, she tossed her jacket over it and knocked a metal pencil holder off the desk. It landed on the floor, spilling its contents across the worn carpet. She left it there and with one leap sprawled across her bed with its squeaky hinges and the moth-eaten Holly Hobby comforter she refused to throw away just because it was an antique. She clutched a bedraggled Cabbage Patch Kid that had seen its share of too many haircuts to her chest, and simply laid on her back and closed her eyes, breathed in deeply the familiar smell of her own room.

   "I'm home," she whispered, hardly able to believe it, and she could feel hot tears squeeze at the back of her eyes. She kissed the dirty-faced doll and shoved it back in its place of honor—down between the bed and the wall—then sat up and looked around. Everything was exactly where she'd left it that morning so long ago, as if she'd never disappeared in the first place. The unicorn calendar on her wall was still on the December page, with every day up to the twenty-third marked off in varying colors of ink. No matter how hard it was to believe, it all suggested that she really had only been missing for a little while, and nobody would ever need to know she'd been gone at all. It suddenly made the thought of leaving again much easier to bear. If Taiitsukun or Suzaku could manipulate time itself, then she could go do what needed doing and take as much time as she needed to do it. And nobody would ever be the wiser.

   A loud, low growl filled the silent room, and she giggled at herself and crossed her arms over her grumbling stomach. She was starving. Jet lag's got nothin' on time-travel, she thought with a grin as she bounced off her bed and headed down the stairs. She paused to examine the plastic Christmas tree that sat in the corner of the living room. It, too, looked a little worn around the edges, with a few missing limbs and ornaments that were probably older than her. She'd always thought it was kind of ugly, especially compared to the elegantly decorated trees displayed in store windows and her friends' living rooms.

   Right now, she thought it was the most beautiful tree she'd ever seen.

   The realization that she had somehow made it home in time to celebrate Christmas cheered her immensely. She plugged in the tree's colorful lights and helped herself to a candy cane, sucked on the peppermint as she headed to the kitchen for her favorite comfort food; a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato and ham and a steaming bowl of homemade clam chowder.

   She found a note taped to the refrigerator door. When she read it, her good mood soured somewhat. Her mother wouldn't be home until late again. Another crisis at work that she had to handle right away, and she was sorry, but she would be home tomorrow to celebrate Christmas Eve.

   "Promises, promises," KC grumbled as she grabbed the ham and slammed the door. The disappointment she felt over the news was acute. She tried not to let it get to her; after all, it wouldn't be the first time her mom had pulled all-nighters. To everyone else, it was business as usual, but it had been ages since she'd seen her mom and all she wanted was throw her arms around her and hold on tight.

   "I swear, for as much as her boss keeps depending on her to do all his work for him, she's the one who should be running the place!" she told the lunchmeat conspiratorially.

   She made an extra sandwich and another bowl of soup, covered each with plastic wrap and stuck them back in the fridge. Her mom would probably be hungry when she got home. Carrying her food to the living room, she sat cross-legged on the floor between the coffee table and the couch and flipped on the television for some mindless channel surfing. White Christmas came on, right at her favorite part near the end with everyone singing the title song and dancing in their beautiful costumes, so she sat back to enjoy the show. "Man, I missed this," she sighed. She ate her sandwich and relished the peace and quiet and took comfort in the fact that she no longer needed to worry about never seeing home again.

~*~*~*~*~

   She woke up two hours later with a stiff neck and a headache, her head cocked at an uncomfortable angle against the seat cushion behind her. Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer pranced about on the TV, and she carefully rubbed the kink out of her neck and scrubbed at her gritty eyes. Something had woken her; she thought it might have been the phone. The answering machine light blinked, so she pushed the button, hoping her mom had called to say she'd be home soon. Instead, Brady's annoyed voice crackled over the speaker. "So, like, remember our plans to meet at the food court after you got all your research stuff done at the library? I hope you've got a good excuse for standing Kimi and me up, 'cause we waited for like an hour and you never showed! And when I say 'good excuse', I'm talking about being dead or kidnapped by aliens or some shit like that. Oh, yeah. And buy a friggin cell phone already! What are you, six? No, 'cause even six-year-olds have phones these days! Okay, call me back. Bye!"

   KC snorted and dialed Brady's cell. She picked up on the third ring. "Okay, so what happened?"

   "I found this old Chinese book in the library and got sucked into an alternate dimension through it," KC replied in her most somber voice. "I lived there for about a month before they managed to send me home and I kind of forgot all about the mall. Sorry about that."

   A long silence on the other end answered her. "You do realize the whole kidnapped-by-aliens excuse was a joke, right?"

   KC grinned. "Sure, but you never said anything about a giant flaming peacock."

   "Okay, what have you been smoking? Got any left?"

   She laughed. "I am sorry. I'll make it up to you."

   "You better! Listen, I gotta go. My house is a zoo. All my relatives decided they're coming here for Christmas. Of course, nobody bothered to tell me, right? And my little sister's here."

   KC blinked. "I thought she was visiting your dad this year."

   "So did I. Apparently there's some sort of flu epidemic in his household so the trip got postponed until the New Year or something. In the meantime, I get to listen to the constant whining about how her Christmas vacation is absolutely ruined and how she'll never live it down after bragging to all her friends that she was gonna spend it in Los Angeles. I swear she's such a drama queen!"

   "Well golly, Brady, I can't imagine who she possibly would have picked that up from," KC deadpanned.

   "Oh, shush and let me gripe," Brady scolded, earning another laugh.

   A faint crash came through the receiver, and KC raised her eyebrows when Brady yelled, "Reagan! That had better not have been the pot of spaghetti on the counter!"

   A faint reply that KC couldn't quite catch.

   "Waddaya mean it was Kyle's fault? Kyle is three years old! Kyle can't reach the counter!" Brady hollered back.

   KC snickered. "Not so quiet on the Western Front?"

   "I swear, my aunts and uncles are like rabbits. It should be illegal to pop out so many kids! No, you can't even call them kids. They're way more like weapons of mass destruction!"

   "Now who's being the drama queen?" KC accused, laughing. "You get stuck babysitting or something?"

   "Or something. The grownups all went out to play catch-up and won't be home 'til late. Hey, wanna come over and hang out? Throw on some Christmas movies, have a plate of spaghetti…" Brady paused. "Or maybe order a few pizzas."

   "Oh, gee, Brady, that sounds like a blast. But I've still got soooo much to do on that report and all…"

   "Oh, come on!" she whined. "I need help wrangling the zoo! Preferably before they blow up the house. You're the one with the babysitting experience here!"

   "Reagan's, what, fourteen now? She can help." KC couldn't hold back another laugh at Brady's derisive snort.

   "Are you kidding? She's the friggin ringleader of this circus!"

   Another crash, followed by a loud, childish shriek. "Gah! Gotta go! I swear I'm gonna glue you brats to the wall!" Brady bellowed, just before the connection cut off.

   KC laughed again as she hung up, flopped onto the couch to grin up at the ceiling. "Man, am I glad I'm an only child."