Karolina and Noriko's parents

[x-kaminari.livejournal.com]

Trying to find their mysteriously disappearing daughter, Noriko's parents finally find her room. And her roommate. Suffice to say, it's not a pleasant meeting.



Karolina had seen far more of her roommate in the past few days than she had in the three months since they moved in together. Granted it hadn't been the most relaxing time, nor had they done much bonding, unless you listening counted Nori's muttering what sounded like vile cursing in Japanese to be bonding. But it was time and Noriko was beautiful in a rage. Karolina could watch her for hours, nodding her support. Homework was so much less important than witnessing Hurricane Nori.

Karolina wasn't sure where the other girl had vacated to this time around. She hadn't said, or maybe she had but once again had forgotten her English. Either way, Karolina was alone with her much less interesting English paper and a head full of idle dreamings.

It wasn't really that the school was so labyrinthine and confusing that was the problem; sure, it was large and somewhat complicated, but the Kikuchi's found navigating to be difficult more because Nori continued to refuse to tell them where anything was, and seemed to have gotten at least some of the students in on the act. Or maybe it was Mrs. Kikuchi's poor grasp of English mangling the directions they did manage to get, because her husband was of little help since his meeting with the medical staff. But finally they had found someone who was willing to take them to their daughters room, and Mrs. Kikuchi gave the briefest of knocks before entering what turned out to be a large, empty common room.

"Hello?" she called out. "Here is anyone?"

The mystery of Nori's sudden absence was solved; no wonder she had vanished so completely. Karolina floated up off of her bed to her feet and raced out into the common area. "Hello?" she called back. A smile bloomed on her face, the rainbow of her aura flickering all around her, dancing off the white of her tunic. "Can I help you?" Nori might not like her parents but it still helped to be polite.

"Ara," Mrs. Kikuchi said, looking briefly startled - visible mutants still threw her, and there were just so many here... "I is sorry," she managed. "My name Kikuchi Kazue. Is here Noriko?"

Karolina settled onto her toes, like she couldn't make more than a token effort to obey gravity. "No, she's not. I don't know where she is. She hasn't been here in a while. I'm her roommate, Karolina."

"Ah, Nori has roommate?" Kazue asked, seeming a bit uncertain, although it really ought to have been something she should know. "Sou ka... How is with Nori-chan live together?"

A few month of living with Nori had helped Karolina get used to deciphering the broken structure of Japanese speakers in English. This took a little longer than it usually would have because then she had to figure out how she was going to answer that. How was it? Well, that depended on whether or not Noriko was even speaking to her that day. "It's okay. I like Nori a lot." Understatement of the century there. "We get along." That statement she wasn't so sure of but she hoped it was true.

Mrs. Kikuchi seemed to consider this for a moment, then said, "Nori has friend. Good. Many friends?" she asked. "Teachers is say Nori not very... not good with classmate."

Karolina shrugged, "She's got friends. People who like her anyway." Should she mention that Noriko had a boyfriend? Maybe Nori's parents wouldn't be so excited about that. If Kare got her in trouble with her parents, she was pretty sure that she'd never be forgiven. "It's a small school. Everyone fights sometimes."

"Nori was never fight at Japanese school. But now always trouble, teachers say." Kazue frowned. She was not surprised that all of Nori's classmates seemed to want to say more nice things about her daughter than tell the truth, but she was starting to put a pretty good picture together in her head of what was really going on.

Rainbow colors flared at the subtle criticism under Nori's mom's words and Karolina drifted higher, frowning. "She's not trouble," said the blonde firmly, not caring that she was borderline rude even by American standards, "This school is what's trouble. Nori's great."

Kazue's eyes narrowed, both at Karolina's tone and the flash of her power. "Xavier school very good school. Very famous. Nori is not good student. Always club and friend, not study."

"Sounds to me like you don't know her at all." Karolina's chin jerked up. Her mother was good at this frosty tone, had used to to great effect in hundreds of scenes over the years. "She's not here. I don't know where she went. I have homework to do." It was a clear dismissal.

"Omae, ruzu gainjin-ko." Kazue frowned, and seemed likely to say something else, but her husband reached out and touched her shoulder.

"Please excuse us. We did not want to interrupt study. Thank you for be friends with my daughter." He bowed towards Karolina, then turned to his wife and said something in rapid Japanese, and she in turn bowed, although not as low and much more grudgingly.

Nori's Dad didn't seem to suck as much as her father so Karolina smiled at him, "Nice meeting you."