The sun spilled through the windows of the Kawakami temple, the heat of it touching Tomia's face. Her eyes slowly fluttered open, she rubbed them and tiredly looked around the room.
"Right…I am here now"
She thought to herself, a slight smile appearing on her face, the yukata slightly slipping over her shoulder, she looked at it and adjusted it.
She slowly stood up and stretched, it wasn't quiet here like in the labs, Tomia could hear the sounds of sizzling from the kitchen and the smell of eggs. Along with it the sound of trees creaking and the sounds of a bird song were heard from outside.
Tomia felt at peace. She had to pinch herself for a second.
"It feels like a dream..."
Tomia then quickly remembered the food from yesterday. She couldn't hold her excitement in and giddily ran to the kitchen, the sounds of her feet tapping filling the house.
Yui looked towards Tomia who stood in the middle of the room like a lost child.
"Hey there Tomia, you're up early! Unlike Kaito, he as usually stayed up late probably playing games and is sleeping in."
Yui chuckled and looked down to the pan again to make sure the Omurice she was cooking, was tended to.
Tomia slowly waddled over, looking from behind Yui to see what she is exactly cooking.
"What is that…it smells so good, and looks even better. Can I have a bite?"
Yui chuckled a little and gave Tomia a slight pat on the head.
"When it is done you will get your portion, and if some is left you can have the leftovers, I'll reserve them for you. Oh and this is Omurice, there is this famous chef who I learned it from, well…more like from a video on YouTube from him…took me a couple of attempts to get right, but I'd say I can make a pretty decent Omurice since last year. It's an egg omellete with fried rice inside! I also put homemade tomato sauce over it too."
Tomia gave a big gleeful smile to Yui.
"If its half as good as what I ate yesterday then it will be absolutely amazing still"
Tomia said and took a step back, she started looking around the kitchen, all the appliances and things on the counter and some seasoning tubs on the shelves. It was so much stuff that she only barely remembers from when she was a little kid.
Yui notices Tomia's curiosity and gives a soft smile, finding it quite adorable. She looks at her after she finishes cooking and starts to slowly plate up.
"Hey, Tomia? Would you be so kind and go wake up Kaito? The food is done and we can't start without him"
Yui said in a teasing voice, very well meaning to toy with Kaito and looking for a reason to tease him a bit more.
Tomia looks up to her and gives a soft smile and nods energetically. She starts walking towards Kaito's room with a spring in her step. She slides the Shoji door open and walks in, seeing the room she looks around in awe..it's much more decorated compared to her room. She then looks down at Kaito and takes a couple of steps towards him
For a second she tries to think of a best way to wake him up, and then it hits her. In one of the mangas she read before, she saw a girl waking a boy up by whispering into his ear. Tomia concludes that this is the best course of action and kneels down and moves her mouth close to Kaito's ear and softly whispers into it.
"Kaito~, wake up. The food is ready"
Kaito rustled around in the bed a little, taking a bit longer to get up than she'd hope for.
"Why did that not work…"
She pouts a little and stands up, a little upset that it didn't work. She instead chooses to shake him rapidly.
"Heyy! Wake up already! I'm hungry!"
Kaito slowly opened his eyes. The first thing he gets to see is Tomia's pouting face, very upset at Kaito for not waking up yet. His face went slightly red and looked up at her.
"Tomia? Why are you the one waking me up? And why like that?!"
Tomia pointed to the hallway and smiled at him with an oblivious look.
"Food! Let's go eat, you must be hungry for the delicious food, I sure am!"
Tomia clasped his hand and pulled him upwards, with an unexpected ease.
Kaito, taken aback by the sudden surge of strength from this girl felt quite surprised. But Kaito wanting to get dressed up first, pulled back a little. The two got stuck in a clash as neither seemed to get the upper hand on the other in terms of strength.
"Fine! At least let me dress up first okay? You can tell Yui to start eating without me."
Tomia, also a little surprised that somebody was able to resist her power was left a little frozen, but soon as Kaito said that, she looked down at him and nodded.
"Very well, but don't take too long. Yui worked really hard on the food and you would miss out!"
Tomia turned to the hallway and again with a bounce in her stepped hastily walked back into the dining room.
"Don't be too late or else I'll eat it all!"
Kaito soon arrived in the dining room, his family was already slowly eating…though Tomia was already basically already finished and Yui or Hiroshi were not done even halfway yet. There all had a cup of green tea sitting by their plates also.
Kaito sat down with a smile, on the Omurice was drawn something that resembled the face of Yui with a thumbs up, with a tomato sauce.
Kaito chuckled to himself, the gesture of the food being decorated in such a playful way made him feel warm inside.
He glanced towards Yui, she already had a smirk on her face and glanced her eyes from Tomia to Kaito.
"Of course…it was her idea to make Tomia wake me up. She knows my sleeping habits and needs to tease me the first thing in the morning"
Kaito thought to himself.
After some time the family finished their food again, Hiroshi stood up first…since Kaito was cleaning up the temple yesterday it was his turn again today.
"The food was wonderful as usual Yui. Kaito, today is a rest day, so help out Yui with the dishes, you two show Tomia around. Now if you'll excuse me I've got chores to do"
He said and walked out of the room.
Tomia sat staring at the leaving Hiroshi, slightly interested what he was going out to do.
"Chores?"
Tomia said and looked towards Yui and Kaito, looking for some form of explanation.
Yui smiled a little and stood up to start cleaning.
"Well the temple is a pretty big and popular place for tourists to visit, it's how we earn our money so we have to make sure it's cared for and in tip-top shape, so Kaito and he split up the outside work while I get to keep the inside work!"
Kaito shook his head and sighed heavily while standing up.
"You make it sound like we leave all the work for you while me and dad take rest days, I'm just about to help you aren't I? But you insist that me and dad don't know how to properly clean up."
Tomia pondered for a second as the two siblings started talking about their chores, while zoning out Tomia got a great idea…what if SHE helped out Yui in cleaning?
"I can take turns on home chores with Yui! I am sure it can't be that hard!"
Tomia smiled, looking at the two with a big excited glee on her face.
Yui looked quite shocked, she'd not expect a guest to request help with the chores…but if Tomia was gonna stay she could potentially help out and earn her keep.
"You know that's not a bad idea! Will make you feel helpful around the temple and will give me some girly help, not the help of either of these rough men!"
Yui said and looked towards Kaito with a teasing grin, making fun of him for the overall seriousness of Kaito and Hiroshi.
Kaito looked a little concerned and looked towards Tomia, then to Yui. The teasing was not getting to him as much.
"Are you sure about that? Tomia was basically out cold just yesterday and you want to put her to work already? Not to mention she's our guest.."
Yui looked towards Kaito and smirked again, another potential to tease him had showed itself.
"Aww…is Kaito getting protective of the little doll? Are you so worried that she might get hurt? Don't worry, I've just got some caring for plants, cleaning up the rooms and the dishes…I'll ask her to help out with cooking a little if she'll want to"
Tomia looked at Kaito, her heart fluttering a little as he seemed to have her health in mind…nobody really ever did that for her, but alas..she wanted to help, she wanted to prove to herself that she is not a monster.
"Yes! I would love to do all that Yui!"
After Kaito had reluctantly let Tomia and Yui do their work, he instead left outside to train on his own accord. Tomia and Yui were left in the kitchen washing the dishes, Yui ended up teaching her how to wash them. Only for it to end up with Tomia covered in water from an accident of too much water flow into a bowl,she got her yukata wet.
Yui chuckled as Tomia stood next to the sink almost asking for help and how to undo the wetness.
"I guess it's time to get you some proper clothes. Come, follow me."
Yui led Tomia to her own room, Yui's room was very neat and simplistic, the only thing that really stood out was the amount of photos she had. They were all of only her, Kaito and Hiroshi, though some of them had a very happy looking blonde lady in them.
Tomia glanced around the room and stopped to look at every photo as Yui was picking out some clothes from the closet, Tomia pointed out the woman.
"Who's this lady?"
She said and looked at Yui.
Yui looked at what Tomia was pointing at, her eyes looking a little sad but still forcing a smile through it.
"That would be our mom, she died 6 years ago…to DHC hunters, she was protecting a demon child. We still miss her sometimes, but dad misses her the most. She was a great and beautiful woman, I hope to be like her one day."
Tomia smiled a little amd walked towards Yui, looking at the amount of clothes she had in the closet.
"Your mom was just as pretty as you are!"
Tomia said with a soft smile.
Yui chuckled and smiled atTomia.
"You're not gonna win me over with compliments"
She looked up into her eyes and giggled.
"Actually no…I'm wrong, you've already got me won over. Come on Tomia, I gotta know what size to get you, I doubt we have the same size, but I assume I could get you something from when I was younger. I keep all my clothes, thought I could maybe give them to my kids if I ever had a daughter one day, afterall some of my clothes have been passed down from mom, I like to imagine that my daughter would do the same one day."
Tomia nodded, not really minding it, after all they were both girls, she undressed herself there, her underwear was still the same worn out underwear she had while on the run, some blood still dried off on it.
Yui looked at Tomia, she saw how dirty she was, the dried off blood and dirt sticking to her still, were she not a demon she'd smell horribly.
"The DHC must have been horrible to her"
She thought to herself and looked up at Tomia to eye her measurements to see what clothes she could get her.
"I must say, you're much smaller than me Tomia, but I'm still quite jealous of how beautiful you are, you're like a doll"
Yui said and pulled out some underwear and a black and white dress from the closet and handed them to Tomia.
"Here, try those. I've worn those when I was 14, maybe they'll fit you. Wear them for now, I'll prepare a bath for you after this and get you another pair, so you can be clean and be in clean clothes."
Tomia takes them and tries them on, they fit her just about perfectly. The dress too. Tomia looks down on herself in the mirror and blushes a little and does a little twirl, making the skirt of the dress spin.
"So beautiful!"
Tomia says out loud and then looks to Yui, almost as if looking for approval.
Yui chuckled, she felt like she almost had a younger sister…something she obviously never got to enjoy with Kaito for obvious reasons.
"It suits you very well! You're pulling it off better than I did!"
Tomia chuckled and looked at herself in the mirror again, checking herself out even more.
"You think Kaito will think it's pretty?"
Tomia said, waiting for a response with a slight blush on her face.
Yui grinned a little as she pulled out a black bow from the closet, stepped behind Tomia and tied it around her, making the bow tied in the back.
"I am sure when Kaito will see you he'll be awestruck"
She smiled gently and patted Tomia's head.
Tomia looked up at Yui and quickly ran into the hallway and to Kaito's room, where he moved to after his brief training…she really wanted to show off the clothes to him and get his approval the most.
As she burst into his room she saw him at his PC watching some YouTube videos.
"Kaito! Look! Look!"
She did the same twirl in front of him.
"New clothes!"
Kaito was a little shocked as he looked at Tomia, he stared at her and blushed a little.
"Y-Yea…it looks really pretty"
Kaito spoke in honesty, the dress really looked good on Tomia.
A big smile appeared on Tomia's face, and gave a satisfied nod. She then ran back to Yui's room, leaving Kaito's door open.
Kaito instead sat in his room confused, wondering to himself.
"What was that all about?"
He stood up to go close the door and looked down the hallway.
"Why am I blushing? She's just a girl, right? But… she looked happy. I don't think I've ever seen someone smile like that before."
Tomia stood in front of Yui and was very energetic on her feet. Slowly bouncing up and down from excitement.
"He liked it!"
Yui smiled, happy that Kaito also approved of the outfit.
"Good, I told you he'd like it. Now, I'm preparing a bath for you, the water is being filled. I left some more underwear there along with a clean yukata, leave the clothes there. I will clean them up once I finish sweeping that I still have to do around the house, I know you'll want to help. But please take a warm bath first, we don't want you to be dirty do we?."
Yui grinned while looking at Tomia, and led her to the end of the hallway where she was preparing the bath for her, the bathroom filled with steam already from the hot water.
For Tomia this was all new, but it was all she desired, it almost felt surreal as a slight tear crept up to the corner of her eyes but she quickly wiped it away. She didn't want Yui to see her sob, now she wanted to continue being happy. And wanted to take a hot bath, a luxury she hasn't got since her childhood.