Reiyouki Sentai Seitenger

4.3 Welcome Gift

The other Vessels, together with Helen and the two elders, were just done eating breakfast and were about to wash the dishes and fix the table when Shuichi and Natsume had finally arrived together from the mall.

"Both of you! You're late," Eichirou started, only making the others laugh at that.

"Sorry about that. The line was long," Shuichi explained, complete with an apologetic look as he approached Eichirou and tapped the photographer's shoulder. "Here's a compensation." He gave a small paper bag to Eichirou who only eyed it suspiciously. Shuichi sighed and rolled his eyes. "It's the CD that you've been asking from me for weeks now."

With that, Eichirou's expression brightened, and immediately grabbed the paper bag from Shuichi that only made the latter smile. It wasn't just Eichirou who had a gift from Shuichi, though. Even the other Vessels got theirs and all of them were just the things that they were looking at in the shop weeks ago. Not long after, they soon noticed that Shuichi was carrying two more paper bags.

They were sure that the first one was the book that Shuichi was waiting for. But the other one was something that they didn't have any idea about the content. Shuichi looked around the dining room as if looking for someone. Then he faced Erika.

"Where's Helen?" he asked.

"Hmm... Probably in the garden. For some reason, she liked staying there."

Shuichi just nodded and headed to the garden, only confusing the others. When they looked at Erika, she just shrugged and continued piling the plates for her to be able to start washing them.

Just as the pianist had said, Helen was staying in the garden facing her laptop and seemed to be typing something down. Shuichi hesitated whether or not he would approach her when she appeared to be busy doing... something.

'I'm just going to give this to her. Nothing more.' Well, if this could start a proper conversation with Helen, then it was for the best. He really couldn't help feeling something mysterious about the girl but he wasn't mentioning anything to his friends as he didn't want to further thicken the tension that Itsuki was creating because of his blunt suspicion toward Helen.

Helen stopped typing when she noticed a shadow approaching her. Upon raising her head, she was surprised to see Shuichi carrying two paper bags.

"Hiwara-san? Do you need anything?" she asked as a start since she wasn't sure about the biker's purpose for approaching her, anyway.

He shook his head and smiled a bit. "You're isolating yourself from the others again. Is it about Itsuki?"

Helen chuckled and shook her head before closing her laptop. "No, even though I have to admit that his stare could suffocate anyone when he wants to," she joked before getting serious. "I just want to stay somewhere peaceful for a bit so that I can finish what I need to do. Anyway, what made you come here? You should eat breakfast first since you've just arrived from the mall. Hideoki-san's cooking is very delicious. I've never tasted anything like that in my life."

"I know. We've known that ever since he decided to take care of us after... the fire." But before the atmosphere between Shuichi and Helen could become depressing, he handed the black paper bag to Helen. "I got this for you. I hope you like it."

Without a doubt, Helen was surprised to see that. She couldn't think of what to do for a while there and she was just looking at the paper bag being handed to her. Shuichi beckoned her to take it and after a few more moments, she finally took it - albeit hesitatingly. "T-thank you. But... why are you giving this to me?"

"Well, you won't expect something like this from Itsuki, right? I know he's not exactly very welcoming ever since you came here. But I don't want to do that to you. You're Erika's friend. Trust me, I haven't met anyone that Erika would call like that besides us who had lived here with Eichirou and Hideoki-san for the past ten years. I just want to welcome you now that you're going to stay here."

Helen chose not to say anything at the moment. Instead, she had a look at the content of that paper bag. Her eyes widened when she finally took the item out, only to see a pink denim jacket with a six-winged figure design on the left arm. Even though she shouldn't feel it at the moment, she couldn't contain her happiness at the sight of it.

"This is amazing, Hiwara-san!" Moments later, she faced the biker with a wide smile. "Thank you! I like it so much!"

"That's good to know." For some reason, Shuichi could feel something warm rising from his chest at the sight of that grateful smile from Helen. It was a little different from the feeling he had whenever he would hand a gift to either Misae or Erika. "You like the color pink, huh?" he couldn't help commenting.

"Hmm... Pink makes me happy. Or at least it gives off that kind of vibe whenever I look at it. But the color that I like is -"

But she was soon cut off by the beeping coming from Shuichi's Celestial Shifter. The atmosphere became tense at that and the biker took the said device from the holster placed on his right side. When he looked at Helen, she just nodded once, indicating that she understood and that she was wishing him good luck.

With that, Shuichi turned around and almost immediately saw the rest of the team waiting for him.

"Let's go."

The other Vessels nodded and ran off to head to the site of another Tarean attack.

As for Helen, she stayed looking in the direction where the Vessels ran off to. Soon after, she shifted her focus to the pink denim jacket that Shuichi had just given to him. She smiled sadly as she ran her fingers on the embroidered six-winged figure design on its left arm.

"I guess pink and green was never a good color combination, huh? And to think green is the color that I like," she muttered, and then she took out the smaller cylindrical item from her right jacket pocket. "Don't worry, Mom. I'll protect them. I know I have to."

With that resolve she uttered, she removed the light pink cardigan that she was wearing and put on the denim jacket that Shuichi gave. After that, she placed her laptop on top of the table by the porch and headed off, with Kanako following her.