A Firefly's Glow

Chapter Eleven: Part One

Alrighty, the next, new arc starts with Chapter Eleven! For those who've stuck around this long to read, thank you!

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“Are you done yet?”

I furrowed my brow as I tied the red handkerchief I clutched in my hand onto the post of the fluorescent lights that illuminated the hallway with a simple knot.

I noticed this was Keita’s version of impatience.

“Well, that depends,” I began, peeling another identical red handkerchief off of my shoulders. “Is my room close by?”

“I guess.”

“Then yes, we’re almost done.”

“Why couldn’t you ask Megane to lead you through the hallways?” Keita softly murmured, and I caught him folding his arms against his chest.

“Because,” I reached the next lamp post and wrapped the red handkerchief around the golden pole. “He is currently in the bathroom. If you were in the bathroom and were forced to get out against your will, would you?”

“No,” Keita grumbled, uncomfortably shrugging his shoulders. “But did you have to do this so early in the morning?”

“If I mark the trail from the staircase to my room, I won’t need any escorts,” I knotted the handkerchief and repeatedly peeled off yet another handkerchief off my shoulder. “Besides, this hallway would be extremely deadly for someone to walk through if they got lost.”

“And you’re especially capable of getting lost, aren’t you?”

I gave Keita a snarl as I approached another lamppost. “If these hallways were outstretched onto one path, it would probably circle the world like seven times.”

“Well I’m not the genius who designed this house.”

“Well I’m not the genius who bought this house.” I mocked Keita’s snappy tone.

Keita whipped his gaze around towards me as I wrapped the red cloth around my hands onto the lamp’s pedestal. “I didn’t buy this house. I’m living in it on orders.”

He gave an irregular cough as he turned back around, as if he had just decided to regret something.

“What?” I bemusedly asked.

“What, what?”

“What did you say?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yes you did.”

“No I didn’t.”

I sighed as I tightened another knot and reached over my shoulders to grab another piece of red cloth. Keita was being especially crabby today, with his expressionless mask showing hints of irritation instead of its usual robot form.

I didn’t want to worsen anything by continuing to bicker. I silently confirmed that if he says he didn’t say anything, it means he didn’t say anything.

Well, it meant that he didn’t say anything that he purposely wanted to share with a red-headed peasant freeloading off of his house.

As I began to wrap a handkerchief onto another lamppost, my gaze trailed after Keita, who had nonchalantly decided to swerve his direction the way we came.

“Where are you going?” I questioned, lifting my hands away from the unfinished handkerchief and taking a few steps after Keita.

“I’m going back to sleep.”

“But we’re not done yet—“

“I am.” Keita began, rubbing his shoulders. He aimed a lazy finger in my direction. “I see your room.”

I peered towards the trail his finger had created and focused my gaze on two familiar doors down the path of at least another five lampposts.

“Oh,” I murmured, turning my head back towards Keita. “Thank—“

But when I expected my gaze to run into the figure that sauntered away before me, it was not present.

“—you . . .”

I knotted the next handkerchief onto the following lamp post and reached over onto my shoulder to grab another when I felt my fingers scratch my arm. I peered at my shoulder to find that the pile of handkerchiefs had officially ended with the final knot that I had tied.

Ruffling my hair with my fingertips, I wandered away from the lamppost and towards the set of doors that lingered ahead.

When I had approached a point approximately five feet away from the doorway, I heard hasty footsteps clobber down the polished floors of the hallway and I paused.

“Hotaru-sama!” a unison of anxious voices cried as a familiar mob of maids and chauffeurs stumbled towards me. “It is 6:00!”

“That’s . . . cool.”

“We must prepare you for school!”

I took a few steps towards my bedroom door. My eyes still stung with drowsiness. What I currently wished for was a short nap. I had spent the last half hour tying knots on lamp posts and my back was aching for rest.

“Um,” I began, slowly leaning towards my door. “School doesn’t start until 7:00.”

“Which is why we must prepare you right now, Hotaru-sama!” a rushed voice insisted.

“But—“

Before I could protest, I felt sharp grips against my arms and hands and was dragged away from my bedroom and away from what I knew was a good ten minutes worth of sleep.