Kage Houseki no Himitsu
-Introduction-

Tokyo, Japan

Hello! My name is Higurashi Aoi. I'm fifteen years old, and I live in Hokkaido, Japan. That's a bit strange, seeing as the rest of my family live in Tokyo... Hm. I need to remember to ask my folks why that is... I live with my mother, father, older sister and Labrador, Kushi. Father runs a small take-away Fish shop, which sells fish, octopus, flake, squid... you name it, we have it. Well, fish-wise, anyway. I'm almost finished with my first year of high school - or at least, I would have been, if I hadn't practically stopped attending school except to play soccer with my club. Hey, I see no reason for an aspiring rock artist to attend subjects like math and English. It's a waste of time.

I guess you could call me a normal person. To an extent. I'm of average height - actually, make that shorter than average; my shoes are a lot taller than most other people's, so it makes me look taller - and I'm Japanese. But from a glance, you probably wouldn't know it.

Weird-thing-about-me-number-one: I have green eyes. I know, for you foreigners, green eyes aren't that big a deal. But even though in anime and manga, there's usually at least one character with green or blue eyes, finding an eye colour that isn't hazel, light brown, brown or dark brown is actually quite rare, amongst full Japanese. For a "Haffu", perhaps. But typically not for a Japanese person.

Weird-thing-about-me-number-two: I have blue hair. Yup, you heard me: blue. And it's not that hair you see rock stars have, with either streaks of blue or an attempt to dye it that doesn't work. Mine is bright blue, all the way through. Because of this monstrosity of mine, I've always worn my hair quite short, except for my bangs, since I have a huge forehead, and almost always wear a hat of some description. But I can assure you that even doctors, who have called me a 'mutant freak' on more than one occasion, are baffled about my strange hair colour. Meh.

I have typical Asian-tanned skin, and I'm well toned, thanks to my soccer club. I'm always wearing a hat, the reason being said above, and I love to wear shorts. Whether those shorts are tiny and tight, big and baggy, camo or fluro, I'll wear them. Shorts are awesome. I shall always wear shorts.

Anyway, I always wear the same design of shirt: big and baggy, so big that the neck often slips off my shoulder on one side. For this reason, I wear a singlet underneath the shirt. The shirt always depicts one of my favourite rock bands; some days it's HIGH and MIGHTY Color, some days it's Nightmare, some days it may even have Chieco Kawabe. It all depends on what mood I'm in and what concert I've been to recently.

I like to wear sandals; they're platforms, but I find them a lot more comfortable that flat shoes or high-heels. Most people seem unable to run in them; I find it easier to push myself forward when my feet are higher off the ground. Again, I'm weird.

Well, this whole description-of-myself thing is getting kind of old. So let's move on to the visit with my family in Tokyo.

My family in Tokyo are all pretty cool; my grandfather, aunt and two cousins live in a Shinto shrine in the middle of the city; it's really, really neat. I'd give everything I have to be able to live in a shrine like that; you wouldn't have to pay for New Years prayers! Haha. Anyway, once every three years, my family and I go to visit these relatives of ours; last time I went, I was twelve. My youngest cousin, Souta, must have been... what, seven? Such a little tyke then. I'd only seen pictures of them for the past three years; I missed them dearly.

So, as you can probably tell by now, I was ecstatic when that time of year came again. Father closed his shop, Mother packed up her cooking utensils and the dog kennel, and my Onee-sama sat in the car blowing her chewing gum and doing nothing to help out. I packed my own belongings as well as Onee-sama's, and hauled them into the back of the car.

Kushi would sit in the back with the bags; Onee-sama and I would sit on the middle seats; Mother and Father would sit in the driver and passenger seats. Father would be driving, of course. Apparently, even driving from our town to the ferry port, from the ferry port on the mainland to the highway, then the highway to Tokyo was a man's job.

The trip always seemed to take forever, though in truth it was only a few hours. I was sick of my sister's chattering after twenty minutes of being in the car with her. Onee-sama, being seventeen, was at the age where nothing could shut her up. I turned up the volume on my MP3 Player and tried to tune her out.

It was dark when we finally pulled up in front of the Shrine. It looked the same as it always did; the flight of steps that climbed the steep hill, framed by tall, thick red poles that crisscrossed over our heads and led the way into the shrine, the shrubs that lined the ancient, cobbled path. So many times I'd tripped on these steps and scraped my knee... such good memories.

I ran up the steps when the main house came into view over the fence; the sweeping, old-looking roof looked the same as it always did, too. The sacred tree loomed in the background, its leaves still green from the recently-passed summer. I cleared the stairs easily (I silently thanked whatever had inspired me to join the soccer club), and slowed down slightly so I could look around.

The Higurashi family was waiting in the doorway that led to their house; Mrs Higurashi, my aunt, was standing behind Grandfather. Grandfather had his hand on Souta's shoulder - my lord, he'd hardly grown at all! - who was standing beside Kagome.

My face split into a huge smile. "Kagome-chan!"

"Aoi!" Kagome cried back; we broke into a run, and caught each other in a hug mid-way, laughing happily.

"I missed you!" I laughed, pulling back to see her face clearer. She'd become a lot prettier than when we'd parted three years ago; her dark hair was longer and thicker, her face longer and more adult-looking. She was taller than me now. That irked me, seeing as I was a few months older than her. She hadn't yet changed out of her school uniform; it somehow made her look older. I didn't know why. I could feel from our embrace that she'd also become a lot more muscular.

"And I missed you," Kagome grinned. She closed her eyes and smiled. "It's been so long, yet you've hardly changed at all!"

"Liar," I pouted. "I've grown."

"Sure, only because you're wearing those huge shoes," Kagome pointed out with a chuckle. "Where did you get those? They're really cute."

"There's a small department store in our town that custom-makes shoes; I asked for them," I replied, happy that nothing had changed between us. I always feared that something would drift away in our relationship, over the years that parted us, and we'd drift further away. But that hadn't happened yet, and for that I was glad.

"Oh; I should go there one day," Kagome said. She glanced over my shoulder at the rest of my family. "Sakura-san! Aunt Ichigo! Uncle Roku!"

And so it was. After the usual reunion in which we teased each other, made comparisons of ourselves from years passed, and joked about what was to become of us in later years, Mrs Higurashi asked us to join them for a short dinner before bed. Not much was said apart from the sounds of chewing at the table; I was starving. From the looks of it, everyone else in both Higurashi families were too. We laughed as Kushi chased Buyo around the room. I noticed that Kagome was continuously glancing at the clock. I dismissed this, and continued eating and chatting.

Mrs Higurashi gave me and Onee-sama a room to share - I knew this room was usually Kagome's (she was sharing with Souta), so I treated it with respect - and bid us goodnight.

When I woke up the next morning, Kagome was gone.