When all hell breaks loose

“I feel like the moon is a very beautiful woman. She's in control.”

—Ravyn Lenae

…

Outside his apartment building, just a few meters away from the loud groups of reporters milling about, in one supposedly peaceful Saturday morning… Hiro was completely freaked out of his mind, wondering if Lunamor would actually show up here in person–which is sort of suicidal considering the unfairly large amount of nosy people crawling all over around the place.

Sure, he had gone ahead and made a gamble to get the hell out but compared to him, she’s a freaking celebrity in the city, there’s no way she could just waltz right in here undetected…

Looking around, the place was still packed with journalists, Hiro immediately realized that Lunamor would be hounded by reporters if she personally showed up. Feeling a bit guilty, Hiro thought of the possibility that she could still get actually hurt just knowing how pushy these people are even if she did decide to bring in a few bodyguards...

But what if…?

Hiro slowly grinned, almost evilly, beneath his face mask as he bee-lined straight to the farthest side of the street. He has another brilliant idea!

There was a small bookstore just over there… he should know, Hiro had been there personally a handful of times. He’s even friends with the owner though Hiro was sort of praying that Nick wouldn’t recognize him this time around. That guy’s too smart for his own good sometimes.

Before he could get inside, Hiro reluctantly typed in a text message to Lunamor's number (which he reluctantly saved), hoping that she’d read it: ‘I’m in Nick’s Bookworms now. Don’t get kidnapped on the way. See you there!’

The little bell above the door rang loudly for a moment when he quietly slipped inside the bookstore, making him wince at the noise. Fortunately, the owner of this cozy, little bookstore, his friend Nick Cayden was already busy having an engaging conversation with another customer about some… Greek myth(?) making Hiro sigh in relief as he moved further in, away from Nick’s line of sight.

He’d feel really guilty if he had to lie to his friend or he gets hassled and pressured to buy another book if Nick tries to talk to him anyway.

Nick’s quite good at that.

With nothing else to do, Hiro pretended to look around.

The bell rang loudly again.

“Excuse me, sir!”

Hiro jolted backwards at the overly loud voice, turning around to find a lovely young woman with auburn brown hair and bright blue eyes approaching him quickly, a wide smile on her face.

“...ja?” Hiro feigned a French accent.

“Hi, I’m Les Lee. I’m a journalist for SKY News. Do you live around here?” the woman stepped closer, still smiling up at him.

At hearing the word ‘journalist’, Hiro was already backing as slowly as he can away from the woman, more so at the wide-eyed stare she was giving him. She didn't even bother to hide it. It’s giving him the creeps actually, there was a certain feeling of wrongness emitting from her person, maybe it was just paranoia but better safe than sorry…

And Hiro wasn’t dumb enough to be caught hanging around anywhere near a journalist, especially with Lunamor on her way. The kid might get caught on the fray.

“Non, non,” he grumbled, “Now excuse me…”

Hiro tried to walk past the woman, but she quickly blocked his path, making Hiro flinch away from her in surprise… his eyes widening when he caught sight of two more people just hovering about the door near them.

And they were both looking at him.

Shit, where they following me...?

“Look buddy, I’m just looking for someone,” Les was saying now, angling her phone out towards him, making Hiro step back again which made her grin widen in turn, almost triumphantly: “…who looks almost exactly like you, minus the brown hair you currently have on. So why don’t we take off that pesky mask and get a little look-see, hm?”

Her hand rose–as if itching to peel off the face mask from his face and without thinking, Hiro roughly shoved her out of the way (making him grimace at the startled yelp she made as she landed flat on the floor) before he ran straight for the bathroom across the store, hurriedly locking it behind him.

At this moment, Hiro was seriously regretting stepping one foot outside his apartment. He should have just ordered take-out or something.

And as if to make matters worse, not even a few seconds later he had locked the door, there was someone knocking furiously on the door and Hiro reeled back at the force of it–that couldn’t be just that Les Lee chick. This sounds like more than one person!

“Professor Zen!”

“Please sir, just open the door!”

Oh, fuck.

“Damn it!” Hiro hissed, “LEAVE ME ALONE!”

“Hey! What are you guys doing? Why are you harassing the prof?!” he heard Nick protesting loudly amidst the pleas and demands from the reporters for Hiro to get out of the bathroom.

So much for stealth mode…

His phone vibrated.

Startled, Hiro fumbled for his cell phone and when he finally looked down on it, he very nearly sagged in bittersweet relief when he saw Lunamor’s contact number on the screen.

It was a message.

‘I’m here now.’

And just in time, he heard faintly outside-

“MS. LUNAMOR’S HERE!”

“MS. LUNAMOR, LOOK OVER HERE!”

(In that single space of a second, Hiro almost wanted to forgive Lunamor for all the things she had somehow, indirectly caused in his life that led up to this shit.)

“MAC, GO GET THE CAMERA ROLLING!”

Even though Hiro was a bit dazed to hear her name being called out loud like that, one hand placed tentatively on the doorknob–did Lunamor actually went out of her way to fish him out of this insanity? Was she really going to help him out of this mess...?

Maybe his student wasn’t really bad as he or as anyone had made her out to be all along if that’s the case, Hiro mused to himself, almost a bit hysterically.

Someone knocked loudly on the door again.

Hiro shuffled away as quickly as he can from the door, half-terrified that the reporters may have somehow grabbed the keys that were just hanging on Nick’s counter.

Instead, there was a muffled voice:

“Akihiro…”

That was…

“Doa o akeru.”

It took Hiro a few seconds before he get it.

Open the door.

Never in Hiro’s life did he ever dreamed that he would he find himself so thrilled to finally hear Lunamor’s soft, monotone voice.

Without another thought, Hiro threw the door open and was almost blinded by the flashing lights behind Lunamor, his arm instinctively rising to protect his already-stinging eyes from the brunt of what seemed to be a hundred cameras in front of him.

Surprisingly enough, she had a pair of black sunglasses on, shielding her eyes away from the irritating flashes but Hiro can still feel the intensity of her gaze scanning him from head to toe, as if making sure he's unharmed.

Hiro was astounded that she hasn’t been mobbed by the reporters at this point. But looking more closely, amidst the flashing lights of the many cameras, he can see at least more than twenty silhouettes of big, burly men in black suits forcing the reporters away (her bodyguards, perhaps?) how, he could not even see clearly without his glasses on and the cameras to boot.

“You should have stayed indoors,” she told him, grabbing his hand before pulling him to walk behind her before she snapped an order in Italian to her bodyguards for a passing moment.

Hiro sighed, “Well, hello to you too.”

“What were you thinking?” she hissed.

“Uh, I just want to go grocery shopping?”

Now that he actually said it, Hiro suddenly felt that it sounded too stupid to be a legitimate reason, more so when he heard Lunamor scoffing at him.

“…You have a death wish.”

“Hey, it was a brilliant plan!” Hiro tried to defend himself, feeling a bit offended. “And it would have worked perfectly well if only you told me not to wait for you back there.”

“And let them harass you?”

As if wanting to prove Lunamor’s point, one of the reporters that Hiro vaguely recognized as the man who took his picture last night, hollered all too loudly for everyone to hear in the room:

“I TOLD YOU THEY’RE DATING!”

Lunamor suddenly stopped walking and slowly turned her head to the reporter’s direction, her expression carefully blank as she stared…

And despite the general blurriness of Hiro’s gaze without his eyeglasses on, like everyone else, he was completely floored when Lunamor suddenly took a step forward and snatched the reporter’s camera right out of his grasp and hurled it across the room, the sound of glass shattering all at once making his ears ring.

There was a moment of silence.

“…my bABY–!” the reporter wailed.

“My window!” Nick cried in the background.

...and pandemonium erupted once more.

Lunamor didn’t seem to care and continued to walk as though nothing happen, her grip on him firm as they both stepped outside the store, his eyes closing momentarily at the flash of sunlight.

“…Arigatō,” Hiro muttered to her.

Her gloved hand squeezed his in answer.

…You’re welcome.