The dying days of summer brought a peace to the Chikamori family that was unmistakeable. The demise of Mayumi Chikamori was no great loss and she wasn't mourned very much at all.
In fact, her death was so much of an afterthought that no-one other than Yasunobu mourned for two days afterwards and that was more for appearances-sake than for anything else. In fact there was an overwhelming sense of relief that she would no longer be able to make life miserable for anyone else.
However, that meant that Haruo, River and Yasunobu were able to make free use of the martial arts training room that they were able to keep a secret from Mayumi. Haruo and Yasunobu started out training with the training dummy as River joined them soon afterward.
The training dummy was a staple of Eastern martial arts, such as Sim Fu, and as such it was used in order to provide training on kicks, punches, blocks and open hand techniques - enforcing good martial arts technique and since that little bugger could spin around, it would deliver a stinging correction to the side of the head if one got a little too cocky or became sloppy in one's technique. The 木人樁, or Mu Ren Zhuang(in Mandarin)/Muk yan jong (in Cantonese) was a wooden contraption with sticks pointing out to represent arms and a bent leg to represent a kicking leg and one practiced strikes, punches, kicks and blocks on the dummy and eventually, as one progressed: more complicated moves with increased speed. And River and Haruo both got whacked in the side of the head more than once.
The house they had moved into was an enormous home with five floors of living space. And it was more than enough for the now seven (so long, Mayumi) family members. The McIrish/French/Chikamoris had blended into one big happy expanded family now that Mayumi was out of the picture. The house offered them lots of privacy and it was a much happier family now.
Haruo wrote his books, and played the piano.
...and River, his beloved fiancee, came and watched him play (since he is my Idealized Simself, I'm giving him Level 8 in Piano because he studied from childhood - most Asians get stuck playing piano. It seems to be a thing with Asian parents; I just don't feel that I want to force my kids to do what they don't want. At least I can teach my RL second son, if he wants to learn, but at 13, unless he's a musical genius, he isn't going to be a concert pianist.)
Evidently, she found the sounds of JS Bach soothing...and romantic...and rather arousing...ahem...
And...we all know where they ended up. (innocent look)
No wonder how come Haruo is always having to repair the shower constantly.
Well, all the exertions in the shower got them rather hungry. You know, exercise requires food to recharge. ~smirk~ And Haruo decided that he'd better cut the tiberium rocks before they gave him visceroidal nausea which wasn't a good thing because then he'd end up having a reunion with the food that he ate.
And things were dead at the family graveyard next door (Oh, c'mon...that's funny; y'know I wanted to drag THAT one out back since I rebooted this selfacy.)
With the advent of fall, Satoshi decided to brave the chilling temperatures and went for a night-swim in the backyard pool. He wanted to make himself into a popsicle, evidently.
So...life at the Chikamori family's house went on as per usual although with a lot less-Mayumi drama.
No comments:
Post a Comment