Liar, Liar, the Mage's Desire Vol. 3 (Return of the Oumeno)

Kiki Ouma (5)

     Kokichi and Himiko stepped into an enormous room with a shiny marble floor and cream-colored walls with two sets of elegant staircases curving up to the second floor. A fancy chandelier hung right over them. Kokichi and Himiko breathed in awe as they looked at their surroundings. Straight across from them was a hallway, where Kiki hung her fur coat and hat on a polished wooden coatrack. 

   "Heeey! Cool outfit!" Kokichi said to Kiki. She was wearing a punky school outfit. Kokichi pointed excitedly at her tie.  "You wear your tie over your collar, too?!" Kiki gave him a cheeky grin. 

    "Well, yeah!" she replied. "Who doesn't?" Both she and Kokichi made an "L" shape with their fingers and put them up to their foreheads.

   "LOSEEERRRRS!!" they replied before laughing. Himiko smiled and shook her head.

   "Nyeh...like brother, like sister," she said. 

   "Aki, sweetheart? Is that you?" came a woman's soft voice from one of the rooms. Kiki rushed over to the doorway of that room and peeked in. 

   "Hi, mom! Hi, dad!" she said. 

   "Home early from the tournament?" asked Kiki's father. 

   "And that's not the proper way to greet your parents, dear," Kiki's mother scolded. Kiki pouted a bit before slightly lifting her skirt and curtsying for her parents. 

   "Mother, father," she said with a polite nod. 

   "What are you doing home so early, Aki?" her mother asked. She sounded less disapproving after Kiki's proper greeting. 

   "I met someone at the tournament! You guys should see him!" Kiki replied eagerly. "C'mon, hurry!" She rushed into the room, grabbing her parents by their hands and pulling them out.

   "Aki! It is not very ladylike to rush!" Kiki's mother scolded again. But Kiki wasn't listening. She pulled her parents out into the hall, and pointed at Kokichi and Himiko.

   "Look!" she said. Before her parents could protest, their jaws immediately dropped in shock when their eyes fell on Kokichi. Kokichi stared back at them, taking their faces in. He looked more similar to his father, who had dark purple hair and violet eyes. His mother, however, had lighter purple hair that matched her eyes, which is where Kiki seemed to get her own eyes from. Like Kiki, she even had more skin color than Kokichi. Kokichi had paler skin, which is how his dad also appeared. He found it weird that he shared all of his dad's traits, but none of his mother's. But, at the moment, he didn't care about that. 

   "M-Mom...? D-Dad...?" he asked in a small, unsure voice. He felt weird calling a pair of strangers "mom" and "dad" when he spent all of his life without parents. 

    "Kokichi!" his mother breathed as tears filled her eyes. She grabbed her husband's hand. "Akio...it's really him!" Kiki looked at her mother in confusion as she and her husband rushed over to hug Kokichi. They wrapped their arms around Kokichi. Kokichi opened his mouth and tried to speak, but all that came out were sobs as he wrapped his arms around them, as well. Himiko smiled with tears of her own, happy to see Kokichi finally reunited with his family.