The Rekka-Shin apartment was totally crowded at the lounge area with all the apartment residents gathered there with the landlady Nuriko and her husband Hotohori. All of them were looking skeptically at the boy genius Chiriko as he prepared himself and a large group of people bringing their own pets to be interviewed by a pair of journalists who were with them in the lounge area waiting patiently for their questions to be answered. Neither of them truly trusted him, but they knew in order to save their best friends, they were left with no option but his.
Chiriko, being the boy with many connections, managed to contact every source he could find in order to create this special interview. He collected whatever loyal followers in the company that he had and left the company he had worked so hard to build, giving up his ownership to his cousins Suboshi and Amiboshi and let them take the reign while he quietly signed over everything else he had own—including all the riches his parents had forsaken to him for their outrageously high assassination prices—to them, estate and all. The only thing left were the clothes behind his back and his own personal items like his wallet of money (which was not much), a bunch of credit cards he probably won’t be able to use, his identity card, his passport and his driving license. Those who pledged their loyalty to Chiriko and hated the twins’ guts, which included his personal driver, swore that they would follow their little master to the end as they left the company and trailed behind Chiriko’s wake.
With his followers and his still standing connections, he discovered that there have been others just like Tasuki and Chichiri’s situation. He convinced them to come out of the light and reveal their secret lives in order to show their support to Tasuki, and then made a few calls to tabloids and journalists, even a few budding writers of this genre to come do a special interview on the justifications of Tasuki and Chichiri’s relationship. He then made the call to Nuriko to ask her to prepare a space fit for everyone to conduct this special interview, and she chose Rekka-Shin apartment as she gather her tenants into play.
“Are we all set, Chiriko-san?” one of the journalists asked as he spotted Chiriko coming out in the best clothes he could muster in a shop with what money he had in hand.
“Hai, we can start now,” Chiriko replied, gesturing his band of people to come forth with him.
As the interview began, one by one, Chiriko’s people gave their testimonials and their proclamation of love for their man-cats. Everyone was surprised at how much the minority of people having illicit affairs with their man-cats were, especially those who had a bit of neko-boy fetish that led them to buy the man-cat in the first place, and was even more surprised when Chiriko, the multi-millionaire boy genius came forth to confess his own personal love interest with Chichiri and openly admitted that he was behind all that had happened to Tasuki, including his involvement with the twins to assassinate him to kidnap Chichiri and his tipping off the press and media about Tasuki and Chichiri’s relationship. By the time he was done, everyone from Rekka-Shin apartment had a somewhat newfound respect for the boy.
Soon the rest of the tenant came in and gave their testimonials of how Chichiri and Tasuki helped them with their lives. Miaka and Tamahome, Nuriko and Hotohori and Yuki and Nakago spoke highly of them, emphasizing that if it weren’t for them, they wouldn’t have found true love and have found each other. The ex-college dropout who now works at Hotohori’s company at a respectable salary-man’s wage praised Chichiri for helping him get out of his slum of a life with no qualifications and getting him back into the beat after his numerous dropouts from different schools in his years of higher learning. Shou and Makura begged whoever was holding Tasuki and Chichiri to let them go and be together for it was already a tough life living as estranged bastard siblings, let alone as separated lovers.
Kai, with Reika translating his sign languages, spoke of Chichiri being their relationship saviour and thought of it unfair for Tasuki and Chichiri to be separated when they were only loving each other and hurting no one else. Raichu and her boyfriend spoke enthusiastically about how Chichiri and Tasuki had helped spared her and releasing her from being confined into a love life she didn’t want, and Mrs. Bunzaemon said that if it weren’t for Chichiri, she would’ve never found the will her husband had hid so carefully from her and had not known that her husband loved her so much even in death. Jim Suzuki and Rinnie spoke passionately about someone who would risk his own life to jump in front of a moving motorcycle and get hit just to prevent a bigger tragedy would never be a bad person and Tasuki would never be wrong to fall in love with such a selfless being, and that normal human beings would never do such a thing, and for someone half of a human gene, it was a very valiant thing to do.
Michitsu commended on Chichiri being the only person who ever broke through his secretive double life and secure his relationship with his girlfriend Keiko, while Kamatsu, who now spoke fluently without stuttering, praised Chichiri and Tasuki, saying that despite Chichiri getting him involved with the road accident, it was because of the existence of Tasuki’s matchmaking services was he able to finally get with Minami and cure his stuttering problem, due to the fact that Minami’s parents were both a psychiatrist and articulation teacher and were more than willing to help him with his speech impediment. Andou and Junko also agreed that it was Tasuki and Chichiri’s help that made their newly wed life now possible, and Matsuo and Maya said that if it weren’t for Chichiri, they wouldn’t have met and been together for these blissful 2 years.
Albert Kay, who had watched the news about Tasuki and Chichiri’s case, flew all the way to Japan and had just joined the special interview minutes before the show started and spoke very highly of Tasuki and Chichiri, commending on how the duo risked their own lives to locate the underground pornography society and save the Ukraine ambassador’s daughter. He even added that if it weren’t for Tasuki’s quick action when he and some reinforcements went down to apprehend the society, he would’ve gotten a bullet through his head and died there and then, instead of it hitting Tasuki’s shoulder. Furthermore, he gave full support of Tasuki’s love affair with Chichiri because he believed that no normal human being would as nice and kind as to go all out in following him back to Ukraine and stayed by the traumatized ambassador’s daughter’s side until she had fully recovered and functioned properly in society and have regained some form of normal sanity after her harrowing trauma as Chichiri would. He believed that Chichiri was more than just half human and that normal humans should be ashamed of themselves for condemning someone who behaved so much more humane than their own. He even produced papers from his government researches and recommendation reports stating that Chichiri is technically 75 percent human and should be treated as one, which includes being given human rights like every other citizen, even to love whomever they wish.
Cherry and Mike were grateful of Chichiri’s companionship when they hired him to give them some comfort. They were so used to having three people in the house that the loss of Gary was too great to endure the emptiness and lacking of someone in their lives. They said that if it weren’t for Chichiri and his unorthodox way of bringing them new friend and housemate, they would’ve done the same thing Gary did when he was diagnosed with the brain cancer. Kyoto and Yukito were exceptionally thankful for Chichiri’s efforts to bring them together and prevent a tragedy happening, and had cured Kyoto of his mourning heartbreak, and Yume and Yumi owed their strengthened mother-daughter relationship thanks to Chichiri’s intervention. Even the young teenage couple Katsuya and Miki and Makoto and Ai were happy to have had Chichiri and Tasuki being their means of getting together and increasing their love for each other.
Those who were saved in every way possible by Tasuki and Chichiri’s services were shocked as those who had never used their services approached the interview with much compassion towards Tasuki and Chichiri’s plight, speaking of all the good things Tasuki and Chichiri had done for them. Apparently, behind everyone’s back, Chichiri and Tasuki actually took the liberty to help with their own personal problems as well, free of charge and out of free will. Tasuki and Chichiri were the only ones to know that despite the one-big-happy-family they portray, the Matsumoto family of ground floor was having a silent family crisis: Mr. Matsumoto was having an affair and Mrs. Matsumoto, knowing her husband’s infidelity but kept the marriage for the sake of their children, became a drunk and would occasionally beat the crap out of her children. Chichiri recorded everything she had done to her children in her drunken state while her husband was away with another woman, and while Chichiri helped protect the children by luring them to escape to his house whenever Mrs. Matsumoto started drinking, Tasuki approached Mr. Matsumoto and revealed the video to him, shocking him out of his senses. He quickly broke off with all his lovers, came home and apologized to his wife and made her go to detox rehab. Mrs. Matsumoto was sober of almost a year now and Mr. Matsumoto never strayed away again, and their family was truly a one-big-happy-family.
Riku and his newly wed wife Sora (A/N: Nothing to do with the KH characters, mind you…OK, maybe a little) who were currently living in the supposedly haunted fifth floor spoke in the interview that they had their eternal gratitude towards Tasuki and Chichiri for helping to exorcise the spirit residing at that floor. Apparently the rumours of a suicide case were true as the suicide victim was a young lady who killed herself by slitting her wrists in a full bathtub after a failed relationship. Riku did not believe in the haunting stories at first, and for the first time, became the resident of the isolated fifth floor, but when he and his wife was constantly haunted by cries of agony, dripping sounds and occasional overflowing bathtubs, they realized that they need help. Chichiri was wandering around in his usual night escapades around the apartment when he saw Riku and Sora talking to a helpless spirit medium, and had Tasuki come a look at the situation—even though it was out of his services jurisdiction—and with Chichiri’s eyes to see the spirit (based on some beliefs, animals can see the dead), helped the spirit to talk her out of haunting the place and move on, and had the person who caused her so much pain to beg for forgiveness. And it was also thanks to Tasuki and Chichiri that now the fifth floor was no longer as lonely as before and Riku and Sora got to bring in other of their friends to live there to entirely liven up the air around it.
The Hayai family of seventh floor spoke of Tasuki giving them the tip-off that their life of seclusion had been compromised because Chichiri spotted strangers lingering outside the apartment at a nightly basis, trying to figure out how to enter and assassinate them without causing any ruckus or link any connections towards their organization. Aneki took care of them quietly and decided to move back into Kaito’s clan where they would have better protection. Roommates Ichigo, Dakaru, Wakou and Barasui, and Wakou’s adopted son Chiihara of seventh floor also had their say in this special interview. Sakura, Wakou’s sister who lived one floor above them were not in speaking terms with Wakou because of Wakou’s resistance towards Sakura and Anta’s relationship due to the fact that Anta was a midget and not exactly the ‘man of the house’ in this relationship. He had preferred his sister to search for someone worthy, someone manlier than Anta to look after his sister, but Sakura was adamant to be with Anta. It was Chichiri who helped him see the light when a bunch of hooligans tried to bully and rape Sakura because of their distaste of her being the woman yet better cook than they were and Anta, despite his small stature, stood up against them and almost earned him a number of near-fatal injuries.
Lalaru, Ichigo’s eating disorder girlfriend, was still struggling with her problem and couldn’t get it out of her system that she was way beyond the thin level to be dieting like a supermodel. There were a couple times where she actually attempted to escape from rehab so that she could go back to not eating or drinking for days at end and looking at herself regretfully in the mirror, never satisfied and constantly thinking that she was too fat. Tasuki, after hearing from Chichiri Ichigo’s woes about how to go about curing Lalaru of her eating disorder, arranged with a friend of his without Ichigo’s knowledge to borrow his private villa where he took Lalaru from the rehab centre on the pretense that she was being relocated and locked her in the cellar where she was forced to eat proper meals three times a day while getting a regular sunbath in between under his scrutiny. He paid the rehab people to keep quiet about Lalaru’s true whereabouts and had to pretend he didn’t know anything when Ichigo presented him a missing person’s flyer of her. After long weeks of personal rehab, delicious food, shock therapy of how she would turn out if she had continued her crazy dieting ways and a bit of love and tender care of a friend in between, Lalaru had finally gain considerable weight and finally learnt the importance of moderation before she was returned to a very happy, very grateful Ichigo, but not without suffering a little scolding for keeping him in the dark like that.
Wakou had to endure a rather long battle of child custody when suddenly the father of the child claimed that he had turned over a new leaf and wished to take Chiihara back. Chiihara was torn between choosing Wakou and his real father because at one side, he was glad that his father was ready to love and accept him, but on the other side, he owed it to Wakou for taking care of him for so long. Being the head of a single bakery shop didn’t really secure him enough money to fight a legal battle with Chiihara’s real father, who was a rather powerful manager of a big car dealer company, and Wakou knew he was fighting a losing battle. If it weren’t for Chichiri’s sixth sense that smelled a rat behind Chiihara’s real father intention and Tasuki’s sleuthing, they would not have found out that in secret, Chiihara’s real father was facing bankruptcy as his cars were not selling well and had heard that Chiihara’s mother was actually an heir to a family of business conglomerates (she was kicked out of the house because of her illegitimate pregnancy) and had entrusted her will stating that all her secret savings that she had saved up during her younger years behind her family’s back would go to Chiihara at the event of her death. Chiihara’s father had went to check out her place where she lived after being disowned by her family when the landlord found him to be her ex-boyfriend and called him to clear away her stuff for the new tenants to live in and found the will hidden somewhere in her home, and wasted no time in locating Chiihara’s whereabouts and demanded his son back from Wakou. After Tasuki and Chichiri’s intervention after discovering the truth, the social services immediately revoked all his father’s rights to custody and announced that Wakou could keep Chiihara as his son forever.
As the interview ended, many soon found out, including the reporters, that Tasuki and Chichiri were not as bad as everyone thought and the prosecutor Miboshi portrayed him to be. As Chiriko led the reporters to interview others who had received their dating and matchmaking services, they found out that one way or another, Tasuki and Chichiri’s intervention into their lives have made a drastic change for the better. Many of them spoke fairly high of them, always saying that if it weren’t for them they would’ve either committed suicide, committed a crime, never met that special someone or overall make the biggest mistake of their lives. Soon other anonymous people who never used Tasuki and Chichiri’s services came forth through phone calls that a lot of Tasuki and Chichiri’s selfless acts had led them to better lives, whether they knew it or not.
A man said that it was thanks to Chichiri’s accidental bump when he slipped from Tasuki’s piggy back ride and fell onto him that he managed to kiss his girl (although by accident) when previously he dare not do it, thus strengthening their relationship and moved them up to the next level. A husband and wife who owned a bento shop had the duo to thank for highly recommending their shop to a very wealthy businessman—they weren’t doing very well back then—after Tasuki had bought two bento-s from his shop and just so happened to come across the businessman who was looking for a respectable place to cater food for his almost 1,000 and counting employees. A couple said if it weren’t for Tasuki’s random question, the boyfriend would not have the guts to propose to the girlfriend. A man who was having marriage jeopardy would’ve chose to divorce his wife for her irrational and abnormal behaviour if Tasuki and Chichiri had not met him in the bar and pointed out the possibility of his wife being upset about her infertility based on the clues of his wife’s behaviour he disclosed. A woman whom Tasuki and Chichiri met when they went on a long-awaited trip to Bali with their earnings had them to thank for when Chichiri felt rather odd for the woman to use Tasuki as a rebound after she broke off with her boyfriend in suspicion of cheating, but found out in the end that he was being all skulk and secretive because he was trying to surprise her with a wedding proposal. But the most memorable of all anonymous phone calls they got was when a young boy told the press that he owed Chichiri a great favour for stopping him from committing suicide when he found Chichiri who was separated from Tasuki in the middle of a shopping mall when he was on the way to go to the top floor to kill himself, and when he picked him up and looked after him, staying by his side at the lost and found counter until Tasuki came to get him, and the grateful happy look Tasuki gave him when he thanked the boy for taking care of his man-cat made him realized that life was still worth living for after all.
There were many other anonymous calls coming in to speak very well of Tasuki and Chichiri, and soon the press became a hotline for all callers to testify for the duo. Regardless if those testimonials are real or not, they entertained them all, as long as they get as much testimonials as they can to make Tasuki and Chichiri popular and on the good side. After a few editing here and there, the press aired the interview on TV as a special bulletin and even made an exclusive documentary based on all the people interviewed and caught on camera (with their permission, of course), which sent the TV ratings off the roof. Slowly but steadily, people began to change their mindsets and came out of the closet, showing their support for Tasuki and Chichiri and devoted their lives to the cause of releasing and reunited the duo together.
Through recommendation from Chiriko, Nuriko and Hotohori started a petition rally where they would open their doors of Rekka-Shin Apartment to those who support Tasuki and Chichiri to sign their names on their petition so that they can forward this to the judge to appeal for a retrial, along with the copy of the special interview tapes that the press had made. Many came forth to show their support by offering their signatures and sending out more petitions for others to sign in their own neighbourhood. After they have gathered more than enough, they were about to send them to Judge Taiitsu-kun personally to ask for the plea for retrial—well, technically more like ignoring the secretary and barging into her office unannounced—when they were stumped with a surprise bigger than anyone has ever imagined.
There, sitting in front of the poor old judge was the Yakuza client who was previously Tasuki’s last client before Tasuki was arrested and Chichiri taken away from him, and the lady Yakuza whom he was courting. Apparently, he had been away on a business trip for a while and had not heard about the news of Tasuki’s arrest until he came back to Japan to call up on Tasuki to check on him. When Tasuki had not replied his calls and messages, he braved himself to call his intended to find out if Chichiri has already given birth and if Tasuki had continued his services, and that’s when the news about Tasuki and Chichiri was made known to him by his intended. Though cold and unmoving, the lady Yakuza hitwoman had to admit that she had felt something was amiss when she did not see Chichiri crawling through her window or peeking out of the air-vent like he used to and she rather missed the way she had to contemplate methods on how to keep Chichiri and always stumped whenever Chichiri manages to bypass every barrier she made to keep him out of sight and all those icky mushy lovie-dovie gifts the Yakuza boss hired him to give to her.
For once, the Yakuza boss and the Yakuza hitwoman actually made a truce, sat down together and discussed about the matter and how to go about getting Tasuki out of his mess. After discussing thoroughly, they decided that excising their power as the Yakuza would do just the trick to convince Judge Taiitsu-kun to at least give the case another shot. The Yakuza hitwoman’s fearful aura and murderous reputation was already enough to make the poor old judge balk. Now, coupled with Nuriko’s group of justice seekers and the ever influential Chiriko leading the group with the petition, plus the Tasu-Chiri supporters outside the law building shouting slogans and protest against Tasuki’s arrest, it seemed that there is nowhere to get around this predicament.
Guess it’s true when they say the free government is not entirely by its citizens, but by the underground society.
So, after much consideration, Judge Taiitsu-kun agreed for a retrial, and this time she was going for a different prosecutor after she learnt from Chiriko that he had been bribing Miboshi to lean towards his side. The retrial made it into the news in no time and soon you could see two sides of rallies—those supporting Tasuki and Chichiri’s love and ‘tree-huggers’ who fight for animal rights—protesting against each other outside the law building shouting each other to get a life and standing their ground on whose side they were supporting.
This is going to be a long week ahead.
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