By Death United (A Saimatsu story)

Chapter 11

The dreamy landscape abruptly shut before her eyes; replaced by darkness, and a distant whistling of the wind: cold wind, as she realised when the breeze briefly blanketed her. 

Kaede opened her eyes, and stared lazily at the hurly-burly book stash; memory tried and failed to inform her why that stash was in her room, nor when her grandparents had furnished her room with an antique table and a set of bookshelves: she admired this style, but preferred something different for her room. Propped on the table was also a photograph that finally shattered the room-confusion: replacing it with panicked discomfiture, or even fear. 

''Shuichi?!'' She jolted out of the bed, and opened her backpack that idled against the bedstead. The essential item missing; no rummaging sufficed to find it; until her hand slipped between one of the books, and there it was hiding: that blessed compact mirror. 

''Phew,'' she gasped; examining her unkempt hair, and undulating sleeves: nothing reminiscent of previous undressing, nor of post-love-making dishabille: a great relief for female dignity – but no more of that! She pocketed her mirror and stretched; hardly able to prevent curious glances around the room: she imagined it differently, though its outward refinement matched her expectations – the chaos, however, blistering that refinement, did not. 

Kaede placed on her shoes and walked out of the room quietly, hearing some intermittent shuffling, and nothing else; seeing no one, yet the light was turned on in the room to her right. This all too familiar experience threw her into a greater panic; so she darted to the light, and halted when she saw Shuichi reading a book on the couch; and immediately his startled eyes fell onto her. 

''Kaede? Are you alright?'' He closed the book and walked up to her. 

''Are we in your. . . ?'' She knew what to say, but her mind was too troubled to understand it. 

''We're at my uncle's,'' he smiled awkwardly. ''Do you remember anything that happened last night?''

She grasped at her escaping recollections; some hazy, circumambient images, words, and sounds whirled in her head: each too fast for her to grasp, or to get an impression of what had happened. Then that panicked discomfiture returned: a sorely unwelcome sequel. 

''S-Shuichi, d-did we?'' She stammered; blushing furiously. 

''Did we what?'' His wonder was momentary. ''N-No, Kaede! When we came here, I took you to my room, and you fainted there.'' 

''Wasn't I. . . drunk?'' 

''You were, but I'm not sure whether that caused it.'' 

''And why did you take me to your room?'' 

''So that you could rest. There was nowhere else,'' Shuichi explained, but feared that Kaede's questions were prompted by another kind of suspicion. 

''Oh,'' she uttered. They stood in awkward silence. ''I'm sorry if that made you uncomfortable!''