Waiting for Sunday

chapter 22 - map to nowhere

Buttery afternoon melts slowly into evening and then into inky night, and the room turns from gold to deep indigo, and Nao is still sleeping.

Against her better judgment, Mira places a pillow beneath his head and drapes a throw blanket over his body and lingers, splitting her attention between the sun sinking beneath the flat horizon of the Kamiya farm and Nao's slackened face.

The witch's son is more fitful in his sleep, a perpetual frown wrinkling the skin between his thick eyebrows, his mouth twitching, mouthing words Mira doesn't recognize and either way are not for her. Apparently his ease with the world only applies so long as it's waking.

Hoshi nudges her thigh, and she glances at him, his eyes clear and black, glistening like obsidian. A mournful bird sings low and haunting into the empty night, turning the back of Mira's neck to gooseflesh, pricking one of Hoshi's curious ears.

She gets up and Hoshi tracks her, following her into the kitchen and watching as she refills his food and water bowls. "What's it like?" she whispers, crouching in the dark and passing her hand back and forth between his ears. "Being made and not born?"

Hoshi does not respond, either because he's too absorbed in his meal, or because he has no way of understanding her. So Mira sighs and traces the same path she has for the last three hours—living room, window, kitchen, kitchen, window, living room—until she finds herself beside Nao again, hovering a flat hand over his mouth and nose. A periodic check she hasn't been able to stop herself from completing at intervals.

This time, Nao's eyes flicker open. If his conscious self is surprised to find her there, it doesn't show on his face.

"Good morning, sweetheart," he says, the drawl in his voice thicker in this state between consciousness, like he's dragging every word through honey. "You stayed."

The moonlight douses them both in light blue, the dancing shadows of ferns across Nao's face making it seem like they've entered some underwater realm. "Just doing my job," Mira says, her voice on the very edge of a whisper. "Making sure you didn't die."

Nao's mouth forms a hesitant smile at this. "I didn't die."

"No, you didn't," Mira agrees. "I'm glad."

Nao is silent for a moment, though the constant chirruping of crickets in the reeds outside fill the space easily enough. He turns his head so his eyes are fixed on the ceiling. "I like this," he says, though in a strange way that makes Mira question if he's even really talking to her. "I'm so used to waking up in the dark with no one there but my shadow."

Before Mira can ask or decide if she was going to, Hoshi comes bounding into the living room, sniffing Nao and trying to lick at his face before Nao laughs and nudges him away. With a groan Nao drags himself upright. He asks Mira, "Want a drink?"

It proves to be a rhetorical question. Ignoring Mira's insistence that he take it easy—literal soul searching can't be easy on the body, after all—he swings himself to his feet and rolls into the kitchen, where he shoves corked jars and old planters away until he recovers a bottle of red wine and a single wide-mouthed wine glass.

"I had two," he says mournfully. "One of 'em broke."

He pops the cork and the scent of it unfurls, sweet and vinegary, into the air. Mira says, "Nao."

"Mhm?"

"The first time we met, you told me Felix was lying. Now you're lying, too."

Nao's buzzed black hair is rimmed in silver from the starlight, an eclipse that dazzles but doesn't blind. He fills the glass and hands it to Mira, his gaze holding hers, unapologetic, unflinching. "Not lying, just thinking," he says. "I don't wanna tell you something I ain't sure about myself, yet."