Ink Stained

15: long time no see*

The yukata is made from gleaming black silk with oriental pink roses and blue leaves attached, branches of cherry blossoms, ribbons decorated over its expanse, and the collar is made of a frilly white material Shiori has no name for. It has a wide belt, of a pink that matches the roses and ribbons scattered over the rest of the yukata, which is tied on loosely. A single tear comes to rest on the corner of her lip, and she hastily wipes it away against her shoulder as she pushes the yukata back into place.

She remembers the last time she wore that yukata – it had been to the Toro Nagashi festival. She was still shorter than Pai, then. Pai has only grown a few inches since.

Shiori startles, remembering what she's supposed to be doing and realizing what's happening. She looks around herself, searching out anything that doesn't seem to be in place, and finds nothing. Everything looks as she had always kept her room to be.

She crosses the short expanse of the room to the window. Glancing out, she sees the neighbourhood that she had lived in since she was born and until her parents died.

The house Shiori grew up in, and in a closely-held part of her she still considered to be home, is built on a street that slopes upwards, on a low-rising hill that leads into the centre of the city after a good fifteen-minute drive. Each house built on the street stands perpendicular to the slope, each has two floors, and each has a little front and back yard. Some of the people who live on this street built little swing sets for their children. Others cleared away the grass and plants and paved it to install a basketball hoop to the side of the house. At the side of the house is a small garage that can comfortably house a single car.

It's all exactly as she remembers. There's no 'discrepancies' that she can see.

But there is also not a single soul out on the street.

The whole neighbourhood is deserted, without even a breeze to ruffle the leaves of the closely clustered trees planted at regular intervals along the sidewalks. The atmosphere of the whole place is oddly eerie. A wave of goosebumps rise over her arms as she looks around, finding no signs of life at every turn. Shiori looks to her right and sees the shadows of climbing skyscrapers and buildings against the backdrop of a huge sunset that swallows the entire horizon.

Shiori backs away from the window and looks down at herself. She's wearing what she had been when she drank the jade water and entered her own subconscious lucidly; a pair of beige cut-off slacks and a plain baby blue shirt that is two sizes too large for her. Her feet are bare. Her hand comes up to her neck, looking for a source of comfort in so bizarre a setting despite its familiarity, only to remember that Kanou has her necklace.

She swallows, trying hard to ignore the rising uneasiness at being separated from Kouta's gift to her.

Shiori turns and leaves the room, walking quick enough that it shows how discomfited she is by all this. Years of doing the same thing are ingrained in her, and she knows to get to the living room she needs to go down the short length of the hall, turn left, go down the light brown staircase, and make an immediate right. She stops at the threshold of the living room, staring all about her.

There, in the corner of the room, is her father's favourite armchair, the one he likes to sit in when reading the newspaper, or a book, or some papers he had to bring home with him to go through for work. There is the short table with zabuton set on each side and a long couch set against one wall, the floor covered in tatami mats. In the other corner of the room is a big box that's full of all kinds of toys, a few strewn about the floor nearby. There is a shelf full of books crammed between the wall and the couch. It makes for a fairly impressive collection, filled with all sorts of books; fictional novels, children's storybooks, works on economics and politics.