Ink Stained

104: the Mizushima family*

水島家族

There was something wrong with Yukiji.

She acted as she did every day. She wasn't ill, and she teased the kids and the Daitengu same as usual, putting up with Haru's thieving ways when she so much as whispered that she was going to cook something (Pai had a sneaking suspicion that half the reason Haru risked venturing into the kitchen was to flirt with Yukiji, even with Obaasan's cane calling his name). She laughed at the jokes thrown around the house, helped out with whatever Kanou needed her to do. She smiled at everyone.

That was what told Pai that there was something wrong. Her smile was the same, but dimmed. The bright lights that flickered in Yukiji's eyes when she gave a genuine smile, as if she'd trapped the stars in her eyes, had died.

Haru was the first to notice something off with Yukiji. Pai could tell that from the way he tracked her every move, keeping a close eye on her for several days even though he put on false appearances as well and acted like nothing was wrong, like he wasn't watching his childhood friend unravelling and trying to hide it from everyone. It was late afternoon that day, when she was going to help Mizutani wash the dishes, that Haru pulled her aside where no one else would see them. He wanted to ask her if she could find out why Yukiji was 'off' when she went to help her put the kids to sleep that night, if there was something wrong that she didn't want to tell anyone.

"She does that a lot," he'd said, a tender expression on his face that Pai was certain he had no idea he was making. "She thinks that all the problems in the world are hers alone, and that no one should be bothered by them but her." At that, he ruffled her hair in a manner wholly unlike him; it was gentle, done more like a reassuring big brother than with the sole purpose of messing it up. "Kind of like you, actually."

He'd laughed when he did that, telling her that Shin acted like a territorial tiger whenever Haru fluffed her hair. She didn't laugh with him – she could see that he was trying to deflect her focus of attention away from him, from the way he worried about Yukiji.

Pai couldn't get his words out of her head, though. She'd spent months slowly driving herself mad with all kinds of thoughts that bred worry and fear like a pit of poisonous scorpions in her belly. In hindsight, she could see how foolhardy most of her endless anxiety had been – but she certainly hadn't thought that in the moment.

She'd thought that if she ever told anyone of what she was facing, she would lose everything she cared about in the blink of an eye. She had been so sure of it, in fact, that she probably wouldn't have ever said anything if Aihara hadn't changed the game by revealing the existence of Hanyou, and of Pai being one. The fact that all of that anxiousness had been mostly for nothing except to cause her unnecessary stress only hit her afterwards.

What if that was what was happening with Yukiji now? What if she felt like there was no way she could tell anyone of what was bothering her because she didn't think anyone would care, like it didn't matter in the face of everything else that was happening?

She didn't want Yukiji to feel like she had to suffer all alone with the weight of her worries. Not like she had.

Pai paused outside the kitchen, her hand resting on the wood of the door. Behind her, a troop of Burabura floated along the ceiling, checking the lights to make sure everything was working properly. Animate straw sandals, Bakezori, carried some of the Daitengu's shoes on what she assumed to be their backs. She squinted, and saw that the Bakezori were carrying those shoes that needed mending. Shiori's basketball shoes were included, and Pai hoped, for the Bakezori's sakes, they returned the shoes before Shiori realized they were gone. She was absurdly possessive over them.