floor burns | hxh

ii. SINFUL

罪深い

One day Miss Abaki tried to run. It was February, Sakiko thinks, when she had been sleeping on the floor, waking up to the sound of silence and no one was there. Her father was gone again, and Mr. Time disappeared as always. But Miss Abaki who always stayed with her when no one did —she left her.

And Sakiko looked everywhere too. She looked under the bed, in each drawer and cabinet in the kitchen, under the round small table even though she knew, Abaki would never fit in there. She even checked in the bathroom toilet and behind that large mirror but, Miss Abaki wasn't there.

The little girl screamed, and she screamed, but no matter how loud or long she did, nothing happened. Not even when she fell to the ground and threw her fists and feet forward and back as if she was hit by a stroke or a heart attack. (She supposes it might have actually been a heart attack, because her heart had never beat with such ferociousness and fear.) Miss Abaki didn't appear even when her voice broke and all that was left was a raspy tone of desperation. Not even when those people with the same old outfits busted into the room, and saw her there alone—in horror. Not even when they took her away and she passed out and all she could hope for was that it was all a bad dream. Nothing.

When she awoke, she was no longer in the same room. It was cold and the dried tears on her face made her wince in discomfort, but at least the room was the same. She was in another empty desolate place, but when she looked up—her father was there.

He stares at her with a smile, the same revolting smile with cracked lips and narrowed eyes. His ugly, ugly body moving, edging closer and yet farther, as if he were a never-ending nightmare. She jumps in so much joy and terror and isn't that love? So because Sakiko loves Hisoka, she gets up jolting towards him. However he sidesteps her and pushes her enough that her back hits the cold mattress with a thud and unfortunately—her head against the hard bed frame.

"Now, now. Settle down. It's not nice to attack your father before you say hello."

"Hello... father." Her eyes are full and round and all she can really make out around the colored moving blurs in her eyes is his rage. Something stings, and she isn't sure where.

"Much better." He smiles again, and this time he caresses her cheek with a fingernail, stopping at the edge of her jawline.

"Father," Sakiko chokes out the words, wanting to cry and anyone to hug her, but he deepens his nail embedded in her skin and she winces, "Abaki is gone."

"I know." He whispers, wiping the blood dribbling from her chin, "Go back to sleep Little Miss."

And she did, her eyes closing for who knows how long. The blood dripping from her matted hair made sure of that.

Groggily Sakiko wakes up once more, but this time, she hears sobbing. She slowly turns her in the direction of the noise, and walks forward to it, the whining sound coming from the bathroom. That voice, it's so eerily familiar and at the same time it is so strange to hear. Another cry juts out, this time louder and the faint sound of water running in tiny droplets in the shower is heard.

Quietly, Sakiko's tiny hand reaches over to turn the knob and she edges closer to the shower curtain. Pulling it open, there, she sees a woman sitting down hold her knees together shaking as her cries continue. She's in the bathtub, and the water is scalding, spraying everywhere. Sakiko stares at her for a moment, before saying in a breathless sound, "You're back."