Youth

#35 - Maze of Corridors

[Y/n] hadn't slept last night — sleeping was difficult when all she could think about was the map, the shoebox and everything else.  She'd used a spare piece of paper that she'd taken from Draka's room to redraw what she could see of the map from her place in the bedroom, just in case the magical object was revealed to be missing and taken away from her.  The box was now under her bed (only temporarily) and she leaned down to reach for it, pulling it up with her.  Rooting through the box, she found several items she hadn't noticed before — a few bobby pins, two small balls of yarn, clothing glue, five hairbands, some card and another blank piece of paper.  [Y/n] thought for a while before an idea popped into her mind.

Picking up the bobby pins, she walked over to her door.  Had she seen videos of people lock picking in movies?  Yes.  Had she ever seen a guide on how to actually do it?  No.  But had she played video games in which lock picking was a feature?  Kind of.  Well, if she didn't try she'd never know. 

She fiddled about with the lock for a while, trying to get to grips with lock picking with a bobby pin.

A sharp noise sounded from the door, but sadly not the click she wanted.  [Y/n] removed the bobby pin from the lock which had snapped in half, the other half falling to the floor.  So maybe lock picking wasn't the best idea she'd ever had.  She picked up the other half of the bobby pin and walked back over to the shoebox.  Letting it drop back inside, she rooted through it again.

Another idea popped into her mind.  She glanced over to the door, then back at the box.

She removed the clothing glue, yarn, card and one of the pins from the pincushion.  She folded the card so she could tear a clean rectangle off of if, before snapping the yarn and using the clothing glue to make it double back on itself (for stability).  She then pushed the pin through the card a few times before looping the doubled yarn through the new hole.  By the end of it, she had a piece of card on the end of a string of yarn.

[Y/n] walked over to the mosaic door.  There was a small gap above the lock in the crack of the door.  So, [Y/n] pushed the card in the door, sitting it on the lock, and used the clothing glue to stick the yarn to the doorframe with some give so the card could drop down a little.

She returned to her bed and placed all the other items back in the shoebox, before quickly making her way over to her wardrobe to hide it again.

Once said box was hidden, all she had to do was wait.

* * *

"[Y/n], I'm coming in," Seishin's voice called from the other side of the door.  [Y/n] glanced up from her bed (where she'd decided she would get another hour or so of sleep), watching her door creak open.  Seishin held a plate of something in his hand.  He shut the door behind him.  "Good morning," he greeted, which was an odd thing for Seishin to do.  [Y/n] wondered what had gotten him in such a good mood.

"Morning," [Y/n] responded quietly, mostly out of obligation and old habit.

"I hope you like this because to me it smells disgusting," he huffed, looking down at the food, before passing it to [Y/n].  It was quite the breakfast - scrambled eggs, toast, bacon, a couple of sausages and some baked beans.  Very British, [Y/n] thought.

"I think you find most things disgusting," [Y/n] responded, a comment on Seishin's contemptuous nature.  He rolled his eyes.

"Just eat it would you?" he muttered, before walking over to her bedside table and picking up the necklace Aytsa made her.  "I presume Aytsa made this for you," he hummed, his eyes then drifting over to the music box and quill.  [Y/n] hesitated before nodding her head, and he placed the necklace down.  "So materialistic..." Seishin sighed.