静か
The air around her whipped, and something beat through it as a pair of arms came up around her. One settled under her knees and the other curved around her back, smoothly catching her. Pai kept her eyes shut tight, a good part of her unconvinced that she had just been saved from a fall until she felt whoever caught her settle on solid ground.
When she peeled her eyes open, she saw her hand gripping onto the front of Shin's black yukata so tight that for a split second, she was surprised there weren't any tears in the fabric already. She had pulled it open a little, enough that part of his chest was exposed so that she saw the tip of what looked like a white-black wing tattooed on his skin.
She looked up, saw the sharp definition of his jawline, the curled sweep of his long eyelashes, the tangled mess of black hair. She shakily let go of his yukata as he slowly set her on the ground, an arm around her waist to make sure she didn't collapse – which she was immediately grateful for, because her knees wobbled so bad she genuinely worried she would fall without the support, delayed adrenaline pumping through her veins. Her hand felt like it was burning where her fingertips brushed his chest, his bare skin.
"You shouldn't climb so high if you can't fly," he said simply. He looked up at where she had been only moments ago. "From that height, if you landed wrong, you could have broken a bone. Your neck, even."
She followed his gaze, swallowing thickly. She hadn't quite realized just how high she had climbed. It didn't look so high up, from there. It...it could have been a very bad fall. But then again, she wouldn't have slipped if he hadn't scared her.
She looked down again, smoothing her clothes down, hands shaking – but not from anything wrong with her body, just from the shock of thinking I'm falling I'm falling I'm falling I'm going to maybe die, and then simply...not. Her heart was stuttering in her chest, frantically trying to calm down. She felt like she could start hyperventilating.
It was not every day one was saved from a big fall by a man who could fly. It didn't help that said man was objectively attractive. Or maybe it did? She didn't know. She'd rather not dwell on it, even if she could admit she was not blind to what Shin looked like.
Why am I thinking of this right now?
Pai took a deep breath in an attempt to gather her wits, to keep calm and not lose control. It's just Shin. There's nothing to be worried about.
She peeked up at him. His eyes weren't glowing as they had been the last time she saw him, on Monday – Shin was like that. He lived in Ayashi House, but sometimes he could disappear for days, even weeks on end. She didn't know where he went, and she was not entirely sure anyone else did. Kouta must, though, surely; they were best friends.
"Th – thank you, Shin-san." She said gratefully.
He tilted his head in that particular way of his. "What are you doing?" he asked.
Pai glanced back. The basket of fruit she had collected was still there, safe at the base of the tree. "I am collecting some fruit. I want to make a pie for everybody after I come back."
"Come back?" he echoed.
His eyes aren't glowing, she thought, unable to keep herself from making direct eye contact with him. But it still feels like his True Ayakashi is close.
She didn't know why she felt that way, just that she did. It wasn't so much that there was no outward sign of it as it was that she could feel the domineering strength from his True Ayakashi, scratching underneath the layer of civility Shin donned.
Any smart human would look away from those two brilliant blue eyes, but she didn't consider it to be a smart move. She didn't want him to think that she was easy to intimidate. She had noticed it a few times now, how the men could sometimes be almost...animal-like, in their quiet but intense displays of strength and force, even with each other, like they were making sure to keep each other on their toes.
She didn't want to let Shin think she was easy to intimidate, even if she felt it. Or maybe she was just a stupid human, way in over her head in front of a Daitengu whose strength was quietly felt rather than forcefully shown.
Still, she kept her eyes trained on his. "Shii-chan invited me to go shopping with her and her friends."
"I see." Shin replied after a moment, face perfectly blank. "Kouta allowed it?"
She couldn't stop the smirk pulling at her lips if she tried. "I think he would have a hard time convincing her otherwise. He did not back down when he said someone has to go to school with her, but in this, she would not back down if he tries to stop her."
A rare smile twitched at his lips, lifting the corners. Though he still looked moody and mostly closed off, like always, it was like a ray of sunlight falls on him when he smiled. It made him look a little more approachable. Perhaps that was why she did what she did next – she would never do it, otherwise, she would reason later on.
"Shin-san, are you busy right now?" she asked, keeping her tone level and innocent as possible.
Shin's eyebrow arched in a definite look of wary suspicion, so maybe not that innocent. "Not particularly."
"Can you help me then?" she asked. "Get the fruit, I mean. If it is not too much of a bother for you," she added hastily, cheeks tingeing pink at how abruptly forward she was being, without considering that he might be busy. "I cannot reach some of the fruit higher up."
"It's no trouble," he said smoothly.
For a second, she thought she misheard. Then she blinked when she realized he actually just accepted to help her. "Really?"
He hummed in affirmation. "You seem to have quite a lot already, though." He replied, glancing down meaningfully at the basket.
Pai followed his gaze. "That," she pointed at the almost full basket. "Is not taking Haru-san's appetite into account."
Shin's expression didn't change, but she thought she saw a flicker of amusement dart through his eyes when he nodded. He stepped back and walked closer to the tree, looking up at it thoughtfully.
"Which ones do you want?" he asked, still looking up at the tree.
"The ripe ones, to eat sooner rather than later." She called back absently as she went to the basket and picked it up.
"Which ones are those?"
She paused. Slowly, she turned around on the heel of her foot, looking at him with both eyebrows raised, and trying for all she was worth not to appear judgemental. "You...do not know?"
Shin paused, which in itself was strange. He never hesitated in doing anything. He was always so sure of himself, and if he talked more, it would be to the point of cocky arrogance.
"I haven't exactly had cause to pick kaki before." He finally answered carefully.
Oh, she thought, fighting off the amused grin she could feel trying to crawl up her face. I actually know something he doesn't.
"Okay," she said, not letting the laugh bubbling in her chest come out. She walked to him and stood by his side, not quite registering just how little distance there was between them. She pointed up at the fruit she had tried to reach before she fell. "Do you see that fruit, the one up there?"
She felt rather than saw his nod. "The one you were trying to get?"
"Uh-huh, that one. Go for the fruits that are like that. They should be soft to touch, the ones that look like they are full of juice. But not too soft," she warned. "That means it is overripe."
She glanced up at him, and it was only now that she realized how close they were (and a part of her brain helpfully pointed out that Shin hadn't move an in inch, she would have felt it if he did and he didn't). He was looking down at her, paying attention to her rather than the fruit she pointed at. His eyelashes were long, and it sort of looked like they glittered, as he stood under a shaft of sunlight beside the tree. His cheekbones were sharp, shadows beneath the bone from the sun. There was a certain scent that clung to him, something like sandalwood and roses.
It was nice.
Shin moved then, approaching the tree and curling his fingers around the edge of one of the knotholes in the tree. The movement snapped Pai out of whatever reverie she had just fallen into, like a rubber band smacking against bare skin, and she blinked a few times, centring herself.
This is how they did it, she thought distantly, thinking about all the stories she had heard of Hengen drawing humans in with their beauty and wiles. She wasn't even sure Shin – or many Hengen nowadays, for that matter – knew how easy it was, to slip and fall without them even trying.
Throw in their ability of enthralment, and humans were nearly hopeless against them.
It was scary.
Shin was looking the tree up and down, gauging its ability to hold his weight. "How many do you need?"
She shook herself from her wandering thoughts. She took a step back, from him, and held her hands up with her fingers splayed. "Ten."
Shin looked at her, surprise clear in his gaze, eyebrows lifted.
She gave him an unimpressed look at his silent, judging question. "Have you ever made a pie?"
"No," he admitted.
"No cooking experience, no judgement." She said tartly, and threw in a sunny smile just for the sake of it.
The corners of Shin's lips lifted again, and she committed the sight to memory. She could count on one hand how many times she had seen Shin smile, and still have fingers left to spare.
A second later, Shin pulled himself up from the ground onto the tree, climbing so swiftly that he might as well have been floating in zero-gravity. His body was long enough that when he reached for the fruit she had tried to get herself, he picked it easily. She would have been jealous if she weren't staring in poorly concealed wonder at how quickly he moved, like a panther in a tree, completely at home among the twisting branches.
With one hand on a sturdy looking tree branch, Shin looked down at her. "Will you catch this if I drop it to you?"
She nodded, and moved so that she was standing right beneath him. She raised her hands and said, "I will."
Shin waited for her to get in position, then he dropped the fruit. Pai took a small step back as she watched it fall, and easily caught it. She smiled as she put the fruit with all the others.
They worked well and quickly together. Shin climbed the tree, never once faltering, moving so fluidly between the branches that it was like watching an intricate dance play out before her. She made sure she caught every single fruit he dropped to her – she only fumbled once or twice. A few minutes later, her basket was loaded. Any more and she'd have difficulty getting it back to the kitchen – not that it wouldn't be already.
She tipped her head back to look at Shin. He was crouching against the side of the tree, about to leap into flight at any given moment. He had both hands wrapped around two branches on either side of him as he looked down at her, body facing the ground and his back to the tree. He was too high up for her to tell what expression was on his face at that moment.
"Thank you very much, Shin-san," she called up to him, shading her eyes with a hand to her brow. "I think this will be enough."
She saw him nod. Shin pushed himself back so that his back was against the tree.
He let go.
He was high, further up the tree than she was. He let go of the two branches and she watched, amazed, as he plummeted between the branches of the tree, not hitting a single one, before coming to a smooth landing on the ground, right in front of her.
She jumped back in surprise, eyes wide and rapidly blinking as she watched him straighten and calmly adjust the white sash around his wrist, as if he hadn't done anything out of the ordinary.
"Sometimes," she murmured quietly. "I forget that you...are not human."
Shin raised his arm, tapping the sash on his wrist with a finger. "This should remind you that I'm not."
She nodded, eyeing the sash. "I know." It should, but it often didn't .
It looked like an ordinary strip of cloth, white and clean. All Tengu had similar sashes tied around their wrists. She hadd noticed it immediately, most notably with the Daitengu. She had thought it was just something that the Daitengu did, wearing the sash, until she noticed Kanou and Mizutani and Yukiji wearing them as well, and Karasatengu.
She had asked Daichi about it, and he told her that a Tengu's sash was their Mask, and that every Hengen had a Mask, in varying forms. A Hengen's Mask was their single most precious possession, something that no Ayakashi should ever be separated from. Somehow, the Mask was what allowed them to keep control over their True Ayakashi.
It was no surprise that she never saw any of the Tengu without their sash. The sash was their Mask; losing it meant losing control.
Pai looked down at her watch. It was almost 13.30 already. She looked up at Shin. "I have to go, or I will be late. Thank you very much for your help, Shin-san." She said gratefully.
"It's going to be just you and Shiori-hime?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Her school friends, Aoi-san and Natsume-san, they are going to be with us."
"Will it be safe for you?"
She nodded "Shii-chan has her necklace."
Shin gave her a look. "And you?"
And me wha – oh. "I'll – I will be fine. I have my aura to keep Yori Chiisai away."
After a long moment spent searching her eyes – for what, she didn't know – Shin finally nodded.
She took her chance and turned to go, deeming the moment right to do so. She picked up the basket and walked back to the front gate. She was about to press the button to let Karasatengu know to let her back inside when Shin called out to her.
Pai looked back at him. He was still standing beneath the tree, just a few short steps away. For a moment, she was struck by a strong sense of...loneliness, as she looked at him standing there, tall and silent. She didn't understand why it made her so sad.
She pushed the strange feeling away. There was nothing to be sad about; nothing bad had happened.
"Yes?" she asked curiously.
"Remember that some Ayakashi can get past your aura," he said. "Don't rely too much on it."
She paused, frowning a little, wondering at the warning and the strange undertone she caught in his voice. "I...I understand. Thank you, Shin-san."
She wanted to say more, but she didn't know what. For some reason, she was hesitant to go. She didn't want to leave Shin standing there, alone, but she didn't know why. She didn't know what she could say to him even if she did stay.
Shin made the decision for her. He turned and walked away from the wall, towards the cluster of trees in the forest surrounding Ayashi House. She wanted to know where he wass going, but she didn't have time to find out, nor did she feel she had any right to ask him.
What's wrong with me today?
Pai rushed past the gate after Karasatengu let her in, narrowly avoiding a collision with the man himself when he walked out of the security building right next to the gates.
Karasatengu was a tall and big man, physically imposing with his bulking muscles. There wasn't even a hint of hair on his cleanly shaved head, and his eyebrows looked like thick streaks of a mad painter's brushstroke on his sharply defined face. He reminded her a lot of One Punch Man's Saitama. It was impossible to tell how old he was without asking him, and Karasatengu didn't exactly have the kind of personality that made it easy to approach him with such trivial questions.
"Don't run around. You might trip and fall," he warned her gruffly.
"Sorry!" she yelped, bowing in apology. "I am in a hurry, sorry."
Karasatengu nodded gravely. Everything he did seemed to be with a solemn thought in mind. "Be careful not to hurt yourself."
"Yes, Karasatengu-san!" she called back, already walking backwards before she turned and rushed into the house.
Luckily, she didn't meet Haru, or anyone, on her way to the kitchen. There she found Yukiji, staring off into space. She had long, beautiful dark hair that flowed down her back in a cascade of loose curls. Her eyes were big and a warm chocolate brown that could melt anyone's heart when she smiled at them.
Now, though, she looked sad, the look in her eyes distant and making Pai feel a pang of loneliness.
"Yukiji-san, hi," she said, shaking the lonely feeling off, her words almost melding together in her hurry.
"Oh, Pai-chan," Yukiji smiled as she turned to her. The smile came so quick and easy to her that Pai wondered if she really did see that nostalgic look on her face mere moments ago. "What's all that you have there?"
"It is kaki I got from the tree outside. I want to make a pie for everybody later," she answered as she quickly walked to one of the cabinets. She pulled it open, retrieving a large bowl and hurriedly – but carefully – putting the fruit in it. "Do you know where Mizutani-san is? She said she would make sure Haru-san does not get to it before I can make the pie."
Yukiji shook her head as she approached. "I think she's with the kids. Weren't you supposed to be going out with Shiori-hime today?"
Pai nodded. "That is why I am in a hurry. If I do not go get ready now, I will be late."
Yukiji reached over and lightly put her hand on Pai's, stopping her from moving the fruits from the basket to the glass bowl. Pai tried not to immediately shake her off – it wasn't Yukiji, she just hated it when people touched her. She didn't like the sensation of another's skin on hers. It was – she didn't know how to explain it, but it always made something small and scared curl up in her chest, wanting to hide away from everything.
"This is your first time going out, right?" Yukiji asked, smiling sweetly. "Since you came here."
Pai looked up at Yukiji, her heart already calming from its frantic state at the gentle smile aimed at her. "Yes."
"You go ahead and get ready, then." Yukiji said. "I'll take care of this and tell Mizutani that you've brought it. It's very nice of you to make a pie for everyone."
"Oh, thank you so much Yukiji-san," Pai said gratefully. She was about to leave, but she turns back and hesitantly said, "Um...and, Yukiji-san? Is – is there something wrong?"
Yukiji frowned in confusion. She was holding a kaki in one hand, about to put it in the bowl from the basket. "No. Why?"
"No, it – it is just – you looked like you had something troubling you," Pai stammered.
Yukiji shook her head, smiling. "I'm just thinking about my sister. I haven't heard from her in a while." She flapped her hand at Pai in a shooing gesture. "It's fine, nothing you need to worry about. Go on – I'm sure Shiori-hime is waiting for you."
Pai bowed slightly to Yukiji's smiling face as she turned and sped out of the kitchen. She slowed to a walk when she saw Yuu – with his bright halo of brown-gold hair and perpetual scowl on his darkened brows – walking towards her.
She gave him a small bow. "Good afternoon, Yuu-san."
He only nodded silently to her as he passed her by.
When Pai finally made it to her bedroom, it was to find Shiori already there, standing in front of her closet with her hands on her hips. She didn't look mad, but she wasn't entirely happy either. Her foot tapped impatiently on the floor.
"I don't know what you were doing to make you late like this," Shiori began as Pai hung on the doorframe of her room, panting after her mad dash. "But I've already picked out clothes for you that won't make you look like Obaasan."
Pai took one final, deep breath as she pushed off the door. "Obaasan wears hanbok from Korea. I do not own anything like that."
"Fine, any grandmother." Shiori amended. She pointed at something in Pai's closet. "Look, dude, you even have on of those jackets grandma's wear when it gets cold."
Pai instantly knew which jacket she was talking about, "It was on sale."
"Where?"
"The Lucky store in Kita 24."
"There were other clothes on sale too. I was there. Why did you go for that jacket."
Pai opened her mouth as if to rebut any judgement about her choice of clothes, but shut her mouth because...there were other things on sale too.
Shiori smirked triumphantly at her as she continued. "The point is, you're going to look cute now, because I am here to save you from looking like a grandmother."
"I thought the aim of this outing was to go shopping."
"That, my friend, goes hand in hand with looking cute."
"Cute means being uncomfortable."
"Calm down, my child." Shiori said, waving her hand. "I took your personality and likes and dislikes into account."
"Did you really?" she asked suspiciously.
Shiori placed her hand over her heart. "I am deeply offended that you think I didn't."
"Past experiences with you have taught me to be wary."
"Now you're just being mean."
"Being mean and being cautious are two different things."
"Oh my god," Shiori rolled her eyes – but she was still smiling, as if she didn't think Pai was being serious, which, she was – and said, "Come on, just get dressed, hurry, hurry." She pulled out some clothes before marching over to Pai and handing them over. "Hurry, we'll be late!"
"Yes, yes, sorry," Pai replied, giving up and just going with the flow and praying that Shiori actually took her borderline-non-existent fashion sense into account.
She slid the door closed behind her and began shrugging off her comfortably large trousers. She didn't feel insecure or shy about changing in front of Shiori – the two had done it often enough when they were children.
She did do it as often, though, due to the painful-looking scar that lashed across her lower abdomen, even if the actual wound had long since healed and no longer pained her as it once did. She wasn't particularly ashamed of it – sometimes it fascinated her, in an odd way, too look at it and feel the ridged healed tissue – but she didn't like the guilty look that crossed Shiori's face whenever she saw the scar, so she tried to keep Shiori from seeing it whenever she could.
Pai pulled on the clothes Shiori's laid out for her after she took off her own. Shiori's choice was one of Pai's least favoured t-shirts, simple and dark blue with short sleeves. Shiori called it a crop-top, since it ended above Pai's belly button, which was why she never wears this shirt with anything that wasn't high enough to cover her stomach. She still had no clue why she bought this shirt to begin with.
Pai was about to pull on the second article of clothing when she looked at it properly, then turned to Shiori. "These are not mine."
"I said you'd look cute, didn't I? Unfortunately, you quite literally have almost nothing that goes in that category, and I mean that without a single drop of irony." Shiori shrugged, entirely unapologetic at insulting Pai's – admittedly non-existent – fashion sense. "I had to improvise."
Pai sighed and pulled the clothing on, a pair of high-waisted pale yellow trousers, cinched enough to fit around Pai's waist, and flaring out to wide legs. Pai frowned at the trousers suspiciously; she didn't own anything like this, had never seen them before, yet they fit perfectly.
She turned her suspicious gaze to Shiori, who merely grinned at her as she handed over a pair of ballet flats that matched the colour of the trousers. Thankfully, Pai actually recognized these as her own shoes.
"I was right," Shiori remarked smugly. "You look cute!"
"Hm," Pai hummed, neither here nor there. She brought her braid to rest over her shoulder, frowning at it. "Should I do something with this?"
Shiori put a finger to her lips as she cocked her head to the side, scrutinizing Pai's hair. She walked behind Pai, bringing the braid back with her. Pai stood still as Shiori slipped the hair tie at the bottom off and handed it to Pai. She could feel Shiori's fingers stroking through her hair as she pulled it this way and that. It felt nice.
Pai remembered that her sister, Midori, used to comb her hair after she'd taken a bath and braid it for Pai at night. Her heart throbs uncomfortably at the memory.
"Hold it like this," Shiori commanded. She took Pai's hand and brought it up so that Pai held her hair securely in place. Shiori quickly pulled open her closet and took out a few pins and the scrunchie Pai usually wore to school. She came back and gently eased the bundle of Pai's hair into the scrunchie before she began sticking in the bobby pins in a seemingly random order around Pai's head.
"Okay, all done." Shiori stood in front of Pai and upraised her handiwork. "Maybe I should be a celebrity hair stylist. This isn't so bad."
"If it's bad," Pai warned with an eyebrow raised. "I will not step out of this room until you fix it."
"I thought I was the dramatic one here."
Pai gave her a blunt look.
Shiori snickered. "You could've seen how you look if you had a mirror in your room, but you don't, and we don't have time to go to my room, so too bad."
"Your room is next door."
"So you're just going to have to trust me on this when I say you look cute and fine, okay? Okay." Shiori steamrolled right over Pai as if she hadn't said anything, and turned to the door. "Come on, let's go or we'll actually be late."
Pai sighed and grabbed her handbag (the one and only one she had, because she just didn't understand needing more than...maybe two. With one being a backpack for going to the supermarket), slinging it across her shoulder as she followed behind Shiori.
Who stopped by her own room to grab her purse.
Pai gave her an entirely unimpressed look, to which Shiori merely shrugged in a 'what can you do' way, as if that helps mattered.
They made it to Taiyou Café five minutes early. As they walked past the large windows of the café, Pai managed to catch a glimpse of her reflection. Shiori had fixed her hair in a half-up half-down fashion, with most of it in a bun at the top of her head, held in place by her scrunchie. The pins felt like what was keeping most of the bun in place, though. Loose tendrils of hair coiled around the nape of her neck and framed her face in wispy curls.
If she can manage this with one scrunchie and a dozen hair pins, Pai found herself admitting. She wouldn't do bad as a hair stylist.
She wondered, though, if she would get a headache from all the bobby pins. She didn't have a good relationship with them.
Pai walked in behind Shiori as she pushed open the door, the bell twinkling pleasantly overhead, and the simultaneous calls of 'welcome' from the staff greeting them. Aoi and Natsume were already here. They were seated at a booth in the far right corner of the café, excitedly chattering about something. Natsume's back was to the door so she didn't see them come in, but Aoi was facing the door, and her face immediately broke out into a wide grin as she waved them over.
"Hey, sorry we're late." Shiori said as she took a seat in the booth beside Aoi.
Pai shot her a look. What late, we're five minutes early.
Pai followed suit and sat next Natsume, who beamed at them. A waiter materialized next to their table – Pai denied that her heart gave a little stutter at how suddenly the waiter appeared – and Shiori ordered oolong tea while Pai asked for a cup of coffee. Aoi and Natsume already had their drinks with them.
"Nah, it's cool," Natsume waved her hand. "At least you made it. Hey, Pai-chan."
"Hello," Pai answered, with a little bow of her head. It was hard for her not to feel awkward, even though she knew the way she answered was perfectly fine. If a little polite.
It was fine.
"Okay, so." Aoi started, her voice bright and happy enough that Pai wonders if it was tiring being so...bright, all the time, it seemed. "You guys have to be back at Shiori's by six, right?"
Pai and Shiori nodded, and Pai didn't fail to notice how casually Aoi said that, not batting an eye at the fact when Pai knew that most girls their age – and anyone with any semblance of a social life, really – didn't really care what time they returned home. At least until ten o'clock.
Were Aoi and Natsume already used to this?
"Then, we've got about four hours to hang out. Let's have fun!" Aoi bounced in her seat excitedly. The waiter came by and quickly dropped off Pai and Shiori's drinks before making himself scarce. "Oh, by the way, Pai-chan, did you do your hair yourself? I love it, it's really cute."
"Actually, Shiori did it for me." Left to her own devices, Pai would have left her hair in a braid and been done with it.
"Oh my god, really?" she said, turning to Shiori. "I had no idea you were this good with hair. No fair!"
Shiori laughed disbelievingly. "What's not fair?"
"You're like, good at everything. Sports, hair, and you're cute too." Aoi pouted, as if she wasn't the living embodiment of 'cute' without being overbearing.
"I'm good at one sport, idiot. Have you seen me trying to play baseball?"
Have you seen you cook? Pai thought as she took a sip of her coffee.
Natsume giggled. "You look like a drunk sailor waving his bottle around."
Shiori smirked. "Nice analogy. I'm terrible at baseball, Aoi-chan. Shuusei-kun's way better." She blinked. "Tell him I said that and I'll shave you bald."
Aoi laughed. "Yeah, yeah, I won't say a word." She mimed zipping her lips and tossing the key over her shoulder.
"Where is he?" Pai asked curiously. The four of them seemed to be remarkably close, from what she had seen. She was expecting that he would be here too.
Aoi sighed while Natsume chortled at the idea. "He'd rather eat broken glass than come shopping with me." Aoi said.
"Why?"
"Last time, I dragged him all over the city looking for this really cute shirt I'd seen in a shop the other day," she answered. "I couldn't get it when I first saw it because I was driving home from a festival with my parents."
"He was dead tired when he came back home," Natsume said. "He kept mutter 'never again, never again'. It was so funny."
Pai put her chin in her hands as she listened to the girls talk, the three of them more than enough to carry the conversation without her needing to say anything.
This is nice, she realized with a start. It was nice to just sit with other girls her age and listen to their chatter as they talked. It made her feel like she was a normal girl out and about with friends.
The cold on her nerves, dancing along her spine, was still there. She could still see Yori Chiisai through the windows of the café amongst the throngs of people outside. But it was like all that – all the supernatural aspects of her life – weren't entirely real. Or rather, like they belonged to a different person. All of felt so apart from her, in this moment.
They finished their drinks, paid, and left Taiyou Café. They wandered down the lively streets of Sapporo for a while, heading into shops Pai had never visited before and some that she had, trying on enough clothes to put on the backs of an entire army (reminding Pai of why she didn't like shopping to begin with), laughing and joking with each other.
Aoi was insistent on using Pai as a mock model to try on the clothes, reassuring her that she was not that short (she was not, she was just surrounded by tall people. When most of your time was spent around people averaging six feet in height, it was easy to feel that she was a midget next to them).
The day passed by quickly.
At three thirty, they had a late lunch at a new ramen shop that opened up in ESTA. By their feet were bags full of all the things they'd bought, more of them by Shiori and Aoi's side than at Pai and Natsume's.
Pai only bought a few things; a fancy bejewelled hair pin with dangling silver streamers that Shiori insisted Pai get to wear at festivals, a t-shirt with a grinning cartoon Cheshire cat, and a pair of three-quarter black pants with gold clips for the belt.
She couldn't even begin to catalogue all the things Shiori had bought – several pairs of blouses in different shades, t-shirts, two pairs of mini-shorts, some jeans and trousers, and too many shoes to bother counting. Natsume and Shiori were talking about playing some sort of prank on Shuusei while Aoi talked to him on the phone.
It was nice. She was having fun, more than she thought she would. It always took her a while to warm up to people enough that she wasn't on edge whenever she was around them outside of school.
Then everything went wrong.