飛行スリッパ
Pai woke up with the sensation of something thick and wet sticking to the back of her throat, blood dripping down her cheek from her nose to her pillow, an uncomfortably warm and wet feeling pooling behind her ear where it rested on the stained pillow.
She coughed, gagging slightly as she pushed herself to sitting upright, her lips pulling back over her teeth in disgust when she felt that wetness sliding down her throat when she swallowed, nausea settling heavily in the pit of her stomach. Her joints creaked like an old woman's when she moved, and she groaned as she looked about herself groggily. Her eyelids were so heavy, and they burned, like the air itself was fire as she tried to keep her eyes open. She had to blink repeatedly and force herself to remain sitting, to keep from flopping back on her bed and going straight back to sleep.
But she couldn't, because she was bleeding again, again, and this time she thought – no, she knew – that the nosebleed was triggered because of the memory, somehow. She knew, with an itchy discomfort, that what she remembered from that, that dream...it was not just a vivid imagination at work.
That was a memory. It was a memory of something that happened to her in the years she was missing. There were too many details she could still recall even now, when usually she immediately forgot the dreams she had. It felt too real to be anything but a memory.
She didn't know what it meant, and that terrified her, because she didn't know what any of it meant.
She rehashed what she could remember, picking out what made sense in the confused slush of her memories as she tried to understand what they could possibly mean. An image flashed before her mind's eye; she was looking at two people walking out of a bakery near Sapporo Station.
One of the two was a man, the other a woman.The man held a neat little bag that showcasesd the name of the bakery on the side. He was tall and wiry, with light brown hair that blew around wildly in the cool spring wind. The woman he was walking with was almost as tall, in fashionable ankle-length boot heels, sheer leggings beneath a jeans skirt and a loose cardigan over a simple sleeveless white t-shirt.
The man was kissing off a little bit of the white vanilla icing from the woman's cinnamon bun from the tip of her nose. He pulled away, and Pai remembered the deep pink blush growing over the woman's cheeks as she teasingly scolded him, glancing around to see if anyone was watching them.
Someone – was.
Even now, miles and years away from that bit of – of memory – Pai could remember feeling the hot and cold flashes she always did when around Hengen. She knew that that man must have been Hengen, and she knew that, if it was a memory and not just some horrific slice of nightmare because of all the stress she felt, both of them - they were dead.
It it wasn't a dream...she was the one who –
No, no, that isn't true. She shook her head, shutting her eyes. There's no way. I would never do that. No.
Pai opened her eyes looking down at her pillow. All thoughts of what she could remember of her dream-memory in sporadic yet startlingly clear fragments fled her mind. She stared blankly at the small puddle of blood, the size of her hand, on it – when she tilted her head, she caught the crimson glisten of it, as if it was still wet.
Her hand shook with tremors that come every day now when she lifted it to her nose and swiped at the blood that leaked out sluggishly. The buzzing gave her an ache at the joints in her wrists. The back of her hand came away with blood smudged on it. She wiped her palm against her cheek to the same result.
Her eyes weighed heavy as she let her hand fall back limply on her lap. She stared out her closed window; through the glass, she could hardly make anything out through the snow that hurled itself in a flurry outside. Even though she wore only a pair of short pyjama bottoms and a baggy, soft t-shirt, she was warm – surprising, considering she hadn't been able to get herself warmed up enough for the last few weeks since being released from the hospital.
She'd been warm for a while now, actually, since visiting Konohana's temple.
She looked down at her wrist. Tied loosely but securely around it was Shin's Mask. Ever since Kouta told her why he couldn't keep it, she had taken to wearing it around her own wrist. She didn't know if she was crossing some unspoken taboo line by doing so, but she didn't feel comfortable leaving it lying around her room, paranoid that anything could happen to it if she didn't have her hands on it at all times.
She startled when there was a knock on the door. A second later, a voice called through.
"Pai? You awake yet?"
Shiori.
She straightened instantly, so quickly she felt her spine creak a little as she threw the heavy blankets off. She turned and yanked her pillow up, twisting it and throwing it back down on the bed so that the bloodied side of it was hidden. She glanced at her hands when she realized that the buzzing had stopped, and they are no longer trembling.
The stark red streaks across the back of her hand reminded her that she'd bled from her nose.
She lifted a hand to her nose; she couldn't answer the door with her face all bloodied, and she couldn't get to the bathroom to wash the blood off without Shiori seeing her. She did not want to go through explaining to Shiori that she remembered something that she couldn't even put words to, that made no sense, and that it somehow triggered a nosebleed. She didn't want to have to see that look of concern and worry she knew would be on Shiori's face. She had done enough to make others worry for her.
She didn't think she could take it if she saw one person look at her with that look on their face; that quiet, pitying look they thought showed their sympathy when it was the last thing she wanted. She didn't want to see it.
She glanced at the window.
She heard a shuffle from the door, and a quieter, "Pai-chan?"
She could keep quiet, and pretend that she was still sleeping. Except, Shiori knew that even the slightest noise could wake Pai up from the deepest sleep. It took a horribly long time for her to fall asleep, and entirely too little to easily wake her. What if Shiori asked later why she hadn't answered?
Or maybe she wouldn't ask at all? Could Pai risk it?
"Give me a minute," she called back, glad she sounded like she had actually just woken up and that the nerves and panic sitting like a festering pit of bubbling oil in her chest didn't make her voice tremble. "I will be out in a minute."
"Yup, okay, no problem." Shiori answered. She sounded relieved. "Take your time."
She crossed the room and quietly pushed the window open. A blast of cold wind hit her in the face, and she felt as though ice was stroking its frigid fingers down her cheeks, especially on the tracks of blood from her nose and on her cheek. She stuck her hands out, cupping them. Once she felt like the snow had battered at her hands for long enough, she brought them back in.
Pai stared at the speckled dots of white fluffiness covering her hands, melting already, for a moment longer before she rubbed her wet palms over her face. She held in a gasp at the frigid touch. It was like her skin was going numb as she rubbed the cold wet snow over her nose and cheeks. When she felt like it was enough, she stepped back and closes the window, wiping her wet face on the edge of her blanket and hoping her face wouldn't look too red when she faced Shiori.
She glanced around her room quickly, looking for anything amiss. Her bed was messy, but that was it. There are no tell-tale bloodstains that she wouldn't be able to explain away without revealing the truth. She looked at the floor beneath the window, and hoped Shiori wouldn't notice the snow that had gotten in. In fact, she should try to keep whatever Shiori was here to see her for to the hall as much as possible.
She wouldn't need to worry that Shiori would notice something wrong if Shiori didn't enter her room at all.
She dragged in a deep breath the settle her frazzled nerves before slowly walking over to the door, wondering why it felt like she was about to walk into a den of lions, and pulled it open.
Shiori looked like she had only just woken up. Her hair was tousled, shoulders slouched, and her eyes were closed. She looked like she was sleeping on her feet. She had been staying up to all hours of the night studying for a History test she took yesterday. It was the last test before the start of the winter semester break, and Shiori wanted to pass it so she wouldn't have to go to school – and a cram school – over the break for supplementary classes and take a make-up test for it.
When she came home yesterday, Shiori marched over to her room – where Pai had been mulling over the Torimaku and making random lists, trying to figure out Shin's true name – and declared that she was going to sleep like the dead for the next two days, before promptly crashing on Pai's bed, actually knocked out cold within seconds. Pai had no idea why Shiori chose her room for this when she had her own more than comfortable bed in her own sizeable room. Kouta came to carry her back to her room an hour after that episode.
So far, Shiori had lived up to her promise. Even Obaasan left her be to sleep as much as she wanted to.
"I thought you said you were not going to wake up again until Sunday," Pai asked.
One eye opened a little. "I am very much aware of that."
"And are you also aware that it is only Saturday morning?"
"Unfortunately, also yes. I blame Daichi-kun." Shiori grumbled as she shuffled to the side to let her forehead rest against the wall.
Pai frowned. "Why?"
"He woke me up to come tell you that they've all gone into the forest to start that simulation thing on Jirou-kun." Shiori mumbled at the wall, eyes closed as Pai watched her fight off a yawn. "He said it'll take a while."
Pai blinked in confusion. "But it is snowing."
She could see the edge of Shiori's eyebrow lift even though Shiori stayed in the same position. "They don't feel weather and temperature like we do, remember? Kouta actually told me once that they can dress up like they're on the beach in the middle of winter and they won't feel a thing. The only reason they don't is 'cause everyone'll stare at them if they do."
Pai thought about how she had to wear multiple pairs of socks over her ridiculously thick pair of winter boots, and still feel like her toes were being nipped straight off her feet, as well as the horrifically uncomfortable sensation of when her feet got too warm once she was in a building with functioning heaters.
Unfair.
"That – is true," she acquiesced. "But I was supposed to –"
"And he told me to make sure you don't try to go out and watch them because it'll be dangerous, even if it's just a simulation. He said the real thing will be dangerous enough without you getting hurt with this." Shiori turned so that she was looking at her, top of her head still resting against the wall. "Pai, are you sure about doing this?"
Pai gave her a look, instantly on guard. "I am the only one who can." Or so Konohana was adamant that she was.
"But you could die. You know that, right? You can see that, right? You could actually die. We just got you back."
Her lips twitched as she looked away. "We need to get Shin-san back, too. You can feel it, Shii-chan. This house is empty without him. Nothing is the same when he is not here."
He was here first.
Shiori narrowed her eyes at Pai, slowly raising her hands to flatten them against the wall before pushing herself off. She took a step to the side so that she was standing in front of Pai again. Her eyes were focused intently on Pai's, a complete turn-around to the slightly dopey look that had been in them only moments ago. Pai followed her movements warily.
It wasn't always easy to predict what Shiori would do. She could switch her moves like a light-bulb flicking on; in a matter of seconds.
"Can I ask you a question?"
Pai nodded, wondering where this was going, what Shiori was thinking, what she would have to say to allay her. "Yeah, go ahead."
"Do you think it's your fault that Shin-san lost his Mask?"
Pai pressed her lips into a tight line and focused her eyes a little lower – still facing Shiori, but looking at her shoulder more than the earnest look in her eyes. "He did not lose it. It was stolen."
Shiori cocked her head to the side. "You didn't answer my question. Do you think it's your fault?"
"I don't –" she paused, breathing in sharply. "I do not think anything about it, Shii-chan. If I had not let myself be taken by the Onihitokuchi, Shin-san would not have had to go to the warehouse to find me. This would not be happening if it was not for me."
Shiori stared at her, brows drawn low in an angry line. "The hell do you mean, you let yourself?" she demanded. "That wasn't your fault. It was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Oni could have taken anyone. It isn't like it was targeting you specifically. When are you going to stop blaming yourself for that?"
But of everyone there, why did it go after me? Me, when even Yori Chiisai don't like my aura.
Her eyes flicked up to Shiori's, watching her silently for a moment. "When you stop blaming yourself for what happened to me." She noted quietly.
Shiori's face shuttered for a moment before she inhaled, about to argue, to deny it, but Pai forged on.
"You are not even listening to your own words, Shii-chan." She said. "You think I have not noticed? I can tell how you feel about what happened."
"It's different with me," Shiori retorted, shifting uncomfortably. "I shouldn't have gone off on my own when it was almost six anyway. I should've stayed with you instead of leaving you alone. I know better, and you didn't. What happened to Shin-san, what's happening to him, that's not your fault. You had no control over what happened."
I could have been stronger.
"Neither did you." She retorted. "You could not know there was an Oni around. We know what Yori Chiisai and Hengen feel like, but we have never come across Oni before. You could not have known it was there, or that it would come after me when it could have gone after anyone else."
"But if I listened to you and we came back home, it wouldn't have happened in the first place." Shiori insisted, so determined to shoulder the blame that a twinge of frustrated annoyance shot through Pai. "Even with what's happening to Shin-san – that's on me. So stop blaming yourself for something that isn't your fault."
"Shii-chan, that –"
Pai cut herself off when a slipper flew through the air – a scant few inches from her nose – and whacked Shiori's shoulder. Blinking, eyes wide, she turned to the right and stared at the dishevelled red-brown curls of Ryu, Shiori's younger brother.
Ryu looked like a copy of his sister, only smaller and a boy. He had the same impish quirk of the lips that made him look like a troublemaker every time he smiled. His eyes were the same shade of rich brown, and his dark brown hair held the same hue of red Shiori's had, although his were only really seen when he stood under the sun.
Both the Matsumoto siblings shared an affinity for sports; Shiori with basketball, and Ryu with baseball. In the first week of school, before everything that had happened with the Oni and the theft of Shin's Mask, Pai often saw Ryu with Shuusei, also fond of baseball. One day she even saw Shuusei teaching Ryu different ways to position himself to get the most out of the swing of his bat, at a little practice field close by. When Shuusei had thrown a practice shot with the ball at him, Ryu hit it hard enough that it flew right across the entire length of the field, knocking against the wire net on the other side.
She was pretty sure there was some hero worship going on from Ryu's end.
Ryu was still in his pyjamas – red and white striped pyjamas that Obaasan bought a matching set of with Shiori in the other set right now – and rubbing his eyes sleepily as he let out a mighty yawn. He was missing a slipper.
"Ryu-kun?" Pai said, surprised.
"What the hell was that?" Shiori snapped, rubbing her shoulder as she bent and picked up the slipper.
"Obaasan told me to hit you with a slipper because you woke her up."
"I wasn't that loud."
"If Obaasan can hear you, you are loud." He deadpanned. He yawned again. "Mornin', Pai-chan."
"Morning, sleepyhead." She replied. She couldn't help smiling as she watched Ryu rub his eyes with the back of his hand, hair stuck up in all different directions.
He peered at her. "Why'd you have tomato sauce on your hair?" he asked.
Pai blinked. "What?"
Shiori turned to her when Ryu gestured at the invisible braid on his head. Pai reached up and touched her hair, looking down and trying to suppress the wave of revulsion that roiled in her stomach when she saw the red splatter on one curve of the braid, so painfully obvious against the snow-white of her hair.
It wasn't tomato sauce.
She looked up, carefully avoiding Shiori's searching gaze as she said to Ryu, "I had some miso soup. Some of the kimchi sauce I added got on my hair."
Shiori wrinkled her nose. "Who puts kimchi sauce in miso soup?" she asked doubtfully.
Pai gave her a defensive look, only because she actually had done it before. It just wasn't last night.
"Have you ever tried it?" she asked, trying to ignore the guilt she felt at lying to Shiori.
"No..."
"Then do not judge."
"When did you have miso soup?" Ryu asked.
"I got hungry at night."
"After dinner? How come Yuki-chan let you eat at night?" he whined petulantly. "She never lets me."
Probably because Ryu had the appetite of a dragon, almost rivalling Haru's. Yukiji expressly forbidding him from the kitchen at night didn't always stop him, either.
Ryu walked over to where the two girls stood to retrieve his slipper. Before he could, Shiori swooped down, snatched it from where it lay by her foot, and whacked it on his shoulder, hard. He just barely managed to step back in time to avoid the second slap she made with the slipper.
"Ow, hey, ow!" he yelped. "What was that for?!"
"Who said you had to listen to Obaasan?!"
"D'you think I want to be killed by my own grandmother?" he demanded indignantly. "Who wants to be killed by their own grandmother!"
"You never really listen to her, though," Pai pointed out, hoping to defuse the argument about to happen, and to derail the conversation from her supposedly eating miso soup would last enough that both siblings forget about it.
"I do!" he protested.
"You do not." Shiori deadpanned. "Ever. Not ever."
"You really don't, Ryu-kun." She agreed.
"Obaasan uses her cane as a weapon of mass destruction. Even actual Daitengu are terrified of her." Ryu yanked his slipper from Shiori's grasp and put it on before it could be used against him for a second time. "I'm the one whose room is next to hers, and she takes her sleep seriously. D'you think I want to be murdered in my sleep because you're the one not letting her sleep? I'm not dying for you, Shii-chan."
"That's –" Shiori started.
"A point for him." Pai finished, shrugging.
Shiori narrowed her eyes at Pai. "What's the score?"
Pai paused for a moment to think about it. "Kouta is first, Ryu is second, Haru third." She reported, and smiled innocently. "You are last."
When they all met – the three almost inseparable for the first six months of their friendship since Ryu could see Ayakashi as well (but they hardly ever took notice of him and didn't bother him like they did Shiori) before Ryu 'outgrew' the girls – Pai's giving out of points to those who said anything she found objectively meaningful evolved into a sort of game that Shiori was constantly trying to win but mostly failing to. Pai kept an actual tally in her head of the scores everyone included in the game.
She may be abysmal at anything to do with math, but she comforted herself with being able to remember numbers easily. Just not how to do much more than add and subtract them. Subtracting was a bit of a stretch, too.
Shiori, exasperated, threw her hands up. "What is this? Why does everyone get points but me?"
"Because you think throwing random nonsense into the ether is a good strategy at possibly saying something that makes sense when that is not the case at all." Pai answered.
Shiori gave her an offended look.
"Nothing you say ever makes sense," Ryu added helpfully. Or not.
Shiori narrowed her eyes and pointed a threatening finger at him. "You are on my hit list, little boy. The only reason I haven't killed you yet is because you're my baby brother. Don't push me."
Ryu raised a sceptical brow. "Obaasan would kill you if killed me."
"No, actually, I think she'd help me kill you. You are an annoying idiot. She'd help me bury you so that no one ever found your corpse."
"Can we not talk about anyone getting killed?" Pai asked, a little nervously.
She knew that it was just barbed bantering, and there was no intention behind the words (beyond Shiori possibly dunking a bucket of red paint on Ryu to make him look like he just stepped out of a horror movie to haunt them all), but the word...it was just a word, but it made her so uncomfortable.
She didn't understand it, but she hated hearing them say that world. It made her feel as if, somehow, her emotions were blunting, like she was turning to stone so as to not feel the hurt of something. This feeling reminded her of the dream-memory, when that was the last thing she wanted to think about.
Shiori glanced at her with a frown, but Ryu just shruggged. "Whatever. I'm going back to sleep."
"Don't you have baseball practice in the morning?" Shiori asked.
"Don't you have basketball practice in the morning?" Ryu parroted.
"I have it at ten."
"I have it at eight."
"Ryu, it's like, six right now. When do you plan on getting ready to actually get to practice?"
"Seven thirty."
"There's no way that's enough time. We have to get through all that snow."
Ryu folded his arms grumpily over his chest. "Excuse me, Shii-chan, but I'm not you – I don't take five hundred years to get ready for practice. Seriously, why do you need to put on mascara or whatever if you're just going to sweat it all off?"
Ryu ducked when Shiori shot down, took off her own slipper, and launched it at his head in record time. He grabbed it from where it fell behind him, turned his head and stuck his tongue out at his sister before trotting away like a smug horse with it in his hand.
"Oi, give it back, you idiot!" Shiori yelled after him.
"Who told you to try hitting me with it?" he shouted back, holding up two fingers and saluting them before turning the corner and bolting away with Shiori's slipper.
Shiori growled, "Pai?"
"Mm."
"We are going to finish this conversation once I get my slipper back."
"Mm." She hummed vaguely, neither here nor there. Out of curiosity, she asked, "Before or after you shave his head for running with it?" it was the one thing that Shiori was guaranteed to threaten Ryu with.
Ryu was particularly protective of his hair. He was trying to grow out the tumbleweed of red-brown curls. Obaasan was forever trying to force him into getting a military-style chop like most other boys his age. Pai wondered if he was trying to grow his hair out because of Kouta keeping his own hair long.
"After I shave his head, hide every shoe he owns, bury his baseball bat where he can never find it in this lifetime, and after I blackmail Shuu-kun to teach him the wrong move or something so that he mortally embarrasses himself in front of his friends."
She said all that, but Pai knew Shiori wouldn't do any of it. Or, most of it, at least. She was not sure Shiori wouldn't hide all his shoes. "This is not only because he took your slipper, right?"
Shiori shook her head. "Little midget put a bucket of water on top of the kitchen door, exactly when he knows I'd be going in to get something to eat after practice. Want to know what else was in that water?"
"No, I do not. Please do not tell me."
"Mud. And worms were still in the mud."
Why are you two like this, she thought disconsolately. Pai had no idea how she escaped some of the more bitter-fuelled pranks the chaotic siblings had played on each other over the years. She could only imagine the horror of being covered in sticky, slimy water filled with wriggling, crawling worms. Her skin broke out in goosebumps just at the thought. "I think I can understand. Good luck."
Shiori looked at her hopefully. Pai could almost see stars shining in her eyes. "Do I get a point for that?"
Pai gave her a deadpan look. "You are just getting revenge on your brother for constantly playing pranks on you. There is nothing meaningful about that."
"It is satisfying, is that it is."
"Not the same thing."
Shiori blew a raspberry. "Fine, be like that. I'll get those points one day."
"One day."
She watched warily as Shiori leaned forward and tugged gently on her braid, right where the now-dried red spot was. "Maybe on that day you'll tell me why you put kimchi sauce in your miso soup in the middle of the night?" she asked, gaze intent on hers, so much so that Pai looked away to the ground.
"Maybe," she mumbled half-heartedly.
Shiori took a step back to go after Ryu, a complicated look on her face, but then she stopped, looking back at Pai. Before anything else, she reached out and draws Pai into a tight hug.
"Love you, Pai."
The hug caught her completely off-guard. She didn't like being touched, but for some reason she couldn't explain, it felt so good to be enveloped in somebody else's arms right now – someone she knew was stronger than her. She felt safe, and warm, and she didn't know how to return the same as adequately. She could only awkwardly reach up and pat Shiori's shoulder as she hugged her back.
"Love you too, Shii-chan."
When Shiori was gone, she lifted her braid and looked at the blood stain on her hair before stepping back and closing her bedroom door behind her. The blood was a rusty colour, already caked hard on the curve of her braid. She picked at it with the tip of her nail until it cracked and falls into her open palm.
She wasn't surprised that Shiori didn't believe that it was kimchi sauce. She wasn't surprised Shiori saw through her lie. If there was one person she had never been able to point-blank lie to, it was Shiori. It could be a little frightening, at times, how easily Shiori could tell when someone is lying to her, as if she had an in-built lie detector. She didn't always confront them about the lie, but Pai could always tell, from looking at her face, when Shiori knew she was being told the truth.
She turned and walked back to her window, blankly watching the swirling snowflakes drifted slowly, lazily down to the white carpeted ground. She could only just make out the dark, faint shape of the treetops of the forest ahead. Somewhere there, the Daitengu were running a test on Jirou to see if he could survive a Torimaku, to see if they could use it to subjugate Shin's Makashi for long enough that Pai could use his true name.
They were risking Jirou and Shin's life in a way she didn't understand, on the off-chance that she would figure out his true name. The were all depending on her, and she still didn't know what his true name was. They needed her to hold up her end of this plan – and she still didn't have the most integral piece of it that she needed to make this work.
She had an ill feeling in the pit of her stomach that this was all in vain. The frustration at not figuring it out yet was like a barbed needle poking and prodding at her side, making her blood run hot with anger at her own futile power to help put an end to what was her fault.
She sighed heavily and sat down on the floor, crossing her ankles over each other as she put her chin in her hand, elbow on knee, and stared out the window. The snow had slowed down from its earlier gale, now a much softer, gentler fall of snowflakes.
How was she even supposed to know when she had figured out what Shin's true name was? No one said anything about it, or gave her any hints. What, was she supposed to just feel when she had found it? Would she be able to feel that it was the right one once she stumbled upon it?
That was how these things went, right? Everything banked on 'feelings'.
She was starting to suspect that that was all a load of bullshit. It was too flimsy a security blanket for her to feel warm and content enough to think she would just know when she found it.
She wasn't just back on square one – she'd never left it, and she didn't know how she was supposed to move on from it.
When the voice whispered across her mind, in an odd space between her ears, both in and outside of her, she didn't immediately realize it. She felt something graze against her, behind her, but not really touching her. It was like someone was watching her, but she was not so out of it that she wouldn't hear the door open behind her.
Or maybe it was Ryu sneaking into her room, trying to hide from his sister on her warpath. It wouldn't be the first time, and Pai didn't blame him for it; Shiori was terrifying when she was angry, and Ryu had been pulling far too many nasty (disgusting) pranks on her as of late. She shifted slightly, starting to look back, ready to roll her eyes if it was Ryu behind her
But the voice didn't sound like him, or Shiori, when it came.
Pai...
She twisted back sharply, craning her neck to glance at the door. It was closed, and there was no one in her room. Ryu wasn't hiding behind her closet like the last time he hid from Shiori. There was no one there. She turned back to look at the window again.
And then she saw it.