私の声が聞こえる？
Bibari. Bibari. Bibari. Paaaaiiii.
She continued to stare blankly out through her window, lying on her side with her blanket entangled around her legs. Her bones were heavy as lead. Her throat was thick with a ball of pent-up emotion she was desperately struggling to keep contained, to keep it from exploding out of her and cutting into the people around her.
Just the thought of getting up and going about the day made her stomach roll sickeningly. Her head ached with a steady pounding, and images repeatedly flashed by in the darkness of her eyelids whenever she blinked.
She was afraid to blink. She was afraid to close her eyes. She didn't want to see what was waiting for her if she did.
The black thing covering Shiharu's face leaped off a split second before it could be squashed by the train, flinging itself into the open air behind Shiharu and disappearing into nothing as soon as it was not physically touching her anymore.
Her head snapped against the metal side of the train as it drove into her body. Her arms slapped against each other, twisting at unnatural angles when colliding with the train. She could just see the beginning of blood spray out from a large gash the sharp front of the train split into Shiharu's neck and shoulder.
That is not what your heart cries over, Pai.
The voice – she – was right. That wasn't what made Pai feel like she was getting crushed under the weight of her guilt, of her indescribable sorrow. Being forever subject to reliving the moment she watched Shiharu die would be better than the knowledge that lay behind what happened; Motomi Shiharu was not possessed when she died.
Pai didn't know if she was right. She wasn't sure she wanted to know if she was. She had to force her mind away from the terrible, sickening memory every time it drew near, every time it wandered too close and threatened to drag her down into a dark pit of despair that threatened to swallow her whole. But there, just on the fringes of the memories she tried to push away, she kept seeing Shiharu's eyes widening, her lips parting, horrific realization darkening her face as she realized where she was, what was about to happen.
Pai flinched, and shut her eyes as tight as she could. Little bursts of dark red neon lights filled the blackness behind her closed eyes for a moment before she eased and opened her eyes slowly. She curled herself into a ball, pressing her clenched fists tight against her chest and trying to hold herself together, to keep from breaking apart like she so badly wanted to.
Why won't you answer us? We know you can hear. For a year you couldn't, but now you can. You can't trick us when we are here with you. Or...are you trying to lie yourself?
She refused.
She would not respond to this incessant chattering of the voice in her head. If she did, it would be admitting that the voice was real, that it was there, that she wasn't alone in her own mind. She didn't know what she was supposed to do if she let herself believe that there was something – someone – sharing her mind. Where was she supposed to run when she couldn't be in the private silence of her head?
That girl was weak. She was prey. She deserved to die. Why do you grieve so over her? Someone died, so what? So many someones die every day. The world doesn't care. It goes on, spinning and living regardless of those who aren't there to spin and live with it anymore...you think you could have done more to stop it?
She gulped and turned so that she was lying flat on her back. The voice – she, she – had an uncanny ability to tell exactly what it was she was thinking. Even her feelings were no longer private, no longer hidden. She saw everything, all the hopes and fantasies and nightmares and
You didn't used to care so much about those marked for death. Even those you put down yourself.
A light tapping knock sounded at the door.
Slowly, body heavy as lead, bones creaking and muscles groaning in indignant protest, she pushed herself up from her pillow. She sat with her shoulders hunched over in a heavy slouch for another ten seconds before the knock came again. She stood, wincing at the popping her knees and elbows made when she unfolded herself to standing.
She went to her closet and opened it, took out her watch, and stared unblinkingly at the time before her brain finally registered it. 09.12 AM. Far later than she usually woke. Then she walked over to the door. She slid it open and stared at Shiori, who wavered uncertainly outside the door.
"Uh, hey." Shiori mumbled, lifting a hand in an awkward greeting. She shifted from foot to foot. "Morning."
...am I supposed to say something...?
Good morning, incumbent yet useless princess.
"Morning."
Shiori's eyes widened slightly at her use of informal speech, something Shiori had grown accustomed to not hearing with her. Then Shiori looked back down at her fingers fidgeting restlessly with the straps of a backpack she had slung on her left shoulder. Pai noticed the bag. Shiori was wearing jeans and a warm elbow-length sleeved black t-shirt that she only ever wore when going out. It mildly stirred her curiosity where nothing else had for a long time now.
"Where are you going?" she asked in a monotone.
"Um." Shiori ripped a long string off the strap. Her eyes flattened out to the likened expression of a dead fish as she lifted the dangling piece of thread that swayed in the quiet breeze wafting through the halls of the house. Pai stared at the thread before lifting her eyes up to Shiori.
"I'm, uh..." Shiori sighed heavily, closed her eyes, and said in purposeful determination, "Do you want to go to Satozuka Cemetery with me?"
Pai stared blankly at her. A niggling worm of nausea coiled tight in her stomach. She pressed her lips into a fine line, suppressing the urge to be sick. Why are you asking me to come with you? "Why are you going to Satozuka Cemetery?"
She sounded so empty. So dead.
"The funeral was only for close friends and family." Shiori replied quietly. She was studiously avoiding Pai's eyes. "I thought – I thought that maybe you'd want to come with me. To pay our respects to Motomi-san. It's been two weeks. And I thought I'd go to see my parents, too."
What good is paying respects to the dead? They can't receive it. Yomi-no-kuni receives nothing from Ashihara-no-nakatsukuni.
Pai remained silent for a very long time. It was not from hesitating over how to answer Shiori. It was because she was struggling not to snap at the voice in her head.
Shiori, however, didn't know that. She continued speaking in a harried, nervous voice that was a little too high-pitched to be normal. "I know that you probably don't want to go, especially after what happened in the bathroom with Teke Teke, and everything, but I just – I thought maybe – "
She swallowed thickly. "I'll go."
Shiori cut herself off abruptly. "You – you will?"
"Give me fifteen minutes." In an effort to recollect herself, to ground herself in the norm and in reality, she slipped back into formal speech. "I will meet you at the gates."
Pai stepped back and slid the door shut. She leaned forward with her forehead pressed to the wood panelling, hands on either side of her head, and listened. There was a long pause, then the pattering of feet walking away.
When she was sure Shiori was gone, her knees collapsed under her and she fell to the ground. Her breath shot out through clenched teeth. She closed her eyes and pressed the heels of her hands into them so hard that she thought she might push her eyeballs right back into the sockets. She didn't care.
She fought to regain some measure of control over her own body and emotions. Her heart hurt so much, chest constricting tight in such pain that she thought that the only reprieve she would be given from it was sleep or death. The muscles in her arms ached as she drew her arms around her, wrapping them around her torso in a feeble attempt to hold herself in, to keep herself chained together.
The only way she could think to do either was by dulling her emotions, shoving them to the side and pretending they simply didn't exist. It hurt too much otherwise. She imagined herself to be a robot, some kind of android, incapable of experience the devastating riot of chaotic emotions running rampant through her.
It took several minutes.
She rocked back and forth while kneeling on the ground with her arms circled around herself. She tried to swallow the ball in her throat that threatened to break out of her in a sobbing cry. When it went down, it settled in her stomach, nauseating her. She wrapped her arms tighter around her stomach as she continued to rock backward and forward like a see-saw that didn't know how to stop. Her lips trembled from the force of keeping a cry in.
If I was blind, she wondered as she fought to keep a wave of dizziness at bay. Would I keep seeing it, over and over?
The blind suffer most because they see too much. The voice replied in a surprisingly gentle tone. It, she, sounded almost sad about it. They see what hides in the shadows, what darkness lurks in the hearts of those who can see. Their fate is a cruel one – they are not given the luxury of pretending they cannot see what they don't like to.
And then it all stopped.
There was no more tension thrumming painfully through her tired body. No more tears choking her, cutting off her breath. No pressure building up behind her closed eyes the longer she replayed the sequence of images that built itself up like a puzzle to play the memory of Shiharu dying. There was nothing.
Oh, Pai, Pai. The voice murmured mournfully. What would you do without us?
She swallowed and sat up straight, staring dumbly at the door right in front of her nose. She tried to force herself to understand what just happened, but no matter how she looked at it, it didn't quite make sense.
One minute she was being crushed beneath the weight of her own guilt, and the next it was all gone.
They were still there, she could feel the emotions simmering and boiling just under the surface, but they'd been clamped in a jar with the lid screwed on tight. She felt strangely empty without them rampaging in her – but it felt good. No, it was good, not to feel anything. She felt sane, at least.
Are you?
She ground her teeth, stopping herself from thinking anything back in response. Pai didn't know how much the voice could tell of her thoughts, or if it was just guessing, or if it was really able to see or hear every single thing she thought. It was tiring to have to be so watchful of her own thoughts, but it was even worse if she thought about it and realized that she was afraid of being alone in her own head, because she didn't know if there really was someone – something – else in there with her, or if it was all just part of her imagination.
If the voice was real, if it was someone else in her, with her, then shouldn't she be able to feel it as more than a disembodied voice? If it wasn't real and was just a figment of her own imagination, then why did it sound like a completely different person, a crazy woman who talked in confusing riddles and kept calling her Bibari?
When she thought she was going to go cross-eyed from staring at her door, she scooted back from it and pushed herself up, arms trembling from the effort of trying to not collapse back on the floor. She walked unsteadily to her closet and randomly pulled out clothes that she threw back on her still messy and unmade bed, and took hold of her hairbrush. She moved on automaton as she reached back and undid the loose ponytail at her nape, letting her hair fall limp and loose around her shoulders. She pulled the comb through her hair, working out the tangles until her hair was a soft white mane around her head. Then she ran her hands through it with the intention to yank it all back into a braid.
She froze.
Her fingers streamed through her hair as her hands fell to her sides again, and she stared unseeingly at the clothes arranged in a neat and orderly manner in her closet. She lifted her hands up to try again, but her fingers shook so much that all she could do was push them through the dangling ends of her hair until they were completely free of the clinging white strands.
She chocked back a sob stuck in her throat. I can't.
She couldn't plait hair back in the single braid she always did. She couldn't do anything that physically reminded her of what happened – and she had been wearing her hair in the braid she always did on that day. She tried to imagine herself like that again, to picture in her mind the way she looked with her hair in a braid.
Bile rose up in the back of her throat, and she closed her eyes tight as she covered her mouth with her hand.
She shook her head, breathing heavily through her nose. She picked up the comb lying on the shelf beside the brush and used it to split her hair in two equal halves on either side of her head. She gripped the one on her left and quickly plaited a single braid, tying it at the midway from the bottom with a plain black hairband.
She paused for a moment, waiting for any sickness to slither into her stomach. None did, and she braided the other side of her hair, every move slow and hesitant. When she reached the end, she took the dark blue ribbon she'd had for as long as she could remember, and used that to tie off the second braid.
You need to stop caring so much. You will never be strong like this.
She gritted her teeth and ignored the voice. She turned on her heels and walked to her bed, mindlessly picking up the clothes she had so carelessly tossed aside. A pair of black woollen tights, mismatching purple and yellow socks, and a grey camisole under a white t-shirt and a heavy dark blue sheep wool sweater over it. Besides her tights, she didn't have any other black clothes.
She opened her door, closed it behind her, and went out to the front gate, grateful that she met no one on the way. Ryu had gone to visit a friend at their house, the kids were still asleep because it was Saturday, and she guessed that most of the Daitengu were training. The dojo they used was soundproof, so she couldn't know for sure if that was the case just by listening to the silence of the house.
Shiori was near the door of the outhouse. The gates were swung wide open, and Karasatengu stood just outside with his back to them, looking up at the trees that held the large crows that always surrounded Ayashi House, come night or day. He was so still he might as well have been a statue.
Shiori was glaring down at something in her hands in fierce concentration as she tapped away. In what she could tell was an unconscious move, Shiori began to pace up and down the width of the gates. When she turned, Pai could see that she was on her phone.
Seeing the phone reminded her that she needed to take her own with her. She'd completely forgotten about it. All she had remembered to do was put on her clothes. She didn't even have her handbag with her, or any money from the monthly allowance Kouta insisted on giving her, or the blue scarf she'd begun to habitually carry around with her.
Pai spun around to go back to her room – and bumped right into Daichi. She stumbled, and would have fallen if Daichi didn't immediately reach out and grab her shoulders before she could. He steadied her with a small smile on his face before letting her go.
"Sorry," she blinked to dispel the haze of half-sleep hanging over her. "I didn't – I did not see you there. Sorry."
Daichi chuckled. "No need to apologize, Pai-chan." He replied reassuringly. He tucked his hands in the opposite sleeves of his kimono and regarded her curiously, noting her attire. "Going somewhere?"
She nodded silently and shifted from one foot to the other.
"Where are you going?"
She glanced back. Shiori noticed Daichi and Pai talking, though she made no move to join them. Shiori raised a hand in a small wave of greeting, and Daichi mimicked it before putting his hand back in his yukata sleeve and focusing his undivided orange-eyed attention on Pai.
She swallowed. Blood and steel stained the back of her eyes. "Satozuka Cemetery."
Daichi was silent. She kept her eyes trained on the floorboards between them, averted from his. Then, "Where Motomi-san is."
It wasn't a question. More of a statement of confirmation. She didn't need to do anything other than nod. She knew that he was aware of where Shiharu's family buried their daughter.
"Shiori-chan wants to go to pay her respects." She added, almost as an afterthought, "Her parents are there, too."
"And what do you want to do?"
She looked up at him in surprise. He was looking down at her with such sincerity that she could only slide her eyes away to focus on the ground again, heart heavy with guilt. She didn't deserve that look. She didn't deserve to be treated like she wasn't at fault for what happened.
Your socks are funny, the voice giggled.
Her jaw clenched. "I should pay my respects, too." She finally managed. "It is – I could – I should pay my respects to M – too."
She closed her eyes in defeat at her pathetic stuttering and hung her head, chewing on her bottom lip and wondering what Daichi would say. He was the type to confront problems head-on, to not shy away from them like she was doing now. She didn't want him to ask her anything more, to push her. She hoped he wouldn't make her voice her thoughts and feelings now, the way he was prone to do. She wasn't ready.
Please, she thought desperately. Please don't make me say anything. Please don't. I don't want to.
He didn't. Instead, she felt his hand light lightly on top of her head as he patted her in a brotherly way.
"Buy some flowers, and incense," he said. He took his hand back and she looked up at him as he began to turn to go on his own way. He gave her a final, warm smile. "No one really knows what happens immediately after you die, if you go straight to Yomi, or linger here for a while."
We know. Want us to tell you?
"If Motomi-san's spirit is still in this world, I think she'd appreciate someone doing that for her." He finished, unaware and blissfully ignorant of the fact that her attention was only half on him. The other was focused on ignoring the voice that poked and prodded and needled at her. "And Pai-chan?"
She delayed. Then, shaking her head – as if that would chase the voice away – she cleared her throat. "Yes?"
"You have your ring with you?"
Pai looked down at her hands. On her finger was the ring with amber, her birthstone, that she wore to ward off Yori Chiisai from her. It was habit to put it on every morning, though she wondered if there was still a point to it. Especially after what happened.
It hadn't stopped the Teke Teke.
She nodded slowly, keeping her eyes on the dully glimmering amber stone inlaid in the plain silver band around her finger as she rubbed it with her thumb nervously. "Here."
"That's good."
Daichi began to walk away. She looked up and watched his retreating back for a second before she recovered her wits about her. "Thank you, Daichi-san." She remembered to say.
He raised his hand in acknowledgement, not asking her what she was thanking him for, then turned the corner and disappeared down the hall.
Pai sighed deeply and hurried back to her room. She grabbed her plain black handbag and stuffed her wallet and phone inside. She glanced down at her socks, hesitating at the threshold of her door, undecided as to whether or not she should change them so they were matching. Then she remembered that she hadn't taken her shoes with her outside.
She decided not to change her socks, and went to her closet to find a pair of shoes that didn't make her mismatching socks quite so glaringly obvious. She finally settled on her black sports sneakers that she usually used for P.E. – they were the only black shoes she owned.
She felt like she was bracing herself for battle as she stood by the closed door of her bedroom, took one last fortifying breath, and went out to join Shiori.
This was going to be too long a day.
×
You are only hurting yourself. What do you think you'll achieve by going? You think you'll get 'closure'? We are both too far past gone for closure. We have both done too much to deserve it. You know what we speak of. Remember? Remember the Tanuki, and the woman he was with?
An image forced itself into full, blown-up view behind her closed eyes. A woman walking out of a bakery, holding hands with a Hengen, a Tanuki with a devilish smirk on his face as he kissed her before taking a bite into his cinnamon bun.
She was his lover. He was your kill. You didn't know why the human woman had to die? It was because of him. She wasn't allowed to exist after that. She was collateral damage. These aren't our words, Bibari – they're yours.
Her eyes snapped open, and she winced when her elbow jerked and she knocked it against the low frame of the big window she sat beside. She glanced around her, but the other passengers hadn't notice her sudden movement, or didn't care enough about anyone else to bother noticing anything beyond themselves.
Graveyards are nothing but bits of land. They are pointless. They're just storages for the ashes and bones and rotting corpses of the dead. They mean nothing.
She turned her eyes to the right and continued to stare blankly out the window at the passing scenery.
Satozuka Cemetery was in Minami-ku, a different ward of the city. Shiori used to live there before her family relocated to Chuo-ku so as to be closer to her father's workplace. It would take a while to get there. Pai was sitting in the window seat of the bus they had just managed to get on, going to Minami-ku.
Shiori sat beside her. Her phone was in her hand, the cords of her white earphones snaking up from it into her ear. Her head was tipped back against the bus seat, and her eyes were closed. Pai could hear the little electric sounds of music, though she couldn't tell what songs were playing.
She wondered if Shiori was really sleeping. She thought she was – Shiori had a tendency to fall asleep remarkably fast when she listened to music.
Winter was ending, and nature had begun to reflect the change in seasons. People had, too. There were not many people in the bus, only about ten or twelve people, most gathered around the back of the bus where Pai and Shiori sat nearer to the front. They were clad in relatively warm clothing to keep the ending winter chill in the air at bay.
Outside, the trees had begun to decorate themselves with the fresh greenness of the leaves winter stripped them of for so long. The sky was clear and blue overhead, unmarred by heavy clouds that told of more snow to come. The ground was wet and slippery from the melting snow, and in the last half hour she had seen four people fall because of miscalculating where they stepped.
You should not be visiting the graves of those whose deaths are not your fault. You should be remembering.
Her heart throbbed, and she pressed a hand to her chest as her gaze sidled away from the window. She stared at the tip of her shoe, watching it go with the motion of the bus as it bumped its way on. Her eyes unfocused and she looked at the startling whiteness of the lilies by Shiori's foot, set neatly on top of her backpack.
Nestled in all the white were two deep red roses that still had little droplets of water clinging to their beautiful petals. When the two girls went into the flower shop to buy something under Daichi's suggestion, she had been astonished that the lilies could be so naturally perfect looking. It didn't seem right.
Too bad. They're going to rot on a slab of stone for someone who can't appreciate them.
Her lips pulled back over her teeth in irritation. She looked back out the window just as the conductor of the bus announced they were at their stop. Shiori didn't move, and after hesitating for a brief second, Pai tapped her knee.
Shiori blinked awake and glanced around her in confusion before realizing where they were. She popped her earphones out and stuffed them and her phone in her bag before zipping it closed. Then she bent down to gently take hold of the flowers when she saw Pai starting to half-rise out of her seat.
"We're there?" she asked. She held onto the flowers like they were precious babies.
"The bus does not go all the way to the cemetery. We have to walk."
"Oh. Yeah." Shiori rubbed the back of her sleeved hand over her nose. "We have to walk, yeah. I knew that."
Pai knew she did. She watched Shiori lower her hand as she stood and started down to the front of the bus. They quickly got off the bus and stood on the sidewalk, waiting for it to chug past them down the street.
"Were you asleep?" she asked.
Shiori hummed vaguely, a neither here nor there, and set off down the street.
She followed behind, looking around all about her. There were the usual Yosei and Goryo loitered around the sleepy neighbourhood they were in. Onmoraki flew about with their wings of shimmering blue-white light and decimated corpse-like bodies overhead.
Minami-ku had an interesting additional Yori Chiisai present, one that she had only seen once before in Chuo-ku; Noppera-bo, faceless ghosts that wandered aimlessly around. Looking at them made her eyes water and her head spin with dizziness, much like when she was facing Yamajijii, only three times worse.
She turned her attention away from them and instead stared down at her shoes. "Were you dreaming about water?"
"Eh?" Shiori glanced back at her and paused on the side-walk, waiting for the light to turn green and the cars that were zipping up and down the road to slow down. Just on the other side of the road, she could see the cemetery, surrounded by a fence with the gates swung inward. "How'd you know?"
"You only do this," she rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. She was mimicking the habitual move Shiori made when she was around large bodies of water. "When you're thinking about water."
Shiori looked distinctly uncomfortable at the perceptive observation. She shouldered the strap of her backpack more comfortably and started to cross the road as soon as the traffic light went green. "Yeah. Water...I was dreaming about Maruyama Park. Remember the ponds, there?"
Pai nodded. "We used to go there a lot when we were kids."
"Mhm." Shiori cleared her throat. "Do you...do you remember anything else about Maruyama Park?"
She glanced at Shiori and just caught the intensity in her eyes before Shiori looked away. "Like what?"
Shiori shrugged nonchalantly. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe massive boulders in the ponds?"
You tried to save her from us, and yet, she is still so curious about what happened. The voice chuckled snidely in her head. Maybe she'll tell you? Maybe she won't? What will you do if she does? What will you do if she doesn't?
Pai paused just before entering the cemetery, staring at Shiori uncomprehendingly. She was unsettled by what the voice said because it lined up with the fact that Pai was sure Shiori was keeping something from her.
"Why would there be anything like that in the ponds?" she asked.
Shiori stopped on the other side of the short gates that led into the cemetery and turned to face Pai. She opened her mouth to say something, hesitated, then shook her head. "It doesn't matter. It was just a stupid dream." She gestured her head back at the cemetery beyond. "Come on, let's go."
Pai's lips twitched. She thought about pressing Shiori to tell her what she meant, but changed her mind. It was too late, anyway. Shiori was already halfway across the road. Pai had to pick up her pace to catch up to her by the time she made it to the other side of the road and came to stand in front of the gate leading into the cemetery.
Stretching out before them on either side of a paved path that ran straight down was row upon row of grey slabs of stone buried in the earth or standing upright. Some looked to be made of black marble, others were made of simple stone. There were stone lanterns in front of every headstone. Every single gravestone had some form of floral arrangement laid out before them, with a little space cordoned off to the right of each grave, dug out and filled with pebbles.
Little ikebana were planted in front of each lantern in the pebbles. The ikebana were of varying types and different sizes, but they all looked neat and well-kept. Some graves, however, didn't have any ikebana by them. When Pai glanced at the dates of death on the headstones, she realized it was most likely because they were very old, dating back to the end of the Edo period. Either the family members had forgotten to bring and take care of the ikebana meant to be beside the graves, or there was no one left to do so. Or maybe no one cared to do it anymore. In the distance, tall pine-cone trees rose up, most of the branches naked except for a few defiant, struggling leaves and such that rose early for the end of winter.
"Where do you want to go first?" Shiori asked, watching her intensely as she looked around.
Pai blanked. "What?"
"My parents, or...or Motomi-san?"
She stared vacuously at Shiori before looking at the white lilies cradled almost protectively in her arms. She wondered why Shiori was talking about her parents. Were her parents around? What was she talking about?
Then her words registered, and she looked out at the mass of graves before her.
"Your parents." She decided.
Look at you. You're even trying to delay going to it when you're already here. Do you really think you're ready to go to the girl's grave when she died because of your inability to stop Teke Teke?
Shiori didn't look surprised. She simply nodded, turned, and began walking. "It's this way."
A few stray pebbles from where the fledgling trees were planted dotted the path they walked on. Pai's shoes were quiet, only making obvious noise when she didn't manage to sidestep a pebble or two in her way. They walked all the way to the end of the paved path before Shiori stopped and turned to two graves on her right. She watched the nostalgic expression crossing Shiori's face before she looked down as well.
The headstones of Shiori's parents were side by side, the way the two had been in life. They were both black, white inscriptions curved in elegantly, and gleamed from the light of the sun hitting their clean surfaces. The names on the headstones read, Matsumoto Akemi and Matsumoto Daisuke. The ikebana in front of each were clipped neatly, and two roses were laid out in front of each headstone.
Heaviness stole into her heart as she looked down at them. Pai remembered her own parents, and the frustration of not knowing what happened to her family scratched at her like talons picking at her skin. She wondered if she would feel more at ease, or more closure, if she had graves of her own to visit, instead of only relying on her sketchy memory when she wanted to be close to her parents.
"There are no Ayakashi here..." she mumbled absently, eyes roving over the expanse of land the cemetery stood on. In the distance, moving amongst the graves, was an elderly man sweeping the grounds, but no one else was around. There weren't even any Yosei playing in the trees.
"Yeah," Shiori said, hearing her. "There's some kind of boundary here, weaker than the one at Ayashi House and school. I think Kouta said it's not very strong, but it keeps Yori Chiisai away from disturbing the dead."
But not Hengen. The voice chuckled. It would take far more than a burnt tree's remains to keep them out of anywhere.
Pai nodded at the two roses. "Who are the flowers from?"
Shiori chuckled, smiling wryly as she knelt in front of the graves. Pai went down on her knees beside her and took the flowers from her to put them on her other side. Shiori leaned forward and put one rose on her mother's grave, and the other on her father's. "He wasn't going to a friend's house. Ryu-kun got Mom's favourite flower."
She glanced at Shiori from the corner of her eye. A fresh, cool breeze wafted over them, sending a few stray strands of her hair blowing across her face. She tucked them behind her ear and asked, "Ryu-kun?"
Shiori nodded. "He always says he's going to a friend's house whenever he wants to come here alone."
"Why only one?" she asked. She looked at the roses again. "One for each?"
"Mom didn't like too many of the same thing all at once." Shiori explained. "She always put less salt in her food so that she could add if it wasn't enough, or bought two plain t-shirts for one really fancy blouse, like that. She didn't like big bunches of the same type of flower. Mom preferred one rose to a lot, one glass of water to a bottle, one bowl of donburi to many."
She watched as Shiori gently clapped her hands twice and bent her head over her hands, closing her eyes and breathing in deeply. Pai awkwardly made a move to do the same, but then she stopped with her hands raised midway together. Her eyes unfocused from the two graves in front of her and she looked out at the forest beyond.
She had wanted to visit Shiori's parents when she found out that the two died a few years ago, but something always pushed her away from the thought, and she wound up never doing it. Now that she was here, she thought it only right to pray, or say something – but she found that she couldn't.
How could she, when it was her fault that a young girl not even an adult yet, hadn't yet tasted real life, died while she stood by and did nothing? How could she face them – or anyone – and pretend like it wasn't her fault, like everything was okay?
So she closed her eyes and kept her thoughts carefully blank as she felt the sharp spike of a headache. She wondered if it was the voice's fault.
This is pointless. The voice grumbled. Such trivialities don't matter. Do you think they can hear you, is that it?
She was finding it increasingly difficult to ignore the voice. The headache tapped cautiously from the back of her neck and she closed her eyes for a quick second, desperately wishing that all her problems and worries would all just disappear as her emotions had.
No one can hear the dead, and the dead hear no one.
She jerked, eyes snapping open when a burst of heat flared in her stomach. She stared blearily at the two headstones before looking at Shiori. She still had her eyes closed, hands clasped in silent prayer, her face strangely peaceful and relaxed. A soft breeze ruffled the trees in the distance, and Pai watched a leaf floating aimlessly over her head before falling to land in the middle of her limp hands resting on her lap.
There was a crunch behind her and she glanced back. A man was passing by them, with a head of slightly curly dark hair and fashionable sunglasses on his nose, completely black and making it impossible to discern his eyes. Her eyebrows lifted when she saw something white resting atop the dark curls of his hair, with a thin black string going around the back of his head. It looked like a mask, though from where she knelt on the ground, she couldn't tell what shape it was in.
The man was dressed in a simple pair of black jeans and a white form-fitting sweater that complimented his broad shoulders tapering down to a trim waist. She caught a brief glimpse of a red string tied around the man's right pinkie before he passed on, turning left on the path and stopping in front of a nondescript yet very old looking grave.
As if he could feel her watching him, he glanced over at her. She immediately turned away to stare stonily at the roses in front of Shiori's mother's grave. Her breath was trapped in her chest. She held it for another five seconds before letting it out slowly. She peeked back at the man again from the corner of her eye.
He'd gone down on one knee in front of the old grave, forearm braced on his raised knee. He was staring down at the grave, but all she could see was his back, hair curling at the nape of his neck. She could make nothing of the expression on his face. The heat in her stomach swirled restlessly, and she pressed her hand to her stomach in an effort to calm it.
This heat...it was Ayakashi heat.
She didn't need any more than that to know that the man by that grave was Hengen. A strong one, if the volcano boiling in her stomach was anything to go by. When it came to Hengen, the more heat there was packed in her stomach at their presence, the stronger they were likely to be.
This was more than she ever felt with any of the Daitengu.
We're sorry, we're so sorry... she was startled to hear the voice sound sad, and lonely. So very, very lonely, that it almost made her want to double over and fold herself into a ball in an effort to keep her heart inside her, sheltered from the desolation. You're still here, after all this time.
Pai had no idea who the voice was talking to.
Shiori stirred then, and looked at her with a smile. For a moment, all Pai could do was stare at Shiori because she looked so normal. Pai was the more perceptive of the two when it came to sensing the presence of the Ayakashi, yes, but even so – someone who was this strong, whose power made the palms of her hands damp, and so close...Shiori should have been able to tell that someone like that was right there, yet she looked like nothing was wrong.
"Y'know," Shiori said contemplatively. She braced her elbows on her knees, hunching her back forward as she trained her eyes solely on the inscription on her father's headstone. "You're a lot like Ryu-kun. And I don't mean in the you're both mildly-to-seriously obsessed with onigiri way."
Her lips didn't even twitch in a smile. She cocked her head to the side as she made the decision not to tell Shiori about the Hengen only a few feet from them, deeming it unnecessary to make Shiori worry. As long as he didn't approach them, it would be fine.
She really hoped he wouldn't speak to them. Even if he pretended to be human, it wouldn't make a difference. Pai knew he was Hengen, and trying to approach Shiori would be suspicious on its own. She hoped he wouldn't try anything. Then she would have to call Kouta, and even though she knew, with absolute certainty, that he would come as soon as he knew what was happening, there was no telling how long it would take him to get to the cemetery all the way from Chuo-ku. Of course, this Hengen could be Tengu – but Pai didn't want to deal with anyone right now.
"In what way?" she asked, still slightly distracted by keeping an eye on the Hengen.
Shiori was silent for a beat. Then she sighed heavily. "He thinks it's his fault Mom and Dad died. In the car crash."
"What?" she reeled back into their conversation, dumbfounded. "But it was an accident."
"Exactly." Shiori replied. She shook her head. "The night they died, they were coming back from picking him up at one of his friend's house. He had a fight with Mom. Ryu thinks Mom and Dad died because of him shouting and distracting Dad, and that's how they crashed into the truck."
"Why would he think that?" she asked, confused at the logic – or lack of. The truck driver that night had gone almost twenty-four hours without sleeping, and he'd been nodding off behind the wheel when his truck swerved into the other lane and crashed into the Matsumoto's car. She added, "There is no way that was his fault."
Shiori dragged in a deep, deep breath, held it for five seconds, then let it all out in one explosive whoosh as she aimed a half-glare her way. "That is exactly what you're doing."
She tensed, blinking owlishly at Shiori. Her eyes sidled away to look at the white lilies set by Shiori's foot. She should have known where Shiori was going with this, and she didn't want to follow her there.
"I do not know what you are talking about." She mumbled, looking down at her fingers. She blinked as she realized that she had been picking at a scab that formed on her forefinger over the last few days from her incessant biting of her fingers since Motomi's death. It stung from the gentle touch of the breeze wafting around them.
"You think Motomi-san's death is your fault."
Pai didn't say anything. She didn't think there was anything to say. If she denied it, she'd be lying. If she admitted it, she knew that it would only make Shiori angry that she was blaming herself for it, despite the facts obviously pointing to her.
"Sometimes," she saw Shiori leaning forward a bit, but she kept her eyes fixed on her scrabbling finger as Shiori sat back again. "Sometimes, I really can't tell what you're thinking. But now your face is an open book, Pai-chan. You know what I'm talking about."
"Shii-chan, I – "
Shiori lifted a hand with a single finger up, halting her. "Say one more word and I promise you, I'll smack you right here and right now. I don't usually get all lecture-like and stuff, but I'm doing it now because you're being stubborn and if you start talking and saying that it is your fault like I know you're about to do, I'll get distracted and angry and really hit you. Look at me – please?"
She looked, but mostly because she was left astounded by Shiori's words. Shiori was thunderous, with a bright light in her eyes that Pai didn't see quite so often.
"How long have we been able to see Yori Chiisai?" she asked, no telling hint of a joke or a smile on her face.
Thrown off, Pai automatically replied, "Since we were kids. What does that – "
"And how long do you think they've been around, huh? Since we were kids?"
Since the beginning of time, and long before it.
"Since the beginning of – " she snapped her mouth shut, surprised and not a little horrified to realize that repeating the voice's words had been a reflex.
Shiori didn't realize that anything was wrong. "Yeah, since the beginning of time, probably. Do you really think in all that time they were docile and meek like Yosei and Goryo? Even they sometimes end up seriously hurting people, intentionally. But it wasn't a Yosei or Goryo in the bathroom – it was Teke Teke. Those ones are bloodthirsty and go around cutting people in half for their legs. Then there's that thing, that black thing on – in Motomi-san. That was probably what let Teke Teke possess her. You think you had a chance to stop it? Yeah, maybe you did, but that chance also meant you dying in the process as well."
Oh? You haven't told her what we did?
Pai opened her mouth to speak, but she didn't know how to respond. Shiori was right in all that she'd said, especially about the fact that Teke Teke would have killed her if she'd actually done anything. But that was the problem – Teke Teke would have killed her, yet it didn't, and it wasn't like it couldn't have.
She could remember everything that happened that day in vivid detail, all except for the few minutes immediately after she ran out of the toilet stall in a desperate attempt to get away before Teke Teke realized she was there. For the next few minutes after that, her memory was a dark haze. Blurry pictures of the shattering light bulb over her head, smoke that wasn't grey but dark like smog, and Teke Teke's fearful screeching were all that she could recall. Then her memory completely blacked out before winking back to the moment she'd run into Shiori's arms and hugged her as tight as she could.
What she focused on, what told her that she'd had a chance to stop Teke Teke's possession of Shiharu – in whatever way possible – was the pure, unaltered fear she'd seen in the Yori Chiisai's disfigured, mottled face. Fear that had been aimed at her, for some reason. She should have used that fear in whatever way she could to make Teke Teke release Shiharu, yet she hadn't.
She'd let her own fear overtake her. Now Shiharu was dead because of it. Because of her.
"You do not deserve to die, Pai-chan." Shiori continued, blissfully ignorant of the inner turmoil raging behind the blank poker face Pai fixed her face in.
Everyone deserves to die.
Shiori reached to take Pai's hands, but stopped when Pai flinched away from the touch. Her lips tightened, eyebrows crinkling as she looked back up at Pai with pleading eyes. "Pai-chan, what happened to Motomi-san was horrible, but it is not your fault."
"It is." Her voice was brittle as ice, cold yet so fragile and easy to break.
"Not." Shiori retorted.
"I had the chance to save her, Shii-chan, and I chose to save myself." It felt like there was a bullfrog in her neck. It was difficult to speak without her voice coming out thick, but she continued because she needed to at least try to make Shiori understand, if only to keep Shiori from talking about this ever again. "Even if something happened to me, at least maybe she would not have died."
"Don't give me that self-sacrificing bullshit." Shiori snapped vehemently. "'Something'? That something is you dying. What's the point of both of you winding up dead, huh? Who would benefit from it?"
She's right there. You can't die yet, sweet Bibari. The voice darkened, and in it there was the underlying tone of an unbroken promise. We won't let you.
"What was the point of her dying at all? Why did she die and I live?" Pai shot back. "Why do I have to see them but I can't do anything about it?"
A hot cocktail of irritation and anger and self-loathing bubbled in her chest. It warmed her, and she tightened her lips to a near invisible line to keep herself from screaming in frustration. Before she could actually do it, Pai shot up to her feet, gripping the strap of her handbag tight in her hand, her fingernails pinching into the palm of her hand hard enough for the pain to keep her grounded to reality. Shiori scrambled up after her, but Pai had already spun on the heel of her foot and was speed-walking away.
"Wait, Pai-chan – where are you going?"
"I need to be alone." She managed through gritted teeth, not looking back. "Go on to M – to – to – her grave. I will be there soon."
Then she started running, because she knew Shiori would try to stop her otherwise. She knew that Shiori would only make her face her guilt. She didn't want that. She was a coward for hiding from it, but she didn't want to have to face it head-on when it was already so heavy a burden to bear.
Her feet pounded on the gravel path, crunching on loose pebbles scattered over it. She slowed to a fast walk as she approached the low gate of the entrance to the cemetery, catching her breath. When she looked back, Shiori had turned to the left from where her parents' graves where, pushing her hand through her unruly hair before coming to a stop in front of one grave.
Pai saw her start to turn around, in the direction where she was. She spun around immediately so that Shiori wouldn't see her watching. Her heart was heavy in her chest as she pushed the creaking gate open and strode past it, hurrying across the road before the light could turn red.
She walked on blindly, blinking back the pools of salty water blurring her vision. She swiped the back of her sleeve under her nose as pressure built on behind her eyes, and her feet dragged on the ground. She didn't know where she was going, only that she needed to be as far away from that place of death as she possibly could get.
Even if it was so peaceful there, so pretty, with a neatly paved path and planted trees and ikebana by the gravestones, even if it was where ashes were instead of corpses – it was still a place of death.
It was only when a car honked that she realized she was about to walk onto the road without looking out for the traffic. She jerked herself back onto the sidewalk and narrowly avoided getting run over. The car sped past her, and she caught the look of stone-faced disdain the driver gave her before he disappeared down the road after making a right turn.
She put a hand up to her forehead, closing her eyes momentarily as she tried to gather her wits about her. Her chest shuddered with every breath she drew in as she tried to keep her emotions down, to keep herself sane. People walking around paid her no mind, most ignoring her. If she was in their way, they simply walked around her, flowing past her like she was a rock in a river.
Her phone dinged shrilly, and she dug it out of her bag. She stared at the black screen, and her flat expression reflected back at her. Her eyes were red-rimmed and glimmered too bright, despite no tears having fallen down her face. She shook her head and rubbed the back of her hands over her eyes.
Pai moved to lean back against the wall of the shop she had stopped in front of to keep from bothering the people around her who went on with their lives while she stuck fast in the single, revolving memory of watching Shiharu die.
For a long time, she could only stare at the slew of messages. She didn't know how to react, or what she was supposed to respond with. Shiori would want the truth, but how was she supposed to give it to her? How was she supposed to tell Shiori that she felt like a chain was tied around her neck, attached to a big rock, and every time she tried to take a step forward she only choked herself?
She drew in a breath and let it out in a sigh as she closed her eyes and tipped her head back on the wall. The movement made the headache poking lightly at the base of her neck spike sharply, and she winced. She opened her eyes again but continued to look up at the clear blue sky overhead. Then she looked down at the phone in her hands, fingers poised over the keypad.
Her attention was momentarily diverted by the sight of a flapping little piece of skin hanging loose from her thumb, nail bitten down to the quick. She wondered how long it would take before her fingers started to bleed. Maybe if she bit hard enough, it would be sooner rather than later. She'd have another kind of pain to focus on rather than the one weighing her heart down to her feet then, guilt clinging to her back like some demonic hag.
Yes. She wanted to go home, if only to lie down and pretend the world didn't exist. She wanted that more than anything else.
She was tired.
She was so tired.
She looked around herself, at the people walking up and down the streets, unhurried in their lives because it was Saturday. Cars zipped to and fro, and the chattering of the people talking all together, all at once, floated together as background noise in her head.
Before anything else, she needed to figure out where exactly she was if she was to get back to the cemetery. She had absolutely no clue where she was. She'd been so distracted, blindly walking around that she hadn't taken notice of how she'd wound up on this street.
That was stupid of her – after all that had happened, she shouldn't have been so careless.
It was so easy to pretend like nothing was wrong over text messages. One could be crying their heart out yet still send laughing emoji, and the person receiving it would never suspect a thing.
She wished she could always hide behind her phone when she had to talk to someone, just so that if emotions suddenly overtook her, nobody would be there to see it.
Pai shoved her phone back in her bag and pushed herself off from the wall, taking a step forward and looking around her. Trying to orient herself didn't work – she knew nothing about this ward of Sapporo. She didn't know where she was, or how she was supposed to get back to the cemetery. The only other viable alternative was to ask someone for directions.
She looked around herself again. Standing on the corner of the street beside the pole was a young man, perhaps the same age as Shin and Kouta, tapping away on his phone. He was painfully oblivious to the Konaki-jiji by his feet, a Yori Chiisai that disguised itself as a crying baby, and attacked those humans who were unfortunate enough to pick it up. Pai couldn't hear its shrieks because of the ring she rubbed unconsciously on her pinkie. She knew that the Konaki-jiji disguised its facial appearance as that of an innocent human baby, but she could see its true form – an old man's face on a baby's body, with crossing eyes and a leering, drunken smile.
She shuddered and looked away.
Some Noppera-bo tailed other people, ethereal bodies disfigured and maimed in ways that mimicked their violent deaths. Nozuchi writhed about, snakelike creatures with their bodies covered in some sort of grass, and the fat lips of their huge mouths flapping as they opened their mouths wide and expelled what she knew to be poisonous breath. Humans who passed in front of the Nozuchi coughed, some sneezed, but no more than that.
Pai used to wonder why Kouta had Ayashi House built in Chuo-ku. Daitengu were traditionally supposed to stay ten years away from home in Kyoto during their mandatory training period, and Daichi had told her that the Previous Heads had trained here, in Minami-ku. Now she had her answer for why Kouta chose elsewhere, what Daichi once already told her. For some reason, Chuo-ku was haunted by fewer Yori Chiisai than any other ward in Sapporo.
Someone giggled.
It was a familiar voice, and too close, almost as if whoever it was stood right behind her, their breath tickling her ear. She whirled around, but there was no one there. Her hand shot up to cup her ear as another phantom breath whispered across her, and she spun around again. A few people gave her odd passing looks as they walked by, but no one paid her any special attention.
She shook her head and dropped her hand to her side, breathing in deeply to calm herself. She turned and looked back to see that the wall she'd been leaning on was part of a pawn shop, Hang Jing Pawn Shop.
She walked around to the front door and pushed it open, greeted by the pleasant tinkle of a bell and stepping in to be welcomed by the sight of an almost overflowing amount of items scattered all over the large room that was the part of the shop where customers were received.
Books, row upon row of them, lined rickety old shelves along the walls. Plates and other kitchen utensils sat neatly packed in plastic containers. Some potted plants stood between haphazardly ordered piles of boxes tied with fraying ropes. An antique clock remarkably similar to the one in Obaasan's room, given to her by her late husband, dong-ed on the hour.
She glanced down at her watch. It was already 10:15 AM.
She quickly walked to the front desk, where an elderly man sat. The floor was covered in a thick carpet that muted the sound of her footsteps. The front desk was a glass-top table with a display of watches and other miscellaneous pieces of jewellery sat in slots in velvet-covered trays. On the wall behind the desk was a massive mirror that spanned from end-to-end of the wall.
She made sure to look anywhere but the mirror as she walked to the desk, uninterested in seeing her own bleak reflection.
The old man stirred at her approach, eyes crinkling even more in his wrinkled face as his papery thin lips lifted up in a welcoming smile. She was struck by how much he resembled Tsukuda, the old priest at the shrine. He leaned forward and placed his clasped hands on top of the glass table, despite a small, discrete sign on the front of it saying 'Please do not touch the glass'. Perhaps the warning didn't apply to the probable owner of the shop.
"Good morning," he started, voice hoarse with age, yet gentle at the same time. "Welcome to Hang Jing."
Her lips moved in an empty smile. "Good morning."
'You learn to grow up when you smile without meaning it.' Touka said that to us, once. Looks like you're all grown up, Bibari.
She bowed tensely before the man. "I am sorry to bother you, but I just wanted to ask for some directions."
"No problem at all, young lady. Where might you be looking for?"
"Satozuka Cemetery." She replied. "I am unfamiliar with Minami-ku, and got separated from my friend."
The man nodded with recognition at the name. She wondered if someone he'd once known was buried there. Then she remembered the man – Hengen – who was at the cemetery, and a strange curiosity stirred in her to know what name was inscribed on the headstone he'd knelt before.
"Yes, Satozuka Cemetery." He lifted a hand and pointed at the shop door. "All you need do is walk out from here, go to the intersection just over there, and turn left until you come to the bus stop. Cross the street and walk down the road until you get to Ramen Shingen – the smell will tell you you've reached it." She smiled appropriately at his little joke. "Directly opposite, on the other side of the road, is the cemetery."
She nodded, committing his directions to memory. "Thank you very much. Sorry to disturb you."
"Not at all," the man shook his head, lifting his hands. "There is not much happening anyway. Is there anything else?"
Pai looked at her fingers, the cracking tops of her fingernails, the red and pink bruising of her cuticles. She spoke without thinking.
"Do you have any nail polish?" she shook her head, biting her lip as she realized what a stupid question that was. Nail polish, in a pawn shop? Unlikely. "Um, sorry. I do not – "
"As a matter of fact, we do." He twisted the chair he sat on around and hopped off. She was a little surprised to see that his head barely reached the top of the glass table, though that wasn't say much considering she could only just comfortably keep her elbows on the edge of the table. "We have black, blue, and red. Not much of a selection, I would say, but better than nothing, yes?"
Yes, better than nothing, which is what she was expecting. She nodded when he smiled kindly at her again. She wondered if he would be so ready to show her such kindness if he knew that she had blood on her hands.
"Yes, it is."
"Which colour would you like?"
She remembered eyes, crimson irises surrounding slit pupils lined in yellow, then all of it darkening to a night sky. "Blue. Please." She bowed her head. "Thank you."
The man nodded and waddled off to the door to her right, hands clasped behind his back. "One moment, if you please." He called back before disappearing into the room there.
Pai looked down at the watches on display, gaze idly jumping from one black-rubber-strapped watch to another brown-leather-strapped watch. Some were simple digital watches; others were with fanciful interlocking metal pieces for the straps with analogue clock faces. There was one watch that looked like it belonged in the Edo period, or older than that.
The jewellery was mostly necklaces that looked like variations of the same one. One ring looked so extravagantly decorative that she wondered if a human hand could wear it, or if its purpose was strictly for ornamenting a mannequin's fingers. There was a white padded case set off in the top right corner that showcased beautiful earrings, mostly studs, a few inlaid with gemstones she couldn't tell were real or not. Set right next to the padded case was a standing display for a pair of dangling earrings, silver streamers with the stud of the earrings made of topaz, maybe, with little diamond stones decorating the area around it.
She doubted any of the stones are real, or the metals either. Probably silver and gold plated. There was no way they would be so openly on display with so little security to keep them safe from robbers if they were real.
A loud thump sounded from the back room the man had disappeared off into, and she looked up, wondering if something had happened to him. He did look so small and fragile. Instead, she jerked back in surprise and her muscles tensed, locking up as she caught sight of herself in the mirror.
It wasn't her reflection she ogled at – it was that of the person standing behind her. Any semblance of rational thought fled her mind until all that was left was a robot that could only stare in analytical silence at the spectre smirking back at her with crimson painted lips in the mirror.
Midori.
It was her face. Intense sea-green eyes that never quite fit her yet were so intrinsically part of her, she couldn't imagine Midori with any other eye colour. High cheekbones, straight nose, long and graceful neck, with her dark hair falling down her shoulders in luxurious curls where Pai remember stick straight her in a short page-boy's cut. A half-smile danced about her red lips.
The smile was what told her that the woman in the mirror was not her sister.
She wore a furisode of the deepest black, the hems of her sleeves lined in red and reaching down past the edge of the mirror. The sleeves were odd, though – they were wrapped all around her, as if binding her arms so that she wouldn't be able to move easily. She was bound loosely, though, and Pai could see that she could comfortably move her arms around.
They were not so loose before.
She blinked at that thought. Before?
Ice coiled tight in her stomach, piercing her with the sharpness of its chill. It was difficult to breathe. Almost like she was in a trance, she inched to the side, moving around the glass table and walking forward so that she stood right in front of the gilded mirror. From her periphery she could make her own reflection out, but she was just a dark blue and white blur.
All her attention was fixed on the mirage of Midori that twirled around her in a hopping dance, traipsing to come stand right beside her. Laughter flowed out from painted lips, filled the air with a sweet cadence that was laboured with grief just beneath the surface.
Her eyes flicked to the side. There was no one standing next to her. Yet when she looked back at the mirror, there she was. The Midori who was not Midori.
"Leave me alone." Her lips shook as she stared at the spectre in the mirror. Something heavy, something dark, pounded through her body. She wanted to run, but she couldn't move, feet stuck fast to the ground as if weighed down by cement. "Go away."
Midori cocked her head to the side, pursing her lips in mock petulance. The voice that flowed from those painted lips slanted in a derisive smile did not belong to her sister.
"Hm? You need us. Why would we do that?"
A loud crack.
A splinter running up her body.
A screaming shatter.
Pai was moving before she knew she was. Her fist drove into the mirror, again and again and again. Indescribable pain shot up from her knuckles straight to her shoulder. Fissures like the cobwebs of a spider's trap ran up and out from where she shakily pulled her hand back. She could see her own broken reflection staring back at her from the shattered mirror as she cried out when she withdrew her hand, shards of glass embedded in her skin.
One long piece of the mirror creaked as it detached from the wall and started to fall. Through it, she could see the face of Midori contorting into madness, lips splitting in silent glee. Pai looked up and realized that the falling piece was going to cut her, bad, as soon as it reached her. She instinctively ducked her head, lifting her hands up to protect herself in some small way.
Seconds ticked by.
Nothing happened.
She lifted her head, only to see that her reflection stared back at her, wide-eyed and terrified.
The mirror was unbroken. It was smooth, the surface a little dusty and spotted with bits of paint that looked to have been pressed into it from behind the mirror. She stumbled away from the mirror, trying to understand what had just happened, what she could remember happening, and what was so clearly in front of her.
But...but I – the mirror – it –
What is reality, but a mere figment of illusion?
No. No, she was sure. She was so sure that she'd punched the mirror, and that it broke. She could clearly picture her own broken face looking back at her from the mirror. A piece was about to cut her, it was going to – but then it wasn't. Then it didn't.
It didn't, because it...it never broke off from the mirror. Because it...none of it happened?
Pai made a move to run her hand through her hair in frustration, but inhaled sharply when pain flared as soon as she twitched her fingers. She lifted her right hand and looked down at it. Blood beaded from opened cuts in her fingers and ran in thin rivulets down the curves of her knuckles, to her wrist, before disappearing down the lowered hem of her sweater, staining it scarlet.
We left you alone once, and you almost went mad. We leave, and you will be plagued with the faces of those whose blood you spilled instead of just your own. Is that what you really want?
The old man returned from where he had been, holding a small navy blue box in his hand. Pai whipped her injured hand behind her back and quickly walked to where she'd been standing as the man waddled over to hoist himself back up on the stool he was sitting on. He placed the box neatly in front of her with a pleased smile on his face.
"Here you are. Dark blue. I hope that is what you find suitable?"
"Yes, thank you." She eyed the box. That had to be the most fancily packaged nail polish she'd ever seen in her life.
"That will be two hundred yen."
She nodded distractedly, keeping her body turned from him to hide her bleeding hand as she fumbled in her bag for her wallet. It was a struggle not to wince at every move that so pained her. A bead of red fell from her quivering hand and splattered on the dark brown carpet, blending in as naturally as could be. Her lower lip trembled slightly, but she gritted her teeth and looked away from where her blood landed on the carpet.
She was finally able to get the money out, and gave it to him with her left hand, taking the small box and putting it inside her bag. She thanked him again for his help, bowed, and walked out of the shop. The sun was climbing up high in the sky as it approached noon, its rays shining with a brilliance that hurt to look at. Pai shielded her eyes and started walking before she lowered her hand and opened her bag again, taking out her scarf to wrap her hand up.
She was turning the corner, headed in the direction the man had pointed out to her, when warmth pooled in her stomach. It was her only warning before she walked right into Shin.
She was only aware of his hands coming up to catch her by her shoulders as her sense of balance skewed sharply, and she listed to the side. Black dots danced in front of her eyes alarmingly for two seconds before winking out as she tried to get her feet back under her. The warmth from the touch of his hands brought her to reality, and she blinked up at him blankly before hastily stepping back when she realized that they stood too close together.
"Steady there," his lips lifted in a faint smile as he let her step back.
"Sorry," she said dazedly, shaking her head of the cobwebs clinging to her befuddled brain. "I was not looking where I was going."
He wore a pair of dark blue jeans, a black t-shirt that hugged his fit physique, and a dark brown leather coat that's ends reached his knees. Fingerless black leather gloves were fit on his hands, and she thought she caught a hint of his white Mask wrapped around his wrist, though most of it was hidden under the sleeves of his coat. Pai absently noticed that he was wearing combat boots where he usually wore jikatabi at home. She could just see the slight bulge of the hilt of his tanto under his pant leg.
A blush painted itself over her cheeks as she looked up at him, and the thought of how handsome he looked danced across her mind.
He glanced down at the injured hand she kept protectively close to her chest, still holding onto her scarf. She caught him noticing it. She made a move to hide her hand behind her back as she had at the pawn shop, but it was too late.
Shin swallowed the space between them in one easy, loping stride and took hold of her wrist, lifting it so that her curled hand was between them. Despite his firm grip, his touch was still gentle. She kept her hand in a loose fist so that he wouldn't see the scabs all over her fingers. His hands were warm around hers, seeping into her frozen skin. She winced and pressed her lips tighter together as he inspected the bleeding holes in her torn knuckles.
His penetrating gaze moved from her hand to her eyes. "What did you do?"
Oh, do you hear that? That's the sound of a man angry at a hurt woman. How touching. The voice – the woman behind the voice – sounded like she didn't find it touching at all. We are Kuniumi. Name us not as a voice, but as we are.
Pai clenched her jaw. She debated on whether or not to lie, or evade saying the truth. She chose neither.
"I hit something."
"What did you hit?"
An illusion you thought was reality.
"Mirror."
A silent beat. "How many times?"
She looked away from his scrutinizing blue gaze, focusing instead on the cement. "I don't – I do not know."
Shin didn't say anything, just leaned back and watched her shift uncomfortably in front of him. She took her hand back and continued wrapping it up in the blue scarf, making a mental note to wash the scarf even as she avoiding looking Shin in the eye.
There was a light sigh. "Come on. Kouta and Shiori-hime are waiting for us. Kanou-san will take a look at your hand when we get back."
Pai nodded mutely and fell into step beside him. She glanced from her periphery to watch his pace and realized that he was walking slower so that she could keep up with his long-legged stride. That was...considerate of him.
To avoid the growth of an awkward silence, she asked, "You came with Kouta-sama?"
Shin nodded. "I had some errands to run here. What were you doing?"
"I was asking for directions." She replied. She sidestepped two Yosei madly twirling about each other in circles on the sidewalk. "I did not know how to get back."
"Weren't you with Shiori-hime?" he asked. She nodded. "She used to live here."
I know. I wouldn't be lost if I was with her.
But you ran away from her.
She swallowed. "I...needed to be by myself for a while. I lost my way."
Shin made a humming sound at the back of his throat, but she didn't know what it meant. "You were in Hang Jing?"
Pai nodded, glancing up at him from the corner of her eye and wondering if he'd seen her come out of the shop. "Yes."
"Tsukuda-san's brother owns it."
Pai blinked. "Tsukuda-san? You know him?"
Shin gave her a strangely endearing smile, the corner of his lips lifting up. "I've lived at Ayashi House for almost ten years. Tsukuda-san's been there longer than anyone else."
"Oh. Right." Made sense.
She kept her eyes on the ground in an effort to hide the furious blush creeping down to her neck. She cursed herself for asking such a stupid question – of course Shin would know Tsukuda. The Daitengu and Kouta had been living at Ayashi House for long enough. Still, it was interesting to know that Shin was close enough to the human priest to know that his brother owned a pawn shop in Minami-ku.
Shin made a humming sound at the back of his throat, but she didn't know what it meant. They walked on together quietly, and despite what she thought, the silence between them wasn't awkward. It was more companionable. He seemed to sense that she didn't want to talk, without her saying a thing about it, and respected that.
They got back to the cemetery in five minutes. Pai walked through the cemetery gates, but stopped and turned back when Shin didn't follow.
"Are you coming?" she asked, half-turning to face him.
He shook his head. "I'll wait here. Kouta and Shiori-hime are that way." He nodded his head in the westward direction.
She squinted through the sharp light of the sun. There, she could just make out the blond head of Kouta, and the shorter figure of Shiori standing next to him. Her stomach lurched when she realized that they were most likely standing at Shiharu's grave.
"Thank you, Shin-san." She said, bowing her head in gratitude.
Shin tipped his head in acknowledgement. "You shouldn't wander off on your own, you know." He said, looking down at her with a strange light in his eyes. His eyes were closed off, hiding his emotions, but she decided to fool herself into thinking that she saw a hint of concern in the blue depths. "It's not safe."
She gave him an empty smile. "It never is."
It never will be.
Pai turned around then, her shoes crunching on the path as she walked down it. She shifted her shoulders under the sweater, knowing that Shin was still looking at her without even seeing it. A part of her wanted to turn around, but she didn't. She passed by grave after grave until she came to the turn that would lead her to where she could see Kouta and Shiori standing.
She paused then, watching the two standing close to each other and talk quietly. Kouta had wrapped his arm around Shiori's shoulder, and she was huddled into his side. The wind carried the murmur of their voices to her, though she couldn't make out what they were saying. They were too far away to be heard.
She swallowed as she remembered what Shiori had been telling her before she ran away. Pai knew that she would need to apologize, but she didn't know how she was supposed to do it.
Then she remembered the heat she felt when waiting for Shiori to finish praying to her parents. She raised her head and looked around, but she saw no sign of the Hengen that had been in the cemetery with them.
Her feet continued on the path instead of turning down it on their own accord, an insatiable curiosity guiding her every step forward. Her heart was beating to a fast dance in her chest, and disquieting anticipation swam in her stomach. She walked past the graves of the Matsumoto's until she came to the end of the paved path, and turned right to look down at the grave the Hengen had knelt in front of.
Her mouth fell open in surprise as she stared at the name on the grave. The wind brushed her hair over her shoulders. It stung the open cuts on her hand that were exposed through the wrapping of the scarf.
She barely noticed it.
Somewhere inside her, in her mind, or in her soul – she didn't know, she wasn't quite sure of the difference between them anymore – the woman whom the voice belonged to stirred restlessly, but said nothing.
中島
Nakajima
董香
Touka