悪夢は思い出です
"Since when are you afraid of heights?" Haru asked, an amused smirk growing on his face.
"Wipe that grin off your face." Shiori snapped. Her voice trembled ever so slightly as she clung to the armrests of the airplane seats with a vice-like grip. The tremor dampened the bite of her words. "You look like a lecherous pervert."
"If you fall, I'll catch you."
"Shut. Up."
Pai continued to stare vacantly out at the tarmac airstrip out the window. The plane had just started moving. It was going so fast that everything in sight was melding into a blur of grey with steady stripes of yellow. She began to open and close her mouth repeatedly as the plane started its ascent, slowly, and the pressure in her ears plummeted.
Barely a quarter of her attention registered the exchange between Haru and Shiori, who sat to her left on two of the four seats they occupied. Ryosuke sat on Haru's side, ignoring them with a pair of headphones over his ears and a book in his hand.
"Shiori-hime, you need to breathe." Haru continued, still teasing and digging his own grave.
"Shut up, moron."
"Well, you are forgetting to breathe." He pointed out. His voice was gratingly bright and chipper, as if he was oblivious of the fact that they were in a flying metal cage that could spontaneously combust at any given moment.
It was Shiori, though, who seemed all the more intensely aware of the fact than anyone else.
"Maybe there's some Ayakashi that can do it," Shiori hissed through clenched teeth, nails digging into the armrests. "But humans can't 'forget' to breathe, dumbass."
Of all things, it was the sound of Shiori's nails scratching against the material of the armrests that brought Pai back from staring out the window with her mind completely blank and empty. She had been wandering in a perpetual daze ever since leaving Aihara's office, working on autopilot to get her through the days.
Not only was there the confusion of dealing with everything Aihara had said and implied, there was the disturbing fact that Kuniumi could, essentially, possess Pai whenever she wanted to. She'd made her feel calm enough to handle Aihara without running, screaming out of the office. For that she was grateful.
But then she slipped.
Somehow, control of her own body momentarily slipped, and gave Kuniumi enough leeway to speak directly to Aihara, through Pai. She couldn't understand how it was possible that she could lose control of her body like that. Whenever she tried to get Kuniumi to tell her how, so she could prevent it from happening again, Kuniumi simply deflected every question.
For the first time since she'd acknowledged Kuniumi's presence in her mind, she realized that despite her interests occasionally aligning with her own, Kuniumi was still someone – something else. She had her own past, her own secrets. Her own plans. If those plans involved her, involved using Pai's body like her own, there was no way Kuniumi would admit it, or tell her how to stop it from happening.
Stupidly enough, Pai hadn't told anyone about what Aihara said to her, either.
She felt horrible that the number of things she was keeping secret was growing. It was like the secrets were trucks that were thrown at her, piling up on top of each other and getting heavier the longer she remained silent. But she didn't know how she was supposed to explain what happened even if she tried telling someone. She had no idea what Aihara wanted to tell her, and until she got back from this trip, she wouldn't know.
Pai started in surprise when a strand of black hair fell over her eyes. She had decided to dye it, for a bit, so as not to attract so much attention. If she had never started going to high school and done everything online, she wouldn't have even thought about any attention being directed at her because of it.
Now she knew better.
Shiori had been the one to help her apply the colour on, and everyone back home had been shocked to see her with black hair. It was also Shiori who dispelled the surprise on everyone's faces by quipping, "Now y'all know what Pai-chan looked like with black hair."
Obaasan smacked Shiori with her cane for saying it in a faked Kansai dialect.
She lifted a hand to push her dyed black hair out of her eyes, still unused to the colour. She'd been longing for her black hair to return for so long, but now that she was – at least temporarily – rid of the white hair, she didn't feel quite as relieved as she'd have thought. She stilled gawked in surprise whenever she looked in the mirror to see not a white-haired Pai staring back, but a black-haired one.
It was like she was a completely different person. It was so jarringly different, so deeply black, that it looked a little...fake. She would have thought that dyeing her hair would make her feel better about it, make her feel like she'd returned to the normal girl she once was, but it hadn't. It only made her feel more oddly detached from herself and who she was.
Even though she was finding that she wasn't entirely sure who she was. Not anymore.
Much as she hesitated to admit, her white hair was a part of herself. She honestly couldn't wait for the chance to scrub the black dye off just so she could see the white again.
She blinked as she looked down, and saw that Shiori's knuckles had gone pale from strain. Her nails dug in so hard to the flatly cushioned armrests that they left little indents behind as the plane finally righted itself in the air, and the pressure returned to a semblance of normalcy.
"Since when are you afraid of heights?" she asked. She noted that her voice sounded as curiously empty as her mind had been.
Haru laughed. "Even Pai-chan didn't know."
"Haru, you're loud." Ryosuke grumbled irritably from the seat beside Haru, pushing his headphones down around his neck. "Keep quiet."
"I thought you were listening to music and reading your book." Haru asked, turning to him in surprise.
"Even the music isn't as loud as you are." Ryosuke deadpanned.
"Better not say any more, Haru-kun," Shiori said superciliously. "He'll burn you."
"More like drown," Pai commented idly. She glanced over at the two Daitengu who Kouta had attached to the girls for the trip to Kyoto while the rest flew to the main village ahead. Their attention had already been diverted as Haru poked and prodded at Ryosuke about what music he was listening to. "That makes more sense."
"Your social language is ancient, Pai-chan." Shiori mumbled as she swallowed thickly. The plane was safely in flight, yet she still looked ready to bolt, given the chance. "I meant he'd burn him with sarcasm. Ryosuke-kun's a genius with it. And I can see that question mark on your face so I know you don't understand what I mean by 'burn with sarcasm'."
She smiled faintly, not surprised that Shiori had caught the confusion that crumpled her face. She glanced out the window again. "But I did not know you are afraid of heights."
"I am not afraid of heights." Shiori corrected haughtily, as if offended at the very insinuation that she could be afraid of anything. "I just hate the part before we are in the air. I really, really hate it."
"It does not last for long," she replied. "And we are in the air now."
"I still hate it."
Pai leaned her head on the glass of the window and looked at her. "Since when?"
Shiori opened her mouth to speak, but then snapped it shut. Her gaze slid away as she crossed her arms over her stomach. "I don't know. Just happened, I guess."
She looked at Shiori for a moment longer before her eyes drifted out the window again. When she looked down, she could see the fast disappearing brown-green-black-blue-silver smudge of Sapporo city. It was replaced by the sight of the deep blue ocean on the right, and mountainous green landscapes on the left, towards where the plane was going.
Why doesn't she tell me...? She couldn't help wondering.
Kuniumi came traipsing back into her mind from wherever it was she regularly disappeared off to. You told her not to say anything.
When? Why would I do that? Say what?
Those are three different questions.
Her eyes slid over to the three beside her. They were all talking to each other – more like, Ryosuke and Haru were bickering with Shiori, claiming that this music band had better guitar riffs compared to that band. They seemed to be working together to distract Shiori from her recently developed fear of heights.
How many questions do I get today? She asked.
Every once in a while Kuniumi gave Pai a quota for how many questions she could ask. Sometimes it was only one, other times it could be ten. A few times, Kuniumi liked to play modified games of Twenty Questions, where for every question Pai asked, Kuniumi would ask one in return.
Her questions to Pai never made sense – they were questions about her favourite colour, what food she liked, what historical figure she found interesting, who was her second grade Maths teacher, why did she make sure to tie the hoops of her shoe laces like bunny ears. It was like Kuniumi was building a profile on her, rather than trying to get any helpful information from her. Though, what the reason behind it could be, she had no idea.
There wasn't any kind of pattern or regularity to the number. Kuniumi decided what she wanted to answer and how many questions she wanted to hear or ask on a whim. When she tried to ignore Kuniumi's question as protest for her not answering Pai's questions, Kuniumi simply chattered perpetually until she caved in.
Hm...two.
She thought about it. First; say what?
You told her not to say anything of what happened.
She knew exactly what it was Kuniumi was doing. She was limiting how much she said to make Pai ask more questions, forcing her to run out of her quota. It had caught Pai off-guard the first few times, and infuriated her, more times than she was willing to admit.
What happened?
Is that your second question?
You know it is.
Kuniumi paused. She seemed surprised that Pai had caught on to her trick. You're learning faster than before.
Answer me. What happened that I told her not to tell me?
What happened in your subconscious after you were attacked by the Onihitokuchi.
Pai clenched her jaw in irritation at Kuniumi's guile. She'd answered the question, but then again, she hadn't.
Thanks for nothing.
Kuniumi laughed. It's so easy to make you mad, Bibari.
Stop calling me that.
Why?
It's not my name.
It was.
It isn't now, is it?
Pai felt a grin that's manic glee made her shift uncomfortably in her seat, something in her chest stirring restlessly, longing for a release.
Can I get to ask another question as a reward? She asked hopefully.
Don't be foolish. Kuniumi shot her down faster than an arrow would have.
She slumped dejectedly in her seat. Then she lifted herself up just enough so that she could see behind her. There, sitting with his head tipped back on the seat and his grizzled eyebrows crooked in a frown, was Kanou. He was sleeping. Despite that, he held on to a black bag draped over his knees rather protectively, hand twined around the straps so that it wouldn't slip off.
She knew that the bag was the tactical rifle bag she had dug out from the ground, that night when she attacked Shin. She knew that inside it was the now unloaded M4A1 Carbine, and the Ziploc bag with the strange white powder in it that made her feel jittery and itchy when she thought of it. She didn't know how Kanou had managed to get any of it onto the plane.
She sat back down and glanced over at Haru, Ryosuke, and Shiori. They had already moved on to debating whether or not Kubo Tite's Bleach had a better storyline before the Arrancar arc, or if it still remained a good story right up to the end of the manga's run. Shiori was adamant that the whole manga stayed good.
Haru and Ryosuke argued that she had no opinion on the matter since she'd only just finished reading the Arrancar arc, and not the whole thing. Haru and Ryosuke were split in opinions themselves, with Haru stating that the whole manga was perfection from start to finish, and Ryosuke claiming that everything after the Lost Agent arc went sideways, and not in a good way.
She reached into the pocket of her jeans and dug out the pendant Kanou gave to her just before they got on the plane. It was deceptively plain, a silver medallion with an empty face. The back had a few markings etched in, lining the edges, but other than that it looked like nothing more than a necklace that could be bought at a corner stall on the street.
She leaned against the window, stuffing the pendant back in her pocket, and stared out woodenly at the clouds passing over the plane's wings. She vaguely registered the white clouds, the green and brown of the land beneath, but her mind was already sliding away. She was thinking it before she was even aware of it.
I wish Shin was here...
Us too.
She blinked in surprise, more at herself for thinking it than at Kuniumi for wanting the same thing.
Why you?
That would be telling, she teased.
Pai rolled her eyes and continued to look out the window. Her mind strayed back to Aihara's office, but she resolutely shook herself away from that. She put her chin in her hands and continued gazing out the window. She kept her eyes wide open in an attempt to keep away the sleep that was beckoning to her.
She was afraid to dream, for when she did, she had nightmares that she wasn't entirely sure weren't real. Sometimes, she had dreams that she knew were memories of her past, but they were too hazy and clouded to discern anything that could be of use. Most of the time she had dreams that she wasn't sure were hers at all, or Kuniumi's.
When she woke up, she couldn't even remember what they were about. All she could distinctly recall from them was an endless white void edged in a boundary of the deepest black, but no more than that. Even though she couldn't remember she still woke up covered in a cold sweat, her entire body shivering with a deep-seated fear that clung tenaciously to her bones.
Kuniumi spoke as she fought off a yawn. Are you going to sleep?
No.
Why not? She whined.
Because I don't want your nightmares haunting me. I don't need yours. I have my own to deal with.
Kuniumi sniggered. There was something behind it though, something that filled Pai's chest with a sadness that pricked her eyes with unexpected tears.
Who says they're not memories?