Again? yes.
Chapter 3: Because sometimes there isn't enough appreciation on either side.
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Kimihiro woke to the silence of morning, and was disappointed to see that not even a single ray of light greeted him, as it always had. As he sat up, he could see that the day was as dark and as bleak as it was when he had slept, and nothing so far had changed. He could still hear the tick-tock of the grandfather clock out in the living room. He strained his ears and listened to the emptiness, wishing to at least hear a creaking of the door, or any other sign of his parents being there.
There was nothing.
Too tired to feel worried, he climbed down his bed and flicked the light switch of his lamp on, only to find that it wasn’t working. This did not trouble him, because it never did work anyway.
The lights in his room did, though, and the eeriness of last night was bathed in bright, yet empty light. Everything was in its place; his coloring books, his crayons, his toys and clothes, all except the presence of the giraffe stuffed toy he had seen in the mirror. He had never liked it any specially before, but seeing it in the mirror with a happier-looking version of himself made him feel jealous, somewhat.
There was a bag of marbles on the table top next to the door. He took it, put it in his pocket, and walked out of his room, and out through the front door of his apartment.
The hallway was oddly quiet, but at this point he felt used to it. Making sure to leave the door open in case he had to run back, he started to walk, bare feet flush against the marble floors.
For some time, all he could hear was his footsteps. When he grew tired of the silence, he attempted to whistle, and when he remembered that he never knew how, decided to hum instead. But the silence felt alive and hungry- and as soon as the first note left his mouth, the rest of the song was whisked away, and all he had left was the feeling of dryness in his lips.
He licked them until they were damp enough, and began to hum again.
This time the notes seemed to take on a life of their own- twisting themselves into terrible, screeching noises, shrill enough to echo in the silence of the hallway. Alarmed by the sounds, Kimihiro immediately fell into the quiet himself- frightened that the sounds he had made might’ve disturbed the other tenants, or the other people around him in any way.
But his stubbornness was as thick as his resolve- and, making sure not to make the same mistake again, he started to sing.
Oh
Fiddle dee dum and fiddle dee dee,
The old gray lady is after me
Twice can she run, even more than I flee,
The old gray lady is after me
As he ended, there was a slow, creaking noise a few paces in front of him, and he stopped in his steps.
A beautiful woman was bathed in an eerie glow, the light twinkling gracefully on her brown-colored mane. There was a butterfly on her hair, as if sitting on a lovely petal, and it seemed to Kimihiro that its wings were moving- in fact, it seemed that every single butterfly on the woman’s clothing, even, were moving. She was looking around like she couldn’t see him, a beautiful yet frightening pair of dark pupil-less eyes.
He took a step back.
The woman blinked. As she did, her incredibly long eye lashes met her cheeks, slowly, and clear dark eyes sparkled. She opened her mouth as to speak, and from where he was standing, Kimihiro could see that the inside of her mouth was hollow, hollow, hollow…and a terrible feeling of dread crept up his nerves.
“Kimihiro-kun?” Said the woman.
The small boy peered into the darkness, his cerulean eyes fighting against the light that shown off the woman like a magnificent halo. “Kohane-chan?”
Her voice was melodious, wonderful. She spoke as if she were singing the words, tasting it one by one, and letting them out with a tone added to them. She spoke like butterflies conversing with each other in the summer breeze, like flowers giggling between soft petals in the morning wind. She spoke, to Kimihiro, like a woman would to a lost child.
But he was afraid of her; afraid of her dark, bottomless eyes.
Kimihiro didn’t like to be stared at.
“Kimihiro-kun, are you lonely? It’s an awful hour to be awake in.”
It was indeed lonely, but he hadn’t let it bother him until now. Hearing it said by someone else only pulled his emotions free. His big eyes quickly filled up with tears.
“I can’t find them, okasan and otosan and everybody else.”
The butterfly woman studied him carefully, and she held out a hand and gestured him to come over. “Stay with me, then,” she said.
There was no reason for Kimihiro to feel scared, especially now that he had finally found somebody to actually be with. He was feeling terribly alone. But as he held out his hand, there seemed to be something that pulled him away, and he realized that he couldn’t quite reach for the woman holding out to him. Something was whispering, don’t trust that woman.
So he didn’t. Kimihiro wasn’t exactly stubborn; he knew when and when not to be obedient. He had a brain of his own, after all.
He took a step back and felt the world stretch out behind him, slowing him down as he turned to run for safety. The woman who was eerily like his own Kohane-chan back home did not make a move to grab him, but her mouth opened until it was distortedly stretched to swallow him all at once- and as he fully turned around, a deafening scream filled the dark empty space, resonant within the halls.
He ran as fast as his little feet could carry him, feeling like the whole of hell itself was rampaging behind his back- and maybe it was like that, really, because the elegant butterflies that had once been the Kohane-look-alike had turned into what seemed like bats, and the whole of them raged over to catch him, to eat him, to do lots of things to him that he couldn’t even fathom to know of, in his young age of three years.
His feet carried him to where he wanted to be quickly enough, and soon he could see the door he had left open just a few yards away. At that moment his right foot decided to rebel against him, and he tripped, landing squarely on his face. He pushed himself up and looked gingerly behind him, his eyes stinging, and the lot of bats turned back into butterflies and reassembled themselves to form into Kohane again.
There was a sort of sinister gleam in her bottomless eyes. “Now will you be a good boy and stay with me?”
Kimihiro sniffled, bringing his hand to wipe away his tears. His other hand was clasped around the bag of marbles he had picked up earlier, and as soon as he grabbed a handful, he flung the whole lot at the monster behind him.
Kohane screamed as the marbles rained down on her, small and hard and many, and shining vividly as they made contact, giving ample time for Kimihiro to get away. The little boy did, too, getting up as fast as he could and throwing his full weight upon the door to close it shut behind him. He made sure to lock it, and after that he ran full speed towards his room to hide underneath his bed sheets.
He was trembling. He was really, really, REALLY scared.
“He wouldn’t like that,” said a voice very much like his own.
Kimihiro swerved around to see who could it be; he was so sure he was alone right now, and safe, although his young mind was fighting against reality. It was always like that, when things happen so suddenly.
His reflection in the hallway mirror was talking to him, though it did not seem like his reflection at all. The boy in the mirror had cleaner clothes and looked as if he had just come out of the bath; his eyes were sparkly and he was smiling, unlike Kimihiro was, all dirty and scared. Also, he had the stuffed giraffe with him. Kimihiro wanted the stuffed giraffe back so much.
“Why wouldn’t he like that?” Kimihiro asked, pouting. “’’sides, it wasn’t a he. Kohane-chan is a guuurl, you dolt.” He was normally spanked whenever he used mean words like that, but he was feeling mean and uncomfortable, and his parents weren’t around to spank him anyway.
His reflection just laughed, and Kimihiro missed laughing. “He wouldn’t like that, Kimi-chan. Good luck now.” And with that, albeit impossible, the reflection turned around, crossed the hallway, and turned to the living room of the house in the mirror. He was gone.
Kimihiro just stared at where his reflection used to be. His ears were red, and his eyes were bursting with tears. And then, he cried- “IT’S KIMIHIRO, NOT KIMI-CHAN!”
-
In another place, a little way off where our Kimihiro was:
Shizuka was just as uncomfortable. And he felt just as mean, and just as terrible.
The night before, he had gone into the temple, and found out that it was being infested with bad spirits. They were like maggots: twisting in and about across the tatami mats, across the walls, dipping in and out of the doors; there were some who were eating the scrolls his grandfather had made to protect the house, although these scrolls should have killed them all at the first touch. His grandfather wasn’t anywhere around.
Then he had gone to where he was supposed to go, at times of emergencies like this. The storage house was a little way at the back of the temple, but although there were tons of ayakashis inside the house, there was nothing that bothered him outside. He had then found the bow his grandfather owned, a little way taller than he was himself; and the string could not be pulled any farther than his little hands could let him.
So it was that presently, he was still brooding over what to do with it.
It was only obvious to say that he really was in a dire need for weapons, but at his young age, he couldn’t possibly hold one that he could control properly. Besides, the only things that counted as weapons in his mind were the things his grandfather had usually used at exorcisms; he had been to those because he liked tagging along his grandfather. He remembered the bow without the arrows, the paper scrolls with stuff written on them, and rarely, Buddhist beads.
He could not possibly use the bow right now, and the beads were nowhere in sight. And the scrolls did not seem to have the power they should.
Sighing, he inched into the small nook behind the bookshelf he was in, and closed his eyes. There was a soft clunk, and immediately he stood, looking around alertly. A little way from him was a bag of what seemed to be marbles.
Shizuka tipped his head, wondering where it could have come from, but realized quickly that perhaps this was his chance to turn the tables around. The marbles were numerous, filling the stuffy pouch bag to the brim. Although he was sure it wouldn’t kill any of the ayakashis instantaneously, he had a weapon, at the least. Weapons in fact.
Smiling to himself now, he picked the bag up and put it inside his coat. He was still wearing the outerwear he was the day before. He got out of the storage house and tentatively put his boots on, and left without further ado.
He didn’t really know what he had to do. He was hungry and tired, and admittedly, he was scared. He was only a child, after all, and the situation he was in was not supposed to be a part of his childhood. He wasn’t supposed to fight against ghosts with marbles all alone, at the very least.
Then it hit him: where was Kimihiro? The boy had gone back to his apartment, and he was surely still there.
With renewed resolution, he ran at full speed, past the family gates, past numerous lamp posts and trees, and eventually reached what he was sure to be his friend’s apartment. After all, Kimihiro had oftentimes boasted about how spacious it was and how tall, and had even pointed out to him his room with chubby fingers.
“The nicest one in the whole place!” Kimihiro had chirped, “One with big windows opening out to beyond!”
So Shizuka stared up at the apartments, looked for the one with the nicest windows. All the others seemed to be barricaded shut, and the only one with open windows looked hollow and frightening. Despite that, Shizuka was sure he was looking at exactly where Kimihiro could be.
He gripped the bag of marbles through his coat, grit his teeth to look fearless, and entered the opened doors that seemed to be calling him, towards beyond.
[End of Chapter three.]