Presence
The presence of another tickles along the back of Tamamori’s neck yet, as he glances behind again for the umpteenth time, there’s no other there, no sound, no shadows to hide in but confirming still doesn’t ease the feeling of being watched that brushes across his skin the wrong way.
Up ahead there’s a junction in the corridor. Right or left. Either or. Both identically lit under the ship’s fluorescent bulbs and Tamamori pauses in the hopes that the correct direction will call to him. Maybe somewhere in his subconscious he remembers the way but then there’s that presence of another haunting behind and in desperation he turns left before throughly thinking it through.
He spies a constellation he knows from navigation maps out a porthole and reassures himself with the knowledge he’s in the same galaxy. Wishes the old ship was as easy to navigate as stars and space. The squeak and shuffle of his shoes echo along the walls and even if he stops abruptly he can’t tell if what he hears are his own footsteps or the sound of something closing in. Then a light overhead flickers and Tamamori trips over his own feet to quicken his pace. The corridor curves to the left and that feels wrong in his gut yet turning back seems worse, but a minute later Tamamori regrets he hadn’t when suddenly confronted with a dead end and a lone door.
“You probably don’t want to go in there.”
That junior engineer again. Always hovering around, constantly smiling. Annoyingly broader when Tamamori fails in his attempt to cover up his squeal of surprise with a scowl.
“Cute. That’s the engine room,” the engineer continues, “kind of dangerous, especially if Yokoo-san catches you in there without clearance. Your shift starts soon, you should have turned right for the flight deck, I can show you the way.”
Tamamori scowls more seriously at the outstretched hand of offering “Why are you always wherever I am even when I’m lost?” he wants to brush it all aside an an understandable unintentional coincidence. All the crew follow schedule and routine but Tamamori has found it impossible to fall easily into said routine. Late for shifts and meals and meetings since he can’t seem to ever find his way. He feels lost constantly in the long near identical corridors of the ship. Uncontrollably day dreams until he finds himself deep in the bowels instead of on the top deck but then that engineer's always there to guide him back and steer him away from more wrong turns. Assuring Tamamori that he'll learn his way around in no time.
The smile now so annoyingly wide it hides the other’s eyes “Don’t want to lose you now that I finally know you exist.”
Tamamori grumbles an insult and brushes by without a glance back. He'll learn to find his own way but whispers right, right, right, to himself three times to remember.
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Your turn omoikkiri sorry it's not a very exciting word.