Archive of Our Own

When Juri was young, her older sister taught her how to fold paper. Flowers, frogs, boats. Juri liked boxes best. Not just boxes, but those modular boxes, with the thick shapes that slipped into each other in orderly fashion. There was something magical, like something was being sealed inside.

'You'll end up like Urashima Tarou, if you carry a box around all day with you!'

She had been young then, so a bit of petulance was in order. 'Will not!' Juri retorted.

'Will too,' her older sister shouted back. 'You'll disappear under the sea, and when you come back, we'll have all grown old and died. When you open your box, you'll blow away on the wind!'

Juri stuck her jaw out. 'Will not.'

'Oh? You'll keep it safe?'

Gullible at that young age, Juri nodded sincerely. 'I will!'

Her older sister's eyes grew canny. Her lips strained against a hidden smile. She raised one hand, and lowered the other, and then clapped them together above and below Juri's cupped palms, crushing the box between their fingers.

'Be careful, kid. It's an important lesson I'm teaching you, I...'

But Juri was crying, and running to mother, and whatever lesson her sister had meant to teach her had been lost.

Forgetting the name of the boy who had dived in to the water to save her older sister, that wasn't what scared Juri. It was when she realised she couldn't remember her sister's name, or her mother's. She couldn't remember why her sister had been in the river in the first place, or what had happened after it all.

It had been at least six years since those girls had left the school, and five since that other girl, hadn't it? It had certainly been a long time. Why hadn't she graduated yet? Sometimes when she counted, she reached six years. At other times it was ten, fifteen, one hundred.

She felt, well. A little dizzy. She braced herself on the table in the Student Council's room and lowered herself into a wrought-iron chair. That girl, those three girls, the ones that had left the school. Why couldn't she remember their names? Miki had known them, and Touga, Saionji.

One of the girls had been a member of the student council. Juri bit her lip. She had sat at this table, she had always been following close at Touga's heels.

When she looked down, there was a packet of chiyogami paper on the table. The paper slid slickly out of the plastic, and fanned out easily across the tabletop. The yellow sheets stood out the most.

Juri picked up a sheet and started the familiar old folds. Ninety degrees, forty-five degrees. Something was wrong with Ohtori Academy, and it had nothing to do with the curriculum. She used her fingernail to sharpen a crease to a fine point. Next piece of paper, ninety degrees, forty-five degrees, point. She liked the ritual of making the modular pieces most of all. Making them all precise enough to slip together and leave no gaps.

Her ring caught on one piece, as she folded it. She stared down at her hand, as if it was the first time in her life she had truly seen it.

'If a chick does not break its shell, it dies without being born,' she whispered to herself. She slipped her duelist's ring off of her finger, slowly, casting glances back over her shoulder to make sure that nobody was approaching. She slid the modular pieces together, then dropped the ring inside, closed the box. She stared at it. She'd already made her decision, now she was simply lingering, postponing the inevitable.

She did not return to her dormitory, or speak to anyone that she met. She did not resign from the fencing club, sign unenrolment papers, or go looking for a friend. The only way forward was across the threshold of the school gates.

She had crossed them before, but never with intent, and this time, when she put both feet down on the ground and looked out at the wide world, the world fell away beneath her. The sky became thick and heavy and dark. Cold tendrils of hair, not her own, brushed against her wrists and her ankles.

She was wet, and her lungs hurt. Wait, she was under water? Water, yes! She kicked out, freed her ankles, and struggled against the drag of her clothes to rise to the surface. Nothing was as important as sweet, clean air. Her muscles burned, and then, with a rasp of pain at the back of her throat, she was out. Well, she was treading water and coughing the taste of snot and earwax and bile out of her airways. Her eyes were blinded and stinging from her own hair, which had flattened and tangled around her as she had flailed her way to the surface.

Nearby, from dry land, somebody screamed.

Juri treaded water, tried to keep her head above the waterline as she coughed and spluttered. Then, she heard a voice.

'Oh, it's you! Hey, you! Arisugawa! Stop pretending to drown and just stand up!'

That voice was familiar. Hardly important, given the emergent situation. Juri put her feet down, and found the bottom.

In the shock of that, going from drowning in fear to feeling a little silly, she realised that she was standing in a waist-high pond, and a woman in her twenties was standing up, waving a hand.

'Hey, over here! Arisugawa!'

The woman had blonde hair, long around her shoulders, but styled strangely. There was something about her.

'I said heeeeey! Come on, get out of that pond, before someone I know comes along. I'll help you out, but I won't embarrass myself. Appearances are everything in my line of work!'

Juri gave up. It would come to her in time. She waded to the edge of the pond, and lifted herself up out of it. Looking back, dripping all over the concrete, Juri was very confused. The pond was shallow. It was the man-made kind, more like a fountain. Isolated in the middle of a park, supplied with water by pumps and pipes. There was no physical way possible for a human being to have come from the front gate of a private school campus, and ended up in that pond.

Someone grabbed her arm. 'I said, come on! You'd think you were deaf as well as damp. We have to go.'

Juri let the woman pull her along. They must look a sight. This short woman, mid-twenties, dressed well, dragging a soaking wet, tall teenage girl along behind her.

'Who are you?' Juri demanded. 'Why do you even care?'

'Who am I? Ugh, don't tell me you've forgotten. It's been years, but it hasn't been that long.'

Her voice, older but recognisable. Her hair, different but the same colour. She was just as bossy, just as selfish, just as impatient and obsessed with image.

'Nanami?!'

That had been her name! Nanami Kiryuu, Touga Kiryuu's little sister. She'd joined the duels, joined the student council. Before the other two left, she'd already taken her ring off. Not long after that, she'd transferred away from the school.

'Well, aren't we bright and clever today.' At some point in her life, Nanami's facetious whining comments had evolved into dry sarcasm. That, more than anything, was what scared Juri.

'How old are you?' Juri had to know. She followed Nanami across a road and down a back alley.

'What? I take that back, the old bag's a moron. A lady your age should know better than to ask that kind of question. Makes you look like you're jealous of my youth.'

Alarmed, Juri looked down at herself. She stumbled a bit, following along. 'I'm not wearing my uniform,' she said. 'Or my own clothes. My skin, it's...'

'Older, yeah. Well done.' Nanami laughed, then shook her head. Her hair flipped around, as she looked left and right, and pulled a small, shiny, formless rectangle from her pocket. She held it up to a panel beside a door. 'I say that, but I was more freaked out than you when I left, and I was only a few years off my real self.'

Juri was catching up somewhat. She nodded. So whatever that dream-like school had been, it had been outside of time. Something eternal? It almost made you laugh. 'I don't know how old I am, then. Who's still out here, whether they've noticed my absence...'

Nanami held up a finger. 'Shh, this is my work. You can stay with me tonight, so we'll talk later. For the moment, strip. That pond was full of algae one year. You'll get sick.'

Nanami ushered Juri through a small dark storeroom and into an office that had a bare concrete floor, three desks, a filing cabinet, and a safe. The bright lights weren't incandescent or flourescent, and the laptops on the desk were thinner than paperback novels.

'Oh my goodness,' a voice cried out. 'What happened? Nanami! Go get a spare uniform!'

'As I was about to say, I'll go get a spare uniform. Get out of that wet stuff.'

The man who had spoken didn't seem quite right. If time had passed – phones, computers, hair styles – it was probably just that kind of difference. Juri wasn't aware of this current society or its culture. He was older than her by a few years. Shit, younger, damnit. Considerably younger. Younger than Nanami. He was younger than her, and looked worried, scandalised, and thrilled.

'Ah... is there a bathroom here, young man?'

He blinked, blushed, and nodded. 'Door on the left,' he pointed.

Juri shrugged off his behaviour. One thing at a time. First, the strangeness of her own body. There was only one toilet, a small business then. She could have guessed that from the size of the storeroom and the lack of any kind of dock or delivery area.

No. She wasn't getting distracted, or evading it. Her clothes and her body. Right. She wore a sodden silk shirt, a short white slip, a plain white bra, and a pair of long, loose, dark trousers. Practical shoes. She could have had a similar outfit in her own wardrobe at school, but these clothes were all unfamiliar to her. They fell in a squelching heap on the floor, and if she hadn't dripped enough already, they started soaking into a puddle. In her uncomfortable underwear, Juri tried to minimise the issue by wringing some of the water out.

Strange buttons under her fingers. She'd wanted to leave, and leave everything behind, but now Shiori, Touga, Miki, even that prick Saionji were out of her reach forever. She'd never return to the fencing club, or encourage a first year to take up the sport. She'd never see any of them again.

She closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. Her body was what she might have predicted, for her adulthood. Muscles still toned, as if she'd continued fencing throughout her life. Posture perfect. No new scars, piercings, or souvenirs of any kind to suggest that her body had lived at all. When she pinched at it, her skin was a little looser on her flesh, and her flesh was softer on her bones. Aging.

Nanami banged on the door. 'Hey, I can't wait out here forever!'

Juri opened it a sliver to peer out, not wanting to expose herself. 'You didn't knock, I wouldn't have kept you waiting.'

'Yeah, well. Maybe I'm just looking for an excuse. I don't even need one! I'm just having lunch, and all of a sudden my hideous past comes rising up out of a pond and I can't even tell it to go fuck itself. You're welcome.'

'Thanks,' Juri said, 'but if you don't want to help me, I can put my clothes back on and get out of your life, forever.'

Nanami scowled through the gap in the door. 'Oh, just take the fucking clothes.' She shoved a polo shirt and a pair of dark trousers through, turned on her heel, and stalked away.

'I didn't expect you to grow up to use language like that,' Juri said in surprise to the back of the door. When she put the ill-fitting, scratchy, logo-branded clothing on, she hated how good simply being dry felt.

When she came back into the office, the young man was gone, and Nanami was filing her nails and sitting behind a desk.

'This is it, really. I can't get up in case the phone rings. Seconds can matter a lot, to us. So just take it easy for a while. Grab a plastic bag from the third drawer in the filing cabinet, and put your wet stuff in there. The other phones won't ring. Just sit down and use the guest login to kill time. I've got three hours left.'

It felt strange, in this place in which time passed. Moments of activity and quiet contemplation didn't always keep pace with events and emotions, everything felt less staged, less choreographed. Computers were different, but not that different. Juri logged into the guest account, and found her way to the generic accessories and games folders.

About two hours of Minesweeper later, Nanami walked past. 'Teabreak,' she said. 'Want anything? Oh! No, no no no no no.'

'What?'

Nanami leaned over Juri's shoulder, her shoulder bumping up against Juri's ear, and grabbed the mouse. She wasn't wearing any fragrance, she didn't smell like anything other than skin and hair and the detergent she'd used in her washing machine. That was when Juri realised how clear her sinuses felt, and how pervasive the scent of roses had become at school. It was as if these kinks and knots within her heart were slowly unwinding, unfolding. Free to grow in this clean fresh air.

'Unlimited access, and way faster than you'd remember. Oh, wow. Plus we have search engines now. Trying to remember what high school was like is such a headache. Here. Web browser. Google. Type something nice and safe in. Like, fencing tournament video.'

Nanami typed the words in, and hit the return key. She pointed at the results. 'See? I can't turn the sound on, but you can actually do something useful with your time. Have some fun, or read some news. I don't care. But I am not spending all night with someone who has sunken into catatonia from crappy games.'

'Right, ah, thanks. Thank you.' Juri was relieved. She'd been bored, very bored. The kind of bored you could only get, when you were switching between staring at a wall and staring at a digital game of Solitaire.

'So, tea? Coffee? We haven't got anything nice, but it keeps you awake.'

'Sure, thanks. I could...' Juri raised a hand, but Nanami had already dashed from the room. 'Help,' she finished quietly.

Nanami gave Juri tea, with sugar, no milk. It wasn't quite the way she took it, but it was hot and it warmed her up even more, deep down inside. She sipped and stared at videos. Olympic competitions she'd never even heard of. Form and grace and that godforsaken lazy cheat's use of the give in a modern sword, to cheat to a point using a wobble or a flick. It was ugly and lazy and wrong. It was a natural result of the glory of winning.

'Hello,' Nanami said when her phone rang. 'You've reached the Rainbow Helpdesk. How can we help?'

Juri clicked on another video, this one an unofficial practice match from a small neighbourhood club, and watched a young man raise and flick his foil in salute.

'Ahahaha, no, no need to be embarrassed at all. Even if people print this kind of information out, or make a pamphlet for you, that can be risky to keep at home. I understand completely. I'll look the answers up for you, that way I'll give you the best information possible.'

His opponent nodded and saluted in return. They fell into guard.

Nanami clicked four times. She said, in a sunny voice, 'Here we are! Ideally you'll use store-bought water-based lubricant and a condom, for safety. You can pick up free condoms from all kinds of organisations, they don't need to know where you're going to put them, right? Anyway. Anything sticky is an absolute no, or anything with little grainy bits. Don't use anything that you wouldn't put in your own mouth, that's a good rule. Slippery things. Vegetable oil can do, so can butter or a very gentle moisturiser type, but really nothing you wouldn't put in your own mouth.'

The fencers were doing something, Juri was sure of it. Her eyes were wide, and she couldn't focus on anything other than Nanami's calm, gentle, motherly voice talking into the handset.

'Is that useful? Oh, no. Nothing acidic. What if you abrade something? Have you ever felt that pain when antiseptic is poured over a wound? Ouch.'

Nanami listened for a few moments. 'Sure, no problem. Sooooo, all right.' She clicked, clicked again. 'There should be vending machines for skins near most chemists. Some streets near night clubs. For anonymity, go a few stops out of your way to a boring area none of your friends visit. Then you can go inside the store and see more brands, and ask questions over the counter. They'll just assume you're straight and being really sweet, saving your girlfriend all that work. Yeah? Yeah. I think you'll be fine. You can buy them pre-lubricated, too. Make sure you don't use anything but water-based stuff with a skin. If you're putting the effort to be safe in, it's pointless to tear it, right?'

There was a long silence, that left Juri feeling out of place, and her skin itching. She pulled out the front of her shirt and took a closer look at the logo. The Rainbow Help Line for LGBT issues.

'No, you're welcome. I'm probably not the most experienced person with them, but we got there in the end. Call back any time eight to ten, we're here if you need us. You too sweetie. Okay, bye!'

Nanami blew out a long breath and rubbed her hands over her eyes, once she'd hung up. She rolled her eyes and looked over at Juri. 'Boys. Girls are always the ones who want to talk about techniques or where to go clubbing, or how to tell if someone is into them. Boys are scared to buy condoms and lube. We really should have a switchboard to match them up with each other, they'd solve their own problems.'

'Right,' Juri said. 'So. Have you been...' oh there was no good way to put it. She gave up and went for a safer, polite option. 'working here long?'

Nanami smirked. She knew exactly what Juri had almost asked. Juri was certain of it.

'Well, a while. I volunteered until they got a grant from the council, and now here I am. We can afford to cover way more shifts, and donations are increasing. I think parents are getting more accepting, soon as they find out. Well, the good ones. Don't ask me about the bad ones, I've got too many things to say about them.'

Juri blinked. 'I imagine you would.'

Nanami laughed. She shook her head, and nodded it. 'Sorry, not laughing at you. I just am, laughing. At you. You were always so high above me, so much older, so refined. Now you're still this teenage girl, and I'm this relaxed, cynical adult. It's a bit scary. It's better to laugh than to scream, right?'

'Sure,' Juri said, 'and I'm not a teenage girl. I'm older than you!'

'Uh-huh,' Nanami said. 'All mature grown women act just like you. They blush when contraceptives are mentioned, and they're too embarrassed to know how to ask about someone's sexual orientation politely.'

'Are you, then?'

'Am I what?'

Juri bit her lip. She was bigger than this, she was elegant and mature, and this shouldn't be such a hard thing to do. 'Are you a lesbian?'

The phone rang, and Nanami held up a hand to put that answer off till later.

After her shift was over, Nanami led Juri through the streets. She apparently lived close enough to the centre that a bus was unnecessary.

'I never expected you'd grow up to work somewhere like this. I guess I never imagined you growing up,' Juri said. She was having more trouble than she'd thought. Short stairs, turning corners, bumping in to signs that she could have sworn were a little further away.

'Yeah, well. Says the kid here.'

'I'm not a kid,' Juri insisted.

'You are. You've grown taller than you're used to, and you're tripping all over the place. It'll get easier, trust me. I've seen it with guys all the time.'

'Huh?' Juri focused more on where she put her feet. It was getting easier. She felt clumsy and crude and she hated how ungainly all her movements were.

'Sometimes kids can't keep a secret, and their parents hate it. There's shelters, but sometimes we all end up putting someone up for a night or two. I've got a spare mattress for it. I only take guys, I don't like sharing a roof with a horny little girl. Makes me feel like a creep. Guys grow faster than girls, so they get all gangly like you.'

'Oh, thanks. I'm flattered.'

Nanami grinned. 'You should be. Your hair's so messy, you'll get hardly any compliments from anyone today. Oh!'

Nanami grabbed Juri's elbow and tugged her into a chemist. 'Here. Pick stuff, I'll buy it. Hairbrush, comb, any pads or tampons. No makeup, all right?'

Juri nodded dazedly. 'Why are all the lights so bright?'

'Oh, LEDs. They're more energy efficient. Don't worry, you get used to them. I have less in each light fitting at home, so it's not so impressive.'

Juri grabbed things quickly, she felt obtrusively noticeable with her messy hair, her wet socks, and the logo branded across her chest. Hairbrush, comb, hair scissors. Shampoo, conditioner. Toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, face washer. Pads and tampons. She'd never added up these parts of her daily life at once before, and they cost a lot.

'Oh, right,' she said, carrying the bag out of the store. 'Inflation.'

'Hah!' Nanami giggled. 'Wait till you hear how much ramen costs. Your heart might never recover. Hurry up, we've got work to do at home.'

Juri lengthened her stride to keep up, tripped over the edge of a concrete seam, and swore.

'Oh, wow. You're so adorable when you're this clumsy. Were you this cute when we were at school? Thinking back at how grumpy you were, you must have been. I'm so glad you made it out of there.'

Juri counted to ten, got a better grip on the two plastic bags that held all of her worldly possessions, and kept walking.

Nanami handed her a cheap plastic packet, baggy pyjamas. She supposed a lot of Nanami's guests didn't have much time to pack, before they left home. It was strange, to imagine a shelf with new clothing, waiting for people's lives to fall apart.

Showering was bliss, and combing the tangles out of her hair was so relaxing she nearly fell asleep on the floor of the bathroom. As it was, when Juri came out, she didn't quite have enough energy to eat dinner. She picked at it, and tilted her head to drain water from her ears, and watched Nanami. She really had grown up. She really had taken care of a lot of homeless teenagers. You could tell from the way she cooked quick, easy, inoffensive meals. The way the mattress was laid out and covered, the warmth to the room as a whole. The way she didn't push for information, but seemed ready to talk.

'Do you want to know about Touga?'

Nanami stuck her tongue out. 'That jerk? No way. If he gets his head on straight and comes to join the real world, maybe. But not if he's still hiding from himself. He hates me,' she confided in Juri, 'because he loved me so much, looked after me so well, that I never suffered like he did at the hands of our parents. What a two-faced idiot. I can understand it, but I can't forgive it.'

'Well, I suppose you could say with one thing and another I was his friend, but that sounds twisted.'

Nanami shrugged. 'You get used to it. So, you. You made it out. You came up out of a pond. Why? Is it anything to do with that story you told us, about your sister drowning?'

'Huh?'

'I came back near a storm-water drain,' Nanami confessed. 'I'd apparently been missing for years. Since I was a kid. I disappeared near a storm-water drain, on a rainy day. My brother and parents went missing around that time, too, so all their money is just sitting in this bank account with my name on it. I feel dirty when I have to use it.'

Juri nodded, frowned, felt a headache building up between her eyebrows. 'Didn't your family live in the city just beyond the school? How can they possibly be...'

'Oh, you moron! We were taken up by mysterious forces and hidden away by some kind of demented god.' Nanami sighed, and her shoulders slumped. 'It's the best explanation I can think of, anyway. Oh, crap. Want to call your parents?'

'Not tonight,' Juri had had enough things happening for one day. She was so tired from it all, she just wanted lie down and sleep. She was what, thirty? Her sister might be married, her parents might be retired. She wouldn't know who they were, or how to talk to them.

She had trouble falling asleep. She kept herself very still, she lay straight on the small mattress and tried to breathe evenly. To relax.

'It's all right,' Nanami said gently. She knelt down beside Juri's head. 'You'll grow up quickly enough. It must feel like you've been left behind, right now, but you haven't. Not really. You were years ahead of all of us back then.'

She stroked a hand through Juri's hair, like she was soothing a child. Juri wanted to open her eyes, or protest, but she really was tired. She just lay there and let it happen to her. It was more relaxing than she'd have liked to admit.

'You were more mature than most of us. You knew your own heart better. You'll be more elegant than anyone in the world, cooler than shaved ice in a muggy summer. You'll learn how to live in your long legs, and you'll find a way to move on. I promise.'

Since when, Juri wondered, did Nanami manage to sound so sincere? Her voice, it was unmistakeably her, but those words were so sweet and nice. So easy to put faith in.

Sleep reached up and rose above her like a wave.

In her dream, she returned to her family home. It was empty, full of dust and cobwebs. They hadn't had a garden, not really, but somehow that didn't matter. There was a garden, with a pond in it. Instead of stones or tiles, thin grave-markers lined the edges. She didn't read them all, there were more than just her family there. She knew it without looking. The woman who worked at the train station. Babysitters, preschool teachers. Aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins.

As she watched, the grass withered and died. The water in the pond boiled and evaporated. The grave-stones themselves weathered, grew moss, and crumbled.

There was a folded box in her hand, made with perfect edges in exquisitely expensive fine paper. So thin it was translucent. Something glowed inside there. There was nothing left for it. Juri slipped a corner out, opening it up. The bright shining patterns on the paper bloomed in her palms, and though she expected to find a ring inside, there was nothing. No explanation for that light inside. There was nothing.

She was nothing. The open box fell, and canted to one side in the pond. Her empty clothing hung in the air, then crumpled to the ground. Rain fell. The box dissolved, sank into darkness. A prickly bush began to grow through her clothes, tearing them, until there was nothing left, not one single thread, to be seen.

She woke up, sweating, with a cramp in her shins and a dry rasping throat. Someone was sitting nearby, and turning the slick pages of a magazine.

'You can't pretend you're not awake,' Nanami said. 'You stopped fidgeting, rolling over, and muttering. You were so cool at school, I never imagined you'd talk in your sleep. Nightmare?'

Juri stretched the kinks out of her shoulders, then moved on to rubbing her shins. She blinked her eyes until they felt better. 'Maybe. I felt so numb, so detached from it all. I can't say I was scared.'

Nanami rolled her eyes. 'As if you'd ever admit to something like that. Anyway, breakfast is toast. Help yourself.'

There was a choice of butter, marmalade, and strawberry jam. Juri was unable to decide, so she gave up and ate her toast cold and dry.

'So, I'll take a week off of work, help you get on your own feet. Even if you don't want to contact your family, we'll have to do something about finding your identity papers.'

'Right,' Juri said. She swallowed a bit of juice after every bite, to get it down easier. 'I didn't have a wallet, when I came up.'

'No, you wouldn't. I didn't.'

'I suppose we didn't have them, when we went there.'

Nanami frowned. 'No. Look, I know this is hard, but anything more you know about your...'

'How I drowned?'

Nanami looked away. 'Yeah, how you drowned.'

'My sister fell in, and this boy jumped in after her. She was kicking and screaming, and he went under. He never came up. I saw his hair, heard someone screaming. She was going to drown. So I jumped in, too. She was bigger than me, but I was always strong, fast. Better at sport. I made it out to her, and I kept her above water long enough, I know that... but then...'

She held her head. It ached. She couldn't make sense of anything.

'Hey, it's all right. You did good. Okay. So, let's assume some things. We both drowned, it's possible everyone else at that miserable school died, or nearly died.'

Juri's breath caught in her throat. 'Died?'

Nanami shrugged. 'I've had a while to think about it. Makes sense, right? Some kind of spirit, kidnapping people who are already gone from this world. We were lucky enough to make it back.'

Juri stared, dumbfounded. 'That is the silliest idea I've heard in my life.'

'Right, because drawing your soul from your body in the form of a sword is oh so rational.'

Nanami rolled her eyes and brushed her hands off. 'I've got to go in to work. I'll ask for time off, someone can cover for me. We'll get stuff sorted.'

Nanami pushed a key across the table, and a plastic card. 'I've made up a prepaid debit card from the vending machine for you, and that'll open the front door. You've got a few million on there, it should cover you for a day. Don't forget to check the prices, it'll be easy to forget how expensive things are.'

'Yes, mother,' Juri said.

'Oh, you tease. We can play those games when I'm back home. By-eeeee!'

Nanami slammed the door shut behind herself.

Those games? What games? Oh, ugh. How tasteless. 'I bet you'd like me to play those games with you. Brat.' Even just saying it into that empty room lightened Juri's mood a little.

The city was small, relaxed. It had a few discount stores, some chain restaurants, but mostly local businesses. Not as small as the city around their boarding school, but nowhere near as big as a metropolis. Houses had gardens, and you rarely had to wait for a car to pass to cross the road.

Juri found one of those cheap clothing stores, where there were mostly T-shirts in plastic bags with obscene slogans on them, and some skirts and shirts hanging from wire racks in a dark concrete room. She didn't even know her own size. She could guess well enough, but none of the clothing really suited her. She bought some men's shirts, and a long dark skirt that wasn't too feminine or too masculine. She had lunch at McDonald's, and winced at the taste of it. She stopped by a 100-yen shop, which at least hadn't changed. She bought a miniature plastic toy bowling set and a pack of paper, and spent the afternoon in Nanami's apartment reading the newspaper, watching TV, folding boxes, and flicking a 2cm wide hollow plastic ball at 3cm tall plastic pins.

Nanami returned, carrying take-away food in plastic containers. She smiled, tired but relaxed, and walked over to the table. She cocked her head to look at what Juri was folding. 'Is that an egg?'

'It's a box,' Juri said.

'Huh. Looked like an egg. Weird.'

Juri snorted. 'Look who's talking. You, running a help desk giving sex advice to gay kids?'

Nanami scowled. 'It's important. You'll never understand, and I never want you to understand. That's why I'm putting up with you, taking care of you. It's hard, really hard, having nobody. Whether it's because they're all gone, or they're treating you like you're dead to them, whether you have money or not, it's hard.'

Juri swallowed. 'Nanami.' She thought about what it could have been like, to be twelve or fourteen or however old she'd been at school, stumbling out into this world alone. It had cost Juri a lot, to leave Shiori behind. But to leave your family, all your family.

'Nanami, I'm sorry,' Juri said.

Nanami smirked, then smiled broadly. 'Well, you're just angry that I'm not as cute as I used to be, which is fine, too. There is an appeal to being with an older woman. Someone who knows what they're doing.'

Nanami winked at her. Juri spluttered, and raised her hands. 'I have no idea what you are talking about.' Her gut didn't either, and that fluttering yearning feeling was just hunger. She hadn't eaten in hours. It could only be hunger.

'Well, any way. Now there's two of us. I can bully you into helping me figure this out. We've got some stuff down already. We came back to the place we disappeared from. We can figure out where everyone else vanished, and keep an eye on those places, just in case.'

'Right,' Juri thought about everyone they'd left behind. 'We can help them.'

'Pfft. They can help themselves,' Nanami rolled her eyes. 'Honestly, most of them were jerks to me. Self-absorbed pricks. You can't pretend you didn't notice. I'm pretty sure you can't leave that place unless you're willing to throw them all to the dogs.'

'You mean, move on from them?' Juri wasn't sure she was comfortable with Nanami's way of putting it.

'However nicely you spin it, you're still basically standing up for yourself and saying you won't wait around suffering their self-centred crap any more. That you'll wait for them to deal with their stuff, but you won't put your life on hold. In other words, they gave up on themselves. They choose to lie to themselves.' Nanami shrugged, and some of her hair fell forwards over her shoulders. 'Any way, we're going on a holiday if you have no objections. There's this place by the sea, it's creepy how familiar it is to me.'

'What do you suggest we do there?' Juri asked. She tidied the low table off, started serving dinner onto two plates.

'We're going to excavate,' Nanami said. 'We're going to get right to the bottom of this.'

On the train to Kansai, she actually explained herself. 'Sakai is full of keyhole-shaped Kofun.'

'What does that mean? Just some historical burial mounds?'

'No, oh come on. You never looked down? From the duelling arena? You never saw, from the stairs or the gondola, that far beneath you there was a forest, and this rectangle shape, and that the school was the highest ground for a while? That it was... here!'

Nanami grabbed the box of sweets she'd bought at the station, tore the cardboard lid flap off, and scribbled on the back of it with a pen. 'See? Here's the duelling arena's forest. Here's the land around it. Here's the outline of the inner school, here's the outer walls. That's the slope that goes down to the road outside. There's the gate.'

She pulled her phone out, and swiped her thumb across it a few times. She put it down beside her sketch, and said, 'And that's a keyhole-shaped Kofun.'

Juri frowned. 'Perhaps,' she said.

'We're going to see Daisen first. That's Nintoku's.'

'Emperor Nintoku?'

Nanami was very enthusiastic with her praise. 'Oh, you brilliant girl, you paid attention during history class, didn't you!'

'It was, for me, three days ago,' Juri said grumpily. The way that Nanami fawned over people, it made her feel uncomfortable. She didn't trust it. Anyone could put on a wide smile and a sweet voice like that.

'Well, I fell asleep, the teacher was so boring. That why I love my phone. She answers all my questions, like a good girl. Opens doors, pays my bills. She's my sweetie.'

'I'm not a girl, by the way,' Juri said. 'I'm older than you.'

'Oh, act your age, old bag, and I'll treat you like it. Oh!' Nanami grabbed her phone, and poked at it for a few seconds. 'There we go. So this guy - '

'Emperor Nintoku,' Juri supplied.

'Him, yeah, whatever. He planted fields of thorns.'

A shiver ran down Juri's spine.

One they'd transferred in Osaka station, the train was more crowded, and slower. They grew closer to the sea, and when they walked the last short distance to Daisen Park, the world around them felt, Nanami had been correct, familiar. The houses were different, the air carried different scents, but the curves of the road and the view of the horizon, when they could glimpse it, gave them goosebumps.

'You're not seriously suggesting we desecrate a heritage listed sacred religious site, are you?'

Nanami shrugged. 'It seemed like an easier idea, when I was at home. Here, there's so many tourists. Plus it's kind of rude. What if we're wrong? What if we just end up destroying national culture?'

Juri nodded. 'It is a risk.'

She did not say, Nanami did not say, what if they were right, and they ended up stuck back at school.

'Well, we might as well see it. I wasted a lot of money on the tickets here.' Nanami ran off ahead, leaving Juri to catch up.

'Wait! You didn't mention a hotel! Tell me you booked a hotel, at least!' Juri's legs felt like her own again, and it was effortless to lengthen her stride. She caught up to Nanami easily, and crossed her arms. 'Tell me we have somewhere to go, tonight.'

'Kind of. There's kind of...' Nanami slumped. 'All right, there's a house. My empty house. I didn't want to book a hotel, but I really don't want to go there. At all.'

They looked up at it. Three tiers, moats, not really the most accessible place in the world.

'Can we get in?'

'Of course we can't get in,' Juri said testily. 'It's a restricted access sacred heritage site. Surely your phone could tell you that!'

'Meanie,' Nanami pouted. She crossed her arms over her waist, and squinted through the gates. 'We could hire a helicopter and rappel in, Mission Impossible style.'

'Or,' Juri said, feeling a headache coming on, 'we could drown in the moat and disappear completely.'

'Hmm. You're right. Let's get away from this morbid place. We could go down the beach!'

'Nanami, there's the docks. I promise you, there's no beach here. None we'd want to visit.'

Nanami turned to stare at Juri, eyes widening in fear. 'I honestly forgot where we were. All right. We have to get away from this place. Just, just let me...'

Nanami walked up to the gates, and bowed her head. She bit her lip, clasped her hands together, and in the way you'd expect a very pious believer to pray, whispered. 'Brother, Touga, if you're in there. Don't you dare come out until you've grown a spine. I mean it. No more breaking other people to try and make yourself seem bigger. Just learn how to stand straight. Your back will thank you.'

Juri raised an eyebrow.

'Done,' Nanami said brightly. She brushed her hands clean and linked her arm through Juri's. 'Let's get the hell out of here!'

They had lunch in the central station, surrounded by crowds and noise. It made it easier to avoid thinking or talking to each other. Afterwards, because there was something about food that made any kind of sadness take on a different quality, they walked around a little.

'So, all right. We could find somewhere to stay here, or we could move on to somewhere else. I've never taken a sleeper train before. We could have beds.'

'Sure,' Juri said. She had no direction, no plans. No money. It was all up to Nanami in the end. 'I'm easy to please.'

'Ohoh! Is that so? I have to tell you, I've got a thing for taller, gallant women. I think it's a complex. If you put it in my hands, I'll take you somewhere romantic.'

Juri snorted. 'Sure, if you say so.'

Nanami stopped smiling. 'You think I'm joking? I'll take you on! I'm serious, you know? Man, you sure know how to break a girl's heart.'

'Me, breaking your heart? Surely you feel uncomfortable at the thought of seducing a child like me.'

Nanami punched her in the arm. 'You idiot. I've been teasing you, stupid. Of course you're not a child. Look at you! Do you think you could possibly have made it out of there, if you were still some naïve little girl? You've grown up, you're wise enough to face this world, now.'

'Oh,' Juri said. She'd thought they'd been teasing each other. It was very hard to read Nanami, sometimes. She followed along behind in silence.

Nanami gesticulated wildly with her arms. 'Seriously. You're obviously still getting over your ordeal. I'll give you time. I'm not going to molest you or anything. I'm not crude like that. I can be a refined woman when I put my mind to it. I've got a Chanel bag and everything, somewhere.'

On the street beside them, a car's engine roared, making Juri jump. A souped-up sports car, an old model that had been painted up cheaply and stuffed full of young boys made its slow, noisy way past them.

'Ugh, kids. You have to be really immature, to think that cruising around like that is sexy. Honestly.'

'Yeah,' Juri said, feeling as if the world had sat up, twisted itself forty-five degrees to the north, and settled itself down again. Everything had different meaning, signified something different. 'I bet they've only just got their licenses.'

'Oh, hey, we should get you one! A license, I mean. I can't afford a car, and it's pretty expensive to get, but I think it can really come in handy sometimes. I've driven a rented van for some work events.'

Nanami weaved in and out of the crowd, and Juri followed. If she didn't do something, she'd fall behind. She'd been falling behind ever since she climbed out of that pond, struggling to keep up. She wasn't going to do that any longer. She was old enough to drive a car, and other things besides. She had been ready for this new world from the very start, she'd just needed some time to recognise that. With three strides, she drew even with Nanami. She looked down, and wrapped an arm around Nanami's shoulders. There were a hundred thousand tiny points of contact, from the hairs that tickled against her skin, to the wrinkles and folds in their clothing. Juri leaned down and in and pressed a light kiss to Nanami's cheek.

'I wouldn't mind being seduced by a confident and experienced older woman,' Juri whispered in her ear.

When she drew back, Nanami was blushing bright red, and stammering. 'I, I , I. I see. Of course! Ahah, sure, of course. You'd say that, wouldn't you? Eheh.'

'Are you okay?'

Nanami waved a hand, and turned away to hide her complexion. 'You just seemed really cool just then.'

She walked on ahead, but this time, Juri let her. She kept an even pace, watching Nanami bustle through the crowds. Her bright golden hair, the haughty bounce in her step, there was no way she could loose sight of her. All the anxious and uncertain feelings had resolved into this tug in Juri's chest, in her belly. A smug smile that she couldn't wipe off her face. She didn't need to know which direction she was traveling in, because she knew who was at her side.

They found a chain hotel. Nothing fancy, nothing big or small. A bed, a tiny individual shower, and a keycode for the door. They slumped on the bed, turned on the television, and relaxed.

'It's always One Piece,' Nanami complained. 'Every hotel, on every trip I've been on. Doesn't matter what time of day, it just happens to be on. New episodes, or old ones. I don't understand it.'

'You travel a lot?'

Nanami rolled onto her side, and shrugged one shoulder. 'A bit. Trying to figure it out. It gets to me. I mean, was it real or not? I needed to know. It drove me mad.'

Juri turned her head, looked into Nanami's eyes. 'Do you spend that money, your parents' money, to do it? You couldn't get enough from your work.'

Nanami sighed. 'Yeah, I do. I rationalised it. If it's bringing me to where they could be, it's different. It's not like I'm using it to go to a beauty spa.'

'No. You're a good daughter, worrying.'

'Hah! As if.' Nanami stuck her tonuge out. 'I just want my fair share, with no guilt or worrying. If they do come back all of a sudden, who knows what kinds of lawsuits I'd face.'

Juri ran her fingers down the side of Nanami's cheek. Wrinkles and flaws, soft little hairs. A face that was temporary and beautiful. 'Are you happier now? That you have proof through my existence? A hint at how they might return, if they ever do?'

Nanami bit her lip. She inhaled sharply, and shivered under Juri's touch. 'I'm not sure. I think it doesn't matter so much any more. I said it myself, you have to be ready to leave there. I was ready to take that risk, and if they're ever ready, they'll come back. No use worrying about it.'

'Do you think we died?' Juri pressed her fingers to the pulse in Nanami's neck, breathed in the smells of human life. The stale air she exhaled, the smell of sweat and skin and grime from the city air.

'I don't think it matters,' Nanami said breathlessly. 'Are you sure you're ready for this? Juri, it's only been days since you-'

Juri leaned over, and kissed Nanami on the lips. They were soft, they tasted sweet, and Nanami's breath hitched with this desperate, vulnerable sound from the back of her throat. Like she was dreaming, slowly, Nanami opened her mouth and kissed back.

Four elbows was too many for intimacy. There was a fumbling of arms and hands and legs, the slide of clothing and skin. It was too hard to focus or understand. Juri had to kiss, and gasp, and grasp, and hold. Every second was wasted. Every moment was lost to her memory, overwritten by the exquisite feeling of a tongue against her own, breasts pressing against her shoulder, fingers digging into her scalp and her back.

This experience was evaporating as it happened, fleeing from them. She held on as tightly as she could, wrapped her legs around Nanami's waist, and knew it couldn't last forever. She had to chase it, keep chasing it. She'd have to find it again, rediscover it again, this brief and passing perfection. She'd have to pursue it for the rest of her life.

Her heartbeat fluttered, and with her eyes shut, the lips against her neck came as a surprise.

'Oh, you're so new to this. So sweet, so surprised, and so so sweet,' Nanami whispered against her skin. Then, she bared her teeth and slowly, carefully but strongly bit down. Tugged on her skin, created this delicious tension that was released just as quickly.

'Aaaaah,' was all that Juri could say.

'Oh my sweet lady, I'm going to fuck you. You won't be able to walk.'

Juri wanted to participate, really, or at least say something, but Nanami was too quick. She had a knee between Juri's thighs, and lips teasing with a kiss to her solar plexus, barely brushing up against her breasts. She surrendered to gasping, reaching out, and when Nanami sat back on her heels between her knees, pushing herself up on her elbows.

Nanami smirked, and looked down at everything that Juri couldn't see from that position. Juri could feel herself swelling, growing wetter. She didn't think she'd ever seen a better expression than that. This kind of selfish, arrogant, sadistic generosity. Desire. A relaxed trust and intimacy that Juri had never known.

Nanami's fingers spread her open, bared her to the air. 'Oh, look at this precious thing, opening and ready for me.'

Juri laughed nervously, blushing, lay back, and put an arm across her eyes. 'Stop being a moron and get on with i-it!'

Nanami had leaned forwards. She licked, just in the right place, with her tongue, and the world turned white.

In the morning, Juri poked a finger into Nanami's side.

'Whaaat? Can't you see I've been up all night? Give me a break.'

'You called me a lady. During sex. I hope you don't have any romantic delusions about me.'

Nanami sighed. 'Of course I do. You're noble, striking, dashing, and you had that whole self-sacrificing humility thing going on at school. You're taller than me, plus you've got this sophistication about you. I'll follow you the ends of the earth, my lady. You can't get rid of me now.'

Juri raised an eyebrow, and looked at Nanami, who was smiling, trying not to laugh, and wrapping an arm around her waist. Their skin was sticky and swollen from their sweat.

'You haven't changed a bit. You're still the silliest, most selfish, idealistic fool I've ever known.'

Nanami kissed her lightly on the tip of her nose. 'Sure, and you are? So romantic. Not.'

Juri looked up at the ceiling, and listened to the hubbub of the city as it woke up around them. 'I can't afford to be, not right now.'

She closed her eyes. She prayed she was wrong, and knew she wasn't. 'You weren't just sitting there, that day. You were waiting for someone. It wasn't me.'

Nanami held her breath, and went still beside her.

'I suppose that pond used to be deeper? Or maybe it was a river that was filled in. I don't care. I remember things clearer now. The boy, who dived in after my sister. His hair glittered like bronze in the water. It was Touga, wasn't it?'

Nanami rolled flat onto her back, letting her arms flop beside her. 'It was. It was only about him, too, at first. But one year, your family came. I was still finishing high school, they wanted to know if I'd ever met you.'

'What did you tell them?'

Nanami fidgeted. 'The truth. Well, just that I was looking for my brother. They put two and two together. They bought me dinner, told me all these stories about you. They cried a lot. I cried a lot. Your sister blames herself.'

Juri's stomach flipped and twisted. She didn't want to hear this, she couldn't. She hated the thought of calling them, hearing their voices. Who would believe that their daughter had come home, after all those years? They'd be suspicious. They wouldn't recognise her. There was this sealed little egg, closed and brittle, inside her heart. Perhaps it was a flimsy box made of paper. She'd been keeping all her fears inside it. She couldn't let them out.

'I don't want to hear it,' she said. She got out of bed, brushed her teeth until her gums bled, and scrubbed herself so clean in the shower that her skin turned pink. She sat in a chair, facing the television without watching it, and ignored Nanami's presence.

'Well, someone's in a mood. You do realise, once you make the decision to live in this world, with all its broken promises, you've got to face these difficult choices. You can't pick and choose what lies you feed yourself. Not if you've opened your own eyes.'

Nanami opened the door to the bathroom, and put the fan on inside. Over her shoulder, she called out, 'You can pretend that you can't hear me, but you know you can't really find perfect eternal love, or carry on through life being utterly untouchable. You can lie to me all you want, just. Oh, I don't know.' Nanami sighed, and sounded years older than her age when she spoke again. 'Don't deceive yourself. Don't go back there. Leave me here alone if you can't stand me, just stay in this world somewhere.'

She sounded broken and defeated .As if she had lost everything. The door shut behind her, and in a short moment in time without pride, Juri turned and considered pushing it open behind her. In her mind's eye, she promised reassuring things. Or she confronted Nanami, demanded she explain. Had she been disappointed to see Juri drawing herself up from that water? Would she continue to wait there for Touga? If Juri left to see her family, would Nanami join her?

The moment passed, and Juri had to stop lying to herself. She had no right to that kind of cruel jealousy, she'd learned to live without it already. She had no business making eternal promises in a world where nothing was guaranteed or certain. She looked down at her hands, in her lap. She got up and stared, eyes wide and stinging, at the prints of artistic landscapes hanging in cheap frames on the walls. She breathed in and out, and felt surrounded by synthetic bedcovers and ten-o-clock checkout times, and cleaner's trolleys in the halls.

Inside the bathroom, she could hear water sluicing off of Nanami's body with spatters and splatters. It always came back to water. It made Juri shiver, and shrink deep inside her dry, warm socks.

'Ahh, that's better!' Nanami swung the bathroom door open with a sigh, and rubbed a towel over her hair. She took one look at Juri and headed over to their bags. 'I forgot, you're the tragic brooding type,' she muttered under her breath. She started stuffing clothing away and checking for the important things. Phone, wallet, tickets, keys. Shoes.

'Am not,' Juri said childishly. She took over packing her own things, thank you very much, and waited by the door with tight lips and a straight back. Heels together, almost ready to fall into a guard position. 'Are we staying here today?'

'Not overnight,' Nanami said. 'But there's things I want to show you.'

Nanami's house was the same as it always had been, but less. The storeys seemed smaller, and the paint on the walls, all that it was covered in dust, was a more mundane cream colour than it had been in Juri's memory. The furniture was covered with drop sheets, and there was frass left behind the curtains by the usual bugs you get in an abandoned building. You'd call it utterly normal, but the sunlight peeking through unpolished glass windows and the dust their feet stirred up created this sense of floating, swimming. Nanami swallowed tightly, grabbed Juri's hand, and pulled her through the hall and out the back doors.

With a rusty groan, french doors opened to an overgrown and unmown garden. Bulbs had colonised part of a gravel path, and rose bushes had fallen from their trellises to lurk over a concrete bench. Nanami didn't let go. She led Juri over and under and around, getting a little lost sometimes, but always knowing her direction. They reached a fence, a back gate, and then, an embankment leading down to a storm-water drain. To the east, local traffic crossed a bridge and telephone wires stretched between houses. As the morning picked up speed, the traffic slowed down and the noise level rose.

'It was here,' Nanami said. 'I came back, and I remembered drowning this kitten. I had this moment of regret, when I realised what I'd done. When I was at school, I thought I'd run and left it. Selfish, guilty, evil. It was harder to accept that I'd actually jumped in after it, than that I'd come back and that I'd been somewhere else in the first place.'

Juri knelt down and picked a long blade of dry grass, spun it around between her thumb and her fingers. 'Why? I always thought someone else had saved my sister. It wasn't hard for me to see the truth.'

'No,' Nanami said. 'You can't understand. That was a part of me. I thought I'd realised that day, that I was a corrupt and evil person. I'd learned. This was where I stood, and how far I could go. This was my ethical limit, and that wasn't. This was what I'd get punished for, and that was what I'd get away with. All of it, from that moment on, it was a lie.'

'It wasn't a lie, it happened to you.'

'But it didn't. I went away, I drowned, I made the right choice, and then in this little closed world I slowly hardened and turned numb inside. I told myself I was evil. I was so sure I had nothing holding me back. It's made who who I am today, for better or worse. If I didn't make that choice, to save the kitten, I was one person. If I did, I was another.'

Juri shivered. 'I can't imagine how that feels. How it felt.'

'The house was empty, and I remembered trying to save the kitten. It died anyway. Was that some twisted way of telling me it didn't matter? That intention is less than action, or that everything is futile?'

Juri couldn't say anything. She flicked her piece of grass into the water, and stood beside Nanami watching it. It hadn't rained in the area recently. The water was low, slow, quiet. It lay far beneath the water stains in the concrete.

'It can't mean anything, it's pointless.' Nanami crossed her arms. 'So, I showed you. We can go now.'

They shut the house up as they went, ignoring the shadows in the corners and their reflections in the windows. Locked the doors, locked the gates, and kept walking until they were sitting on a train and heading for the central station.

Without really speaking to each other, they bought coffees from a vending machine, paid for their tickets, and sat around waiting for their train back home.

'If I'd dived in first, he wouldn't have died,' Juri said. 'Maybe. I've been thinking it all day. I don't know how you can stand to be near me. I'll call my parents, get out of your way.'

Nanami said 'Ugh, get over yourself,' and threw her can away. 'He drowned because he couldn't swim, so did you. Your sister, who also couldn't swim, somehow lived. Everyone blames themselves, because they think they're that important. You really aren't, trust me.'

'Oh,' Juri said. She'd been saying that a lot, recently. It was good to know where she stood, though it didn't make things feel any better.

'Come on,' Nanami touched her shoulder, and they moved to stand near the edge of the platform. It was time to go.

She looked at Juri. Once, twice. Three, four times.

'Stop it,' Juri said.

'You're a moron. An utter nincompoop. You're important to me. You're just not important in terms of causality. Everyone's just one random element in each other's lives. You didn't kill anyone. If you did, it was accidental.'

'You didn't kill anyone,' Juri pointed out.

'Yeah, yeah, whatever,' Nanami said. But when they sat down beside each other, she clasped Juri's hand tightly. At night, she pushed Juri through into her bedroom and threw the spare pillow at her face. Apparently this was something unspoken. Juri folded back the covers, and spent most of the night shoving tickling hair away from her nose.

In the morning, Juri tucked her key in her jacket pocket and went for a walk. She stood on the edge of the pond, looking down at her own reflection. Wrinkles in the corners of her eyes, and without curlers, her hair was straighter than Nanami's. The air caught wisps of it and lifted it up, dropped it back down. She shoved her hands deep in her pockets, and watched the water.

'If you take too long,' she said, and she wasn't sure who she was speaking to. One of them, some of them. 'You'll have an even harder time of it than I have. Get it together. I know you can do it.'

After a while, she sat down and crossed her legs. She watched the sun and the light turn the water's surface into a mirror, and a chasm, and a hundred thousand other shapes and colours than a slightly murky public park's pond.

When she returned home, Nanami was sitting at the low table, legs stretched out on the floor. She was playing with something, and talking on the phone.

'Hey,' she said, twisting around and offering Juri the handset. 'It's for you. You can tell me off later, but say hi to your parents first.'

Juri reached out, feeling too full of something. 'Hello?' Her knees felt weak. She sat down beside Nanami, and in the silence of white noise that answered her, she watched Nanami pick up the paper box she had folded, and throw it over the edge of the table.

With a jingle and a fumbling thump, a kitten pounced out to attack it. The box, which had seen better days, crumpled and fell apart. Nanami laughed, and wiggled her toes for the kitten. She pressed a hand against Juri's thigh to keep herself steady as she reached for something else to tease the kitten with. It felt like she was anchoring Juri down.

In her ear, from the phone, her mother's voice sounded tinny and weak. 'Juri?'

The risks of stepping out into a world, walking on eggshells, didn't seem so daunting with Nanami's small hand in her own.