Marionette

Cosmos, Chapter Sixty Six - Tasukeru [助ける]

There was a lot weighing on Amaya's mind by the time she returned home that Sunday night.

The sheer volume of conflicting, contradicting thoughts drowned out the coherrent thoughts and small fragments of enjoyment she should have had that afternoon. So much so that the very moment she had shut the front door and locked it behind her, she had slumped to the floor and simply sat there.

She couldn't recall what movie Maehara had talked her into watching with him, couldn't recall where else they had wandered afterwards. She couldn't grasp how she was supposed to feel, how she was supposed to properly function at that moment.

Everything just hurt when it wasn't numb, gouged and twisted like a knife in the gut.

But it felt like she was losing pieces of herself the longer the numbness remained.

Time immeasurable passed as she sat alone in the dark, staring down at the empty space before her. The shadows in the house felt like they were closing in on her, and she didn't know where she was supposed to go.

Her options evaded her grasp, leaving her with a ceaseless spiral of wrong answers and doubt wherever she looked.

'Amaya?' A voice spoke out through the darkness before her, startling the albino so greatly that she'd recoiled backwards and bumped her head against the door.

It was then that Amaya noticed a small, handheld light hovering through the dark just a few meters before her, and the smallest silhouette of small feet was illuminated just outside of the small glow of light.

'Y-Yuta?' Amaya gasped out the very second she realized it was actually him. 'What are you doing here?!'

Didn't she drop him off along with Reiko and Samuel to Mako's house that morning?

She certainly recalled Mako's mother practically slamming the door on her.

'I came home early.' Her brother admitted as he seemed to step over towards the light switch. 'But Reiko and Samuel are still staying the night.'

Amaya was silent as the light was switched on.

'Don't you usually prefer to stay at Mako-chan's place?' She eventually asked.

What kid wanted to come home to a grumpy, moody relative when they could have spent the night at a much-loved friends house instead? He fancied Mako of course, Amaya'd known that for quite a number of months. Usually Reiko did the asking to spare him the embarrassment, but it didn't hide the facts from Amaya's sharp notice.

Yuta appeared not to give her an answer to her question, and instead chose to fix her with an expectant stare.

Expectant, waiting for her to pick herself up off the floor and get herself together, perhaps. There was little more left in her to debate any other explanation at that point.

At the very least, it was clear the topic of Mako's house was over.

A weary breath escaped Amaya as she carefully picked herself up off the floor, joints creaking from being bent in the odd angles they had been when she'd slumped down against the door.

'...Have you already eaten?' She asked as she sluggishly ambled past Yuta's form to head towards the kitchen.

'No.' He promptly answered as he followed along after her. 'You usually get nervous if we try to use the stove here.'

'I trust you to be able too use the cooktop on your own, if it's necessary, but not Reiko or Samuel by any means.' She countered as she thought briefly on what she could cook. 'Reiko is a wild-card and Samuel has no safety awareness. Both of them could very well burn the house down without understanding how it even happened.'