Marionette

Cosmos, Chapter Sixty Seven - Kibō to Kaifuku [希望と回復 ]

It was the dawn of the first day.

The first of three days she had to work through her thoughts and get her world in order. To learn to dispell this dark ocean that was drowning her in grief and hatred. Or at least, to make a valiant effort into doing as such.

Promises were made frequently, thrown around like candy to placate weeping hearts and ease doubts. There were many promises that had been made to Amaya in the past year that had been broken in the worst of ways.

But the promise Maehara made to her rung with a different tone.

The words were crisp and sharp, ringing with clarity she hadn't heard in many weeks. Her confidant had proven thus far that he didn't do things half way. And to date, she couldn't think of a promise he had made to date that he didn't uphold in the truest sense of the word.

And if anything, it was his promise to rescue her from herself if she failed that had been what she needed to hear to get the ball rolling.

For the first time in a long while, she didn't feel like she was all alone in this nightmare.

The sun was beginning to rise in the skies when Amaya had reluctantly pulled herself out of her egg chair in the attic, illuminating the hanging clouds in uncomfortable smears of grey against an otherwise white sky. It was still quite early, and there was no real need to rouse her siblings from bed; It was Saturday, and for once the after-school duties of Head Boy Yuta and Class Rep Reiko were confined to just an afternoon ordeal.

But as Amaya made her gradual way down that ladder into the pantry, she could hear through the walls that her siblings were all already awake.

'Nooo! I don't want tomato noodles for lunch!' Samuel's dramatic complaints from downstairs, causing the albino to roll her eyes in disdain.

'Stop being dramatic! It's not even that bad!' Yuta's frustrated quip was next to echo through the thin walls of the pantry.

'Actually, I'm kinda on Sammie's side on this...' Reiko added hesitantly. 'It seems gross...'

'Do you even remember what it tastes like?'

'Tomato's horrible! Its slimy and acidic without anything good to come with it!'

'I actually just meant what Amaya used to cook, Reiko...'

'Oh.' Reiko deadpanned. 'Then no.'

'Then don't complain and say that pasta's gross when you don't even remember it properly!'

'You didn't even want anything to do with it after you asked me if I rememered anything that Amay used to like!'

'I asked because you have the stupidly good memory!'

Oh dear god, were they arguing about food of all things?

It wasn't even 7am yet, and they were already getting into a flaming spat over lunch options!

'Do you mind not screaming the house down?' Amaya quipped as she emerged from the pantry, wincing as she ran a hand through her tangled hair. 'Sooner or later our neighbors are going to mistake your arguing for somebody being murdered in cold blood and call the police on us.'

'Big Sis Amay!!!' Samuel's ecstatic squeal rung through the whole house as he sprung into motion. 'GOOD MORNING!'

Within a couple of seconds, Amaya was met with the now-famliliar sensation of an eight year old hamster in human guise leaping at her for a hug. Yuta and Reiko remained standing in the kitchen, with the former hissing some kind of rebuke to his sheepish looking twin.