NekoMentals!

Chapter Eighteen

"What?!" Sachiko's eyes were wide in disbelief. "Why didn't you tell us before?"

Hisa shrugged. "I didn't want to burst any of your bubbles. You all really seemed to like her, so I didn't want to disappoint you."

Yurika felt angry but also relieved at the same time. On the one hand, Tama was a waste of space in Yurika's opinion, but she was also glad that she could trust her gut feeling.

When the trio left her house, Yurika didn't especially want to hurt Tama. Now that Yurika knew that Tama was breaking the laws of the dimension, she didn't have to be (mostly) cautious with her actions anymore.

"Are you all right, Yurika?" Damion had a worried look on his face, like Yurika might topple over any minute. (She was, in fact, about to fall over from all of the overwhelming information, but she didn't know that).

Yurika blinked a few times and tried to process what Damion asked her. After a couple of moments, she nodded her head and assured him that she was okay.

"I'm fine. Don't worry about me."

While this did relax Damion a tiny bit, he wasn't totally convinced that she was fine. He walked around Hisa and Sachiko where they were conversing and headed towards Yurika.

Damion wrapped Yurika in a hug and whispered into her hair. "It's going to be okay, I promise. You're allowed to cry if you want," he saw tears building up in her eyes.

Yurika looked up at Damion and a tear spilled out and slid down her cheek, landing on her shirt. Damion wiped it away with his hand and kissed her on her forehead.

She buried her face into his chest and let the bottled-up feelings inside her pour out. Yurika didn't care that Hisa and Sachiko had gone silent, wondering why she was crying. As she cried, she could feel everything dissolving, only leaving the good ones.

Damion rubbed Yurika's back as she attempted to calm herself down. Even though she was in no rush to let go, Yurika had the feeling that something was coming for them and they needed to leave.

"Something or someone is coming here," Yurika announced to no one in particular.

She didn't get a response. Only exchanged glances from Damion to Sachiko to Hisa and vice versa.

"I can feel it," she insisted.

"Alright. Let's pack up camp and head north." Hisa began picking their things off of the ground and putting them inside of the bags that held their possessions.

Sachiko distinguished the fire, careful to not let the smoke get too high and grabbed Bubbles and Diana, placing them inside of her bag.

Damion was still comforting Yurika, even though Yurika forced herself to stop crying so that they could leave before anything came.

Once everything was packed up and ready to go, the group of four headed north, out of the city of Toyohashi.

According to Hisa's paper, the next place they had to go was in the woods again, back to where they began. While this was risky in the sense that Tama could catch them if they were too close to her house, Sachiko was positive that this would work.

As they made their way back to where they met, it was silent. Not the eerily silent, like you hear in movies, but the peaceful silent that means everyone is having thoughts. Just acknowledging the thoughts that pass by in your brain, not actually stopping at one to spiral down into a rabbit hole. (Try it. It's nice.)

Nevertheless, this was how the four were thinking. Not actually thinking, of course, but still having them. Kind of like sitting in the back seat on a road trip. You look out the window and register the passing scenery in your brain, but you don't look at those things out your window closely, unless that's something you wish to do. But if you think about something for too long, you won't be able to think about more recent things that are prettier, or bigger, or better. Take my word for it.