Half-Sight

06 | undead

a/n

hey loves! hope you guys are doing well :)

this story is unedited, so please feel free to leave comments if there's any mistakes. just a notice that i will be adding new graphics to this story to enhance it visually - there's a lot of dystopian osaka to be unfolded in this novel, so stay tuned!

happy reading :)

sending all my love,

krissy

♙

present day

hina ogawa

THE STRANGEST THING about Ren's apartment was that it smelled, surprisingly, of home.

It was the kind of smell that made you want to sit back and relax. Fresh linens drying from clotheslines. Green tea and brown rice fused into genmaicha tea. Steam from broth curling in the air. Fresh wood mixing with lantern fumes.

Something about it reminded me of the candles my otousan lit in the early hours of the morning, before he headed off to work. He was a waiter at a sushi bar on Dotonbori Street—it was the only way we had the luxury of tasting high-class raw fish on good nights.

So sometimes he and I would sit cross-legged on the table, munching away, and when my eyes wandered I would find the family photo on our shared night stand, the sheet yellowed with age and shrouded with dried flowers. It was taken in front of a street stall. I was barely three, chubby arms lifted so I could hold onto okaasan and otousan. We didn't look overjoyed, laughing like all those fancy images on the web, but we looked peaceful. And that was enough.

Now, in the wake of an intruder, the smell vanishes. A strong whiff of lime and sugar overpowers it completely.

The girl in the doorway slams on the light switch.

Golden light flares painfully into my vision as she walks into Ren's apartment, kicking the door shut in the process. I squint my eyes—she's skinny, well-muscled, dwarfed in a giant windbreaker with a neon green stripe on the sleeve. A teenager. Maybe fifteen?

Ren straightens warily. "For someone who tried to shoot me, you're being a little rude."

She pauses. I hear a sly smile, feel her eyes on mine. "I don't think I'm the first. Isn't she a bounty hunter?"

"I'm sorry, who are you?" I cut in sharply.

The girl collapses on a big chair across from the couch, then leans to one side as if to get a better look at Bohai. "You made some new friends, huh?"

I'm surprised to hear only thin annoyance in Ren's voice. "You're a bounty hunter now?"

She tosses her hands up. "So you did remember me! Why didn't you say anything?"

"I bet your buddies Touma and Goro are outside waiting to take my head, huh?"

"No," she retorts, offended. "I operate on my own. You know, you're really bad at disguising yourself."

"That's what I said," I mutter.

Ren rolls his eyes, tosses his gun on the table, and strides into the kitchen. I blink, startled by how quickly he's letting his guard down.