Hyakki Yagyou

Chapter Fifteen: Revelation, Favours

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” 

― Aldous Huxley

December 21st, 1:45 pm

For some reason, Emi felt extremely nervous. It was just Keita that she was going to meet, just her older brother, a person with whom meetings should be a normal every day thing but to her there were events that made her heart jump and her palms sweated.

Although she would never admit it out loud, she needed Keita by her side. He was the only family she had left, she reminded herself as make-up was being put on her face. She should do her best to finally and properly make amends with him.

But, she couldn’t do much if he did not put any will to it as well. It was a mutual process. It wasn’t something only one person could carry out, without any sort of help of the other. This was the frustrating part. Ever since their father’s funeral, Keita did not seem to avoid her anymore but he did not show any affection either. 

She did not expect him, mind you, to go all super sweet on her. All she wanted was to feel like he wanted her around as much as she needed the same from him. But, that was going to be complicated. He never was the type to show his emotions and/or intentions clear, was he?

Why was she putting make-up anyway? Ah right. When she woke up, she looked like a zombie. To say the least. Keita wouldn’t mind if she scared him with her appearance but there were children outside. She needed not scare them.

A chuckle escaped her mouth. Would she really scare them with her face? Probably. This morning, yes, probably.

Ryu had a working day. 

He recovered from the shock but was staying at her place for now. She did not want to risk him getting hurt. If he saw that girl in his apartment, then living there was not safe anymore. She was clueless about the fact that the Onryou could not reach a person as far as a new address, on the other side of the city in this case. She did not think of it either.

Somehow, Abe had turned into an information source for Emi (and for all of them, probably). In this case, the detective was a walking encyclopaedia and Emi was going to ask her all the stuff she needed to know. But not today. Everyone was busy. She wasn’t going to interrupt anyone’s working day.

She took a sick leave from Derira that day. With all the things going on, she really had no choice but to go on a sick leave for a week or two. Her boss did not seem to mind but he regrettably notified her but it would not be a paid leave. She said it was okay. She had enough money to survive this month so it wouldn’t be such a problem. Or so she hoped.

The make-up was done. Her overthinking the current situation had to end as well. At least for now. She put on her winter jacket, wrapped a muffler around her face (it was incredibly cold outside, somewhere around zero degrees), put on her boots, petted Mio-chan goodbye and left, locking the apartment.

She took the subway to Shibuya where Keita insisted to meet. Why he wanted to meet there, in such a busy, crowded ward, she had no idea. Perhaps he had some work there afterwards. This was her wildest guess but she did not ask him anything.

Emi arrived there at 2:35 pm and Keita was not there. She was five minutes late so perhaps he went inside somewhere, to warm himself up? Or maybe, he was running late as well. She glanced at her phone and there was no sign of him there. She decided to wait, 5-10 minutes, and if he would not show up, she’d give him a call. It seemed a reasonable thing to do.

But, Keita did not appear even fifteen minutes later. She tried to call him twice. She would leave the phone to ring until the end and he would never pick up. Did he forget about their meeting? Was he stuck somewhere in traffic?