Always Be There

1

Where am I?

That was the first thought Chieko Kaiya had as her eyes opened slowly, the feeling of fuzz brushing against her chin as she sat upwards. Kaiya looked around, blinking rapidly to get the remnants of sleep out of her vision. A stuffed animal fell from her chest into her lap, the white fur bear looking up at Kaiya with glassy black eyes, a red ribbon tied around it's neck like a professional suit tie. Kaiya gripped the flimsy arms of the bear, concentrating on the normal looking object as she tried to piece together what happened. She couldn't come up with anything.

While the bear was new, as was some elements of her room, this seemed to be her room. Kaiya squirmed as the fuzzy memories of her dream came back. It was really cold in the dream, but Kaiya couldn't remember much more than that. Kaiya sighed, looking around for her uniform. It was her first day of school, and she couldn't be late for that. Despite feeling a little weird, Kaiya decided it was best to go, not wanting to upset her sister by claiming she was sick. Kaiya didn't want to deal with that.

"Where is it?" Kaiya said out loud, brushing through her closet for her uniform, noting that she didn't recognize some of the clothes but pushing that thought away. Kaiya exhaled sharply, turning around to find a bundle of fabric at the foot of her bed. While the color scheme was off, the clothes looked like a school uniform, though, it seemed bit prestigious. It was a black skirt with two thin white lines around the bottom, along with a white button up shirt with a dark navy blue sweater vest over it, a pair of brown slacks resting underneath the pile with some black socks stuffed into the sole. Kaiya put it on without much thought, electing to ignore that this isn't the uniform her sister had sewn together a few weeks ago.

Kaiya walked into the kitchen of her apartment, finding the cleanliness to be strange at best. Kaiya and her sister always tried to keep the apartment clean, but it often fell to despair as the days went by. They never had much stuff, so it was fine for the most part, but seeing everything tucked away neatly made Kaiya feel a bit concerned. What happened to all their stuff? Or, better question, where did some of this stuff come from? Looking around, even though it was all put away, Kaiya saw items that she had never seen before littered around. Kaiya wondered how her sister was able to replenish their apartment while she was sleeping, but Kaiya didn't worry about it all that much. Her stomach started growling, and Kaiya was happy to take some of the food that stocked the fridge, a weird sight for sure. For as long as Kaiya could remember, the most their fridge had ever been at was halfway, and that was only on rare occasions.

With breakfast sorted, and her morning routine accomplished, Kaiya made her way outside, throwing a few glances around to make sure her sister hadn't left a note. She was usually working at this hour, and rarely left any message, but Kaiya was expecting either a sappy declaration or a straightforward warning, but she didn't see anything. Kaiya sighed, not that concerned about the circumstance. Maybe her sister forgot, or maybe Kaiya hadn't found it yet, either way, Kaiya would see her sister later, and get a sappy declaration AND a straightforward warning.

When Kaiya opened the door, she was met face to face with a girl. This was no ordinary girl, however, this was someone unbelievably good looking. Kaiya blinked in surprise, cheeks dusting with red as she took in the appearance of the girl in front of her. Long, straight black hair with a gel blue shine across the strands, and crystalline silver eyes that shone with intelligence and kindness. Her delicate pink lips were pressed together in a straight line, a rose-gold blush settled against her cheeks. With further inspection, Kaiya realized this was a flawlessly natural beauty without a trace of make-up. It was as if the cosmos aligned to give this girl every possible trait that would make her look like some sort of angelic being.

"Kai-chan," The girl spoke, her voice like the quiet streams of water that flowed through a fairytale forest. Kaiya wanted to cry out that it was unfair. Why did this girl get all the loveliness of a spring maiden while Kaiya looked like sentient poop? Caught up mild jealousy, Kaiya almost didn't realize that the girl called her 'Kai-chan'. The -chan honorific implied closeness, and the 'Kai' implied friendship. That couldn't be right since Kaiya had never seen this girl before. How did this chick even know Kaiya's name? "A-are you still mad at me?"