Ink Stained

02: yamajijii*

山爺

"After you disappeared," Shiori started slowly. "I was...I was really lonely, and the Yori Chiisai were brutal, even back then, so I was kind of depressed about – everything, to be honest. They took me in, I guess you can say. We've been friends since then. They're really good friends."

One of the many weights Pai carried with her reminded her of itself.

Pai and Shiori had known each other since they were kids, first bonding over their shared ability to see Yori Chiisai when no one else could. Pai still remembered the first time she met her; Shiori had been crouching in a dimly-lit alley on the way home from school, her head in her arms, sobbing as little Yosei pulled hard at Shiori's hair and bit her fingers and arms, getting at any bit of exposed skin they could, so excited to come upon a human being who could see them, who they could torment. She was bleeding from a small cut on her forehead.

Pai saw red.

She got so angry to see those creatures torturing a little girl, so much so that she forgot her own mantra of 'don't see, don't know, don't care' and ran at them, swinging her school bag around her head and wildly screaming at them like a demented banshee, beating them away from Shiori with everything she had. When she chased all the Yosei away, she walked Shiori home, asking her what had happened.

Shiori told her that one of the Yosei had tripped her while she was walking down the stairs in school, and that was how she got the cut on her forehead. Pai had felt such a rush of protectiveness for Shiori as she'd listened to the girl's story – enough that it caught her by surprise, though she didn't think to question it. Their friendship grew from their mutual fear and confusion of their unique (and unwanted) ability. She used to wait for Shiori at her elementary school when her own was over, and walk her home before going home herself.

What she told Aoi and Shuusei about living in Sapporo was true. Pai had lived here since she was a child, and until she was fifteen, that remained true.

Then she went missing.

Her last clear memory from three years ago was walking home, holding her older sister's hand so she wouldn't wander off. Midori had picked her up from a festival she went to with Shiori. The days had steadily been growing shorter with the approaching winter, and while Sapporo was a safe city, Pai and Midori's parents felt better that neither came home alone.

The memory of her very last moment was of twirling around as she skipped ahead of Midori, and saying to her big sister, "Mitti-chan, when should we bake the cake for mama? It's almost her birthday."

She didn't remember what happened after that.

She couldn't remember what Midori's answer was, or if they ever did get to bake the cake for their mother's birthday that weekend, or if they even made it back home safely like they always did.

It was Shiori who found her, three years after she disappeared, unconscious in the woods of the small mountain-like hill Ayashi House stood on. Pai only remembered waking up with Shiori and Kouta by her side, waiting for her to resurface to consciousness.

Needless to say, she was startled to see her childhood best friend sitting so close to a man she could feel was Hengen, and looking decidedly older and taller than she remembered Shiori to be.

Her disappearance wasn't the worst of it, though; her entire family disappeared as well. No one knew what happened to the Momozono family, or where they could be. The strangest thing about it was that the people Pai had known, grown up with and around – they didn't remember her.