I could think of a lot of better things to do on a summer vacation day than running around shrine grounds, carrying things from place to place in sweltering heat. Reading in an air-conditioned room. Watching TV in an air-conditioned room. Playing games in an air-conditioned room. BEING in an air-conditioned room. But there I was anyway, under the hot sun, carrying a chair in each hand as I made my way to a big white tent that I heard would be used for making announcements.
After I set the chairs down behind the plastic folding tables, I took a brief look around. But I could not find Homura who had been with me helping set up the broadcast station. There wasn't much left to do here (the grownups were going to handle all the electronics), so she was probably pulled away to help somewhere else.
Suddenly, someone called out to me.
"Oh, hey!" a man called out. He was dressed in a white t-shirt, jeans, and a baseball cap. I think he was one of the shrine's paid workers.
I quickly pulled out my phone, searched through a list of pre-set phrases and played, "Hi. How can I help you?"
As expected the man froze, astonished and puzzled. But he quickly recovered and replied, "We're kind of short on chairs. Do you mind going to the storehouse out back to see if there's more? We only need one."
I chose another pre-set phrase, "Sure thing," and then hurried off. I walked around the side of the shrine, following a path of flat stones to the back where a house sat. By the door was a sign that said "Shrine Staff Only". Ignoring the house, I followed the path further back towards a field of grass.
Sitting at the very edge of the grass field was a storehouse with tree branches hanging over it. Green leaves brushed over the old, tiled roof with each passing wind, but they could not sweep away the dead yellow leaves that lied there.
I stopped for a moment to admire the rustic structure. A long time ago, the walls may have been painted white, but by now most of the paint had flaked off or been stained gray by time. A pair of big, iron doors guarded the things inside it. One had to wonder what this storehouse was used for in its heyday that would require heavy, metal doors that looked straight out of a torture dungeon.
The building was incredibly creepy, but that wasn't the reason why I hesitated to go inside. What made me reluctant was thinking how dark the room inside would be. I'm sure you know this already, but I'm not good with dark places. And that's putting it really lightly. But I assured myself that if I keep the doors open, there'll be enough light to keep me calm.
So, after mustering my courage, I put my hands on one of the doors and pulled. Because the door appeared rusted at certain places, it took all my strength to open it just wide enough for me to slip inside. I tried opening both doors as wide as I could, but I had to make do with leaving them partially ajar.
Before my nerves could slip away from me, I quickly squirmed between the doors and went inside the storehouse. Just as I expected, it was incredibly dark inside. Although it was a bit cooler, that did not help me feel better.
Let's just get this over with before I freak out, I thought to myself,
So I rolled back my sleeves, took a step towards the storehouse's jungle of junk and . . .
Bam!
The doors slammed shut on me.
Because of that dunce with the psychokinetic power, I had to always keep my distance as I followed Yuna. I was never able to do anything except watch her, And the more I watched her enjoy life with that goofy club of hers, the more infuriated I got. It solidified the idea that she really had moved on from me, which was unforgivable. But thanks to some worker who sent her to a storehouse by herself, I finally had a chance.
I followed Yuna as she made her way to the storehouse, being as quiet as I could even though I should be invisible to her thanks to my Perception Manipulation. And then, as soon as she stepped inside, I dove towards the iron doors and slammed them shut with a loud bang.
Ha! That'll teach her, I thought to myself while grinning from ear to ear.
"Hey!" I called out to her. "Cool, I hope! Sure beats the heat, right? Maybe you can stay here until nightfall, when someone finally comes to find you."
I pressed my ear against the crack between the doors, waiting for her to say something. But all I got was a series of squeaking noises.
I frowned.
Weird, I thought to myself. That doesn't sound like the Yuna I know. I had expected her to call out to me, sounding mildly annoyed, saying something like, "Okay, very funny, Kyouko. Now let me out!" But she hadn't made a peep except for that squeaking. Now that I thought about it, in all the time I had followed her, I had not once heard Yuna speak. Why? She used to be such a chatterbox when we went to the same school.
I noticed a small window close to the roof that was sealed shut by a wood board and decided to take a peek inside. It was a bit high, but not too high. And there was a wood beam near it that stretched from the wall to the bottom of the roof.
I squatted down and then jumped up, hooking my fingers over the beam. While hanging on the beam like a monkey, with one hand, I reached towards the wood panel covering the window. Lucky me, the panel was only loosely covering the window, so it was easy for me to pry it open.
While pressing my face against the wall, I peeked inside. But the room inside was incredibly dark, so it was hard to see. I was able to see Yuna, however, thanks to her white shirt making her barely visible in all that darkness. She was on her knees, hunched over and curled up with her back to me.
"What are you doing, Yuna?" I asked. "Trying to mimic a pill bug or something?"
But she didn't say anything and just kept squeaking. And the more I listened to that squeaking, the more it began to sound like screaming.
As I wondered what to do next, a sharp smell made its way up my nose and I nearly let go of the beam. I held on long enough to safely drop back down to the ground, and I turned to see where that smell came from.
Was someone having a barbecue close by? I wondered as I looked past the left corner of the storehouse.
What I saw was not someone firing up a grill, but trees and bushes covered in a blanket of inferno. Blackish smoke stretched to the sky like a giant worm squirming out of the ground. The sight nearly paralyzed me.
I have to get out of here, I thought. But before that, I needed to get Yuna out of that building.
I grabbed the door handle and pulled, but the door didn't budge. And it still wouldn't move when I pulled it a few more times. Finally, I yanked on the door with all my might, but even that failed to do anything.
"What the hell's wrong with this door?" I shouted. "Why won't it move? All I did was slam the door shut!"
And then I remembered how much trouble Yuna had opening the doors earlier, and how it screeched a lot. With dread, I realized that the doors were so old and neglected that my actions had caused them to be stuck. I had effectively locked Yuna in the storehouse.
"Damn it!" I hammered my fists against the door. "Yuna!" I screamed. "I need help getting this door open! Come over here and push on it! I'll pull!"
But I didn't get any response from Yuna except more squeak-screaming. It was as if she couldn't hear me.
"Damn it!" I swore again and kicked the door in frustration.
I hurried to check how much the fire spread, hoping that I would have enough time to get Yuna free on my own. But my hopes were dashed when I saw the flames reach the trees with their branches hanging over the storehouse. The fire traveled from the trees to their branches and then spread across a trail of dead leaves on top of the storehouse's roof, leaving me absolutely no time at all.
"Damn it, Yuna!" I screamed, pounding on the door. "Hurry up and blast the door open! You're gonna get cooked at this rate! Yuna!"
"Get out of my way!"
Suddenly, I heard someone shout at me from behind and I was shoved aside. I looked up to see one of Yuna's new friends desperately pulling the door with all his might. His sudden appearance shocked me and I was momentarily dumbfounded.
"Mirai!"
"What's going on?"
"Kawatori, quick! Use your hydrokinesis!"
"On it!"
Suddenly, a flood of people appeared. I recognized some of them as Yuna's friends. I think the others go to her school.
While the girl named Kawatori and another girl made water rain over the flames with her power, another girl joined the boy from earlier helped pull on the door handle. But even their combined strength was not enough to make the door budge. Yuna's cousin stood back, turning his head right and left as if unable to decide what to do.
And then the last member of Yuna's circle of friends appeared and calmly said to the others, "Move."
Suddenly, the boy and girl at the doors flew away. Or to be more accurate, they were flown away by an unseen force controlled by the last girl. She raised her hand and used what looked like telekinesis, the power to move objects with her mind, to rip the doors off their hinges and discarded them to the side like pieces of litter.
With the door no longer in their way, the girl, boy, and Yuna's cousin rushed inside and together, carried Yuna out. We all retreated from the flame-cloaked building just as some grownups arrived.
Everything after that went like a blur to me. The adults were reluctant at first until they learned everyone was a psychic, so they all worked together to get the fire under control with their psychic powers. Eventually, the fire died down, leaving behind leafless trees and a blackened storehouse. And then a man calling himself Mr. Shirogami appeared to thank everyone for their help in stopping the fire from reaching the shrine.
He invited them to rest up in the house, but for some reason, Yuna's friends all declined. In the time it took the fire to go out since she exited the storehouse, Yuna recovered her wits somewhat and assured the others that she was fine. I don't know why, but she used her phone to speak instead of her actual mouth.
I was, of course, invisible to everyone. I had turned on my Perception Manipulation power as soon as the grownups showed up. And while unseen to everyone, I followed Yuna and her gang out of the shrine grounds, down the road where the festival stalls were set up, and to a big white tent being used as a resting area.
When everyone sat down, Yuna's cousin asked her, "Are you sure you're okay?"
Yuna nodded, but no one looked convinced, least of all Yuna herself.
"You were breathing really fast and hard though," her cousin continued. "It was like you were having a panic attack. What happened?"
One of the girls, a tomboy by appearance, cut in and said, "Of course she'd have a panic attack. She was locked in a storehouse with a fire raging outside."
No, I thought. She was in a panic attack long before the fire showed up, so the fire can't be the reason for her panic attack. And since she was an omnikinetic who could blast her way out with any number of powers, being locked inside the storehouse shouldn't have caused her panic attack either.
But then another girl, the telekinetic one, said, "Really? Isn't it because of how dark it was inside?"
"Wha-!?" the tomboy cried out in surprise. She flew off her seat, knocking it back. "Aika, what did you just say?"
The girl named Aika glanced coldly back at the tomboy and replied, "You heard me. I asked if her panic attack stemmed from how dark it was inside."
The boy who was always acting like a clown spoke up, "Aika, wait!" But the telekinetic girl ignored him and continued.
"I mean, doesn't dear Yuna here have a fear of dark places?" she said.
Since when? I wondered. When we were kids, we went through many dark places, but Yuna never appeared to have any trouble being there.
After a moment's pause, Yuna typed into her phone and a voice spoke from it, "How do you know?"
"It wasn't me!" the tomboy cried out. "Yuna, I swear I didn't say anything!"
The others gave her funny looks, but Aika calmly said, "She's telling the truth. dear Homura -" (she gave the tomboy a glance) "- didn't tell me anything. I figured it out on my own. It was easy, really. I noticed how you hesitated to walk into a dark room like the Computer Lab, gym storage room, and so forth. At first, I didn't think much of it, But over time, it became obvious that you have issues with dark places.
"And that's not all. I also noticed how you haven't once talked about your parents, Yuna."
Yuna abruptly looked up. There was something painful about the way she looked at Aika, but I couldn't help but be curious about what Aika had to say.
"I think the subject did come up a few times, but you never said anything and Oota, here, always acted like it was a taboo thing. He only acts like that over sensitive topics. But why would your parents be a sensitive topic, I wonder. Could it be that your both your mother and father are dead?"
Homura jumped off her chair and took a step, but -
"AIKA!"
For a while, nobody moved, nobody said anything. It was as if time had frozen. But it wasn't, and after seconds ticked by, the boy who shouted, the one who always clowned around, even though he appeared to be the leader of the club, spoke again.
"That's enough," he said.
He and Aika exchanged looks, staring coldly at one another.
What? I thought. What was she talking about? I wondered, referring to Aika. Both Yuna's mom and dad were dead? Well, I knew about her dad, but I never heard anything about Aunt. She has to be wrong. That lady, dead? There's just no way! But if it's true . . . Could that be it? Could that be why . . . ?
Aika broke eye contact and softly muttered, "I'm sorry, Toshiro."
Toshiro responded, "I'm not the one you should be apologizing to."
"I suppose not," Aika said.
She got off her seat, turned around to face Yuna and then deeply bowed.
"I should not have spoken like that" she said. "It was deeply hurtful, and for that I sincerely apologize."
Yuna assured Aika that she was okay and that she did not need to apologize. But Aika kept bowing until Yuna finally accepted her apology.
An awkward silence followed after that and lasted until a group of grownups, probably their parents, came to pick them up. After bidding each other farewell, they went home, leaving me behind with questions flooding my brain.
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