Yashiro Kiyoshi

Minori opened her eyes and turned her head up. She was walking in between the large crowd of people in the street. She wore the same yellow coat on top of her yellow pair of skin-tight trousers. She had the same red-colored high heels, which tapped the ground as she walked. She turned her head right, looking at the variety of coffee shops and other shops. Then, she turned left, and looked at the cars speeding on the road. “W-What just… happened?” She thought as she turned her head downwards. “Wasn’t I with my son Haruto, and… those beasts…” She suddenly stopped walking as she had her head tilted down, her eyes on her open palms. “Who’s Haruto?” She whispered. She closed her eyes and covered her head with her right hand. “What… was happening right now? I was just… walking to my work, but…” She looked at her left hand, and looked at her black workbag. “I… What about the beasts which were destroying up the whole city? Wait, what beasts?”

“Are you okay, dear?” Someone patted her right shoulder and she turned right. She looked at an elderly woman who politely asked her.

“Y-Yeah, ma’am,” She quickly replied and hesitantly started walking away, her head tilted down. As she walked with her head tilted down in between all that crowd of people, she was constantly thinking, “Why am I getting this feeling that something really, really… life-threatening… was happening?” She turned her head frontwards, looking determined. “I guess I’d think about that stuff later.”

***

I was sitting in front of my empty desk which just had a little laptop device on top of it. It had a little bunch of books on my left, but the rest of the desk looked empty. My legs were folded, with my right one on top of the left one, and my chair was rotatable as it had just a single leg which was divided into some distributaries. I moved it leftwards a little and moved my legs out. I had a newspaper in my hands in front of my black pair of trousers and a brown overcoat. I moved my left hand to my desk, held the handle of my mug with hot coffee inside, and moved it in front of my newspaper, which was bent a little, as I moved it up to my face. I sipped a little, and then moved my arm down on the armrest of the chair. I then moved my arm up, kept the coffee cup on my desk, and then stood up, closing the newspaper. I revealed my skinny face as I looked at the open door of my room on my right side. I kept the folded newspaper on the desk, took up my coffee which was a little left to that, and then walked out of the room. I walked out of the room, and looked at the working area where men in blue police uniforms were working in front of their computers. Some policemen walked round the place sincerely with files in their hands. As I looked at them casually, I sipped a little from my coffee cup, which I held from both of my hands, and looked at a policeman who just walked from the front of mine. I turned right and looked at his back go.

“As one story was unfolding itself in Dansamia about which I was unaware of, another story was unfolding here in Japan from which, maybe, Itsuki and Haruto were unaware of. And, I personally feel that this one here is far more compelling than the one there. And, this one here is an inseparable part of the one there.”

***

The sun was setting and it was dark all around in the sky. From the glass, Minori glared at the dark sky on her right. She was standing in front of the glass wall from where she was able to see everything out. She looked at the dark and empty sky, covered with the neon lights and other lights of the buildings and stores around. She was just a story or two higher than the ground. She had a cigarette in her right hand between her middle finger and index finger. She then turned her head downwards and moved the cigarette to her mouth. After a second, she blew up and a large white cloud was formed. She then again turned her head down.

“Why can’t I get all this out of my head?”

***

“We both were just about to meet, and we both were just about to make our moves. We both were about to move this story forward, and we were just about to uncover things.”

***

“Hey, Kiriko, wanna have a drink tonight?” Minori asked as she walked beside a young girl wearing a pink coat on top of a formal skirt.

Kiriko smiled and asked, “Really, sensei?”

“Yeah, Kiriko. It’s been days since we’ve spent time together, right?”

“Whoopie!” She shouted.

“Don’t behave like a little girl now. You’re twenty-three, remember?”

“Y-Yes, sensei,” She replied with a childlike smile.