Eyes Wide Shut by taiyakisoba
Part 1 The Memory of a Smile
It was the day I took Mia to the zoo to see the okapi that I first met the strange girl named Komeiji Koishi.
My mother's nagging had become unbearable and I really had no other option but to give in to her demands. She's always telling me how unhealthy it is to just stay locked up in my room, playing video games and arguing on internet imageboards, and the word NEET was mentioned. I'd started to dread our fights even more than the thought of going out in public, so I gave in and told her I'd take my little sister Mia out to the zoo just to get her off my back.
My mother has never understood what social anxiety is. I guess she thinks it's just laziness, an avoidance of responsibility. For me, though, it's hell. Walking out the front door is hard enough, but going to a public place is like sticking my hand into a nest of spiders. But the zoo wasn't exactly the most popular place in the world, since it's just a small one next to the local shrine with monkeys and mountain goats and meerkats and an old elephant and not much else. You mostly only see elementary school-groups there on weekdays, so since it was a Monday I thought I'd risk it, especially because a few hours there staring at the animals meant a few weeks of enjoying my NEET lifestyle without interruption - well, at least until the next time my mother's nagging reached critical mass.
Mia was overjoyed. She kept going on and on about how she wanted to see the new okapi the zoo had bought. Mia's a cute kid. I do love her, since she's about the only person at home that isn't constantly nagging and criticising everything I do. She treats me like a normal person, too; well, as normal as a little girl can treat her older sister, anyway. We caught the bus and there were only a few old ladies on it, so the trip didn't freak me out too much. I fumbled with the change after I bought my ticket, though, like a moron, but luckily no one seemed to notice.
I made a fool of myself again pretty much as soon as we reached the zoo. There was a girl around the same age as me at the ticket gate, not exactly pretty, but not ugly either. Somehow I managed to buy our tickets from her without fumbling with the money again. She just smiled and said how cute Mia was and how nice it was for a big sister to take her little sister out. I stammered something incomprehensible, but it didn't seem to worry her.
'"Enjoy the zoo!" she said as we walked through the gate.
"You too!" I replied, then cringed, wishing I could die there and then.
We went to see the monkeys first, then the meerkats and the capybaras. It wasn't too bad. There were only a few people around, like I said, mostly school groups, some tourists. I made sure we gave those a wide berth in case they asked me something in English. There were only a couple of them, so it was easy enough to do.
Mia kept going on and on about wanting to see the okapi, but I was pretty tired. The sun was hot and I was sweating like your typical fujoshi; not that I'm fat, just out-of-condition, I guess, from my sedentary lifestyle. So I forced Mia to sit down for a minute while I went to the bathroom to splash some water on my face. I came back and of course she was nowhere to be seen.
I panicked. With all the lolikon in the world, my first thought was that she'd been taken by one of those perverts. I ran around looking for her, trying not to panic and failing. I cursed the fact that I'd left my room and resolved never to do so again. It only ever brought trouble.
I eventually found her. She was standing up against the railing around the mountain goat enclosure and talking to someone. They had their back to me, so I couldn't see much, but it was a girl. She was wearing a yellow blouse with flared sleeves, a knee-length green skirt and a black hat decorated with a yellow ribbon, kind of old-fashioned get-up, almost Lolita-style but by way of Victorian England rather than Harajuku.
Great. I love Mia, but she really is my exact opposite in almost every way. She has this bad habit of talking to strangers and befriending them. Now I'd actually have to interact with someone, and worse still it was a girl.
You might be wondering why I keep on saying stuff like that. Truth is, I like girls. And yes, I do mean it that way. And no, it's not just your typical fujoshi obsession with yuri I'm talking about. I guess I really am what you'd call a 'raging lesbian'. Well, someone called me that, once, at least.
I don't really want to remember that, though.
Anyway, somehow I managed to settle the rapid beating of my heart. I couldn't just stand there like an idiot staring at the two of them - in a lot of ways, the awkward tension was far worse than actually just getting the whole encounter over and done with. So I gathered up my courage and approached them.
When Mia noticed me she cried out, "It's my big sister!" The girl beside her turned and when I saw her face I died a little inside.
She was beautiful
She had curly platinum-grey hair under that hat, and large green eyes. Her skin was pale, her body slender, a tiny little doll of a girl, and dressed like a doll as well. Beautiful, like I said, but there was something odd about her, even odder than her clothes. Then I realised what it was.
She wasn't smiling.
Usually, when people meet you for the first time, they at least try to smile, even if it's a fake, forced one. But the girl just stared at me, her wide green eyes seeming to look right through me.
I swallowed and pushed on regardless. "Hello," I said, waving at her and smiling in my best approximation of a normal person.
The girl's eyes went wide with what I took to be shock, and she turned and began to walk away.
My heart almost stopped. I may be a fujoshi and a NEET but I'm no hideous monster. I'm not one of those really weird girls you see around, the ones who smell bad with dishevelled hair and look like they've been sleeping in a dumpster. I think I actually look pretty normal despite my social anxiety.
Mia was as surprised as I was at her reaction and shouted after her. "Hey! Don't worry, it's just my sister!"
The girl stopped and turned. She looked back at the two of us from across the enclosure.
Mia beckoned to her like you would a frightened animal. "It's okay. My sister might look a bit weird, but she's a really nice person," she said, loudly.
Great. Mia, my own little PR agent.
The girl stood there a few moments longer, as if unsure what to do, and then slowly walked back towards us. She had a hesitant way of walking, like she wasn't really used to it. It gave me enough time to pull myself together. I was still startled and a bit upset at her reaction.
"Who is she?" I whispered to Mia.
Mia shrugged her shoulders. "Just a nice onee-san. Her name's Koishi. She was looking at the mountain goats."
She was next to us now. I tried to smile at her again, and halfway through it, just when it began to feel fake and weird and I was about to give up, she smiled back at me. It was a faint smile, but for all that it was a reassuring one and I relaxed. I knew the kind of smile well. I'd seen it in the mirror more than once. It was the smile of someone who doesn't usually smile, a smile made up from the memory of real smiles.
I bowed and introduced myself and in a gentle and strangely toneless voice she did the same. Komeiji Koishi. That was her name. 'Koishi.' An unusual name, but very cute, don't you think? I wondered what the kanji for it were. "Pebble" seemed to suit her, though. She was a tiny little thing, beautiful, but so unassuming that you might not notice even despite her strange attire.
Those clothes. They were pretty weird. Pretty, but also weird. Haha. Just like Koishi herself.
Suddenly Koishi said, "You can see me," and I realised she'd caught me staring.
"Uh, yeah," I said, dropping my gaze to stare at my feet. Then that became awkward and I looked back up at her.
The smile had appeared again. Was it warmer this time? Maybe it was just my imagination. But it broke through that ice that usually forms around me when I have to deal with other people. Soon I found myself asking her questions, wanting to know more about her.
And somehow, for once, I was actually able to talk to a pretty girl without making a fool of myself. I asked her if she was here alone and she nodded. Did she live around here? She shook her head. She said she came from some place called Gensoukyou. It didn't sound like a real place, or maybe she was making some joke or other. Then I realised she might be a cosplayer. I didn't recognise the clothes she was wearing, but it looked like something you might see in a magical-girl anime. Maybe the whole Gensoukyou thing was just her staying in character. I didn't press her on it. Self-delusion is something I understand and respect.
Mia helped the whole awkward conversation along in her own indefatigable way. She took over, began to press Koishi for all kinds of information. With her help I learned the following: Koishi had a big sister called Satori (cute name!), who she lived with in a big mansion which had an onsen (come to think of it, she did give off a bit of an 'eccentric rich -girl' vibe), and she had lots and lots of pets.
"Oh, you love animals, don't you?" said Mia, excited. "We do too. I guess that's why we're at the zoo, right?"
We do too. Mia is always trying to get me to come out of my shell. Now she was trying to get me a friend? I couldn't be annoyed at her, though. It was adorable. And besides, Koishi seemed genuinely nice. She wasn't like most of the pretty girls I've met in my life.
At the word 'animals' Koishi's face lit up; at least, that's how I interpreted the slight widening of her eyes. "Oh yes, I love animals. Every kind of animal."
Mia took hold of her hand. Koishi blinked in surprise but didn't let go of it.
"Let's all go see the okapi!" she said.
We eventually found it. If you've never seen an okapi, it's a funny looking thing. Funny looking, but definitely cute. They have a stripy butt and legs and look a bit like a giraffe with a short neck.
This guy was just standing around and eating leaves. Mia thought he was adorable, but she was also worried about him.
"Do you think he gets lonely?" she asked suddenly.
Koishi was staring at the okapi, and she said, "I don't know. I used to be able to understand what animals are thinking. I can't anymore, though."
Like I mentioned before, Koishi had a weird way of talking. Her voice was high and gentle, very feminine, but kind of emotionless. Her words might be happy or sad, but her voice never was. It somehow endeared me to her all the more. It wasn't that faked 'coolness' that girls often have, where they try and act like they don't care about anything. It was more like that robot-girl moe you sometimes see in anime. Koishi's words always sounded genuine. It was just that she seemed to be talking to you from someplace far away.
"Well, I think he looks lonely," said Mia.
I had to agree with her. The little critter did seem listless. I sighed. This was all becoming kind of a downer.
"Maybe we should break him out," I said. I was just trying to break the oppressive mood. Koishi turned to me, her face questioning. Or at least, the blankness of her look had something of the question about it.
"Won't people get angry?" she asked.
I laughed. "I was just joking," I said.
"Oh," said Koishi.
Mia began pestering me for ice-cream, having already forgotten about the lonely okapi. You can't blame kids for being like that, though. Koishi stood staring at the beast for a while longer, and I started to wonder if maybe our brief encounter was already over. Then she turned and joined us.
It looked like our little group had picked up an extra member. Despite her weirdness, I wasn't complaining. I hid a blush as she walked beside me.
We got ice-cream at the zoo's little kiosk. I bought Koishi one as well. She had chocolate. She made no attempt to pay for it, but that was okay. It was worth it just to have a cute girl at my side to practise talking to.
I found it easy to talk to her, almost like she wasn't a stranger at all. Maybe it was her calm demeanour. I'd say 'relaxed', but I don't think Koishi was relaxed at all. I suspected that under the unemotional façade was an extremely nervous person. Her introspection, I decided, was likely a kind of defence, just like mine was. As a screw-up myself, I didn't try to force her to come out of her shell. I just talked, and then she'd talk. It all seemed quite natural, even if it was a little odd. Mia would push in all the time, and Koishi paid her lots of attention. I suspected she liked kids as much as she did animals.
Eventually, though, it was time to say goodbye. We left the zoo together and as we made our way down the hill to the bus stop I asked Koishi if she was alright to get home. It was actually a pretty insulting thing to ask, I guess. Of course she was. She was an adult, right? But she didn't take offence. I think it would be pretty hard to offend her. I was just trying to find an excuse to keep talking to her.
"I'm going to walk home," she said. "It's not far."
"Okay," I said. I didn't want her to go, but what could I do? Invite her home to dinner? It was stupid.
The bus was already pulling up at the stop when we got there, so there was a flurry of goodbyes as we got on board.
Mia waved to Koishi from the bus and she waved back. I just looked at her. She stared at the bus as we pulled away.
Then she was gone.
It occurred to me then that I could have just swapped cell-phone numbers with her. But then that would have been the sort of thing a normal person does. I felt the reawakening of my depression stirring inside me. For a few hours I'd been reminded what my old life had been like and it had been just enough to make me feel even lonelier.
There was always the chance that I would see her again, though, I told myself. If she could walk home from the zoo, that means she must live nearby, right?
But the more I thought about it, the more I knew I'd never see her again. It plunged me even deeper into despondency, and as I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, the different layers of shadow there a grey maelstrom hovering above me, I beat myself up about the lost opportunity. Why had I met someone so beautiful, only to have her snatched away from me again? It seemed too cruel.
But it was all my own fault, after all.
Somehow I finally fell asleep, but it was that feverish, disturbed sleep that makes you even more tired after you wake up, like the night has sucked the energy right out of you, out of your body and soul.
The next day, though, I met Koishi again.
We live across from a park. It's your usual kind of park, just a slide and some swings and stuff like that squeezed in between the abandoned lot and the convenience store. Mia often plays on the swings.
I went over to collect her. I'd usually try to avoid this job, but that day I felt like getting out of the house. I'd been brooding all day. Nothing I did felt right, and the four walls of my room which usually offered me a kind of bleak safety now felt unbearable. I was happy for the distraction from my dark thoughts.
Mia wasn't on the swings. I asked some of the kids if they had seen her, and one pointed her out in the abandoned lot. She was standing there, amongst the weeds, with her back to me.
She seemed to be talking to someone, but there was no one there.
I hurried over to her. It was only when I got close that I saw it was Koishi she was talking to. I stopped dead. How was it that I hadn't noticed her before? She was standing there right next to Mia, and there was no way the weeds were high enough to have obscured her from me. It was like she'd just popped into existence.
Great, I thought. I have brain cancer or temporal lobe epilepsy or something. But the usual dark, depressive thoughts dissolved away almost as soon as they sprang up.
I wasn't imagining things. It really was Koishi!
My heart skipped and nervousness poured through me. I began to sweat, felt it cold down my legs and on the back of my hands. Damn it, now I was stinking of sweat! And I was still dressed in my house clothes with not a drop of makeup on my face. I hadn't even brushed my hair.
Koishi spotted me before Mia did. I was almost on top of them. Like the first time we'd met, she seemed surprised to see me, her dark green eyes going wide. This time, though, she didn't try to run away. She did, however, take a single step back.
"Hello," I said. Wow, suave, but actually not too bad an attempt given how hard my heart was pumping inside my chest.
"You can see me," said Koishi.
"Yeah," I said, going along with something I thought was a game. "I caught you. Are you guys playing hide and seek or something?"
"No," she said, shaking her head.
"Well," I said, feeling awkward. "It's, uh, it's really nice to see you again, Koishi-san."
"You remember me." This time her eyes grew even wider. Only a fraction, but on a face that was usually so emotionless it seemed particularly dramatic.
I laughed. "Of course I do! We only met yesterday. At the zoo."
"You remember me." She still seemed to find it hard to believe. But then the edges of her lips turned up into a shy smile. It made her look so fragile that my heart started to race. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out.
Mia came to the rescue as usual. "Koishi came to play," she explained.
I blinked. "How do you know where we live?"
"Oh," said Koishi. "I followed the bus you took yesterday." She turned and pointed to the bus stop at the far end of the street. "It dropped you off there and then you walked home."
The innocent way in which she described stalking us made her confession a strange mixture of disturbing and cute. I wish there was a word for that, because whatever it's called, Koishi has a ton of it.
I kind of laughed it off. I knew that she must have been making it up since there's no way she could have kept up with a bus. Mia must have mentioned where we lived to her when we were at the zoo, or else she just read the number on the bus and made an educated guess or something.
At that moment, some of the neighbourhood kids that Mia was friends with turned up. Mia introduced them to Koishi, happy to show off her new, cool older friend.
One of them, the little sister of one the boys around Mia's age, piped up. "Are you onee-san's girlfriend?"
Koishi blinked at her, although her expression didn't change. "Girlfriend?"
"Haha," I said, embarrassed. Kids see a lot of things that you think are hidden. "She meant to say 'friend'. Why don't you guys go off and play?"
They dragged Mia off and I was left alone with Koishi.
She turned the gaze of those glacial green eyes of hers at me.
"Are we friends?"
"Uh," I said. Maybe I had been a bit presumptuous. "Well, I'd like to be, if that's okay with you."
Suave. That's my middle name.
The almost-smile returned as she nodded and I thought my heart would break at the sight.
We sat down on the one of the big concrete pipe sections that they always seem to have in abandoned lots and watched in silence while the kids chased each other about. Like before, though, it wasn't as awkward as it would have been with another person. Usually the two of you are squirming internally, trying desperately to think of something to say. I didn't get that feeling with Koishi. I think she was used to being quiet. She didn't strike me as the sort of person who was naturally outgoing.
It was Koishi, though, who finally broke the silence. "Why did that little girl think I was your girlfriend?"
I laughed, but inside I was cursing the kid who'd said it. "Oh, you know what kids are like. They just come out with the first thing that pops into their heads. I guess she saw you and me next to each other and kind of assumed."
"I've never had a girlfriend before," said Koishi.
"How about a boyfriend?" I asked, without really thinking.
She shook her head.
I looked at her. I wanted to say that I found it very hard to believe, since she was so pretty. I wanted to say it, but my lips remained glued together by a sudden wave of anxiety. She'd know I was attracted to her, wouldn't she? There was no way she wouldn't guess, since I've never been able to hide anything from anyone. Koishi stared at me, knowing I wanted to say something. This time the silence was awkward, so I said, "I haven't either. Uh, had a boyfriend, I mean."
I turned away, flushing. Geeze. Well, I'd said more to Koishi in two days than I've said to anyone else in the last year, probably, so I guess it was progress.
I looked out across the playground. I was desperate for Mia to come save me, but she was busy playing. I needed a lifeline, anything to save me from this spiralling social death.
The swings. No-one was on them.
"Want to swing?" I asked. Then I realised how stupid that sounded, but Koishi didn't seem to mind. She was pretty unflappable. I think probably she didn't understand a lot of what I said to her.
"Yes," she said.
She sat down on a swing and I joined her on the one beside her. I started kicking my legs out and getting myself some height. It'd been years since I'd been on a swing, but it's something you can't forget how to do. Koishi watched me.
"So that's how it works." She kicked her legs, but out of time so that the swing didn't really do much more than shift a little.
I slowed myself down and hopped off. "You have to kick out your legs at the end of each swing," I explained. "Here, I'll give you a push to get started."
I came up behind her and placed a hand on either side of the swing. I was so close to her that I got a bit nervous, but luckily I didn't push too hard and end up flinging her to the ground or anything.
"Kick your legs out... now!"
Koishi picked it up quickly. I guess I really didn't need to keep helping her by pushing, but I didn't want the moment to end. I was pushing a pretty girl on a swing! I know, it's pathetic. But I was the happiest I've been for a very, very long time.
It got me thinking: what kind of girl our age doesn't know how to use a swing? Was she really an even bigger shut-in than me? She didn't look it. Her appearance, for one thing. Those fancy clothes she wore didn't look cheap. Then I remembered what she'd said about a mansion. Maybe she really was the eccentric daughter of some rich family. There was a certain nobility in her features, it was true, and it would explain the formal way in which she spoke and acted.
I decided she was okay to do it by herself now and got back on my swing. I quickly got into the same rhythm as hers so that we could talk. Somehow it was easier to talk while we were both doing something.
"So you don't have swings in Gensoukyou?"
"No," she explained. "At least, not in Chireiden. And I've never seen them anywhere else." She turned to me, that almost smile on her lips again. "I think I'll ask Satori to put one in the mansion."
I soon got tired of swinging and when Koishi noticed she let her own swing slow down until we were really just sitting on them and giving the occasional kick to stay in motion. We sat there and talked about a lot of things while Mia and her friends chased each other around the lot. Well, I guess it was mostly me asking questions and Koishi answering them. With someone else I might have worried that they weren't interested in talking, but I never got that feeling from Koishi. She seemed more than happy to just share my company.
More than happy to share my company. Before that day I never would have thought such a thing was possible. I'd been so used to constant rejection that it had become a way of life for me.
I managed to squeeze more information out of her. She wasn't a shut-in like me; in fact, it sounded like Koishi spent most of her time wandering around from place to place. From what I could make out, even though her relationship with her sister was good, the two spent little time together. Koishi seemed to prefer to be on her own.
"So you're the lone-wolf type?" I suggested, tongue-in-cheek. Wolf was the last word I'd use to describe the shy and introspective girl beside me.
Koishi blinked at me, not really understanding. "A wolf?"
"You know, someone who likes spending time alone."
She stopped kicking out her legs and stared down at the ground as the swing slowed, seeming to think things over. I slowed my own swinging and watched her. Had I said the wrong thing? I began to panic.
Then Koishi looked up at me and shook her head. "No," she said. "I don't like spending time alone. It's just the way things turned out."
I wanted to say something, but there were so many things jumbling around in my head at that moment that I just stared dumbly at her. At last I nodded.
"I know the feeling," I said.
We sat there in silence for a while. It was a little awkward again. I kept turning over things to say in my head, but it all seemed so unnatural. You know that feeling you sometimes get that you're faking everything? I decided it was better to just stay quiet. I didn't want to fake anything with Koishi. She seemed so honest.
Mia to the rescue again. She'd finished her game and joined us. It was starting to get dark but she managed to flood Koishi with a rapid-fire account of everything that had happened between her and her friends. Koishi smiled at her and asked her questions which she answered with breathless excitement.
I was suddenly jealous. But kids are all like that, aren't they? Able to punch straight through to being someone's friend. Why do you lose that ability as you grow up?
Darkness settled over the vacant lot. The other kids had all gone home. I knew our mother would be out on the front doorstep any moment now, calling us for dinner, and I wanted to avoid that embarrassing scene, especially in front of Koishi.
"We have to go," I told her. "B-but w-would..." Geeze, I was starting to stutter like I was disabled again. "Would you, uh, like to come and play with us again sometime?"
Koishi nodded, but then she lowered her gaze and frowned. It was a drastically different expression to the ones I'd seen on her face previously.
It was not the memory of a sad look, but a real one.
"I want to," she said. "But I can't."
"Why?" I came out with the question before I could stop myself. I hoped it hadn't had sounded as pathetically plaintive as I'd felt saying it.
Her great wide green eyes glimmered as they considered me. "Because you won't remember me," she said. "No-one has ever remembered me twice in a row."
I stared at her. It was such a strange thing to say.
"But you're very memorable," I said. It was then, I think, that I blushed like a fool.
The smile that passed across Koishi's lips at that moment was so achingly sad and beautiful and so utterly fleeting that even today I wonder if I didn't imagine it.
Then I heard someone shouting Mia and my names. God, it was our mother. I was suddenly ten years old again.
The moment had passed.
"Goodbye," said Koishi, that brief smile now a distant memory. "And thank you."
"What for?" I whispered.
"For being my friend, even for a little while."
Then she turned and walked away, just like she had the first time we met at the zoo. I watched her go. This time she didn't turn back. I glanced across once to check if Mia was still beside me, and when I looked back, Koishi was gone.
I felt myself crumble, as though everything had drained away all at once, leaving me hollow inside. What had she meant, when she'd said I'd forget her?
"Onee-san?"
Who knows how long I'd been standing there, staring at nothing. I grabbed Mia's hand and dragged her across the road back to our house.
"Onee-san, you're crying," she said, in that matter-of-fact way kids have.
"No I'm not," I lied, wiping at my flooding eyes with a sleeve.
I lay in bed, tossing and turning until the early hours of the morning. I probably should have stopped trying to get to sleep after the first hour or so, but I couldn't bear the thought of staying awake. Sleep was the only place I could escape the awful feeling that was weighing me down. Wonderful sleep, where I forgot how much of a failure I was and all the bad things that had happened.
The good things, as well. The good things that would never happen to me again.
She'd called me her friend.
I was sweating through my pyjamas and into the bed, my hair matting to the back of my neck. The stickiness and the tension and the ache of my heart was my entire universe.
Then I heard something outside my window.
A strange sound. One I'd maybe heard just a couple of times in my life, and never, ever from my own bed. I'm sure it had been a common sound in the past, but now it seemed so odd that I thought I must have finally gotten to sleep, albeit that semi-delirious sleep of insomniacs, and was already dreaming.
It was the clip-clop of a horse's hooves.
I strained to hear it. Clip-clop, clip-clop. Not a heavy sound, but in the silence of the early morning it was clear and defined, almost like the tapping of a hammer.
It grew steadier louder, then all at once it stopped.
So I had dreamed it.
The silence that followed was like the sort you'd encounter in the depths of the ocean. It was almost a sound of its own. The heaviness of it made me suddenly nervous. I got up and open the blinds. My room is on the second floor and my window looks out over the street towards the abandoned lot and the park, even though it's never made any difference to me since I've always kept the window closed and the blinds pulled down. I didn't want to be reminded of what was outside. I would have preferred to live in a basement, but our house didn't have one.
I struggled with the blind-pull for a few moments. I was still half-asleep, my eyes bleary, my usually ungraceful hands fumbling even more than usual. Then I got them open and peeked out through the window pane.
I didn't see them at first. It was hard to make out anything. But then I saw something move, there, not far from the light pooling at the feet of that street light.
Clip-clop. It stepped into the light.
I'd expected to see something larger, something horse-sized. But it wasn't a horse.
It was the okapi. And on its back was someone whose shape, even if I hadn't been able to see her face clearly, I would have recognised at once: the wide-brimmed hat, the clothes, the short silver-grey hair.
Koishi.
I didn't know what to do. I was still dreaming, wasn't I? I wanted to open the window but I was worried that if I did, the spell would be broken. It might be the last time I could see her. I didn't want to do anything to spoil it.
She sat there on the okapi's back looking straight up at me, or so I imagined. She made no move to signal me or anything like that. I guess she couldn't see me even though I could see her. Dreams have their own strange logic, after all.
The okapi was eating some grass on the verge. Koishi leaned down and said something in his ear, and he raised his head, licking his long tongue back into his mouth, and broke into a trot again.
Clip-clop, clip-clop.
Then the shadows drew them in and they were gone.
I stared out that window for I can't remember how long. Then I went back to my bed and lay down.
I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.