A/N. So I haven't updated in a while, but I can promise you all I'm not dead yet. I hope you've all been having a lovely year so far, and had a lovely Christmas last year.
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
New Additions
Exactly three weeks, two days, and a little under eight hours later is when Tensa first takes notice of the new addition to his house. By then, the giant hole in the wall has been fixed and covered up quite nicely if he really must admit to that fact, and one can almost not see where the new paint doesn't quite blend in with the old, Tensa cannot see it, so long as he buries all the bad memories that night has left him with. He had no idea where the woman, Shirayuki, who faintly both reminds him of his mother and who cannot be any further different if she tried, has gone, but she has been gone for some time and has not made any indication of rearing her snow white head again.
He hoped she wouldn't, because if she does than that means that more monsters are on the way to hurt his family, and he doesn't think is nearly strong enough to deal with that realization.
It all somewhat pales with the donning realization that there is suddenly a little girl in the house, only a few years younger than him, with hair as orange as the setting sun, and that nobody but he can apparently see. Both Shiro and Zangetsu, the latter back from some sort of trip, gave him strange looks when he almost pointed out her existence the first time he saw her, a finger to the lip in an age old signal to stay quiet having kept him from completely doing so.
She feels familiar, like something from a faint memory of his childhood that he can never quite grasp and that slips through his pale fingers like water from a faucet. It is this fact, along with a stubborn curiosity and sense that she does in fact belong, wherever it is that she appears, that keeps him from panicking every time he catches sight of her, always near the shadows and never very far from his reach. She glares at the students who insult him without abandon, and occasionally manifests from seemingly nothing but the thin air behind the teacher, making silly faces when they begin to air on the side of a boring drone. She occasionally makes him smile, and while he is not quite sure what she is, he has always been sure that she is his friend.
She is not human, nor spirit, nor is she like whatever Shirayuki was.
And Shirayuki does reappear with time.
Time being a good two weeks after the discovery of the new addition to his life that is the strange wisp of a girl who follows him wherever he chooses to go. By then, he has more than gotten used to her presence, and is only mildly surprised when, just as he catches sight of her, she disappears like smoke in the wind without explanation. The feeling that she is not actually gone digs at the back of his mind like an itch he can't quite scratch, and it doesn't take much of a genius to realize that she is still there, he just can't see her.
It does nothing to change the fact that the woman who came swooping into his life like a blizzard is currently standing at the head of his classroom, white hair pinned into the neatest bun he has ever seen and clad in a comfortable pencil skirt and modest, blue blouse. She smiles gently at all of the students, focuses a scant few seconds longer on him than the others, and greets them all with a motherly voice bordering on too sweet. She is their new assistant teacher apparently, fresh out of college and ready to help where she can. They are to treat her nicely, and with as much respect as they'd give any of the more experienced teachers.
Tensa has to try very hard to ignore the voice in the back of his mind whispering lies and reminding him insistently of the truth behind this woman. He has to try even harder when the unbidden mental image of the young girl kicking that same voice soundly in the head almost makes him bark out a laugh so loud, he is sure it will get him sent to the principal's office.
He knows he will have to keep quiet until school is over, because class is not the time to play twenty questions with a dead person that suddenly everyone, and not just himself, can see. The wait is almost agonizing though, and he begins to feel like his brain is tunneling in on itself from boredom and impatience until the girl suddenly manifests sitting pretty on the teacher's desk, caramel brown eyes twinkling with mischief and a Cheshire's toothy grin on her face; the only warning she gives in the scant few seconds before she somehow picks up the teacher's precious coffee and spills it down the blathering man's back, reducing a monotonous drone to the horrified, pain filled squeals iconic of a fresh brewed cup.
She looks all too pleased with herself before reappearing at his side, and for whatever reason he dare not contemplate out of fear of what he may or may not find, he does not move to scold her for it either.
A/N. Not nearly as long as I wanted it to be, trust me. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and thank you for reading! Please leave a review and tell me what you think, see ya!
