The next day, Hiyori doesn't immediately go over to visit after school ends. She avoids the place, even though she knows Yukine will be a bit hurt. First, he's had to deal with with Yato disappearing to this colloquy without any warning. Now, he'll think she's abandoning him too—by leaving him alone to the tender mercies of Daikoku's slave-driving work ethic.
Finally—for Yukine's sake—Hiyori almost talks herself into making the trip. But in the end, when she walks outside and sees another storm twisting in the sky, she decides it's probably better for her to stay where she is. This storm is much closer than the one she saw last night. It's also the second one within two days, which seems, at the very least, unusual. It's a small one, though, and even as she watches it, the cloud of energy, vibrating with the wails of ayakashi, begins to dissipate. Despite this, Hiyori thinks it's best for her to remain at home.
She goes into her room to start studying, opening the window wide to let in air. Spring has officially ended, and the sky of early summer seems to buzz with heat and insect wings. When Hiyori pushes open the curtains, she can't help inhaling, waiting…nothing. There's no familiar scent in the nearby vicinity. Even if she were to drop out of her body to increase the sensitivity of her nose, she knows she wouldn't find it—which she finds inordinately disappointing. Sitting down at her desk, she tries to concentrate, but her mind just doesn't cooperate with her. It keeps jumping from one unrelated idea to another, and after twenty minutes of fruitless effort she's nearly ready to slam her book shut in frustration. Why can't she focus?
In the next second, her question answers itself. It's because of her worry. Well, really Yato's worry, but it's rubbed off on her as well. She's learned a hard lesson from forgetting him twice, and if there's something she's learned a little too well, it's not to trust her own memory. Because of that, her mind won't let her forget Yato. In fact, it won't let her think about anything else.
"Great," she mutters aloud, resigning herself to the fact that she won't be of much use until he comes back.
Since it seems to be the only thing she can do, Hiyori starts mentally ticking off the important things she needs to remember about him, just in case. Just in case she accidentally ends up trusting herself too much, and some details slip through the cracks.
Yato (previously Yaboku). He charges five yen per wish. He was once a god of calamity, but he's not anymore. He's always wanted a shrine, and she built him his first one. He treasures that shrine, and he keeps it—where does he keep it? Hiyori can't remember, but it's a small detail, so she moves on to the more important pieces of information. He's a very good artist, especially after hundreds of years of practice. He loves capypers. He really loves capypers. She smiles, softly, without realizing it.
The stillness and the sunlight make everything feel slow, including her thoughts. The last thing she needs is another unscheduled nap, but somehow her head still ends up on her desk, cheek pressed to the warm surface. What else about Yato must she be sure to remember?
He wants to be a god of fortune. He wants to be a god who makes people happy. He wears that stupid tracksuit all the time; she wonders if he even wore it to the colloquy. That would be really funny. He also carries that wine bottle full of coins everywhere, although now that he has a shrine, he doesn't fawn over the bottle quite as much. He still doesn't have a very good sense of physical boundaries, despite what she and Yukine have tried to teach him. He smells really, really nice. He cares religiously about the people who depend on him. He cares about Yukine—he loves Yukine. She knows it, with the deep resonance of truth.
The air in her room is so heavy, and it smells so nice…but she can't go to sleep, even though her eyes are closed and she's halfway there already. She has to keep remembering things.
Yato is accustomed to being forgotten by everyone he meets, so the people who do remember him are special. To him, Hiyori is special.
He loves her.
He's in love with her.
The progression of thought is so natural, and so perfectly obvious, that her mind carries her there under its own power. It has that same truthful resonance. Of course he's in love with her. This is not a surprise.
Hiyori's eyelids snap open from her half-nap. For a moment, she can't do anything but stare at the spine of the closed book directly in front of her. The rightness of the realization collides with her like a kick to the gut. Yato loves her; of course he does. She feels it with an anchored certainty that she can't ignore, even if she were to try.
And to ignore it is her first instinct. What is she supposed to do with the knowledge that he loves her? What is her reaction supposed to be?
Paralyzed with this startling, yet completely unsurprising new awareness, Hiyori doesn't immediately notice the nice smell, which has crept subtly through the motionless, early summer air into her room. When she does notice it, the smell itself seems somehow connected to her epiphany, but through the vestiges of sleep-fog, she can't figure out why.
"Hey, Hiyori, quit sleeping. I'm back!"
She straightens upright so fast that she causes something in her neck to pop. Yato grins at her, eyes squinted in the sunlight, as he balances half-inside her room. He's straddling the windowsill and—for once—seems to be actually waiting for her to invite him all the way inside.
"Yato?"
Her voice is croaky from sleep, and his grin broadens.
"I guess you didn't forget me!"
He says it as a joke, glossing over the thread of legitimate worry he must have had. Hiyori wonders vaguely why he would vanish so abruptly, and for so long, if he really were anxious about being forgotten. But the more pressing issue—the one that renders her unable to do anything but stare blankly at the god on her windowsill—is how the hell she's going to act normal around him now.
"Of course I didn't forget you," she says, sounding a touch more aggressive about it than she meant to.
Yato doesn't seem to care, and takes her words as an invitation to hop all the way into her room, walk over to where she sits at her desk, and pull her into a pulverizing hug. Hiyori still doesn't know how someone with so little physical mass is able to squeeze her until purple dots swim across her vision, but she doesn't complain. She wouldn't have the air for it, anyway.
"Good," he says quietly, right next to her ear.
The strength of his scent makes her a little lightheaded. Maybe it's just his week-long absence. Maybe all she forgot is exactly how nice his smell is. Yes, she thinks. It's probably that.
He lets go of her, luckily, before any of her ribs crack. And before she can say anything else, he's on his way out the window again.
"Yato, what the—where are you going now?!" she splutters, annoyed.
He's already off, silhouetted against the yellow sky, but he pauses to shout back at her:
"I have to go get my tongue-lashing from Yukine! See you tonight, Hiyori!"
She stares out the window, nonplussed.
He came to her first, before even going to tell Yukine he came back. Was he that worried she'd forget him, or did he just…want to see her? Her thoughts reel wildly, pivoting in place around a central tether: he's in love with her, and whether from ignorance, inexperience, or sheer lack of observation, she simply failed to notice it. And, once the numbness of shock wears off, she realizes she'll have to make sense of it one way or another—and soon. But in the meantime:
See you tonight, Hiyori!