She woke up with a gasp and sweat trickling from her forehead. Wiping it with the sleeve of her shirt, she fumbled around her bed and found the clock. It was 00:06. An hour past the distortion.
"Hamuko?"
She whipped her head around, searching for the voice in the darkness of the room, and found her brother looking at her. He was on his bed, sitting and leaning on the wall, with a book on his lap. Beside him, there was a night lamp that was then turned on, illuminating their bedroom with the small amount of light it can give. The moonlight coming from the small window high above them shone on Minato's book and, now that her eyes adjusted to the abrupt change in lighting, she saw his bed was neat and tidy.
As if he didn't sleep on the bed at all.
"…Y-You didn't sleep?" she asked, getting up from her bed. Hamuko then made her way to her brother's bed and sat down, grabbing the item on his lap. It was a notebook instead of a book. "You were… writing? Writing what?"
The redhead opened it and read its contents, her brother not stopping her from doing so and just watched with a blank expression. It grated on her nerves that his face never showed much emotion after the accident. The notebook contained…
"…You had weird dreams too?" There was a line about a boy about his age talking to him. "And you… wrote them down."
"I saw you writing down your own dreams, and I read them too. I want to remember my own dreams too," her brother replied, looking down and playing with the pen he was holding on, twirling it around his fingers. "I… I can't remember much, Hamuko, but I try to write what I can.."
She quickly wrapped her arm around her brother, hugging him closer. "It's okay. I'm here. I'm here." She had her own set of dreams and it really annoyed her that her dreams were about her older self. Her alternate older self. It was nice that she had dreams of being a much older girl but she noticed that her older self had no brother whatsoever. And it made her mad.
So she wrote it down on her diary, which was now a journal due to its size, about the things she can remember from her dreams about her older self. Mostly it was simple scene of walking around a city she felt familiar with a Shiba Inu. Then there were scenes of battling monsters with weapons in the same distortion she found her and her brother in whenever midnight strikes.
Initially, she thought it was something her mind made up. A way to combat sadness and grief, according to the books she read at their living room. But then she used the stuff her older self was learning at her school, mostly language and some math stuff she remembered in her dreams, that she discovered it was real. Her mind couldn't imagine a formula for the Pythagorean Theorem nor the stuff about magic like Shamanism on its own. She hasn't learned that those things exist until she researched the library and asked their aunt.
Hamuko stared at the open notebook and read a line.
'He said he was sorry. He doesn't understand why he's here. He's stuck?'
"…Hey, Minato. Who's stuck?" she asked, curious. "You or someone else?"
"…There's another boy in my dreams. He looked like me but he doesn't know where he was nor who he is. I think he's stuck. I actually forgot I had the same dream last week."
That intrigued Hamuko; she had the same dream last week about a scene of her older self talking with a boy who looked like her brother. But she hasn't written down that one yet, she had forgotten about it until Minato reminded her of the dream with his.
"So… Did you sleep at all?" Minato haven't answered her question. Her brother looked away and shook his head. "Really? Not even when Auntie asked us to go to sleep?"
"I-I slept. Woke up around an hour ago." She frowned and glared at her brother. "I didn't go out. Just… I just watched." She sighed and placed the notebook on the table beside her brother's bed.
"…Come on, let's get some sleep. We have a field trip tomorrow, though I guess it's later now, and we're supposed to leave around 8 in the mornin. I'll set the alarm clock." Hamuko got up from the bed and went to her bedside clock. She fumbled with the buttons in the darkness and mentally scolded herself on her foolishness. Inching her brother turned on moments ago closer to where she was fumbling, she finally managed to find and set the clock to an alarm around 6. "There. Enough time to get some rest."
She stared at her brother's expressionless face. "Minato," she started. "Get some sleep, alright." His brother nodded but he didn't even make a single grimace, not like he used to do. Hamuko shook her head.
"I really should ask some people, maybe some people at the shrine later?" she mumbled to herself, making her way back to her bed and pulling the covers over herself. "After all, we are going to a religious shrine. Maybe they can help. The doctors were no help at all."
The doctors couldn't find anything wrong why his brother's face was fixed on that emotionless façade. Ever since Hamuko, their aunt and uncle noticed his face not even making move when he was supposed to be scared, afraid or surprised when they got discharged from the hospital, all of them were worried. It was like he was bored and indifferent to the world but Minato wasn't feeling those feelings at all. He just can't show it. And that fact infuriated her.
Minato tripped over the steps of the stairs and his knee got injured, a tear made from fall. Instead of wincing in pain or even shedding some tears, his face was stony. It all happened while he was spouting cries of pain from the injury.
Looking at the clock once again, Hamuko got reminded of the distortion she had just slept through. It then also reminded her of the first time the two of them experienced it. Unlike the doctors at the hospital, who gave her a mixed look of understanding and confusion, their aunt and uncle gave her pitiful expressions when she told them about what really happened at the bridge. How they ran from their car, how they scrambled away from a robot and a floating dinosaur guy and how the said dinosaur guy did something to her brother that he was in pain. Ever since then, Hamuko resolved not to tell anyone except those who were like her and her brother, those who are caught in the distortion where everything happened.
Their aunt and uncle weren't like them. They got turned into coffins when midnight happened and when it happened the first time in their new house, she was spooked mad. Luckily her brother was there with her and they hid in their new bedroom until the distortion ended. There she once again noticed her brother not expressing his emotions in his voice nor with his face, despite his words conveying the actual terror he felt.
She thought back then her brother was trying to be brave, his face not even flinching to the sight of red much flowing from the ceiling and the walls, but she then learned he couldn't. Ever since the incident.
Hamuko bit her lip. There she was doing it again; it has been years since it happened. Years when their parents mysteriously died in a car accident. An accident where the two of them were supposed to be in but luckily escaped. She hated that she never noticed the two boxes inside the car were their parents but she quickly let the anger ebb. The car was leaking gasoline and if she and Minato haven't got out in time, they would have been caught in the blast that happened afterwards.
Still, their parents died. Orphaned early on. And there was the thing about her brother's strange affliction that none of the doctors were able to identify the exact problem. Everything that happened to her and her brother was so-
Hamuko tried and successfully managed to breathe slowly until she had calmed down. Sensing her brother turned off the lamp, she decided to go to sleep. They were going on a field trip and maybe the monks at the shrines could help her. There were rumors that monks were also doctors, doctors that deal with stuff that scientific doctors couldn't.
She resolved to get the two of them visit a monk that could help him. And perhaps help with the strange dreams they were having. It was really strange to know Minato had a dream about the same boy she saw her older self was talking to.
The redhead finally fell asleep after a minute of counting the stars she could see from the window of their room and plunged back to her dream of watching her older self's friends being hanged on poles in a widespread manner. Not even the dog was spared and it terrified her. Then the scene returned to where she woke up, an older man that being shot by a gun. A gun that was fired from a person her older self saw someone to be respected.
The shrill of her alarm clock woke the young girl, making her rise up from her bed and quickly check her arms for chains. She immediately stopped and sighed, thanking the gods that her alarm clock ended the nightmare. Staring at the ringing alarm clock, she pressed the 'off' button on it and got down from her bed to wake her brother.
Couple of minutes later, she and her brother was at her aunt's dining table, waiting for their aunt to finish the breakfast she was preparing for them. Although Hamuko preferred to have bread for breakfast, the bowl of rice and miso soup their aunt served for them was better in the long run. Thanking their aunt, Hamuko dug into her breakfast while making sure her brother ate as well.
Minato was a mixed bag when having breakfast, either he breathes the food like it was nothing or he left it alone like as if it was garbage. Hamuko enjoyed making sure her brother eats, primarily because it was fun to see her brother try to get away from having breakfast in front of their stern aunt. Nevertheless, her twin couldn't leave the table unless he ate his portion, which was always a plus for Hamuko.
His face was already emotionless for an unknown reason, his nature to sleep at class doesn't even help him get along with much of their classmates, despite having spent 4 years already with them. It was… hard for both of them, much more for their relatives who was saddled with the burden of raising them.
"Thanks for the food!" she said, placing the clean bowl on the table while wiping her face with her sleeve. Their aunt glared at her momentarily before shaking her head. "Come on, Minato! Let's get ready for the field trip!"
Her twin was almost done, thanks for the constant prompts Hamuko did while eating, so she waited for him to finish before she dragged him up to the second floor and pushed him into the bathroom. "You go first!" she announced before she ran back to their shared room and grabbed their own pairs of prepared uniforms.
When she came back to the bathroom, her brother was already taking a shower. While there's a bath at the side, a shower was installed by their aunt who loved the idea of having a modern bathroom, much like the ones she saw on television shows. She placed his clothes on the dry sink and went back to their room. As she skipped over to their bedroom, Hamuko grinned.
Today, they were going to have a field trip and she was going to do her best to find a way to help her brother by asking the monks at the shrine. Or shrines. She was sure there was something they could do or, at the very least, point her to the right direction. If scientific methods can't tell what's wrong, then surely spiritual or religious methods would. Some of the old ladies that come at their school even comment, from what she had overheard, that it should be the other way around if something weird came up.
Hamuko ducked beneath her bed and grabbed the bag she had prepared the night before. A couple of notebooks and a change of clothes were inside, one for taking down notes about the trip and the other for changing when she gets dirty or soaked with sweat. She also grabbed the bag her brother prepared under his bed and checked if he had done the same things as her.
"Cool, we are so prepared for this," remarked Hamuko, seeing the same thing in her brother's backpack. "Hmm… Maybe I should bring my journal. His too!" She then grabbed the notebook on her brother's bedside table and stuffed it into her own bag. She also then pulled out her own journal from the drawer of their shared study table and stuffed it as well into her bag. "There! Now the only thing left is…"
"I'm done."
Hamuko turned around and saw her twin standing at the doorway with his uniform on and hair dripping the last of the water from the shower. She smirked and grabbed her towel from the hanger on the wall, throwing it ahead to her brother's head. Minato let it fall on his head and then ruffled it on his own.
"Really, Minato. Your head still has some water left. Anyway, I'll be fast and we'll be on our way! Bet you that Auntie had prepared your favorite lunch for the trip," she said, taking the towel from her brother and walking out of the room in one motion. "Bring my bag with you! Please!"
"Ha. Ha," was her brother's only answer to her before she scampered to the bathroom.
A few minutes later, Hamuko went down to the kitchen area to find Minato munching on a cereal bar (a rare scene for her to see) and reading a book with two bags at his side. The bag must be their lunchboxes, judging from the freshly wrapped towels around it. Their aunt was also there sitting across her twin, sipping on a steaming mug of tea. She quickly dashed to their aunt and gave her hug.
"Thank you Auntie! Glad you had a day off today." Hamuko grabbed and placed the lunchbox with the Pink Argus logo on its towel inside her bag, which was beside her brother, and the other lunchbox inside the other bag. "Well, we'll be off now! Oh yeah, you have a camera there?"
Their aunt smirked and gestured her to Minato. In response, Minato raised a camera that hang around his neck with a strap, partially hidden under the table ever since Hamuko came down. Hamuko thanked and said goodbyes to their aunt and followed her brother who was already making his way out of the house, carrying their bags while reading the small pocketbook.
"What are you reading Minato?" she asked, looking over her twin's shoulder. "Is that…? Where did you get that?!"
"Hmm? It was given to us a week before. You forgot to get yours? I thought you got one," her twin replied, raising the small pocketbook that had the label of 'Sensoji'. "Heh."
"S-Shut up. I didn't know." She huffed. They soon reached the overpass and just a couple of blocks, they finally reached their school. A couple of buses were already waiting for them in front of the school and their fellow classmates and students were lingering around the vehicle. There were even a couple of their teachers standing and looking out for the children. "Wow. This is going to be amazing. I just know it."
"It's only half a day," her brother remarked, closing the pocketbook. "And we're going specifically to Sensoji and Asakusa, not the entire Asakusa District. We've been there with Aunt Himiko and Uncle Hisame once."
"But it wasn't for school, Minato. We went to the amusement park right next to the temple. And besides, we are going to visit the shrines there and learn their history." She twirled around and placed her hand on her hips while her free hand pointed to him. "Educational purposes, Minato. Educational."
Her brother rolled his eyes but his face didn't even flinch at the motion. "Whatever."
Hamuko sighed. She saw their homeroom teacher standing at a bus and was busy looking over a sheet of paper, so Hamuko grabbed her brother's hand and dragged him to their teacher. Once their homeroom teacher noticed them, he smiled and let them inside the bus, ticking their names off the paper he had while giving the twins each a number paper hanging on a strap.
The numbers they were given had a 9 and 10 on it. Hamuko gave it a look over and turned her attention to the people in the bus. "What. Where are the others?" she asked out loud, noticing that including her and Minato, there were only 10 people in the bus.
"The other classes are assembling in their classroom, Hamuko-chan. Our class' supposed to meet at the courtyard but since the bus was at the entrance, I thought it was nice to have my students get in it already."
Both of them turned around to their homeroom teacher and nodded. It somewhat made some sense but…
"But what if you missed some of our classmates?" Minato asked, making their homeroom teacher blanch. Instead of responding to her twin, their teacher stumbled down the bus and ran off towards the school. "Really."
Hamuko rolled her eyes. "Come on, let's get the best seats in bus. Maybe you can even take a nap while we're waiting." Her brother pinched her side in response. "You're still gonna do it anyway."
Sure enough, Minato fell asleep on his seat beside her and was dozing quite soundly when their homeroom teacher arrived with the rest of their class. Apparently, the rest were waiting for their teacher inside their classroom and had a fellow faculty teacher watching over them instead of having to search for their homeroom teacher. Hamuko didn't bother to wake her brother up during the brief introduction done by the teacher and the tour guide the school hired for their trip.
It was new for both of their class and their assigned tour guide because according to her, the temple never allowed visitations done by schools before and only let people in normally without bothering to correct their assumptions on the temple. The tour guide joked that the monks there cared only for the donations given by the tourists and the earnings from selling masks and merchandise, making her and her fellow students laugh at the joke.
The ride wasn't long for they reached the place about an hour, the entire trip filled with banter from their homeroom teacher and the tour guide about the new things being implemented at the shrine. There were a few topics that seemed to interesting for Hamuko, making her take some notes on her notebook. Minato, on the other hand, slept through the entire ride and thankfully haven't drooled on her shoulder. She still took a picture of her brother with their aunt's camera, grabbing the camera hanging on his brother's neck.
Hamuko looked out of the window and saw the trademark lantern of Kaminarimon, along with the statues of what she recalled as some Shinto gods of wind and thunder. Surprisingly, there weren't many people going through the gate. She got up and poked her brother to wake up, rousing Minato and making him yawn.
With their respective bags on the backs, the two followed their fellow classmates down the temple grounds. Their homeroom teacher was behind the group, watching them and looking out if one of them would stray away from the group, while the tour guide was before them, speaking things that Hamuko wrote down on her notebook. Minato was busy taking pictures of the shops and the buildings they were passing through.
They passed through what she learned as the Buddhist temple of the grounds and went through several 'gates' that she had a hard time understanding of its importance. She decided to read more about it later and concentrate first on the various topics the tour guide was speaking of.
Overall, they had gone through several parts of the entire place, reaching to the point they had to take a break from all the walking. Good thing that there were few tourists visiting the place, making the entire trip shorter than they all expected, though all of them groaned when their respective homeroom teacher commented that the trip was to be continued the next year. Hamuko made no complaint, she had gone on a field trip and learned much from the tour. Why would she complain? Well, aside from making sure her brother keep up with the group. That was one thing she wants to complain about.
He was fascinated with taking pictures of the scenery. Some of the monks even went out and paused at the sight of Hamuko pulling Minato while the blue-haired boy resisted and took shots of the statues.
As she and her brother began to eat their lunch on a bench, one that was near the garden while at the same time a table away from the rest of the group in the canteen, a monk approached and sat down in front of the two. Hamuko looked up from her lunchbox and noticed their homeroom teacher nodding to the monk, ushering some of their classmates not to bother the three of them.
"Can I help you Mister?" she asked, placing down her food on the table. She nudged Minato beside her to give attention to the monk sitting across them, dislodging his concentration on the camera.
"I notice that you two are quite peculiar when you arrive in the temple grounds." That gave Hamuko quite a shock, evident by how she placed her hand over her mouth to hide her gasp. "Not in a bad way, I assure you. Can you trust me to be a listener of the problems you two children have? I sense you two are deeply troubled with something."
"H-How can you tell?" Hamuko asked. "I…I was actually planning to ask some of the monks here about something but… I guess this works too."
"Hm…" The monk placed both of his hands on the table and curled them together. "Well, to start this off… Would you believe that there is an air of 'magic' around you two? Especially your brother."
"…Yes," she replied. It wasn't hard not to notice. The two of them could move in a weird time and space that happens every midnight. If that wasn't magic, then what else could it be? "Anyway, can you help my brother? He can't smile nor frown anymore and he had to tell us that he is happy but his face just can't… Well, his eyes still roll from being bored so I guess that counts so- "
The monk raised his hand, stopping Hamuko from rambling. He then gave them a very warm smile, one that made Hamuko a bit calmer than before. "Well, well, can we start from the beginning? I want to know more about how your brother's strange circumstances too. Maybe we, the monks here in Sensoji, could help?"
So Hamuko did. It was refreshing for her to tell someone about what happened to her and her brother 4 years ago, about how they ran underneath a green sky and a yellow moon with coffins replacing people, about how her brother saved her from being caught by a weird person with a dinosaur mask, about how his brother couldn't show much of his emotions through his face after that and how his eyes changed color. About how she could recall things that she has no way of knowing before, about how she had dreams of an older girl who she felt was her, about how her brother had recently dreams of a boy who looked like him and about her having a dream of her older self talking with a boy who looked like her brother. And lastly, about how they noticed weird chunks of black creatures that roam the streets when the distortion happens every midnight.
The monk didn't interrupt her nor didn't laugh at her words. He just nodded and Hamuko felt the monk accepted her words as the truth. Hamuko felt she had unloaded a lot of heavy stuff from her chest after she had finished speaking to the monk, her brother nodding in silence every once in a while as she was talking to the old man. She honestly felt the old man was required to listen to people as a part of his job.
She looked down, fumbling with her fingers and food long forgotten in the middle of her ramble. Hamuko was hoping the old man would help her, but she knew that it would be too much for the monk; it would also come across that Hamuko was being a bit demanding. A chuckle broke her thoughts and she noticed Minato return to taking pictures around them when she looked up. The monk across their table was chuckling, making her frown.
The monk must have seen her frowning because he said immediately, "Child, you have come to the right place. I assume that you have been to some doctors already?" Hamuko nodded. "Ah, of course they wouldn't find anything wrong. This matter purely spiritual based on what you told me and from our own experiences." That caught Hamuko's interest.
"…'Our own experiences'?"
Smiling, the monk continued, "Why yes, 4 years ago some of us, if not all, here in Sensoji and perhaps even at the neighboring Shinto Shrine, started experiencing what you call the 'distortion'." Hamuko's eyes widened, her hands scrambling for the pen in her pocket. "That's why I know that the 'distortion' and this dinosaur masked guy you spoke of has something to do with your brother's inability to show emotions."
She nodded. "That's what I thought too!" Hamuko paused, concerned about how did the monk got his conclusion. "Um, how did you got the same idea as mine Mister? Curious, that's all."
"Hm… Could I ask where did you two children came from before your aunt and uncle raised you?" That made Hamuko question why would the old man ask such a thing, but Minato answered him for her.
"Koto. Shinonome, Koto-ku. Our house was sold there about a year ago. We stay now with our relatives at Ueno," her brother said, not even bothering to look up to the monk. "Why?"
"Ah, so that's why you two don't have the necklaces prepared by the Ministry. We here were surprised when we sensed you two entering the temple grounds without the usual notifications being given by the ID necklaces."
"…What do you mean, Mister? What necklaces and what Ministry?" Hamuko asked, curious.
"Ah, I guess it falls now to me to explain you two the other side of our society." The monk then twisted his neck like what their aunt did when she got stiff-necked. "Alright, you know stories of how there are people with magic, right?" Hamuko nodded while her brother grunted in response. "I'll take that as a yes then. Anyway, normal people don't know that there's such thing as magic but there are some that have a talent with that."
"That's where the stories of being blessed by the gods come from. Well personally, we of the 'traditionalists' believe that we those that have magic have been actually blessed by the gods but some of the 'modernists' believe it's a different power that evolved from humans. That's not what I'm going to discuss to you two."
Hamuko hastily wrote down everything what the monk said while her brother listened like he was listening to one of their history lectures, half-bored with his eyes not fixated at the old man but instead at the surrounding around them. He still listened though, he just wasn't concentrating much on it. That was what Hamuko realized when she noticed Minato did the same thing a few years back.
She would have preferred he stopped it, but at the very least, he stopped not listening at all, so she just thanks whatever good things that came from her otherwise fruitless endeavor.
"You two have magic," the old man started, which wasn't a shocker at all. "Normally we would have ignored it but the alarms told us that you two don't have an ID necklace nor weren't registered as one of our mentees. We can't turn a blind eye on that alarm, obviously. Then you told me about how you two came from Koto and transferred to Taito because of your recent circumstances, am I correct on that?"
Hamuko nodded, mentally wondering what was the old man was getting at.
"Koto's magical government is under a family, much like how certain families own certain places as their own territories. Normally, the magical government in an area is connected to the rest of the country but Koto is special because the family who 'rules' the area is a 'modernist'. Meaning, much of the happenings in the magical side there gets to be… filed in a modern way."
"Modernist… What does that mean, Mister?"
The monk scratched his head. "I really have no concrete idea, child, but usually 'modernists' would follow the usual procedure in educating budding magicians like you through modern means. Cram schools and the likes, just like the one in Shibuya where there's a cram school that works with the Association of Shinto Shrines in teaching today's children on magic. I teach Sealing there by the way."
"Cool."
"Anyway, I think I've gone off-track. What made you two special is that you two are, for now, the only children with magic from Koto in 4 years."
That confused both of them, Hamuko with a raise of her eyebrows and Minato with him looking up from his camera. The monk noticed their confusion because he immediately continued, "As far as we all know, both of the 'traditionalists' and 'modernists' sides, no one who has magic that went or lived in Koto 4 years ago returned or made any contact with the rest of us. They just… disappeared. And honestly, I'm pretty sure the rest of us would be happy to know that you two managed to get out of Koto before the widespread loss of communication with the magical government there in Koto."
"The Kirijos at that time announced they have no idea what happened to the magical side of their population because, frankly, I think they were already swamped with the destruction done by the various accidents at their facilities that happened that year. And add the fact that this… distortion happened at the same time the accidents in Tatsumi were reported, the Kirijos are in trouble with the Ministry."
Hamuko wrote down what she could on her notebook, intrigued by the new stuff she was learning from the monk. Her brother was also curious, since he was now in a very serious stance, attention completely at the monk and his hands at the side, compared to the bored-out position he had previously.
"But the Ministry can't do anything at all with the Kirijos, since Koto is their territory since early times and they are now widely known to the rest of the world as The Kirijo Group. They are so famous now in both sides of the world, magical and non-magical, that having them be tried by the suspicious disappearance of magicals in their territory would be quite a scandal to both parties."
She had understood almost half of what the monk was saying but she still kept on taking down notes on what he was saying, hoping that she would one day understand what she just had written. Everything he was saying was too complicated for her; 'tried' she understood but what does 'having them be tried' meant?
"Umm… Mister? About us? Could you help my brother?" she interrupted the monk who she now felt was rambling instead of helping them. Hamuko now understood what their classmates must have felt when she went on about Pink Argus.
"Ah, sorry. About your brother? Well, we can help you with it. Just- "
"Excuse me, sir. Forgive me for interrupting but my class would be going home from their field trip."
Hamuko turned to her side and noticed their homeroom teachers bowing slightly at the monk with a weird expression on his face. That caused Hamuko to sputter on her seat and hastily stuff her long forgotten things on the table into her bag. She had forgotten that they were on a field trip and not on vacation. Her brother beside her had already packed his own things during the ramble of the monk so he was only nodding to their homeroom teacher, who was apologizing to the monk.
The monk waved and laughed heartily at their homeroom teacher. He then pulled out a couple of wooden charms Hamuko identified as an 'omamori' and handed to the two of them while saying, "Here, take this. I've spelled that to tell us or anyone who is in any of the shrines here in Tokyo that you two are special. I'll contact later those at the neighboring shrines about you two and what they need to know to help you."
"T-Thanks a lot, Mister," Hamuko said, bowing to the old man and pushing Minato's head down in one action. "We'll be going now."
"It's been a pleasure, child. Hope you two come here soon or any of the shrines here in Tokyo."
The monk rose up and walked away from their table, leaving Hamuko and Minato, who returned his attention to his camera, with their bemused homeroom teacher. Letting out a light laugh, their homeroom teacher asked them while he led them back to their group, "So… what did the monk talked to you about? He called me earlier if he could talk to you two with and I'm really curious why." They were already out of the temple grounds and Hamuko could feel the stares of their fellow classmates through the bus' glass windows.
Hamuko stared at the 'omamori' she had tied to her bag. "I… I think he sensed Minato had nightmares, Sensei. I was surprised why he approached us and guessed that we had nightmares, so he had us talk about our nightmares." She didn't bother to tell him the rest of their conversation, he wasn't active like them because he got turned into a coffin during their camping trip.
That was one camping trip she wouldn't forget. Neither her brother as well.
"Well," he grumbled, pressing buttons on his phone. "They say that priests, monks and shrine maidens have a weird 6th sense for that kind of things, so I guess that's great. Now, get in. I'm gonna call the tour guides, the principal is getting antsy already."
Hamuko nodded, getting up the steps on the bus while watching out for Minato in case he stumbled over his feet. "Just what did you took picture of that you can't watch your feet?" she started, looking over her brother's shoulder when they reached their designated seats on the bus. "Let me see… Oh! Wow!"
The picture he took was amazing, simply put. It was like one of the pictures she saw at her aunt's magazines at the living room and Hamuko wondered out loud how did her brother managed to get that shot. She learned from watching television and asking her aunt that in order to get that type of quality of pictures, the photographer must be have either the tools to get it or have the skill.
And it seemed her brother have the skill to get those pictures. Really, Hamuko saw the leaves in the picture from the camera's digital screen and she couldn't help but feel it was moving. And there was how detailed the statues' faces were, something that she thought was possible given with how blurry photos were even with the brand new digital cameras.
"Wow. Just wow. You should take more pictures, they're great. Hey! Take mine! Come on! Take one!" She then grinned and made a pose, raising her fingers into a V, winking and putting her tongue out. Minato raised the camera and pressed the button, causing a flash of light to appear briefly, and even though he had a bored and indifferent expression on his face, Hamuko saw the amusement in her brother's eyes. After her brother took several pictures with her in different poses, Hamuko ended her pose, remarking, "Say, what do you think about the monk said earlier?"
"…Interesting. Should we visit soon?"
"Yeah, we should. Wanna bet we could haggle Auntie and Uncle to visit Sensoji again this weekend?"
"…No. Weekend Cleaning. Next week."
"Oh. Right."
