Sunday has fallen upon us. The sun had risen a certain amount of time ago. While a couple in one side of town were reconciled after a harsh moment, in the other side of town a girl was tending to some housework, for instance, hanging moistened clothing items in the backgrounds of her house. Today is a sunny day, might as well use it to her favour.
After hanging all the clothes, arranging them by colour, Chinatsu sighed with pride and walked into her house. Her whole family was out, leaving her alone in the building. She looked around the place. She had already moped the place, fixed her and her sister's bed and done the dishes. The entire house was clean as it could be.
A clean body has a clean soul. But in this case, this clean house had a sweaty occupant. The work wasn't heavy for a girl of such caliber, but the heat, although it wasn't heavy, it was present and persistent. Like a fly that bothers.
Chinatsu wiped the sweat off her face and decided to shower herself. Walking upstairs and to her room, undressing all the way to her bathroom.
While her body acted on autopilot, her mind was busy trying to think of a task for her to do before her family arrives. Cooking something is the most dominant option, so she started to think what, how, which ingredients are best, etc. Before she knew it, she was already inside the shower, her hair just starting to drip water and the doorbell was ringing. She was woken up from her automatic activity because of it ringing twice. She waited a few seconds before he bell rang again. Luckily, she hadn't even started with the soap nor the shampoo, so she just turned the shower off, reached for her purple robe and covered herself as she walked downstairs to the door. Looking through the fisheye, the smile of a certain pervert shone bright and proud. She dyed her hair red?
A sigh of annoyance, followed by the unlocking of the door, Chinatsu opened the door halfway through and leaned in to face the guest.
"What do you want?" Closer inspection at Chris showed that she didn't dyed her hair red, but just her bangs and the first strands of each side of her face with a gradient effect from red on top to her natural black at the bottom.
"Ohh, you greet your guests in a robe now?" Chris said with a sly smile and narrow eyes, scanning the entirety of her friend from head to toes.
Chinatsu just slammed shut the door and waited thirty seconds until she opened the door again. "What do you want?"
"Right now, I wanna take that robe of yours away and just go crazy with you."
Slam.
Thirty seconds.
"What do you want?"
"I need your help for a psychological experiment that our psycho teacher gave me."
"Did she?" Said teacher had never said anything about an experiment.
"It's an extracurricular experiment." Chris replied and fixed her backpack's straps. "I'm a curious motherfucker and I'd love it if you were my test subject."
"Why me?" Chinatsu asked and leaned on the door frame.
"Cause, out of our group of friends, you're the least mentally stable." Chris said nonchalantly and stepped into the house.
"What do you mean by that?" Chinatsu was taken back by such a nasty comment, but tried to ignore it and accept it as a random comment from her friend.
"Nothing special." She said and walked to the living room, taking a seat on a nearby couch. "Come, sit with me."
Chinatsu sighed with deep annoyance. Resigned, she walked towards the living room and accompanied her friend, who took her backpack off and looked into it.
"What's your experiment about?" Chinatsu asked as she tried to take a peek at Chris' bag. As she finished her sentence, Chris pulled out several little plastic boards and her notebook. The plastic boards had well known ink drawings, that even if you don't know their name, you know what they are used for.
"A Rorschach test?" Chinatsu said unimpressed. Somehow predictable and infinitely boring.
"Hey! This one is different!" Chris said and stood up, walking to the dining room and taking a chair from there and towards the living room. "Look, you're not gonna tell me what you see, but you're gonna tell me what you feel when you see each drawing."
"And you said it's different..." Chinatsu answered dryly. "Lets just get this over with." She said and held her face on her hands. Chris frowned, but continued and fixed herself on the chair, opened her notebook and reached for a pen in her backpack.
"Okay then..." Chris said and wrote something on her notebook. "Test R, Board 1." She said as she took one specific board and gave it to Chinatsu. She took in and studied it, spinning it around once and then back to the starting position. For an unknown reason, Chinatsu shifted her position to a more concerned one, resting her body on her elbows on her knees, her face changed with an awkward look mixed with concern.
"What do you feel?" Chris' professional façade never changed, keeping herself straight on her seat, no emotion on her face with narrow eyes. On the inside, she was joyous. The boards had in them not only the ink, but also another type of ink ridiculously similar to the one on the board but with a lighter tone. And with that, she used the ligther ink to draw certain images on the board. If you were to reeeally focus on the ink, you would notice the little change. But if you just overlook it, you won't see the hidden drawing.
"I feel... Possessive.." In this drawing, the hidden ink had drawn the figure of a woman with a wip, hips cocked to a side with her hand on them.
"Ok." Chris said and wrote it down, took another board and switched them with Chinatsu's.
"Okay... I feel... Interestingly happy." This one were two silhouettes of girls holding hands.
Write. Change.
"Okay... I feel rather uncomfortable." This one had the silhouette of a naked woman stretching. Details like the nipples and lack of that natural hang clothes have gave it away.
"Why?" Chris asked, faking curiosity.
"I feel like I'm watching someone." Chinatsu said, clutching her robe unconsciously. "I mean, like taking a shower or something."
"Ohhhh, who might that be?" She asked with a teasing tone.
Write it down. Change.
"Ok..." Chinatsu studied this one thoroughly. A good amount of time, like 15 seconds, passed after she took the board. "I feel... Dunno how to explain it, but I feel like Akari." Guess who was drawn on the board. "Not as if ignored, but as... connected to her."
"How cute." Chris said with a giggle. "Whenever I see you two, I get this warm fuzzy feeling because you're so cute together."
Chinatsu blushed heavily at this comment.
"We're not dating." She said, surprised at her friend's supposition. Chris, giving her best at acting shit out, reacted with a surprised look of disbelief.
"You're not?" She said, faking bafflement. "I thought you were. I mean, you're always together."
"That doesn't mean we are a couple." Chinatsu insisted.
"How come? You two look beautiful together." Chris leaned in as if concerned. Key word, 'as if'.
"Well, I don't know how to answer that." Chinatsu said with a shrug. Chris thought about this, or not, and then took the boards and saved them in her backpack.
"Ok... I wanna try something." She said and looked deeper on it. "You say that you don't know, but I wanna make sure that it's true." She pulled from there her pocket watch.
"Oh..." Chinatsu understood. "You wanna see inside my head?"
"Hey, this is for both of us." Chris said, taking all of her things inside that backpack, all but her watch, and focused on her friend. "I can see and learn how to do some deep psychological tests and you can learn your true feelings and shit. It's win-win."
Chinatsu was skeptical. Since when Chris knows how to do hypnosis? This smells rather fishy for her.
"Since when you know how to do it?" Chinatsu asked, but nonetheless laid more comfortable on the couch.
"I have Chitose." Chris said with a little smile. "Once hypnotized, she can do for me some kinky shit." A blush creeped up to her face, remembering those good moments that she might repeat eventually.
"I shouldn't have asked..." Chinatsu cursed herself. "Just get over with it." She sighed and laid back on the couch with her eyes closed.
"Alrighty." Chris said and prepared her notebook and watch. "Tell me. How are you?"
"I'm fine." Her friend replied. "I'd rather be cooking."
"Well, you will be later." Chris' plan on Akari was to lighten up her desire to have someone. Her need to embrace and grasp, kiss and hold, do romantic stuff. But her plan on Chinatsu was to feel cold, feel alone and in need of someone to fill a hole no amount of cleanliness of anything could fill. A need of someone to hug her and give her kisses.
"Open your eyes." Chris said as she dangled the watch over Chinatsu. The pinkette followed as instructed, and her curiosity made her eyes follow the watch.
"Follow and hear. What time is it on my watch?"
Tick.
"It's..." It was hard to tell.
Tock.
"What time do you think it is?"
Tick.
Chinatsu's sight was blurry.
Tock.
The watch was bright.
Tick.
"You don't know that there is no such thing as time."
Tock.
"You are doomed to be stuck in time. Stuck as you are."
Tick.
"How are you?"
Tock.
"Alone in a clean house. A broken queen in a crystal castle."
"A princess that dreamt with a knight that would come to save her."
"A girl with no company."
"An unsolved Rubik's cube in the shelf."
"A forgotten toy in a chest."
"I'll count down. Once I reach zero, you'll be asleep."
Chris counted slowly, one second every two swings of the watch. Rhythmically and quietly.
Three.
Tick.
Two.
Tock.
One.
Tick.
Zero.
And the last tock never came.
Chinatsu was looking through a window, sitting by her bed. Everything but the window was transparent. She looked at her hands. All she could see was a dark smudge on her sight.
The room disappeared. She was floating in darkness. And she was part of it.
"A dark smudge on an already dark world. Indiscernible from anything else. Abandoned. Forgotten. Alone."
Tears pooled on her eyes.
"Worthless. Valueless. A waste of time and space."
I am a waste.
"Thrown to the trash. You deserve to be there."
I am trash.
"Fuck you."
I am useless.
"No. You're not useless." Another voice said. "You are beautiful."
I am?
"Yes." Who was this voice? "You are the most important thing in the universe."
The universe?
"You're important to me." This voice sounds so familiar.
I'm important?
"You're my reason to be."
"Open your eyes."
The first and most important thing Chinatsu saw was red hair. Two red buns. Beautiful purple eyes.
"Akari." Nothing else mattered. Nothing in the world was important. The only thing that was important was that this girl that suddenly popped out of nowhere in front of her was telling her she wanted her.
A girl that she knew since middle school.
An ignored protagonist.
She cried tears of joy.
"Close your eyes."
When she did, the world in her mind was colorful. She was laying in the grass, holding hands with the most beautiful girl she had ever seen. The girl that saved her from being forgotten.
Chris quickly took off her contact glasses and wig, hiding them deep into her bag.
"I'll count up from zero to three. Once I reach three, you'll wake up and forget I came to your house today."
Zero.
The sky disappeared.
One.
The world was vanishing.
Two.
Chinatsu moved her head to see her lover. A wide smile on her face lingered.
Three.
Snap.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
"Hey, dear. I have to go."
Chinatsu's consciousness returned slowly. The world moved in a blur. Her cheeks felt moist and hot. Her eyes ached.
"It was lovely to be here."
A blur moved from where it originally was and became smaller until it disappeared in a wall.
What happened?