"Hiyoriiii..."
"Would you leave her alone already? Can't you see she's pissed?"
"But Yukineeeee..."
"Hiyori? What's wrong? You look really annoyed for some reason."
Iki Hiyori gave a start, surprised to see one of her school friends standing over her and giving her a worried look.
"Yama-chan... when did you get here?" she asked, putting down her pencil. Her friend frowned.
"What are you talking about? I've been here all afternoon, just like you," Yama said, pointing at the seat across from Hiyori, where her books and bag had been left unattended. "Did you have a fit or something while I went to the bathroom?"
"For once, no," a young boy said from the seat to Hiyori's right. He had unusual blond hair and clear golden-brown eyes, but his most striking feature was the red tattoo just visible on his collarbone. Like Hiyori and Yama, he had several books stacked in front of him, a worksheet half-filled out in his hands, but unlike Hiyori, he was invisible to everyone in the library but her. "Usually you would have knocked out by now," Yukine noted without looking up, still writing diligently.
Hiyori acknowledged him with a half-smile but did not address him.
"Sorry, Yama-chan, I guess I was daydreaming," she lied sheepishly. "What time is it?"
"The spirit hour is almost over," a low voice spoke in Hiyori's ear. She jumped slightly and had to force herself not to react as a familiar scent wafted over her. She hoped no one could see the blush creeping up her face as she gulped and remained pointedly still.
Yama reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out her phone.
"A little over 6," she said. "I guess it's time to go home."
A thin man sat on the table next to her casually, staring out the window behind them. His brilliant blue eyes looked distant and thoughtful, completely at odds with his ratty tracksuit and somewhat suspicious aura. "Home, huh," he muttered. Yama gave no indication that she had noticed him at all.
"Get off the table, you worthless idiot," Yukine scolded, starting a loud argument that only Hiyori could hear.
"Yukine, you ungrateful brat! Don't talk to your master like that!"
"I'll talk to you however I damn well please, you're just a freeloading piece of shit walking around and calling yourself a god!"
"Why you...!"
What I would give for some peace and quiet, Hiyori sighed to herself as the argument escalated into a physical altercation.
"Ah, you go ahead, Yama-chan," she said aloud pointedly. "I just want to finish up this paper."
"You sure? You don't want me to walk home with you?"
"I'll be fine," Hiyori waved her off, somehow managing to keep her face passive as the Yato God and his Regalia struggled behind Yama.
"Just go the fuck home already!" the boy was shouting, yanking the older man down by the front of his jersey. "You've been nothing but a pain in the ass all day!"
"I have not!" Yato insisted, "You're the one who's been getting in the way, Yukine!"
"Hah?!"
"ENOUGH!"
Everyone froze and turned toward Hiyori, and she immediately paled.
"Enough what?" Yama asked, puzzled.
"Er... I meant... not enough... studying...?" she ventured, feeling stupid even as she said it.
In the background, Yukine took the opportunity to kick his master in the shin, eliciting a sharp yowl of pain.
"Jeez, some god you are," he scoffed irritably.
"You're really weird sometimes, Hiyori," Yama said as she packed away her things. "I'll see you tomorrow, text me when you get home."
As soon as she was gone, Hiyori rounded on the man in the tracksuit.
"Yatooooo..."
"I didn't do anything!" he immediately whined.
"I've had it up to here with you today!" she growled, rolling up her sleeves. "Don't you know you're supposed to be quiet in the library?! What kind of example are you setting for Yukine-kun?!"
"B-but no one even noticed me!"
"I noticed you, you jersey-wearing creep."
Yato sensed danger and hastily hid behind Yukine.
"Eeek, I'm sorry!" he shrieked, but Yukine stepped neatly out of the way as Hiyori decked him.
"Moron," he scoffed, rolling his eyes as Yato burst into dramatic tears. "Even the densest human is gonna see you if you keep making such a racket," he warned, returning to his seat and flipping open a dictionary. "I'm not sticking up for you when they kick you out. Hiyori won't either."
"That goes without saying," she huffed, turning away from Yato's pathetic expression. She glanced at the sky outside the window. It was quickly getting dark. "And here I was hoping to finish before closing time..."
"Don't worry, Hiyori. We'll walk you home," Yukine said without looking up from his work. "Just study as much as you need to."
Hiyori smiled and gave his messy hair an affectionate ruffle. "You're so dependable, Yukine-kun. Unlike someone I know."
Yukine blushed slightly but straightened up with what was unmistakably pride.
"Someone has to be," he said as Yato sniffled behind her.
"But... I just wanted to go on a date with you, Hiyoriiii," Yato whined, tugging at the back of her blazer. "I haven't seen you in days!"
Hiyori felt her cheeks redden but pointedly refused to look at him.
"And whose fault is that?" she huffed. "You can't just show up out of nowhere and demand I go on a date with you! I have things to do too!"
"You're my girlfriend aren't you?!"
Hiyori's heart skipped a beat despite herself.
"E-Even so!"
Yukine gave an exasperated sigh.
"I have no idea what you see in that, Hiyori," he said, shaking his head. "You know you're way too good for him."
"Th-that's not true!" they both said at the same time.
"Jeez, what an idiot couple," Yukine said, grinning slightly to himself.
Hiyori and Yato both flushed.
Since as far back as Yasumi could remember, her mother had always warned her to be wary of things that shouldn't exist. As a little girl, Yasumi had believed it was all an elaborate game that Hana devised for her entertainment. When they left the house, her mother would squeeze her hand and mutter that she shouldn't look in a certain direction, or that she pretend she couldn't hear someone calling her. The game had always felt somewhat frightening, and only became more so as she grew older.
"Mama, I don't want to play that game anymore," she'd said one day after a particularly tense shopping trip.
Hana looked up from the skillet on the stove and frowned at her.
"What game, Yasumi?"
"The scary game outside."
"Outside?"
"The one where we pretend someone is watching us."
Her mother gaped at her and dropped her spoon into the simmering sauce.
"Yasumi... are you saying you can't see?!"
Yasumi had been too young at the time to understand what her mother was trying to say, but from that day on, Hana's attitude toward her daughter had changed considerably. Where before she had been overprotective and nervous, she now seemed oddly calm and hard to read.
"You don't see anything strange on the street?" she would ask sometimes. "Nothing that talks to you?"
"No, Mama."
"What about a swirl of smoke in the distance?"
Yasumi shook her head.
Hana would blink at her, calculating.
"I... I see."
When Yasumi was about nine years old, she accidentally overheard a hushed telephone conversation between her mother and grandfather.
"No, she's completely normal, Dad," Hana was saying. "She can't see ayakashi at all."
Yasumi listened from inside the screen doors of the parlor, her toys forgotten on the floor.
"Yes, I asked her. A few times, actually, just to make sure. At first I thought she was pretending, but... No, she thought it was a game. The Far Shore is completely invisible to her."
There was a long pause.
"Yeah, I think so too. I don't want to leave her completely defenseless, but... Uh huh... That might be a good idea, even if she can't see them. But Dad, isn't it weird? We've always been able to see the Otherworld; I've never heard of a blood relative of ours that couldn't... Jeez, that isn't funny, Dad," Hana scolded loudly. "Don't joke around like that or I'll hang up! No, seriously, I swear I will!"
When the call was over, Yasumi peeked around the door and asked bluntly, "Mom, what's ayakashi?"
That was when she discovered that her mother came from a shrine family that had the ability to see spirits and phantoms. For generations, the ability to See had been passed down through the main bloodline without a single exception, except for Yasumi herself. Her mother's over-protectiveness was something of a family tradition; because they had the Sight, they were taught from a young age how to avoid and protect themselves from otherworldly danger.
"Understand, Yasumi? You can't tell anyone about this, okay? Not even Papa. He doesn't understand it. Promise?" Hana had said.
Yasumi couldn't truthfully say she believed it either, but she played along with her mother and their relatives when they spoke about it. Despite her lack of sight or spiritual ability of any kind, Hana insisted on making Yasumi attend lessons on spiritual self-defense with her cousins. Yasumi had hated that; the other kids often treated her like an outsider, or called her "the lucky one," in sarcastic tones, but she had to admit that compared to them, she really did get far more freedom than anyone else in the family. Once Hana was satisfied that Yasumi could protect herself in the event that something evil did set its eyes on her, she seemed to feel that there was no need to restrict her life in the way she had been raised herself. As long as Yasumi was honest and told her where she was going, Hana almost always gave her permission.
"Not being able to See makes you far less of a target," she'd explained once. "Making eye contact with an ayakashi is the most dangerous way to attract their attention. If you can't do that, chances are they'll leave you alone, as long as you don't have too many negative thoughts, of course."
But even in that, Yasumi was pretty lucky. She was naturally cheerful and easy to get along with, so her mother almost never expressed any worry about her. Even after her father had died in an accident a few years later, it was Yasumi who helped her mother cope with the loss rather than the other way around.
Still, there was a small part of Yasumi that resented her mother's side of the family. It always felt like they stood on the other side of a line she could never cross, mocking her for her normality. On days like today, when family customs insisted on formal prayers and veneration of the gods, Yasumi couldn't help feeling a little bit annoyed.
It's not like the gods are the reason I made it to another birthday, she thought to herself privately as she settled next to her mother in front of the altar and clapped. They always talk about the gods like they're really there, but not even Gramps has seen one. All they've ever seen are creepy crawlies hiding in the shadows.
"Yasumi, pay attention," Hana said sharply. "If you don't remember to thank the gods, they won't remember to protect you either."
"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, closing her eyes and pretending to pray.
Outside, the strange figure had settled on the garden wall, watching.
Waiting.