Pockets of orange gold light flickered through the train car, stretching the shadows with the setting sun. The hand grips swayed as the carriage weaved through the city, at times lolling towards the opposite side and at others so close to Kinu's booth that she thought she could just touch it with the tips of her fingers if she stretched hard enough.
Beyond the window, rectangular buildings so tall that they met the flat gray clouds checkered out the sun on the horizon.
Kinu had never been on a long distance train alone before. The seats were larger than she expected. Mister Snaps' upgraded body fit perfectly in the space between her seat and the one facing her, so long as he kept his arms inside his spherical body. She had refurbished her project to make him more mobile.
If Kinu ever wanted to use him for building again, she would have to switch him back into a heavier body, but for now he was airborne, and dedicated to carrying her luggage. He doubled as a pick-me-up, because when she pat his head, he still scuttled back and forth. His display screen would light up, and a little green heart would flicker across it three times. Just in case the first wasn't enough.
The train hit a bump and her shin knocked against his body. It hurt, but the heart made it sting a little less.
"Miss," There was a tap at the divider beside her door. When the blue paper crinkled open, an attendant was gesturing to a service cart draped in white fabric. A stack of half a dozen plain wooden boxes tied with string shined back at Kinu, among smaller black containers, and bags of cookies. She was all too aware of the writhing of her stomach. "Are you hungry? Would you like a dinner box, or some sweets?"
The last train she had been on was nicer. It had a bed and sink, as well as her own small bathroom. Without much choice, Kinu forked over her money and received a bento, a bag of cookies, and a bottle of tea just as big as her hand.
City turned to mountainside, then trees blacker than the sky itself. For an hour or so, Kinu stretched her legs across the seat, and bundled under her blanket. Fall had set in the air. The seasons were turning, and if tonight held any evidence, it was of an early winter.
She dozed. It wasn't long, but when she found herself on the edge of consciousness again, the only sound was that of the train itself; a low electrical hum of bits whirring, and steel breezing across the tracks.
This was nicer than her house. She wished that she could have brought Momo, but it would have been impossible to keep track of him without a proper carrier. He wasn't home when she had been there. Neither was Gintoki, and Shinpachi hadn't been home when Kinu stopped by, but Otae had made her a cup of tea, and squeezed her hand.
Kinu hadn't told the woman anything, so she didn't know why Otae had made that face at her, but it had made her feel better and worse all at once.
A warm, long ding sounded on the train interface, and Kinu glanced up at the blue words flickering across the screen above the door.
Twenty minutes to Kyoto.
Kinu hoped the woman got on this time. She had passed the stop four times now, texting the woman on each pass with her new powder gray flip phone. This time was no different. She opened the anonymous app she had downloaded, switched over to the stand-in phone number she had generated, and started typing.
Twenty minutes. You might as well give up and talk to me already.
It had taken her more time than she was proud of, but there was no way for her to know if Takasugi had called her after the night in the tea shop. Her phone had been fried. Kinu hadn't realized she had left it connected to her android, even after she unplugged it directly from the source, the cord had been so long her mind hadn't connected the dots until she tried to text her mother. After taking a look to see what she could salvage, she found that it was easier to replace the device altogether.
The one-sided conversation on her screen grayed, and she was notified that she was unable to send messages to that contact. Kinu wondered what she was doing, or if there was any point in sitting on a train in the hopes that she could harass a near stranger into meeting her.
Pops of color danced across her eyes as streetlights started to appear on the side of the tracks. It was smaller than Edo. More trees than she expected, but every now and again a large building would pop out of nowhere and surprise her.
She wondered if anybody had realized she was gone. If they had even cared. There was only one person that knew where she was.
The train slowed to a halt, and she peered out over the city. It was ten in the evening.
She thought of Takasugi, and the way he had effortlessly accepted her decision. Everything was like that for him. Effortless. Kinu wondered if he missed her, or thought about her as often as she thought of him, or if he was sorry. She wanted him to be, raw, and bitter as she felt.
What would he say if he knew I've been sleeping on trains?
It almost made her want to laugh, but Kinu fought off the flicker of respite and buried it deep down. She wouldn't think of him. That's what she told herself.
The cabin lurched forward, gliding along the rail, and Kinu watched as the bright outpost of the station came and went. She would be back in six hours.
Footsteps passed in the hallway outside of her door, only a handful of people at this hour, but none of them even slowed. Through her seat, Kinu felt the vibrations of movement. Just a bump. She pulled a box of pocky out of the plastic bag by her feet, and as she folded her blanket up and shoved it back into the cubby in the wall, Kinu noticed a shadow. It hovered just outside of the door, and she watched as her company finally pulled it open.
Beyond the door, a single woman stared back at her. She was different than Kinu expected. When they usually saw each other, Kinu was in a cat suit, and she usually wore soft, colorful pinks and blues.
"I'm here." Abe Naomi's sea blue eyes were narrowed into slits. She wore a simple outfit here. A pristinely pressed white yukata speckled with red flowers and petals. It made her look more mature than anticipated, and for the first time, Kinu felt younger than her classmate. Her flaxen curls had been swept into an effortlessly messy bun, and her makeup was just as immaculate as when she did it in the dressing room mirrors at the hostess shop.
Kinu stood, but only to motion to the chair across from herself. A formality.
"Please." And just like that she was face to face with one of the people responsible for her own hate group. "I'm surprised you made it." She said as she laid out her bag of cookies and two bottles of tea. It wasn't much in the way of a diplomatic spread, but she had to make do. "When I sent the message I thought I might have had the wrong number at first, but when you kept blocking me… It just seemed like a normal person would have at least denied being you."
Naomi was silent. Her eyes bore holes into Kinu's forehead, but Kinu twisted the top off her tea. She took a sip. It was warm, but not bad. "I never really expected you to come."
"What do you want?" The woman offered no warmth, and Kinu tilted her head.
"This and that. Sometimes a little more that than this." Things weren't really that simple anymore. "I seem to have stepped in something that belongs to you."
"Not to me." Crossing her arms, Naomi leaned forward. As if Kinu should know.
"Can you treat me like an idiot-"
"Gladly-"
"-and! There was an and!" Snapping back, Kinu talked over the woman. "And tell me what's going on. Somebody knows something that makes this make sense, and I think it's you."
"Seriously?" Naomi rolled her eyes, but there was a touch of unease in the way the question turned halfway. "You expect us to believe that you have no clue what's going on? You stole Amagi-kun on accident?"
"Hm." Nodding, Kinu pushed the bag of cookies towards the woman. Pressured her into taking one. Nobody could be angry eating a cookie. "I thought this had something to do with him again." The woman across from her was giving her that suspicious look. Like she was trying to set a trap, or be clever, but Kinu knew where her strengths laid.
She would get herself into trouble if she wasn't careful. Sensible and safe, she told herself.
Naomi's hand finally unfolded from her side. She reached for the clear bag, and broke the edge of one of the soft peanut butter oatmeal cookies.
"If you're just gonna lie to me, I'm getting off on the next stop. I thought you wanted to fight or something, not…" She broke off the edge of a cookie between her lips, then went back for another. Naomi glanced out of the window. "You're not even actually creepy, you're just some girl. I'm not afraid of you."
"Really?" Kinu didn't mean to smile. "That's nice of you to say." Naomi's brow furrowed, but Kinu didn't really mind the look. "I bet if we'd sat together, we could have been friends. I always kinda hoped we would be, working together and all… I even bought a foundation puff like the one you and Ayumi-chan used."
"Oh," The woman said, a touch softer. Her lips pressed into a tight line, and she chewed at them as her gaze drifted to the window. "Did you get a brush for your eyeliner like we said?"
Kinu wasn't expecting the question.
"I didn't know what kind."
"Why didn't you look it up?" She asked, and for once, Kinu was stumped.
Like there was make up brush money. There was no point looking it up if she didn't want to buy it. The puff had been in the drug store discount bin near the check out when she had gotten her mother's medication.
"You can leave if you want. I just wanted to understand. I'm a little scared to go home now, though." She had to laugh at herself as the message popped onto her phone screen. "My mom's gonna kill me."
They know.
Kinu wondered if they had seen Riku; big proud sober man that he was, now. Perhaps they had even accepted him with open arms like her mother, and thought he was squeaky clean now.
She wanted to think of Ai even less. Had she told Gintoki that her blade was strapped to her daughter's hip now? Ai had to know what she had taken.
They were all traitors.
All of them except the Yorozuya. They were the only ones that had ever actually cared for her and she had run off and ruined everything. No turning back now, though.
"I think…" Naomi spoke slowly. She was staring over Kinu's head, face pressed with worry. "I think maybe we all got off on the wrong foot…" As she spoke, there was a low scrape behind Kinu. She looked up, only to see the partition between her booth and the one behind her lowering. Two faces stared back at her from the darkness, both familiar but one less so.
Long brown waves hung over the partition, and for a moment, Kinu was blinded by the light of the woman's beauty. Doe soft pools of brown flicked over Kinu, and the woman inclined her head. Kinu didn't think she knew her name, but she recognized her as the old third of the group. Beside her, Mori Ayumi had her arms folded across the half wall, face framed in a black bob.
The brunette spoke first.
"I believe you." She said, and a flutter of relief went through Kinu at the angel's words. "I bet none of this is your fault, it's his… right?" She was looking at Kinu now. Expecting a concise answer. Kinu didn't really want to start agreeing without getting names and details involved. She wanted to be the judge of whether it was her fault or not. "Tell us straight. Did you seduce Amagi Seiji? Swear it."
"Do I look like I'm seducing anyone?" Kinu tried, but the woman sighed. She turned her delicate wrinkled nose up at Kinu.
"Ayumi-chan can still strangle you with this wire." The woman's palm raised over the partition, and said wire was flashed for Kinu to see. A bright pink bubble popped across Ayumi's curved lips, but the woman was suddenly firm.
"My daddy killed himself over you, girl. You better start talking." A jolt went though Kinu but she did her best to dampen the tight muscles in her face. "Don't think we're sympathetic. I just want to hear you say it. So I can judge for myself."
Ayumi took the wire from the woman's hand. Kinu was frozen as a long, slender leg stuck over the partition and the woman started to climb into her cab. She hit the light switch, and the room went dark, save for a patchy golden glow of streetlights racing across the walls. In the inconsistent flickering light, Kinu spied the glint of the dagger coming over the partition as the darkness spilled into the cabin beside her.
"Hiromi-" Naomi started to reach for the woman, but the same blade that Kinu had been wary of had moved so quickly Kinu hadn't seen what happened. Next she knew, Naomi was seated across from her again, head down, clutching her hand to her mouth. An arm stretched across her shoulders, and her skin went cold.
She didn't feel the same sick churning from before. This time, it was something different. Guilt, maybe? It was the first time she felt like she would understand somebody wanting to kill her.
"So," Hiromi gave Kinu's shoulder a squeeze. The dagger laid flat across her lap, shining with every passing light. "Go ahead. I'm waiting."
"I didn't seduce anybody."
"You're a liar." Hiromi said, and Kinu turned her back to the window. Above her, Ayumi was holding both ends of the wires in her hands, as if poised like a mantis to strike, but Naomi was still in the corner, cradling her palm. Silent.
"I'm not." Kinu insisted. "And I don't want to fight."
"We came for one." The woman waved the blade between them in a lazy flourish in front of her face.
"Let's be sensible." With each dark patch, Kinu was easing her hand over. Getting to her hip. "We both want something. Let's help each other."
"How could you help me?"
"Are you his girlfriend?"
"Me?" Hiromi's dusk pink lips thinned into a line. "Oh, no. You are."
That made things a bit clearer. She didn't want to touch on the woman's father. Kinu didn't think she could form the words, and she didn't know what she would say. Nothing good could have come of it.
"There's gotta be a way for you to get him under control."
"For me to-" Hiromi's voice spiked, and she was on her feet in the flash of a single streak of light. Naomi had her against the wall in the same instance.
Kinu heard the movement beside her before she saw it. She ducked narrowly avoiding the cut of wire as it scraped up the side of her face. Ayumi lurched over the partition, and Kinu reached out into the dark, into the pocket of fabric at her neck. Her fingers tangled through strands of hair and she pulled with all her might until the woman's weight came crashing over the bench.
In the corner, Naomi's hand clamped over Hiromi's mouth, and though her muffled protests persisted, Naomi's voice cut through. Steady and capable of rational thought.
"Please, not here. We can't kill her here." She glanced back at Kinu, possibly for reinforcements, but her eyes went wide at the ripple of light dancing across the silver blade poised at her side. "I believe her- I think she's telling the truth, let's all talk this out."
"That's all I want." Kinu said, hitting the switch on the wall. Light flooded the cabin. The cookies had fallen on the floor, and her tea had rolled away, but Mister Snaps was alright.
Ayumi was sitting up, minus her piano wire. Kinu had nipped the garroting in the bud the second she tipped the woman over the wall, and had the wire to show for it. Hiromi was still, but her eyes told a different story. When Naomi had eased up enough for her to smack the hand from her mouth, she pushed herself free.
"Fine."