"Done at last," Hiyori sighed as the three of them left the library together a couple of hours later.
"It would've been much faster if a certain dumbass didn't keep distracting you," Yukine grumbled. "Now it's too late for you to come to dinner with us at Kofuku's place."
"Hnn, shut up," Yato said, hands deep in his pockets. "I said I was sorry didn't I? You should be grateful, don't you know gods don't deal in forgiveness?"
"Gods also don't freeload off their friends or hang out with high school girls on their days off," Yukine said drily. "Man, I'm supposed to be your guidepost but you really are a lost cause."
"Aw, you say that, Yukine-kun, but I know you love Yato," Hiyori smiled at him.
"Hmph," he said, turning away from her. She didn't need to see it to know he was turning red. "Whatever."
"Always the tsundere son," Yato teased, patting Yukine's head roughly.
"Ew, get your nasty sweaty hands off me!" Hiyori giggled as they started running, yelling loudly down the street.
They're the same as always, she thought, watching them run in circles. She complained when Yato was being a pain in the ass, but in truth she had missed him and Yukine every bit as much as they missed her when they were busy. Usually, when she worried she might start to forget them, she would leave her body and track them down so as to make sure her memories would stay fresh, but with college exams around the corner, she hadn't had the time to go off with them.
"Say, Yato, Yukine-kun... why don't we go out together this weekend?"
"Huh? Me too?" Yukine asked, pointing at himself in surprise.
"Of course you too," Yato said seriously. "What, you think we'd leave you behind?"
"Isn't it a date though?" he asked Hiyori.
"Hmm, more like... a family outing?"
"Hah?! What's with that?"
"You're my kid, aint'cha?" Yato said, leaning casually against Hiyori's shoulder. "So then you're also Hiyori's kid. Obviously."
"W-what?!" she sputtered. "Now I'm Yukine-kun's stepmother too?!"
"Smooth," Yukine snorted. "Hiyori, you really should hurry up and dump his sorry ass before you find yourself paying child support for the rest of your life."
"Ugh, I know you're joking but I suddenly have a really bad feeling in my stomach."
They stopped in front of the gates to the Iki residence.
"Thank you for walking me home," she said gratefully.
"Obviously we would," Yukine said, smirking at her. "See you later, mom."
"Yukine-kun!"
"I'll text you with the plans later," Yato added. He leaned over and kissed Hiyori on the cheek. He chuckled somewhat sheepishly at her flustered expression.
"Man, having a cute girlfriend really is the best," he said with a self-congratulatory grin. "Isn't it?" he said, turning toward Yukine, but the boy had already started off without him. "Hey! Wait! Hold up, Yukine! Wait for me, damnit!"
He ran off after his Regalia, leaving Hiyori standing alone red-faced and dazed.
Well, almost the same as always, she thought, pushing the gate open. Not for the first time, she wondered what exactly it was that she and Yato were doing; he was, after all, an ageless god who had been alive for millennia, and she was just Iki Hiyori, a random modern Japanese school girl with a knack for losing her physical body. Was it even possible for a god and a human to be together? Was it even allowed?
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.
