It's To Be Expected

[seiyayamada]

It was a normal reaction, really. After her nap on Miho's couch, Seiya had headed home on her own, assuring her best friend that she was fine. In reality, she was far from it. Two days later Seiya was still in bed, staring at her bandaged hand as if it was foreign. Home alone, as usual, she found herself just reading manga and playing video games. It wasn't that she was avoiding what had happened, but rather studying it. The mirror world was like a fantasy straight out of an rpg right? Either way, she didn't expect visitors, but who knew?

Comments

[unexamined]

Seiya's voice startled him, and he glanced away for a minute, down the hallway. "Yeah," he answered hastily, shutting the tap off. He glanced back and the mirror, but this time the image was all him, including his slightly widened eyes.

Had he actually seen anything at all? Maybe he had just heard one too many rumors and his mind was playing tricks on him. He knew he was just trying to convince himself, because after all it was pretty harmless. The kind of scare that people would laugh at in a movie. ...He just couldn't quite forget the puzzle of what the image had been saying.

A mystery he was going to put firmly out of his mind, he decided, and walked back into Seiya's room. "Sorry," he said, reclaiming his controller. "You may have forgiven me for the window, but it looks like your ghost hasn't."

[seiyayamada]

"My ghost?" Seiya didn't skip a beat, starting up their session. Normally she'd be completely focused on the television, however, her eyes were now on her new friend.

"What do you mean?" The gears in her head began to whirl as she bit her lip. Had something happened in the bathroom?

[unexamined]

He'd meant for her to laugh, but that was just one more thing not going his way. "I wouldn't worry about it - it's probably just a goblin playing tricks." Kota looked over with a smile; maybe she just hadn't caught on yet. "And he isn't very good at it."

Because admitting that he'd thought his reflection was moving on its own would be so not cool. And it never happened anyway. Nope, never happened.

[seiyayamada]

"I never had goblins before..." Seiya sighed, respawning after dying a gruesome death. "That'll teach you to disrespect your elders, Kota-kuuun~" she teased, brushing aside all previous doubt. He was just joking, it was fine right?

[unexamined]

"You're outta luck. If disrespecting my elders gives them ghosts I'm going to do it a lot more often," he laughed. "But I'll make an exception for you, Yamada-san. I don't want to end like him." He gestured to the screen.

[seiyayamada]

"Smart boy! Grandma Yamada is proud." She patted his shoulder, sniping down a few enemies. She'd make this respawn count.

"Thanks for playing with me, by the way. Hopefully I didn't guilt you into it."

[unexamined]

"I'm not that nice," he said, like it was supposed to reassure her. "I thought it'd be fun, and I wanted to see what would happen next. You've been full of surprises so far, after all."

He paused for a beat, considering what he'd just said. "And it has been fun."

[seiyayamada]

Oddly, it did reassure her. Swing her feet as her legs dangled off the bed, she seemed pleased. "Normally the surprises make people run in the opposite direction."

Finding that note a bit too sour to land on, Seiya changed the topic. "Do you go to Eizou? I haven't seen you before."

[unexamined]

He nodded. "Yup, class 2-C. And I'm on the baseball team - try to act surprised." Kota shrugged. "Afraid there's not much more to it than that."

...There really wasn't much else to say, was there? It was vaguely depressing to be able to sum up a large part of his life in two sentences.

[seiyayamada]

"Oh that's why! I'm 4-B." Seiya opened her mouth in fake surprise at his mention of baseball. "Nooooo waaaaaaay!"

Normally, a person would wonder why they had literally no friends their age, but Seiya couldn't care less. "I should come see you play where windows aren't involved."