Chapter Text
There are few places in the world that are as disorienting as a deserted gas station in the middle of the night.
Perhaps, Chise mused as she swung the door open, it had to do with the odd juxtaposition of the eerie darkness of the night and the bright fluorescent lights. Even in broad daylight, gas stations held an odd aura, as they were scattered all over yet no one ever really seemed to frequent them. Still, nowhere else was open and she was desperately low on both pads and chocolate. Naturally, both had to be bought together because she simply couldn’t go without either.
Walking over to the health section she picked out her usual box of pads without much thought. It was when she was looking over the chocolate options that she couldn’t decide which one to go with. While she craved all of them, the more rational side of her brain told her to choose two. Remembering she didn’t have enough money for anything fancy she chose two relatively plain ones and took her purchases up to the counter to pay.
It was on the cigarette cases behind the register that she caught a glimpse of a strange being, a skull with a pair of large horns spiraling out behind it. She did a double-take only to be met with her own reflection.
“Ma’am that’ll be 1,760 yen please,” the cashier said, snapping Chise out of her thoughts.
“Oh, right sorry,” she apologized and opened her wallet to hand the cashier the last of her money for the week.
The sound of the dropping of coins on the counter snapped her gaze up to find that the money was already on the counter. Laid on the counter was the exact amount needed for the purchase. However, when she looked back down into her wallet she could see the money still in place.
Not looking away from her phone, and seemingly oblivious to the money that just appeared out of nowhere, the cashier lazily counted the money before putting it in the register. Chise, for her part, was too confused to do much of anything. She half expected the money in her wallet to disappear, but when the cashier handed her the paper receipt it made her realize her money wasn't going anywhere.
“Thanks have a good one,” the cashier said, his gaze firmly fixed on his phone.
Chise walked out of the gas station and tried to think over how the money could have gotten on the counter without putting it there. She went over the scene again in her head, recalling the strange being she had seen in the glass behind the register. Surely that couldn’t have been it?
The creatures that seemed to plague her every move were seldom kind and only seemed interested in tormenting her for whatever wicked reason. They bit at her ankles as she walked and hung in the shadowy corners day and night, lurking, waiting. She wouldn’t be surprised if she came across a few on the way home that she’d have to avoid or even fight off.
No, it was unlikely that anyone, spirits or humans, would be so kind, and so weird, as to have bought her pads and chocolate.
A cold drop of rain hit her and she was pulled out of her thoughts, to see a flash of lightning in the distance. Sighing, she pulled out her umbrella, opening it a few minutes before the drops became larger and more frequent.
Ah, she thought to herself, good old monsoon season. Naturally, with her luck, it had to downpour at 11 pm as she was walking home alone in the dark.
Silently she prayed that she would make it home before the thunder started.
Picking up her pace, she dodged the now quickly forming puddles and mini streams desperately trying to make it back to her tiny apartment a few blocks away.
As she stepped over a particularly large puddle she saw it again, a skull with those two large horns. Shocked, she all but fell into the puddle but miraculously managed to regain her balance at the last moment.
Stopping in her tracks, she glanced down at the puddle again but was met with nothing but the sight of water droplets bouncing off the surface.
Shaking it off she continued to trudge home despite the increasing wind and incessant rain. Slowly, she made her way to the old apartment building that she called home. She trudged up the stairs to her tiny apartment on the fifth floor and walked over to her apartment door towards the end of the hallway.
It took several minutes of key mashing to successfully get her key in the lock before she could even attempt to pry the door open. After the first few months of attempting to get the non-existent staff to fix her door, she had given up and instead learned how best to coax the broken-down door open.
She put her bag on the counter, toed out of her work shoes, leaving them by the door and putting on her house slippers. Next, she shrugged out of her coat draping it on the back of the only chair next to her kitchen table.
She debated eating one of the chocolate bars as a reward for dealing with a shitty day, as she headed to her bathroom to wash the day off.
The hot water soothed her frazzled nerves and overstimulated mind. Closing her eyes she let out the long sigh she had been holding in all day. Letting herself enjoy the shower, she washed her hair, the familiar scent of her lavender shampoo and conditioner comforting. Despite her love for her evening bathing sessions, she didn’t love having a high water bill and she reluctantly turned off the water, stepping out of the shower and onto the uneven tiles.
Steam clouded the bathroom as she wrapped herself in an old towel before she headed over to the mirror, using her forearm to wipe the condensation away.
She saw him there, clearly, for the first time.
His eyes were red, a ripe red like that of a rose in full bloom minutes before it began to wither. They peered out from what appears to be the skull of a wolf, complete with a long snout and sharp teeth to match. On the back of what appeared to be his head, two long curved horns sat. She could only see from his midsection up, but from what she could see he appeared to be wearing a formal three-piece suit complete with a silver bolo tie with a turquoise center.
She was simply too tired to scream or make a fuss, so she sighed instead.
“It’s impolite to peep on a lady changing.”
His eyes seemed to get larger for a moment before he disappeared and only her reflection remained.
“Typical guy, once they see you naked they leave and never return your messages again,” she said to no one in particular, her voice flat and monotone.
Slipping into her pajamas she could hear the thunder rolling in in the distance and felt her chest tighten in response. She looked around for her favorite stuffed animal, a black dog named Ruth that had been the last present her father had ever gotten her.
Closing her eyes, she willed sleep to take her before the anxiety that came with thunderstorms overwhelmed her.
Like most things in her life, it did not work out.
In the end, she could not sleep, the loud cracks of thunder filled her with a deep-seated unease. For the worst of it, she took refuge under her duvet, clinging desperately to Ruth, she tried to imagine a place far, far away from her shitty apartment.
It didn’t work.
No matter how hard she tried she knew only the weariness of the world. Years had passed since her father left and her mother committed suicide, yet life stubbornly ground on refusing her respite. There was no vacation to look forward to, not when there was rent to pay. Nor were their outings to look forward to, as she had no friends to go with. Time flew past with her simply trying to hide from all the thoughts and spirits that haunted her. For Chise there was no place to call home, not even in her wildest dreams.
Burying her face into Ruth, she clung to her only solace in the world, weathering yet another storm.
_____
Once the thunder lightened up, she found she still could not find sleep, her mind too on edge from both the thunder and the odd peeping tom.
Restless, she got up and paced about trying to work the anxiety out before she could, hopefully, return to bed and sleep.
Walking around her apartment letting her mind drift, she found that it often returned to the odd creature she had seen in her bathroom mirror. Oddly enough, he had been the same one she had seen both at the gas station and in the puddle. Thinking about it further, he seemed familiar, almost as if she had seen him once in a dream years ago.
It’s then when she remembered it, or rather him.
She’d been flipping through an old book towards the back of the library looking for a subject for an assignment for her art class when she had stumbled across an entity called a ‘Pilum Muralis’, intrigued she had chosen to do her painting of him. She couldn’t remember the exact details as it had been quite a few months ago, but she remembered those eyes. It had taken several hours to capture the way they seemed to flare with both life and death.
But the book hadn’t mentioned anything about it being a somewhat friendly being. No, if she really thought about it she remembered it saying something about it, him, being rather particular about who he chose to interact with.
Why of all the awkward, lonely people in Japan had he chosen her then? And wasn’t he supposed to typically live in England?
Unsure, she resolved to stop at the library tomorrow after her shift to check out the book and double-check what she had read.
“Well, whoever you are, thank you for the pads and chocolate,” she said, just in case he was still there.
She was half expecting a book to fly across the room, or maybe some sign that he was still there, like a door slamming. When nothing happened she sighed, it had felt nice to talk even if no one was really listening.
“I mean,” she started, “my day was really not going all that well, and it was nice that you paid for my stuff. So thank you, for paying for uh, stuff that is. Not a thank you for creeping on me in the bathroom, that was weird, please don’t do that again.”
She was met with silence, but she had become a bit more comfortable talking to, effectively, no one. Still, even the thought that someone might be listening for once was oddly comforting.
“It’s just that, you know, for women bathing time is normally private. For the most part, I’m not talking about onsens, but like in your own house. I think I read you’re from the British Isles, aren’t they pretty strict about propriety? I feel like I’ve read that somewhere.”
Again, she waited for any kind of response, but upon receiving none she simply continued rambling on.
“I mean, who even knows if you understand me now? I am speaking Japanese, not English. Though, if you are some kind of fae, then maybe you’re using magic? I can speak some English, but I can really only mostly write in it. Most people think speaking is easier I hear, but at least when you write you can think it out. Plus, worse comes to worst there’s always Google translate.”
She returned to her bed, hoisting herself up to sit with her back up against the wall. Tucking her knees up to her chest, she picked up her beloved black dog, looking fondly at worn fur.
“I’d just appreciate it if you could please not interrupt my bathing time, it’s the only time I get to relax really. Today I really needed it too, work was pretty awful. I don’t really like talking to people, to begin with, and this one customer was being so rude and then I spilled hot coffee all over myself and it really burned,” she said.
As the occasional claps of thunder rolled on in the distance, she found it oddly comforting that maybe, just maybe, for the first time in a long time she wasn’t alone during the thunderstorm.
After recounting her day and briefly touching on her plans for the next day she fell soundly asleep a few hours before the sun rose.
In the reflection of the window over the kitchen sink, Elias watched her, listening intently to her day as he found himself unable to look away.
No one had ever cared enough to know his name, much less to carry on a conversation with him.
The world had been so cold and distant as if he was not a part of it. How often had he looked at human life longing for the closeness and openness they showed one another? Too many days and nights had been spent staring longingly at humans laughing and smiling together wishing he had someone to share emotions with.
Not that he had them, of course.
Elias could study humans, read all the books he could find on them and their emotions, but all he was capable of was understanding where the emotions came from. After years spent studying the subject, he still was no closer to true empathy.
He still could not feel what they felt.
But with Chise, there was something unfamiliar, unknown, and for a being that had lived hundreds of years that was a rarity. Here, with her, he felt warm, as though for the first time in his life he was a part of something. Exactly what that something was had yet to be discovered, but he felt as though he was on the cusp of understanding what all those humans had felt.
Alone in the night, they had found each other, and he was entirely unwilling to let her go. Returning to his house in the English countryside he sat down at his desk and pulled out a blank piece of parchment and his favorite fountain pen.
He would need to find an English to Japanese dictionary.