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Kyouka looks in the mirror and Demon Snow is beautiful.
She sometimes catches it out of the corner of her eye, even when it hasn’t been summoned. Smooth, enamel mask, painted face, flowing robe, gleaming blades—Kyouka knows that she sometimes stares into space, that she appears strange and distractible, that the children she passes every day on her way to the Agency would run in fear if she responded to their shouts—but Demon Snow is graceful and captivating and Kyouka cannot tear her eyes away.
Kyouka is still in the training period of employment at the Agency, babysat on every mission by Kenji or Kunikida or Dazai or Yosano. (But never Atsushi, not after what happened last time). Every time they’re out, Kenji apologizes with that cheerful voice, saying how he knows how capable she is and how much of a drag it must be to be stuck with a handler. He walks behind her, hands behind his head, chatting to everyone who passes, and Kyouka lets their voices flow over her as she pays attention to the task at hand.
She goes to the Agency even on her days off, and there she sits in an armchair in the President’s office, reading books or playing card games or sorting files.
“I should probably be teaching you something,” the old man grouses. “You can’t rightfully go to school with kids your age; you’d be head and shoulders over them. But someone should make an effort all the same.”
Kyouka shrugs and, once his attention is once more engrossed in the paperwork in front of him, she wanders off to the bathroom. She takes exactly seven minutes just to wash her hands—the amount of time she predicts it will take before the President suspects she’s taking longer than the average bathroom break and starts worrying that she’s sick. The entire time she scrubs her hands she stares at her own bright eyes in the mirror and the sheathed blades on Demon Snow’s back.
When she returns to her chair, it’s covered in textbooks, and Kunikida is waiting with his fists on his hips and a fanatical gleam in his eye. The president looks at her with a raised brow and thin lips and informs her that Kunikida will be in charge of her education from now on.
As it turns out, Kyouka is a good listener and a better student.
From Kunikida, she learns all the problems a girl her age should be able to solve. She learns long division and reducing fractions; she learns to factor and formulate and prove. She writes out the times tables until her hand aches. Ranpo takes her to the park to watch bugs and fish and teaches her words like biome and ecosystem. Tanizaki and Naomi join them when the sun goes down, and Kyouka learns the names of the stars.
She learns the power of observation from Kunikida’s scientific method and, to a lesser extent, from Dazai Osamu, a man she never thought to see face to face but who now brings her things like bubblegum and hard candies. Kyouka observes that all the Agency’s lost children cope in their own ways. For example, Atsushi really likes soft things and green plants. His wardrobe consists mainly of plain shirts and trousers, but he also has a growing collection of hand-me-downs from Ranpo and likely Kunikida—threadbare T-shirts with faded cartoon mascots on them, mostly. At night he nests down on a thin futon piled high with thick blankets and a couple of stuffed toys. His eyes shine when he hums songs to the little green fern he’s growing on the windowsill.
From Yosano, Kyouka learns that the President cannot protect everyone from everything. Yosano gives her butterflies to replace the flower clips in her pigtails—“Just in case you want to spice things up a bit,” she says—and lets her clean and sharpen various tools of Yosano’s trade. As they sit across from each other, wiping down forceps after scalpel after needle, Yosano tells Kyouka about school, about the pride behind Doctor Yosano, about the oath she swore and how little it means these days. About pride and sacrifice and how to keep steady when the tide of your own uncertainty and fear beats against you.
Kouyou once taught her things, too. How to be quiet and demure and not be noticed. How to wrap silk around steel and never tear or waver. Perhaps not every skill Kouyou taught her to use to survive and thrive was appropriate for a girl her age, but though Kyouka has since discarded some of those strategies, she still feels confidence in the stiff arc of her shoulders, in the neat lines of her clothing.
If only Kyouka had asked the important questions when she had the chance. Kouyou was strong and beautiful and, full of awe and what she had thought was love, Kyouka had obeyed every word without faltering. But now things are different.
Now, Atsushi sits her down at the table and sets her to slicing up pieces of fruit for their crepes. He has a tiny smile on his face as he swirls the batter in the pan, attention fully on his task. While he’s diverted, Kyouka stands back, stretches out her finger, and calls out:
“Demon Snow!”
And she appears, sleeves trailing, porcelain arms swiping once, twice, leaving the strawberries and bananas in equal pieces on the plate. Atsushi jumps a foot in the air, knocking the crepe pan onto the floor.
“Kyouka?” He says breathlessly.
Kyouka shrugs. “It was more efficient,” she says, and carries the plate over to him.
“O...okay.” Atsushi takes the plate and also takes the pan when Kyouka picks it up and hands it to him. The crepes end up a little squashed, a little burnt, a little too sweet, and Kyouka and Atsushi spend the rest of their morning trimming off edges, smearing syrup on their fingers, and laughing their own private little laughs.
--
Kyouka watches Demon Snow in the mirror and thinks—did you watch her, too? Kouyou, were your eyes as drawn by your own reflection? Did you vary the speed of your steps just to watch your demon match you? Did you square your shoulders knowing that there would always be a presence at your back?
She has Kouyou’s phone number memorized. She taps the numbers out against the wood of her desk, traces them in the dirt while Ranpo babbles on about chemicals and reactions. But she still flinches every time a phone rings; the air thins whenever she feels that cold rectangle in her hand.
Kouyou, when you kept me in the darkness, did you truly expect me to bloom? Some flowers grow best that way. Others starve—others try their best but wilt, and wither, and fade away. Kyouka has faint, quiet memories of hugs and rewards and soft words and—a mother’s love.
She watches mirrors, and all she has left from that time is a demon that may be docile now but cannot be mistaken for anything other than a weapon. Sometimes she dreams of a place where sunlight streams through every window, where she eats crepes with a Kouyou who smiles and smells like real flowers, not perfume.
One of these days, maybe she’ll pick up a phone. Maybe she’ll go to neutral ground, maybe she’ll bring Atsushi with her, maybe she’ll hold Kouyou’s hand and maybe she’ll find some understanding, some way to reconcile the childhood she never got to have.
For now, she listens and she learns and she watches and she laughs. For now, it is enough.