Shinrabansho: Myriad Souls

Haru burst through the front door, pulled it shut behind him, and hurried down the little path to the gate.

By the time he reached it, she had already turned right.

She was walking along the sidewalk exactly like she had said she would. Not looking back. Not slowing down. Just leaving with that brisk pace and straight posture that had been messing with his head ever since he stepped into the kitchen and saw her standing there beside his mother.

He glanced once in both directions out of habit, then ran after her.

The evening air caught in his lungs fast. He had more stamina than he looked like he did, but he had not expected to have to sprint the moment he left. The distance between them shrank quickly anyway. When he got close enough for his steps to carry properly down the empty stretch of sidewalk behind her, she heard him.

Her shoulders stiffened first.

Then she turned.

She smiled when she saw it was him. It was only a small smile, but it changed her face enough to rattle him again. She stopped walking and waited for him to speak.

“You should have waited at least a little,” Haru said, breathing harder than he wanted to.

“I did.” Shinohara-san’s voice was calm. “You two seemed busy. You can go home if you want. I’m fine.”

Haru caught his breath and shook his head.

“I can’t do that.”

“... stubborn.”

She kept waiting, her eyes on him.

He ran a hand back through his hair and laughed once, embarrassed by how obvious he probably looked.

“I am. I got that from my mother.” He let his hand drop. “I’m ready to go when you are.”

“If you insist.”

Shinohara-san started walking again, not hurrying. She adjusted her pace almost immediately, settling into one that fit him so neatly it took him a second to notice. That was one of the first things that confused him. A lot of what she said sounded clipped, even a little cold, but her body language kept telling a different story. She had stopped and waited for him when she noticed him. She had not brushed him off. She was even walking at a speed that let him relax beside her without straining himself.

What is she thinking?

They crossed one intersection in silence. Then another. The streetlights had not fully taken over yet, but the light was thinning fast enough that windows were beginning to glow.

Haru kept sneaking glances at her.

She kept her eyes forward.

Finally he broke the silence, “Thanks for helping my mother so much.”

“No problem.” Shinohara-san smiled faintly. “I wanted to do that.”

“Why?” Haru asked before he could stop himself. “She’s a total stranger, and surely you had other plans tonight. What were you going to do?”

Shinohara-san hesitated a little before answering.

“I was going to get ingredients for nabe and have a quiet meal in my apartment.”

“Ah...” Haru looked down for a second. “I see. I’m sorry for the trouble she caused you.”

“It was no trouble.” She shook her head. “She was having trouble reaching something on a higher shelf and it turned into more than that. I don’t regret it. I’m sure that the hamburg steak we made together was more delicious than the nabe would have been.”

Haru looked over at her again.

“If you say so. You’re a very talented cook. Even a little better than Mom’s.”

“Mm... I’m not sure about that.” The corner of her mouth moved. “I just tried hard to impress her.”

That made him stare at her.

And then blush as a realization struck him.

“Are you into older women?”

Shinohara-san froze so abruptly that he almost laughed from pure panic. Then she turned and stared at him with a blush rising into her face so fast it made him want to take the words back and keep them forever at the same time. This was the most extreme reaction that he’d ever gotten out of her.

“Ah. Don’t be so...” She coughed once into her hand. “Don’t be so silly. No. Ayaka reminds me of my own mother. I couldn’t leave her alone.”

Haru let out a breath he had not realized he was holding and scratched at his scalp, laughing in relief.

“I’m glad to hear that. It would have been difficult to deal with if you were.”

“I understand,” Shinohara-san said, and to his shock she actually giggled a little.

Then she started walking again and he hurried after her.

“What kinds of things do you like to do other than cooking?” he asked.

She thought about it and sighed.

“Mm... not a lot right now. I’m still in the process of figuring out myself.”

“Huh?” Haru glanced sideways at her. “You seem to have a lot together. Martial arts, amazing cooking... and you dress well. A little tomboyish, what with that military-style jacket you wear.”

“Ah... I suppose it would come across that way.” Shinohara-san touched one of the buttoned pockets lightly. “I just wore this one because I needed some pockets to put my wallet and phone.”

“Why don’t you use a purse then? Aren’t they more convenient?”

“Mm... you’re probably right. But I’ve never owned one before.”

Haru blinked.

“You’ve never?”

“Yeah. Never.”

“Why?”

She looked ahead for a second before answering.

“... It didn’t suit me, I guess.”

“Are you kidding?” Haru said before he could filter himself. “If you put on a pretty dress, you... you’d look just fine.”

That made her glance at him.

“You think so?”

Then her eyes went a little far away.

“Someone important to me once said that dressing like that is just a means to an end. For working. Seducing people.”

Haru’s ears went hot at once.

He had no idea how to take that. It filled his head with images he did not want there, especially not while walking beside her with his mother’s voice still echoing in his ear.

They were quiet for a while after that.

The silence should have felt awkward, but it didn’t. It only felt charged. Haru kept trying not to look at her and failing at it. She walked with that same smooth even rhythm, her shoulders straight, her face calm, her steps neat. She looked like the kind of woman who could attract a lot of trouble without trying and then look someone in the eye and make them feel stupid for causing it.

He opened his mouth to cut through the quiet.

“What kind...”

Four men came around the corner at the next intersection.

They were older than him and Shinohara-san by enough to feel bothered by the encounter, a little too loud, a little too loose in how they moved. Their shirts were untucked. One of them was carrying the last of a canned drink. Another still had a loosened tie hanging around his neck. They had the smell of an izakaya clinging to them even before they got close enough for Haru to catch the alcohol on their breath.

The four of them walked past.

Then one of them turned his head.

“Oi,” he called. “Wasn’t she beautiful?”

The others looked back at once.

Haru’s shoulders tightened.

One of them laughed. “You’re right. That girl’s really cute.”

Another one looked Shinohara-san up and down openly. “Way too cute to be walking around with a baby face like him.”

Haru’s jaw clenched.

They kept walking.

For about three steps.

Then the one who had spoken first half turned and called back, “Hey. Wanna come with us?”

Shinohara-san did not answer. She kept walking.

Another man laughed. “Come on, don’t ignore us. That’s rude.”

“We’ve got drinks,” one said. “You look like you’d be fun.”

“Us, you mean,” another corrected, grinning drunkenly at his friends. “Ditch the boy and come home with us.”

Shinohara-san’s pace did not change.

That should have ended it… but it didn’t.

Haru looked back over his shoulder and saw the first man make a slashing gesture with his hand. The others turned with him and started following.

“Shinohara-san,” Haru said sharply.

She looked back just enough to know what he meant.

One of the men reached for him first.

Haru twisted away on reflex, but the man still got a fistful of his sleeve. Haru yanked hard and got free, stumbling sideways. He was not a fighter. He knew that. But the drunken men were clumsy in a way that made them easier to read than otherwise. He shoved the first one in the chest and landed a short ugly punch to another man’s face when he crowded in too quickly.

It was enough to make the man curse and stagger.

Then two more were on him at once.

They did not know how to fight either. They were just bigger, sloppier, and filled with a combination of liquor and stupid confidence. Haru got an elbow into one of their stomachs and a forearm into another’s throat as he backed up, trying to keep them from getting around him.

“Go home,” he snapped. “You’re drunk.”

“Shinohara-san, huh?” one of the men said, breathing beer and grinning around it. “Looks like you’re not close. What’s your name? Come with us and we’ll have a great time.”

“There’s plenty to drink at my place,” another slurred. “You don’t need to waste your night with this kid.”

“Go, Shinohara-san,” Haru said over his shoulder, trying to sound braver than he felt. “I’ll handle it.”

She had turned by then.

Haru saw the look on her face and almost lost focus from the shock of it.

She wasn’t frightened.

She actually looked conflicted.

“Don’t go anywhere,” the lead drunk said, shoving past Haru. “Come on.”

He started toward her.

Haru grabbed the back of his jacket.

That made the man whirl around at once, fury wiping away the drunken amusement from his face. He drew back his fist.

For one split second, Haru froze.

Then Shinohara-san moved.

She stepped in between them so quickly that Haru only understood what she had done after it was already over. Her hand snapped up, caught the man’s wrist before the punch could come down, twisted him off balance, and drove the heel of her palm into his jaw.

His head whipped sideways.

Before he could even fall properly, she stepped behind his leg, clipped his knee, and sent him crashing to the ground in a heap.

The other three erupted at once.

“What the hell!”

“You bitch!”

They came at her together, drunk and outraged and stupid enough to think anger could compensate for coordination.

Shinohara-san did not lose her cool.

She moved one step back, just enough to line them up badly for themselves and well for her. The first one reached in with both hands like he wanted to grab and pin her in place. She slapped one arm down, drove her elbow into the side of his neck, and kicked the inside of his knee.

He folded.

The second swung wide. She ducked inside it and struck him twice in the ribs, then once under the chin with a short clean motion that snapped his teeth together so hard Haru heard it.

The third tried to use the opening to rush her.

She turned, caught his arm, and used his own drunken momentum to sling him straight into the second man as he was trying to recover.

Both went down in a tangle.

The first man had pushed up again by then, half crawling and half lunging in a blind effort to grab her ankle.

Shinohara-san stepped aside, unhurried and unrattled, bringing the edge of her hand down against the side of his shoulder near the neck. It wasn’t enough to break anything, but more than enough to shut him down. He collapsed flat with a groan.

The other two struggled back up.

She let them.

That was the part Haru would remember later.

She actually let them get up.

Not because she was careless. It was because she had already measured them and knew she could afford to.

One of them came in with his face lowered and his fists up like a man who had seen boxing once and learned the wrong lesson from it. Shinohara-san’s foot shot out and struck his thigh just above the knee. When he staggered, she shoved him hard in the chest and he went sprawling backward onto the pavement.

The last one stopped short.

For the first time, real doubt entered his face.

Shinohara-san stood there in the middle of the intersection under the streetlight with her jacket shifting lightly at her sides, her breathing barely changed, her eyes fixed on him with a calm that made Haru’s skin prickle.

“Go home,” she said.

The man looked at his friends.

Then at her.

Then made the only smart decision any of them had made all night and backed off, swearing under his breath while helping drag one of the others up.

Haru stood there breathing hard, his heart hammering, his own fists half raised even though the fight was already over.

He had suspected that she was good.

He had not guessed that she would be like this.

Cool, fast, and almost frighteningly sure of herself once she decided to move.

Shinohara-san turned to him at once.

“Can you run?”

Haru blinked.

“What?”

Then she seized his hand.

“Let’s go.”

She took off at a sprint, pulling him after her.

Haru nearly tripped on the first step from pure surprise, then found his balance and ran with her, their hands joined tight between them while the intersection and the four drunken idiots disappeared behind them.

They were both still huffing when they finally stopped in front of Shinohara-san’s apartment complex.

Haru bent slightly at the waist, his hands on his thighs for a moment while he caught his breath. Sweat clung to the back of his neck and dampened his shirt beneath his jacket. Shinohara-san was breathing hard too, but less so. She recovered much faster than he did. By the time he straightened, she had already steadied herself. Her chest still rose a little more quickly than usual, but her face had relaxed and her eyes were clear again.

Then her gaze dropped.

Haru followed it.

Their hands were still joined.

Shinohara-san jerked hers away at once and shook her head as if annoyed at herself for not noticing sooner.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Haru nodded. The answer came easily enough. The feeling behind it didn’t. He was annoyed, not at her, but at himself. He had stepped in because he wanted to protect her, or at least stand between her and trouble for a moment, and the difference between what he imagined himself being capable of and what had actually happened still stung. He wished, not for the first time, that he had taken martial arts lessons instead of thinking he could get by on his size, reflexes, and sheer luck.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I was more worried about you.”

“You shouldn’t be. I can handle myself.”

“I know.” Haru rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess coming with you was totally useless.”

“Mm... it was.” Shinohara-san did not even pretend otherwise. “But you and your mom insisted.” Then her expression softened a little. “Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to run into trouble on my way home. She wasn’t wrong.”

“Wrong about you in a way,” Haru muttered.

“I guess.” Shinohara-san arched her back slightly, easing some leftover tension out of it, then looked up at the building. “Well, I’m home now. I’d send you back home, but now I’m a little more worried about you.”

Haru blinked.

“You’re worried about me? Why?” He gave a short laugh. “If I ran into men like them on my own, they wouldn’t bother me. I’m just a weak guy.”

“Who knows.” Shinohara-san shrugged.

That answer left him with nowhere easy to go. He stood there quietly, uncertain whether he should laugh, thank her, say goodnight, or just leave before he embarrassed himself again.

Shinohara-san looked at him for another second, then sighed.

“Come in for a single cup of tea. Assuming those four changed their mind and decided to hang out there to ambush whichever of us comes back that way, they’ll most likely have moved on after a little time passes.”

Haru flushed at once and lifted both hands a little.

“No... it’s fine. I’ll go home, but I’ll make sure I take a different route in case you’re right.”

Shinohara-san nodded and smiled.

“That’s fine. Take care of yourself on the way home, H...” She caught herself. “Mizuno-san.”

Haru looked away, but not before the little slip landed on him fully.

She almost used his first name.

Then she turned and started toward the stairs leading up to the second floor.

Haru watched her take the first few steps before the thought hit him all at once.

“Um... come to think of it, a cup of tea wouldn’t be so bad.”

Shinohara-san froze.

He immediately regretted how that sounded.

Then she looked back over her shoulder and gave him a wry smile.

“Fine. Follow me.”

They went up the stairs together. Haru tried not to stare at her legs and the rest of her and failed often enough to annoy himself. When they reached her door, she took out her wallet, slid her key from inside, unlocked the door, and tucked it away again neatly.

Haru’s nerves started up again the moment she opened the door.

He had never been inside a girl’s home before. Not alone. Not at night. Not like this. Certainly not the home of a girl who had just taken apart four drunken men in the street and then invited him in for tea as if that made perfect sense.

Shinohara-san stepped inside first and reached for the lights as she moved.

He followed her into the genkan, slipped off his shoes beside hers, and looked up.

The apartment was much nicer than the exterior of the building had prepared him for. The outside looked affordable in the ordinary weathered way a lot of older student-friendly places did, but inside, the apartment was clean, renovated, and laid out with real care. The entry was narrow but tidy. Past it, the main living space opened up in a way that made the room feel large. A low table sat at the center of the living room. A television was set up in the corner by it with a cabinet beneath it and the telltale tangle of cords that meant someone owned multiple devices to their tv. There was a compact dining space that sat off to one side. The kitchen beyond it looked properly equipped rather than bare-bones, as expected of her, although all the pans and pots were shiny as though they had barely been used.

He noticed something else after that.

There were almost no decorations, no feminine touches, nothing to indicate that one lived here.

Not none. A few small things rested on shelves. A couple of objects near the bookcase looked almost feminine, but overall the room felt restrained, spare, and strangely practical. It looked less like the apartment of a girl living alone than the apartment of a man.

Shinohara-san gestured toward the low table, interrupting his staring.

“Go ahead and sit.”

Haru nodded and obeyed.

She disappeared into the kitchen while he lowered himself to the floor on one side of the table and looked around more carefully. He kept looking at the television and the cabinet beneath it. The wires feeding into the back of the set. He’d found something that he could use to start a conversation.

When Shinohara-san came back, she carried two cups. Steam curled up from the surface of both. She set one in front of him and sat a little distance away with her own.

Haru wrapped his hands around the cup, grateful for the heat. It was unsurprisingly cool out tonight. He hadn’t focused on that until now. Even her hand had been cool, but warmer than his.

Shinohara-san took a sip first.

Then her eyes widened a little and she smiled.

“Mm... the tea is good.”

That was strange enough to catch his attention at once. It sounded like she was mildly surprised by the taste of her own tea, as though she had not made it often or had not been the one to buy it.

He took a sip too. It was good. The flavor was fairly ordinary, but good.

His eyes drifted back toward the cabinet under the television.

“By any chance, are you a gamer?”

Shinohara-san laughed.

“How observant.”

“What consoles do you have?”

She thought for a second.

“A bunch of them... but I’m sure there’s a Gamestation 5.”

“That’s the only one that you remember?” Haru asked, wondering. What kind of gamer collected an assortment of consoles and forgot which ones they owned?

Shinohara-san smiled into her tea.

“I’m not sure, actually. This apartment actually came fully furnished.”

He blinked.

“It wasn’t your apartment?”

“Right. It wasn’t.” Shinohara-san nodded.

“That explains a lot.”

“It does.”

“Why don’t we see what there is to play?”

She paused for a moment, sipping her tea, her thoughts turning inward but then, without any warning at all, she looked toward the bookshelf, set down her tea, and got up.

Haru watched her cross the room, stand before the shelf for a moment, and then pull down a thick CD album. She carried it back to the table, set it down between them, and unzipped it. When she started flipping through the plastic sleeves, her expression shifted from thoughtful to amused.

Then she laughed.

“As I expected...” she said. “Every version of Tekku is here from GS2 to GS5.”

Haru stared at her.

“You play that?”

“I do.” Shinohara-san smirked and took another sip of tea before setting the cup down again. “How about a couple of matches while we drink tea? It wouldn’t hurt anything to delay your return home that much.”

Haru felt a grin pulling at his mouth before he could stop it.

“If you insist. But remember that real fighting is different from playing Tekku. You might regret challenging me.”

“We’ll see,” Shinohara-san said, laughing.

Special thanks to PrincessArylin, ShinjiHinako, Assurbanipal II (Achan) for beta reading book three!