Chapter Text
She comes to him when he’s seven years old.
She has hair the color of garnets and spring green eyes. She’s lovely and smiles kindly and looks happy to see him, and this is not the standard of the world as he knows it. Takashi thinks she must be a spirit.
But the other people in the park are aware of her. A few mothers mutter and usher their children away, because she’s followed by a big black dog. If Takashi didn’t see monsters all the time, he might have been afraid of the dog, too.
But it’s a gentle creature, he’s surprised to find. It lays its head right in his lap, looking up at him with doleful red eyes. Takashi pets it carefully, at a loss, and the strange girl sits beside him.
She looks as though she’s about to say something, but a monster crashes through the brush nearby and Takashi flinches. It’s a tall and tapered figure with too many eyes, and it rounds on him even faster than normal.
“Something this way smells especially delicious!” it crows, high-pitched, and Takashi cries out and tries to scramble away --
But the dog is heavy in his lap and doesn’t seem bothered to get up. It lifts its head and pins the approaching spirit with a bright red eye and barks, “Get lost.”
“Scary thing,” the girl comments quietly as it flees. “I haven’t seen a yokai in a long time.”
“Not that long,” the dog says wisely. “But it does feel that way.”
Takashi isn’t sure what to be the most shocked over, so he sits very still and tries to work it out. His companions wait patiently.
“You saw it, too?“ he whispers. “You -- and your dog can -- “ His eyes flick down to the animal on his legs, and then up to the girl beside him. Despite himself, his eyes start to sting. “You are monsters, aren’t you? You’re here to -- to play a trick on me.”
Somehow, the accusation doesn’t make her angry. Other people have hated him for less than that, but the girl softens, and even smiles, though it looks a little bit sad.
“I would never play a trick on you, Takashi,” she says, so sincerely Takashi finds himself believing her. “Can I show you something?”
She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a little wallet. There are a few paper monies and scraps of paper inside, but what she withdraws to show him is a picture. It’s dog-eared and worn, and she says, “Do you know them?”
Of course he does. Takashi dares take the aged photo with careful hands. “That’s my dad,” he whispers, the hurt still fresh and aching where it sits in his chest, the missing-him not even a tiny bit smaller after all this time. “And is that -- my mom?”
“Yes,” the girl says, “and that little girl in the middle is me.” Takashi stares at her, uncertain what to make of the claim. Somewhere in his head or in his heart he understands already, but in the silence she goes on to say, “I’m your big sister. My name is Chise.”
“Oh,” he says, hands clenching in the dog’s wavy fur. “Really? You’re really-- ?” But she’s right there in the photo, between his mom and dad. He doesn’t think a monster could make that up. It seems like too much work to be a prank. There’s a big pain growing bigger somewhere inside him, one he doesn’t quite understand. “I didn’t -- no one ever told me -- “
Could it be he has a family? A real family? Could it be he belongs to a sister, the way other kids belong to mothers and fathers? The hope hurts and he’s stuck between it and careful, cautious doubt.
Chise looks as understanding as if she could hear his thoughts in her own head. She begins to say, “Takashi, I -- “ but a familiar voice interrupts.
“There you are!”
Takashi’s guardian is making her way across the playground in swift, angry strides. She smells bad, like the strong drinks she and her husband share after dinner. Sharp and cold as she approaches, like biting, bitter winter, and beside him Chise is soft and sun-warmed spring.
“I am so sick of hunting you down every day! If you could just listen to me for once, things would be so much easier! I wouldn’t have to -- “
She reaches for him, and her fingers are going to hurt his arm. Her fingers always hurt his arm, as though she doesn’t know how to touch him kindly. Takashi lowers his eyes and braces himself to be wrenched upright -- it’s his fault, he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, a monster chased him away and he sat down to catch his breath. Of course it would make the woman he’s staying with angry.
Deep, guttural growls cut between them before the woman can get close, and for the second time the black dog fends a monster away. His teeth are very white against his fur, sharp and promising, and when he starts to stand, Takashi’s guardian stumbles farther away.
She’s white with fear, the glare replaced by a more shaken expression, and only hesitates a moment before she turns on her heel and leaves him there without another word.
Takashi is torn between gratitude and dismay. “I’ll be in trouble when I go back,” he says, and the dread that puts in his stomach is an old one. He’s often in trouble, for all that he does his best to be good.
A hand covers his, gentle, unlike the hands he’s used to. He looks up into Chise’s warm eyes.
“You’re my little brother,” she says, “and the very first person I ever loved, after mom and dad. It’s taken me this long to find you, but now I have.” Her other hand joins the one already holding his, and her fingers squeeze his tightly. “I live a long, long way from here, in a nice house, in another country. I study magic and tend gardens. If you’d like to come with me, my home could be your home, too.”
And with that, it’s too much to bear.
The sting in Takashi’s eyes finally turns into a burn, and tears slide down his face. He cries so easily, and the other boys make fun of him for it, but Chise’s big dog snuffles wetly against his cheek and Chise’s hands are warm around his, and neither of them say anything cruel, and Takashi has never been offered anything like this before. He’s never been offered home and family and a place to belong.
He’s never been wanted.
He dares lift his arms up to her, and Chise isn’t completely grown up herself but she’s big enough to lift him off the ground. She holds him as close as she might hold something very precious, and Takashi buries his face in his sister’s red hair and clutches her shirt in his fists and says, “I want to go with you. Please, oneechan."
She lets out a breath and clutches him tighter, as though afraid to loose her grip for even a moment. "Okay," Chise says, her voice curiously soft and thick, the way Takashi's sounds when he's doing his very best not to cry, "then let's go home."