The Echoes of Nothing 3

The restaurant had become busy and they had spent their time talking long enough. Hiroshi and his friends left at the door to go home or whatever they normally did after school. Saki and Ayumi cautiously looked at each other in front of the building as though they were acting like strangers figuring their way home.

After several minutes of almost blank stares, they turned towards the street seeing the busy evening traffic.

"So… Ready to go?" said Saki deciding to start up the conversation.

"…Yeah…"

Saki turned in the direction that they needed to go and began walking knowing that Ayumi would catch up on her own pace. Her mind was filled with worries still thinking about Yuki and Seiji being together. She knew that she should trust Yuki to be alright and that he would not get into any fights, but knowing their history she could not help herself.

Most of the thoughts were started anew after they left the restaurant where they had managed to be suppressed through the chatting.

However, Saki was now bombarded with every fear that she had. She wanted to know what Seiji's motive was for suddenly appearing after school after leaving with hardly a goodbye last time. They had little in common besides fighting to leave Saki to return to her fears repeatedly.

'Wish I knew what they were doing now.'

While they walked in silence Ayumi watched Saki's reaction and gears visibly turning. The way that Saki was acting made it pretty clear to Ayumi that she was concerned for Yuki (anyone passing by could tell). Ayumi kept her cheerful persona on the busy street but spoke with her deeper voice towards Saki.

"What sort of person is this Seiji?"

It took a moment for the words to sink into Saki and even longer for it to even connect with her. There had to be further prodding from Ayumi before Saki looked towards her to make contact.

"Seiji? Well like I said before Yuki and he would get into fights a lot."

"You mentioned being a Shinto priest-in-training, I assume that supposed to mean something. I'm not versed in all of your cultures yet."

There was a lot that Ayumi was still studying about the world outside of her homeland since it was generally ignored and not taught in schools. She had been learning as much as she could, but her cover story of being from America helped to smooth out most of her mistakes.

"Oh right, I forgot you aren't from around here. Let's see, I guess in a simple way Shinto priests are sort like umm…really…good people? I guess that isn't clear either. Um… They are divine practitioners that follow some sort of code or guidelines I guess. Does that help any?"

Saki was sweating a little from her stumbling through her explanation, but it ended up getting the point across to her.

"I see. Hmm…"

"Why you ask?" Saki said finding Ayumi's curiosity in Seiji to be a little sudden if not strange.

Ayumi struck her as a person that did not do anything without purpose and if it was concerning Seiji she wanted to know.

Ayumi paused in her response leaving Saki staring her until it started to bother her.

"I've seen him before today I'm fairly certain. I think I've seen him watching us from the edge of the school."

They turned into their neighborhood taking to the road now rather than the sidewalk that was soon to end.

"What?!" Saki came to an immediate stop in the road after she finished speaking.

Whether Ayumi meant it or not increased fears were blazing through her mind trying to understand what he was up to watching them.

"For how long?"

"Since I've been attending your school and I suspect even longer. At first, I thought he was an assassin, but he never made a move so I waited. I guess he was waiting for a chance to meet with Yuki."

Ayumi could see that Saki was spinning into overload on thoughts and hoped that she might be able to temper some of it with more rational logic. Unfortunately, it did not seem to be working on Saki as she walked ahead of Ayumi beginning to ignore Ayumi lost in her world of growing concerns.

Saki did not remember walking the rest of the way home or even opening the door to her room. She just simply ended up there when she finally snapped out of her trance.

'He's been watching us, Yuki… Has he been planning this the entire time? What's he up to? This wasn't random… Yuki…'

Saki collapsed on her bed rolling over on her side dropping her arm over her pillow that she drew in against her.

…

..

.

Seiji made good on his promise with Shoji to show him something, which was a Shinto technique that Shoji had been interested in, but their grandfather refused to teach him yet.

When their grandfather found them in the back practicing Shoji got scolded as well as Seiji. However, Seiji had managed to smooth things over with his grandfather a little due to Shoji pressuring, but it was not going to be something that was fixed overnight.

He knew how his grandfather was about tradition and Seiji hated the whole idea. Those opposites were not going to be changed, but he could at least put on a good face for his little brother. It made dinner go a little better without being ganged up by his father too about his lack of progress in his training.

The shrine was huge, but walking the halls Seiji always felt like he was being choked at each step. He walked out onto the back porch around the shrine leaning at the wood railing looking up at the stars that began to appear in the sky through the heavy city lights.

'Yuki… I'll try again tomorrow… I can't just keep watching you from a distance…'