Chapter 3

For the next few weeks, the mother has been distancing herself from Kiyomi out of fear. She would have Kiyomi play outside in the backyard while she does stuff around the house. Kiyomi would play with the dirt and the bugs in the dirt. She used to play and dig in her mother's garden, but her mother got mad and hit her telling her not to do that. So now she plays outside the garden. 

The pen the man gave her always stayed with Kiyomi. She doesn't put it down and keeps it with her everywhere she goes. Her mother has tried taking it away from her a few times while Kiyomi was sleeping or not paying attention to it, but Kiyomi would notice when someone gets too close to it or her.

A little ladybug lands on a small bucket in front of Kiyomi. She crawls over to it to get a closer look, but a pair of black shoes stop before the bucket causing Kiyomi to look up.

"Sir Sameul..." Kiyomi bubbles. The man smiles at Kiyomi.

"Did you know Ladybugs are good luck?" The man says as he gently shows Kiyomi the ladybug.

"Oh..."

"So, you have to be very careful with them..." He sooths.

"Okay." She whispers. The man gently places the ladybug on Kiyomi's finger. She pulls her finger in closer to look at the ladybug. The ladybug crawls down her finger and then flies away. "Sir Sameul..." She says looking up at the man. The man slowly looks at her.

"Yes?"

"How did you find me?" Kiyomi asks. The man relaxes his eyes and smiles. 

"Someone told me you lived here." He softly says.

TING

Kiyomi flinches again and furrows her eyebrows. The ringing again... 

"Are you okay?" The man asks.

"Mmhm..." Kiyomi slowly nods.

"Oh. By the way... I brought these..." The man pulls the paper Kiyomi drew on and hands it to her. Her eyes widen when she sees the paper. She smiles as she takes the papers from him.

"Thank you." She sooths. The man smiles at her.

"Do you still have the pen I gave you?" He asks. Kiyomi nods and shows him the pen. He slowly nods and looks at Kiyomi.

"Good... I was worried you might have lost it." He softly says.

"KIYOMI?" The mother yells out through the window. Kiyomi looks up towards the window in confusion.

"Yes mommy?!" Kiyomi yells back.

"Who are you talking to?" She asks.

"My friend Sir Sameul..." Kiyomi responds pointing towards the man. The mother furrows her eyebrows and disappears from the window. The sound of the back door opens as her mother walks over towards Kiyomi.

"Enough playing outside... time to go inside." The mother sighs grabbing Kiyomi's arm. 

"Okay... Bye Sir Sa-" When Kiyomi turns around the man was gone. It sends chills down her back. The mother pulls Kiyomi into the house and makes her go into her room. Kiyomi takes the papers the man gave her and continued to draw in them. When her friend comes back to visit, she wants to show him all the new work she has made... Hoping she would finish the story before he came back to visit her.

A few hours pass and Kiyomi gets hungry. She slowly gets down off the bed and opens her bedroom door. She hears an unfamiliar voice in the background which makes her curious. She sees her mother laughing and talking to a man. Kiyomi stands still by the doorway, watching her mother laugh and drink out of a wine cup. The mother's eyes drift towards Kiyomi. Her eyes widen when she sees her. 

"Oh... uh... Kiyomi." The mother hesitantly says as she stands up and places down her wine cup.

"Is that your kid?" The strange man asks. The mother nods and walks over towards Kiyomi.

"Go back to your room... okay?" The mother says motioning Kiyomi to go away.

"But... I'm hungry..." Kiyomi softly says. The mother sighs and looks around. She grabs an apple and hands it to Kiyomi. 

"Okay now go..." The mother pushes Kiyomi towards her room and closes her door. Kiyomi stares at the closed door feeling kind of sad. She looks down at the apple her mother gave her and then sniffs it.

"What is this...?" She questions. She takes a bite of the apple. The apple is hard and crunchy. It tastes sweet... She thought to herself.

Later that night at dinner, Kiyomi, her mother, and her father sit quietly at the dinner table.

"I have an important project coming up tomorrow... so I will be coming home late..." The father calmly says. The mother sighs loudly and nods a bit. "What's the matter now?" The father listlessly says.

"You're always coming home late..."

"Okay? I have a job... that happens sometimes..." He huffs.

"Sometimes... but not all the time." She sighs.

"It's an important job- The position I'm in is important... I have a lot to do... It's not my fault." He groans. The mother rolls her eyes.

"Yeah, sure it isn't..."

"What are you trying to say? You still think I'm a cheater?" The father asks.

"Yeah... because you are." The mother quietly says. The father drops his fork down and sighs loudly.

"Why the fuck do you keep saying that? If you think I'm a cheater then why don't you fucking leave?" The father fumes. The mother furrows her eyebrows and aggressively starts stabbing at her rice and scooping it into her mouth. "Why... huh? Is it because you will end up broke and homeless... Is that it? At this point I feel like you're just staying because of the money. If you think I would do such things, then leave Karen... I can raise Kiyomi alone and without your petty little bullshit you constantly want to pull..."

"What? I'm not staying for the money!" The mother yells back.

TING

Kiyomi flinches and cringes a bit to the sudden noise again.

"Then why are you still here? You don't act like you love me anymore... so really tell me... why the hell are you still here?" The father seeths.

"I do love you..." The mother huffs.

TING

Kiyomi flinches and holds onto her fork tightly.

"I'm just scared that you're cheating on me... I just don't want to find out you're with some other girl... that's why it's been so hard to be loving..." The father relaxes his eyes and sighs. "Are you cheating on me?" The mother asks.

"No... I'm not." The father replies.

"..." The mother looks back at her plate and sighs. "I was hoping you got off work earlier tomorrow to watch Kiyomi." She softly says.

"Why do you say that?" The father asks.

"I wanted to go visit the senior center..."

TING

Kiyomi covers her ears to get rid of the tinging noise.

"The senior center again? You visit that place a lot..." The father calmly says. The mother slowly nods.

"Well... the old folks always ask me to come back and visit them." The mother says with a smile on her face.

TING

Kiyomi clenches and holds her ears tighter.

"I would show them baby pictures of Kiyomi, and they would tell me stories about their grandchildren and children."

TING

"Liar..." Kiyomi cries out. The mother and father stare at Kiyomi in confusion. Tears are streaming from her eyes.

"What?" The father questions.

"What do you mean liar... I wasn't lying." The mother says in a panicked tone.

TING

"LIAR!" Kiyomi screams out. She jumps down from her seat and runs out from the room and into her bedroom. She goes under her covers and covers herself in her blanket. The father follows after Kiyomi and the mother follows behind her in panic.

"Kiyomi... what's wrong baby... why did you say that and run away?" The father asks sitting down beside Kiyomi. The mother stands at the doorway staring at the two of them. Kiyomi pulls her head out from the blanket and stares at her father.

"I keep hearing a noise in my ear and it hurts..."

"A noise?" The father questions in a confused tone. "What do you mean?" Kiyomi furrows her eyebrows and looks off into the distance.

"Nope... nothing seems to be wrong with her ears..." The doctor says as he is looking into Kiyomi's ear again.

"Are you sure?" The father asks.

"Yes... Her ears look perfectly fine." The doctor softly says.

"She was crying saying she kept hearing a noise." The father implies. The doctor shrugs and writes something down on a piece of paper handing it to the father.

"If you want to figure out more than you can get in contact with an ear doctor. Other than that, there's nothing much else that I can do." The doctor says shrugging a bit.

After they leave the doctors, Kiyomi and the father goes back home. When they walk in Kiyomi asks her father if she could go outside. The father lets Kiyomi go outside while he works in his office. She grabs her story and pen and runs outside. She continues to draw on her papers. A shadow blocks the light from Kiyomi's papers causing her to look up. 

"Sir Sameul!" She bubbles.

"Wow you added a lot more to it..." He soothes, smiling down at the paper.

"Yeah yeah... I added more cats..." She says pointing to the cats she drew. The man places the papers down and pulls out a book. He shows Kiyomi the book. Kiyomi tilts her head a bit out of confusion. "What's that...?" She asks.

"This book is a special book. I write down a lot of cool things in it." He softly bubbles.

"Oh... Like what?" She asks.

"Mmm... Do you want to see?" He asks. Kiyomi nods. He hands her the book, allowing her to read it.

"I can't read..." She softly says. The man smiles and softly laughs. 

"Then maybe another day you can read what's in here..." He sooths.

"Aw..." Kiyomi sighs. She slowly looks up at the man and then back at the book.

"Sir Sameul... why did you leave last time without saying bye...?" She asks.

"Oh... well I didn't want to startle your mother, so I left." He calmly answers.

"Oh..." Kiyomi nods.

"You know you don't have to keep calling me Sir..." He smiles at Kiyomi. She tilts her head a bit before looking down at the ground.

"Sir Sameul... What does cheating mean?" Kiyomi softly asks.

"Cheating?" He looks at her with a confused expression on his face.

"My mommy says the word cheating a lot... but I don't understand what it means..." She continues.

"Does your mom say that your dad is cheating?" He asks.

"Yeah..." Kiyomi slowly nods. The man furrows his eyebrows a bit, thinking of a way to tell her.

"Well... that's hard to explain... but it could mean your mom doesn't believe your dad loves her." He calmly answers.

"Doesn't love her...? Sir Sameul..."

"Hmm?" He hums.

"Do you love someone?" She asks. The man's eyes widen and he looks forwards before looking at Kiyomi.

"No..."

TING

Kiyomi furrows her eyebrows.

"Liar..." She listlessly says.

"Huh..."

Every time someone lies... my ears ring... Kiyomi thinks.

"When you lie... my ear makes a noise..." She says covering her ears. The man's eyes widen and he awkwardly smiles.

"I see... that's an interesting ability you have there..." He awkwardly chuckles.

Ability? Kiyomi furrows her eyebrows trying to understand what that means.

"I guess you caught me then... Heheh... It's kind of strange actually..."

"Huh?" She hums.

"I didn't think I loved anyone... but if you say I lied then I guess I do..." He calmly says.

"Who do you love?" She questions. The man stares off into the distance a bit before speaking.

"When I was younger... I used to really like this one girl named Paku... I guess I still do." He says smiling at Kiyomi. "But I don't think it's a romantic type of love... I'm not really into romantic things..." He softly chuckles.

"Romantic? What does that mean?" Kiyomi asks. The man smiles at her.

"Kiyomi?" Her father says from the back door. Kiyomi looks towards the direction of her father than back towards where the man was at. He was gone... again.

"Yes?" Kiyomi asks looking at the father.

"Come on... It's going to start raining..." he motions Kiyomi to come back into the house. Kiyomi picks up her papers and skips back into the house.

"This is your third time talking to the girl... are you considering making her a member?" A woman asks the man. The man slowly looks at the woman and smiles.

"Yeah... At first I was going to steal her ability... but something about her changed my mind." he softly says.

"Which is what?" The woman asks.

"She reminds me of my younger self... when I was innocent..." He sooths. The woman smiles and looks out into the distance. 

"So... how will you make her a member? Are you going to kidnap her?" The woman asks.

"No... I won't need to..."

"What makes you say that?" She questions.

"From what Nobunaga said... I believe there's more to her than what we've seen..."

"What do you mean?"

"Shes starting to awaken her power... a power she doesn't understand and can't control... I don't need to do anything... she will do it herself. We just have to wait..." He sooths. 

"I see..." The woman softly says. The man pulls the tracking device out of his pocket and smiles.

"When the time comes... I will need you Paku..." He says slowly looking at Paku. She smiles and nods.

"Yes... Boss."