The thin towel slipped to the floor.
Where it had been, in the moonlight, was something paler than the white cotton itself—a slender, delicate body.
By any number of decorum-minded clauses, however, the only things on display were the smooth lines of the girl’s calves and a pair of small, pale, exquisite feet.
Sakura pulled on her undergarments and a one-piece dress, her eyes vacant on the world outside the window.
Shiki-nee-san had warned her many times.
The Tokyo nights had been… restless lately.
But the moment Sakura thought of Yumizuka’s trusting, dependent expression, she knew she could not simply leave this alone.
Something had happened.
She was certain.
That was what her instinct told her.
And Sakura’s instincts had always been reliable—reliable to the point of seeing the future.
As before.
—Yumizuka, in the setting sun.
That trick of the strange angle of the light, the smile at her lips painted faintly in blood.
Sakura clutched her chest and slid slowly to the floor.
Did she regret it?
She regretted it.
Why hadn’t she walked her a few more steps?
Walked her right up to her door?
Her bottom met the cold floorboards.
Sakura dialed Yumizuka’s number once more.
The other end was nothing but a busy tone, on and on.
Her face turned grim.
She pushed her bedroom door open and looked toward Onee-san’s room.
No light beneath the door.
Onee-san must have gone to sleep early.
She didn’t even put on her slippers.
Barefoot, Sakura crept toward the entryway.
“Young miss—!?” A maid had spotted her, hunched over and tiptoeing through the hall.
“Shh—!” Sakura hurriedly pressed a finger to her lips.
“Are you going out?
But Ryōgi-sama said—” The maid lowered her voice, trying to dissuade her.
“It’s all right.
My instinct says nothing will happen.” Sakura forced a small smile.
If she let the maid see how worried she actually was, she’d never be allowed out the door.
The maid’s expression softened a little at that.
The young miss’s instinct was a gift even the old patriarch of the Ryōgi family had praised.
If she said it would be fine, then it would be fine.
“Please come home soon.
Don’t make Lady Fujino worry.” Right hand resting lightly atop her left at her waist, the maid bowed.
She watched Sakura’s small, clean ankles disappear through the door, and her thoughts drifted.
Perhaps the young miss did not yet realize—the world was not as quiet as she imagined it to be.
Who said the things written in fairy tales were always lies?
Humans were not the only things walking the city at night.
There were things that were not human, too.
Maybe tonight was the beginning of the prologue.
“Mm!” Sakura, oblivious to the maid’s faraway look, gave a firm nod, slipped on her sandals, and slipped out the door.
She looked up at the waning half-moon, drew a deep breath, and ran in the direction of Yumizuka’s house.
“Aah…” Two steps in, a small, plaintive whimper escaped her throat.
The night wind blew gently, threading between her legs.
Her white skirt, which only just brushed the top of her knees, lifted now and again.
The way the girl ran—light, ethereal—was like a night-blooming flower drifting open on the breeze.
Except that loveliness came at the price of Sakura feeling the cold breeze right where she most wanted to feel safe.
But—at last—she’d arrived.
Hand pressed to her chest, Sakura stood at the corner where she had said goodbye to Yumizuka.
The neon signs along the street glowed a dim, muddy red.
The road was empty.
Not a soul.
Following the route Yumizuka had taken home, Sakura looked carefully around her.
Other than a too-deep silence, nothing seemed amiss.
At the mouth of the alley that led to Yumizuka’s home, Sakura paused for a moment.
Her hand drifted along the alley’s stained, weathered wall.
Something felt off—she couldn’t say what.
She wasn’t Shiki, after all.
Ah— Sakura looked down.
Why had she suddenly thought of Shiki-nee-san?
She lightly patted her own cheek.
It felt warm.
Sakura cut through the alley toward Yumizuka’s house.
The deep, narrow alley was quiet.
The hand at her chest tightened of its own accord.
Her heart raced faster, faster.
Hesitating, she glanced back over her shoulder.
She could not shake the sense that someone was following behind her.
Yumizuka’s apartment was on the second floor.
Sakura looked at the closed wooden door and gave it a soft knock.
No response.
Knock-knock-knock—
She put a little more force behind it.
Still nothing.
Sakura took out her phone and rang Yumizuka.
She pressed her whole body up against the door, listening.
Tick-tock, tick-tock—
Faintly, behind the door, came the high, half-childlike singing voice of a girl.
Even though her cheek was pressed to the cool wooden panel, Sakura felt her face begin to burn.
That was unmistakably her own voice.
Yumizuka must have recorded it secretly at that party.
Was she… really that important to her?
Sakura’s breath was unsteady.
Slowly she crouched down.
The ringtone seemed to be coming from the floor just behind the door.
She knocked again.
“Yumizuka-san… are you in there?”
Still no response.
A nameless suffocation rose in her chest.
She felt it—felt—that if she didn’t get to the bottom of this tonight, she would regret it forever.
Sakura trusted her instinct.
Her instinct had never been wrong.
She kept knocking, and the strikes grew heavier, until her knuckles ached as if the skin were splitting.
“Oi—who’s banging on doors at this hour!?
Have some manners.” The blustering voice.
The opposite door rattled open.
A scruffy, unshaven middle-aged man in a tank top and boxer shorts appeared.
“How’s a man supposed to sleep around here?”
“I’m sorry!” Sakura ducked her head, panicking.
The man’s eyes fixed on her right hand.
Flustered, Sakura hid the hand behind her back and fled down the stairs.
“That little girl…” The man scratched his head.
“Did she knock until her hand bled?”
“If memory serves, the kid living across the hall’s about that age too.
The little ones having a falling-out?”
He shrugged it off, yawned, and turned back inside, the door clicking shut.
“…”
Something really had happened to Yumizuka.
Sakura folded her arms in front of her and walked back toward home, head down.
The cold wind cut through her.
Only now did she notice the skin had broken across her knuckles, blood beading along the cracks.
“Oh no.
Satsuki—and Onee-san—are going to be furious.” Her voice caught.
She could only hope nothing too serious had happened to Yumizuka, that her phone had simply been left at home.
That tomorrow at school she’d see that gentle, demure face again.
Still… maybe she should pay Shiki-nee-san a visit tomorrow.
The hope was there, but Sakura’s eyes had darkened.
Shiki-nee-san definitely knew far more than Sakura did.
Hiding the wound on her right hand, she slipped back inside.
· · ·
Elsewhere—in the alley near Yumizuka’s home, at the very spot where Sakura had paused, sensing something amiss—
A girl in a kimono-like sleeping robe stood there, slender fingers brushing along the weathered wall.
Her deep-purple hair caught the moonlight, gleaming, lifting in the small breeze.
She breathed in.
“…Blood?”
Asagami Fujino lifted her bright eyes.
As if seeing through walls and distance, her gaze passed straight into Yumizuka’s home—
Dead silence.
(Sakura~~~)