Eighteen

"And who is this?" Shibata-kun asked, looking down at Chiyo with a warm smile.

"I'm Terasaki Chizuru. You can call me Chiyo." She replied cheerfully. "Kou-chan is my brother!"

We had taught her to say that. Ever since she heard that Shibata-kun was the one who gave me the bracelet and that he was the one I wanted to go to the shrine with and that he and I were in such a relationship, she had wanted to meet him.

"She's also your cousin?" He looked at me.

"Yeah." I replied. I really did not want to lie but this had to be done. "She said that she wanted to meet you."

"Oh?" He grinned at her. "I'm honoured."

"You are Akane-chan's lover, aren't you? That's why I wanted to see you." She said.

He looked incredibly happy at that. "I see. I'm Miyazono Shibata. I'm happy to meet you, Chiyo-chan."

Chiyo beamed at him, then looked at me. "I like him too, Akane-chan. Your lover's nice!"

"Chiyo." Terasaki-san called and took her hand. "Let them go to the temple. We need to meet Agari."

"You're not coming?" I asked him.

"You're going to the shrine. You'll be fine." He said and looked at Shibata. "You'd better make sure that she doesn't get hurt."

"I... don't really know who I'm up against but okay. I won't let her get hurt." He nodded.

"Good. Chiyo." Terasaki-san glanced at me and then led Chiyo away. We had met up three days after that conversation with Agari-san and Watase-san in front of the shrine itself so I presumed that they were going straight to Agari-san's house. I turned to Shibata. "Let's go."

He took my hand. We made our way up the stairs to the shrine. Since this was the only shrine in our area, I had been here before with family and friends. Last New Year's Eve though, I was here at the shrine with this very young man. Of course, he would not have any recollection of it.

"How come you said that you wanted to go to the shrine though?" He asked as we neared the top. "I didn't really take you to be the religious kind."

"I'm... not especially religious." That was the truth. It was ironic for a Shrine Maiden to be saying that, wasn't it? "I just felt like it." I shrugged.

"I see." He looked ahead. "I actually like this place."

"I do too, honestly. I'm not religious but I like the shrine."

He smiled. "Oh, I think we'll get along perfectly fine."

We always have.

We prayed first, then decided to go for a walk around the area. Given that the shrine was located up on a hill, there were plenty of traversable pathways among the surrounding trees that made this shrine visit even more attractive. There was a peace and quiet about the place that people would never find in town.

He told me stories about the things he did during boring lectures to keep himself awake and tales from his childhood that I already knew. It was as though I had been given a second chance. I had met Shibata-kun all over again. It was surreal and unbelievable and beautiful all the same.

I was not especially religious but I still thanked God for giving me this second chance.

The sun was setting by the time we returned to the main shrine. There, we found Chiyo running behind a cat and Terasaki-san standing with Agari-san and Watase-san. They turned to us as we approached them.

"You must be Miyazono Shibata-kun." Agari-san said as though she had never watched him while I was keeping away. "It's nice to finally meet you."

"Uh, yes, I am." He smiled, then looked at me for clarification.

"This is Agari-san and this is Watase-san." I introduced them. "Family friends."

"I see. Miyazono Shibata." Shibata-kun bowed. "Akane-chan's boyfriend."

"We know you." Watase-san said.

"You talk about me?" Shibata-kun asked me.

"Uh... I-" I blushed. They were doing this on purpose.

"Oh. She's so smitten that she can't stop!" Agari-san chuckled.

Agari-san! "T-That's not how it is!" I tried to cover up.

"It isn't?" Shibata asked, his shoulders drooping.

"Hah?" Seriously?!

"I like you already!" Agari-san laughed.

Oh boy...

Watase-san laughed too. Shibata-kun joined in. I just stood there in embarrassment. Then my eyes met Terasaki-san's who somehow did not seem so amused by all this.

Had something happened that had gotten him worried?

"Oh, yes! Shibata-kun." Agari-san perked up. "Come with me. There's something you should see."

"Eh?" I looked at her in question. Shibata-kun too looked a little awkward.

"Don't worry. You'll find out what it is soon enough." She told me and urged Shibata-kun to follow her again. He looked at me again, unsure, but when I nodded, he followed her to one of the buildings next to the shrine. Once they were gone, I looked at Watase-san.

"You wanted to talk, Watase-san?"

"You're smart." He nodded. I'd figured that they had led him away because they wanted to talk to me. "Yes, I did want to talk to you."

I looked at Terasaki-san who came to stand next to me. "It's about your training."

"My training?"

"You will have to start soon." Watase-san said. "The spirits are in a state of unrest. Some entities that have never been active before are now stepping into the fray. We are doing our best with our force but you will have to step in eventually. Sooner than later, preferably."

"Is it really that bad?"

"Not yet but we're getting there." He replied.

"And... what do you mean by 'force'? It's not just Terasaki-san and you people?"

"No. We're the ones in contact with you but there are many more people involved in maintaining peace."

I never knew that. "Oh. Then I'd like to start as soon as I can."

"Kou still worries. He says you are not yet ready. However, we can't delay this any further. So, we have come to a consensus. You'll begin training at the end of this month. Your condition is steadily improving as it is. A month may be all you need. In fact, a month may be all we have left to give."

A month.

I looked at Terasaki-san. He was going to train me. "Terasaki-san."

"What?"

"Will I really be okay?" I asked this more so that I could gauge his concern than for me to know his opinion. Watase-san said it himself. One month was all that was left to give.

"I'll be training you. Of course, you'll be okay." He smirked.

"Just like your own teacher, aren't you?" Watase-san laughed. "No wonder Agari's so proud of you."

"Whatever." He shook his head. He didn't deny it though.

"Oh. Your boyfriend's back." Watase-san looked towards the two approaching figures. Agari-san was full-on grinning but Shibata-kun, on the other hand, looked a little flustered.

"Heh... What happened?" I asked.

"T-The festival two weeks from now." He said, taking a deep breath as if to calm himself down. "The shrine's festival..."

"He wants you to accompany him." Agari-san pat his head. "You'll go, won't you, Akane-chan? I have the perfect kimono picked out for you too." She paused. "And while we were at it, I even planned you a date." She winked.

Agari-san planned it?!

"Hey, Agari." Watase-san shook his head. "They're still young, you know."

"So what? Turns out, they're both fun to tease." She snickered.

"Ah, Shibata-kun! Whatever she told you, forget it!" I panicked, catching on to what kind of a date she might have planned for us.

"A-Ah." He nodded, looking away, embarrassed.

What had she told him if he couldn't even look at me properly now?! "Agari-san!"

She laughed, totally unfazed and enjoying herself. She was really the worst kind of adult. "Terasa-" I turned to seek help from him but he wasn't there anymore. "Huh? Where did he go?"

"He went to look for Chiyo. You didn't hear him say so?" Watase-san said.

"Oh. He did?" But... he just seemed to disappear like that...

"We'll leave you two to it then. Don't leave the shrine premises till Kou's with you, okay?" Watase-san smiled.

"Alright." I nodded.

"It was nice meeting you, Shibata-kun." Agari-san said. "Look for us if you ever drop by the shrine again, won't you?"

"Ah. I will." He said. Once the two of them left, he addressed me. "Shall we go sit down?"

"Okay." We moved to one of the benches off to the side.

"They're really nice people." He commented, leaning against the backrest of the bench and putting his hands up behind his neck, lacing his fingers at its base.

"They are." I smiled. "A little eccentric sometimes but they're amazing people."

"The rest of your family aren't like this?"

Oh. "Well..." I looked away.

"You introduced me to these people but I'm presuming that it's the rest of your family that makes you worry about us and... other things that I don't know."

"I won't deny that." Except that I didn't have any other family anymore. Other than these people you just met, Shibata-kun, you were the closest thing I had to a family.

"We'll figure something out. Don't worry so much." He smiled, his brows furrowing a little. "I don't like it when you worry."

Even after trying so hard to hide it, when I'm with him... I mean, I'm a walking target. Even if Terasaki-san was protecting us, whenever Shibata-kun was with me. He's excessively in harm's way. Now that I've begun picking up on the presence of negative entities, I've become alert too. Thus far, we've simply been lucky. Until and unless I am able to protect him myself, I won't be able to stop worrying. It wasn't that I did not trust Terasaki-san. It was that these things could be very unpredictable and Terasaki-san was also human at the end of the day. There were limits to what he could do too.

He watched me in silence before catching me by my arm and pulling me closer. "Come here." I was greeted by a warm bear-hug. "I said that we'll work it out somehow, didn't I? I don't intend to live without you."

Oh, Shibata-kun... "What was that?" I giggled. "A proposal?"

He chuckled. "A bit too early for that. Let me get out of college and land a good job. I'll propose to you then. Don't you dare think of anyone else in between."

I surrendered myself to his kindness. "I won't."

"Good." Sharing a kiss, we settled back against the back-rest, his arm still wrapped around my shoulder. With the other hand, he played with my bracelet. A pleasant silence fell over us. I thought back to how he had walked past me on the first occasion after time had been rewritten and then to how the interactions at the café had turned out. And now, here I was, in his arms. This was nothing less of a miracle to me after having lost all this like I had.

"Akane-chan!" I heard Chiyo's voice and looked up to see her running towards me with a few flowers in her hands. Terasaki-san was right behind her. I sat up immediately.

"Where had you run off to, Chiyo?" I smiled as she came to stand in front of me.

"Cat! The cat ran into the forest!" She reported. "That's where I found these!"

"They're lovely." I mused. "We'll go home and put them in a jar with water, okay?"

She nodded vigorously. "Also, I'm hungry now."

You ran after a cat. Obviously, you would get hungry. "I'll cook as soon as we get home then."

"Yay!" She cheered.

"Wait. You all live together?" Shibata-kun asked.

"The three of us do." Terasaki-san said. "I'm in charge of her and so, she's living with me."

"Oh." Shibata frowned. He didn't look too happy about that.

"It's, um, for safety purposes and to, uh, convince my family that I'd be fine on my own." I said in an attempt to make it less awkward. "No big deal."

"Right. No. I get it." He shook his head.

Uh...

"We need to get going." Terasaki-san said.

"Alright." I stood up and urged Shibata-kun to do the same. "Let's go."

We left the shrine premises together and walked partway to an intersection from where Shibata-kun had to go his way. He kissed me and wished me good night. I saw him off with a smile. Following that, with Chiyo holding my hand and constantly talking to me and Terasaki-san quietly walking behind us, we reached home. Chiyo ran straight to the kitchen to put her flowers in a jug of water. After locking up, Terasaki-san spoke up.

"How much are you going to lie to him?"

I recoiled. Why would he bring that up?

"It isn't like I want to lie to him." I pointed out. "What good would come off of telling him the truth about the spirits and my death 15 years ago?" I asked him. His asking me that question was in itself plain cruel. "You and Agari-san are the ones who told me that he can't be a part of our world."

He stared at me but said nothing more. That annoyed me a little.

"What else am I supposed to do?"

He looked away and sighed. "You don't like lying to him."

"Of course, I do not!"

"Once your training starts, we'll have to stay at the shrine. You won't be able to meet him every day like this."

There was a sinking feeling within. "W-We'll work it out. Even if I couldn't see him every day, we'll be fine."

"Akane." He called, making me hold back further words. "I just want you to be prepared."

Prepared?

"I'll be fine, Terasaki-san."

"That's good enough." He said and looked towards the kitchen. "Dinner?"

"I'll make it now." I said.

"I'll help." He walked into the kitchen ahead of me. I took a moment to follow him.

Something felt off.