(103) Excursion

To help me take my mind off things, Shigure relented and allowed me to cross over to his side of the link to take me for a walk.

Leaving his paperwork, Shigure showed me around the tiny apartment he was living in. There was only enough space for a bed. He had been using a lap table as his desk. To use the toilet or bathroom he had to use the public baths down the road.

After leaving the room, Shimizu Ietsugu exited the apartment next door, causing the already narrow corridor to feel extremely crowded. If two people wanted to pass by each other in the corridor, they would have to literally squeeze past one another. The corridor floorboards were raw, untreated and uneven timber.

"You thought of something?" he asked Shigure.

"No, just felt like taking a walk," Shigure replied to which the scrawny rooster nodded and then flinched, staring at Shigure with suspicion. I had forgotten to contain my thoughts and Shigure had not expected my lack of control to be able to leak through the shield like that.

*"Sorry,"* I apologised to Shigure who just shrugged.

*"It's alright,"* Shigure sighed. *"He is already suspicious of us. It doesn't matter whether he heard you calling him a scrawny rooster or not. He is one. An annoying one."*

That made me giggle.

*"Come on,"* Shigure said, taking me down narrow and rickety stairs to the street below. *"Let's take a break for a bit."*

"Don't go too far and expose us," the scrawny rooster called with a disgruntled voice.

"Whatever," Shigure replied, not even bothering to turn around or wave.

On the weedy and unkempt street, I realised that this was not a very pleasant area. It didn't look safe. We walked past various buildings with closed shutters and small granny run groceries or eateries.

*"This is the low socioeconomic area of this city,"* Shigure told me. *"Most of the residents here are struggling to survive or in hiding. Some of those in hiding are actually hiding from the stress of their families, society or communities that they grew up in. Current city life is extremely stressful because there is a lot of pressure for high grades, good jobs, fitting in to one of the accepted stereotypes. In this area of the city, life is much simpler. Nobody judges or jumps to conclusions and people prefer to keep to themselves."

I listened to him talk while Shigure walked through the area and then stepped out from the relatively dark or narrow alley into a wider, more modern and well kept road that was bustling with cars and people. Shigure was swept into the stream of people on the sidewalk and took me to a bakery and then a tea shop, where he sat and drank tea while nibbling a few snacks. In a busy park, he sat under a shade to eat a crispy fish shaped pastry full of red bean paste.

He shared the taste and texture of the food with me. Mmm. Delicious. It'd be more delicious if only I could eat them myself. How nice it would be to walk hand in hand with Shigure down these streets rather than ride along with him like this. Experiencing things in a second hand manner was no where like being there in person. It just wasn't the same.

Shigure window shopped through a multi-storeyed department store with me, talking about mundane things and what souvenirs he was planning to buy for me before we left. He asked if there was anything I wanted, but nothing really caught me eye. Every now and then, we glimpsed Shimizu Ietsugu conspicuously trailing behind us, not even bothering to hide when he realised that Shigure had noticed him. Shigure rolled his eyes and sat at a grilled skewer stall savouring a stick of chicken giblets.

He was just about to get ready to leave when he caught sight of somebody in the crowd moving past. Shimizu Ietsugu had noticed the same person and their eyes met in agreement.

*"It's time for you to go back,"* Shigure told me in a gentle voice, and I felt the switch in his emotions to a business-like tone. *"You shouldn't get involved in these cases. Go back and rest. I'll take you out again when I have time."*

*"Alright,"* I mumbled, feeling disappointed that our time had been cut short. I shared a mental kiss with him and then trudged back toward my side of the link. I kept looking back but he just shooed me onwards while he focussed on his task, shielding his thoughts from me.

He was making a lot of progress with his abilities. What about me?

Upon my return to the hospital, I yawned and heaved a sigh. My nurse noticed and a weight seemed to drop from her shoulders. She came over to make sure I was comfortable, informing me I had mild electrical burns where the electrical monitors that had been attaching me to monitoring machines had somehow malfunctioned.

"You should be returning to the ward tomorrow morning if everything remains stable. Don't worry, it wasn't the hospital's negligence or anything we know for sure. There was a strange, small electrical storm in the city at that time. It affected traffic, stopped the radio, and affected a lot of electrical things out at the time. The government says it was a strange natural weather phenomenonand that they are investigating further. You are the only one who was seriously affected."

The news confused me.

Electrical storm? Natural weather phenomenon? Had I caused that?

Internally, I examined my ability centre but couldn't see any new abilities that I had developed. If that was so, then I hadn't been the cause but could it be that my loss of control could have been related to whatever caused the electrical storm? If that was true, then that wasn't very good news. I decided to file this information for Shigure to peruse and sent him a report to look at when he had a free moment.

After returning to the ward the next day, I woke during the night to find a strange little girl trying to cry silently by my bedside while she hugged a soft toy dog to her chest. Who was she and what was she doing here?