Meiko wakes up around nine in the morning.
I'm dozing on the floor with my back against the bed when I hear her stir. She sits up and stays there for a moment, looking around the room with slightly lost eyes. Her feet find the floor and she looks at them for a second before standing.
Looks like she hasn't noticed me yet.
With that, she heads to the bathroom Shizuka showed her last night. I hear the tap turn on and off, and she's in there for a while. When she comes back her eyes are a little red, but she isn't crying.
I have the water hot, so I set a cup of tea on the small table before she sits down.
"Here."
"...Thank you."
She takes it with both hands and holds it without drinking.
From upstairs comes the sound of Shizuka moving around in her room, and from the street the noise of a few cars passing. That's all there is.
"Arata-san..."
"Mm?"
"What do I... do now?"
She says those words without lifting her eyes.
I think about it for a moment before answering, because telling her "we'll figure it out" wouldn't do her much good. She looks like someone who needs a purpose.
"For now you drink the tea. Then you have breakfast when Shizuka comes down. And after that... aren't you curious? You've got a lot of things ahead of you."
"A lot of... things?"
She looks up, and as some life comes back into her pupils, she takes the first sip from the cup.
Right then, Shizuka's footsteps come down the stairs. She appears in the living room with her blond hair half tangled and still in her chick pajamas, spots Meiko awake, and trots over to look at her forehead up close.
"You're up! Mm, good, nothing wrong with the stitches. Does it hurt?"
"A little..."
"That's normal. After breakfast I'll change the gauze, okay? Here, these are for the pain."
She pulls a small packet with two pills from her pajama pocket and sets it on the table beside the cup, and without waiting for an answer she's already in the kitchen making noise with pans.
"I'm making toast and eggs! What do you want, Arata-chan?"
"Whatever's fine."
I want blood.
"Okay!"
The three of us have breakfast at the kitchen table. Shizuka does most of the talking, and Meiko listens while eating her toast in small pieces. I eat without saying much.
Every now and then Meiko turns her head toward me, for a second or two, and then looks back at her plate.
After breakfast Shizuka changes the gauze on the couch, talking the whole time, and Meiko holds still without complaining even though she clenches her teeth a couple of times.
When she finishes, Shizuka goes to shower, and the living room goes quiet again.
Meiko rests her hands in her lap and looks at the floor.
I get up to take my cup to the kitchen, and when I turn around at the sink, Meiko is right behind me.
Uhum! That startled me a little.
Without a word, she'd followed me like a ghost.
She stands there looking at the kitchen window with her hands in front of her.
I lean back against the sink and watch her with a small smile.
We stay like that for a while, until Shizuka comes downstairs ready to leave. Her bag hangs from her shoulder and her hair is up in a high ponytail.
"I'll be back at six, Meiko-chan. There's stuff in the fridge for lunch, and my number's on the paper on the table."
"Yes, thank you."
"Arata-chan, stay a little longer, okay?"
"Of course."
She winks at me and leaves, closing the door behind her.
Meiko goes to the couch and I sit on the one beside it. The clock on the wall ticks, and outside the street carries the sounds of people talking and footsteps, though I think I'm the only one who can hear it with my enhanced senses.
After a while, she speaks.
"Arata-san, are you leaving soon?"
"Once Shizuka gets back to keep you company. I have things to take care of."
I can't let those parasytes go. They've probably already figured out that two members of their group were found and killed. In that case, some will want to run and regroup somewhere else, while others who feel secure enough in their human integration won't care either way.
Either way, I won't let any of them get away.
"Ah..."
"Heh. Though I'll be back tonight to stay over. Maybe we play cards?"
"Really?"
"Umu."
She nods and the corners of her mouth lift slightly. A second later her hand moves across the couch and comes to rest on my arm, two fingers on the sleeve.
She probably didn't realize she did it.
In the sunlight coming a little more through the window, Meiko doesn't want to let go of me.
***
I leave Shizuka's apartment a little after six in the evening, when she gets back from her university, and as I head down the building stairs I start activating the All-Seeing Eyes.
I make eleven in total and scatter them across the area, on street corners, utility poles, and building windows. Most of them show nothing unusual, just people heading home, some drunk on the sidewalk, and two kids playing in a park.
But three of the eyes catch something that pulls my attention.
On the eye at the utility pole on the south street, a middle-aged man is walking north at a very steady pace. At the hardware store corner to the east, a woman carrying a grocery bag is moving in the same direction. At the apartment building on the west avenue, a young man comes out through the side door and heads north too.
They aren't together and they aren't close to each other, but all three keep a similar pace and are heading the same way.
I leave the building and start following them from a distance, using the eyes to keep track without getting too close.
The emotional frequency leaking off all three and hitting my eyes feels flat. That isn't normal for a human. Though maybe they're just tired.
No. I don't think that's it.
Because it's the same as the parasytes I've seen through the eyes.