Help Line

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Chapter 4

"Boss wasn't kidding when he said it'd rain all week," I signed and peered out from under my umbrella, an absolute downpour falling from the sky. "Great, wet socks on blisters."

The little, inconspicuous business card the policeman had given me had led me back into the shopping district. I had roamed these streets for three days before getting it and had found no such place with a black square logo. So, when I came to a stop in front of a storefront which boasted soba, I squinted in confusion.

I quickly shook my head at myself though, and thought perhaps there was a backroom or second story. Even a side business perhaps.

I made a bit of a face but ducked under the tassels of the store's door and out of the rain, the smell of sesame oil and warm broth pouring out of a kitchen viewing window. There weren't many people in the restaurant, not really surprising considering the weather, with only a man and a small boy bowed over steaming bowls of hot noodle soup.

Ah, I really wanted kyay oh…

I must have made a noise or startled the boy for he looked up from his food and stared at me, eyes somehow both big and sharp with noodles dangling from his mouth.

"Hello! Welcome, what can I get you?"

I snapped to attention and looked to the voice, a little old lady smiled at me from across the counter dressed in a white apron. She hummed as I blinked dumbly before shaking myself into focus and approached with the soft clop of my heels against the floorboards.

"Hello ma'am," I greeted slowly, reaching into my blazer to pull forth the white card. "I was directed here, apparently you can assist me with my special situation."

All it took was the woman to glance at the card and the very air of her shifted, her smile stretching in a knowing and conspiratorial manner. She clasped her hands behind her back and walked around the counter before beckoning me with a nod of her head towards a plain doorway.

"Come, I'll get you set up," she said and I silently followed the command, mind too muddled to refuse.

"Obaa-san," the man from the counter called lowly, his face concealed behind a newspaper.

"In you go, I'll be with you in a moment."

I nodded and walked further down a narrow hall into another room containing a desk with two chairs and what looked like a make-shift photo booth in the corner. A long breath left me as I sat down, crossing my legs out of nervousness and clasping my hands on my lap to keep them from fiddling. My messenger bag leant against the legs of the chair, it's strap looped around my foot - a habit I had formed early on in high school.

The door to the room opened and the woman tottered in wordlessly. She pulled the chair opposite me and sat down with a huff like her bones themselves wheezed at the lossesing pressure.

"So, young lady, you're having paper troubles?" she asked, though it sounded more like a statement. She must have taken my momentary silence as surprise, for as she picked up a pair of large circle-lens glasses and put them on, she said, "You wouldn't have been sent here otherwise."

"Ah," I uttered flatly, "Yes, that's my current situation."

"No problem, we can deal with it easily. We're used to helping people around here," she assured, "Do you have any sort of identification already?"

"Yes," I answered quickly, digging through my pockets before I pulled out both my student ID and learner's driver's license. "This is all I have currently."

"Hm," the woman pursed her lips and looked them over, flipping the pieces to check the fine printing at the back. "These are good."

"...Thank you," I uttered.

She nodded and placed them back down to slide them back across the table to me. Her hand fell away and opened a drawer to pull out a reasonable stack of forms held together with a staple, presenting them to me.

"Fill these out for me please, it shouldn't take you more than ten minutes."

"Okay," I conceded and felt for the pen in my breast pocket, adjusting my glasses with my other hand. "Thank you."

"I'll be back soon," she said and left me in the room again.

I thinned my lips but began reading, pushing down the stress of seeing kanji out of the corner of my eyes as I flipped over the header page. It seemed like pretty standard stuff; full name, sex, birthdate, nationality, criminal history, illnesses/disability, place of residence, next of kin. I filled it out without much incident, hesitating at places like residence and occupation. The later had me concerned for a moment, but the memory of Boss Yamamoto waving from the restaurant door while the little Yamamoto bounced behind him brought a hesitant smile and I scribbled down 'restaurant server'.

My name and signature were required on a few other pages along with phone number and birthdate, but eventually, I was finished. All that was left was a profile shot.

I had enough time to review what I had put down to make sure I understood everything before the old woman returned, a paler tint to her complexion that I didn't have time to ponder on as she took the forms back and ushered me to stand in the makeshift photo booth and look straight ahead.

On autopilot, I cracked a thin smile towards the camera and the woman took a shot with a loud snapping of the shutter. She appraised it for a moment, adjusting her large glasses and squinting, before giving a terse nod.

"Everything should be ready by tomorrow morning. Come back at 11am, no earlier."

I nodded mutely and grabbed my bag, feeling as if she was ushering me out even without her so much as glancing at me while sorting away my documents. I stepped out to the shop front again and rubbed my nape with a sigh, glancing to my watch for a moment; 3:53pm.

I'd need to find another place to stay the night, and start thinking about if I can afford dinner. I should sit down tonight and start rationing out my finances, I'm not sure how long they'll last at this rate.

A slight sigh slipped out of me but I shook my head and stood straight, "No time for that. First order of business: a base for the night."

My heels clicked and dug into my bandages as I reached the door, rain still pouring down outside. I pursed my lips at it, before reaching into my bag- I turned around sharply and stared down at the little boy who stood behind me, head tilted back to let big, black eyes examine me from his height.

I blinked, slow to digest the fact that he was that close when I knew he was just at the counter.

"Hello," I uttered "How are you?"

Ah, yes, the reflex response.

The little boy - gosh, was there a high concentration of children in this town or am I just running into all of them? - stared unblinkingly, and a humorous part of me likened it to downloading information, before he made a noise in the back of his throat.

"Who are you?" he demanded, pointing a fist at me, which still tightly grasped his chopsticks.

"Mary Smith."

His eyes narrowed immediately like he didn't believe a word I said, but he didn't call me out on any suspicions.

"...Who are you?" I asked after an elongated moment of silent staring.

The boy tilted his chin up and puffed his chest slightly, like he had been waiting for the question.

"I am Hibari Kyoya. This is my town." He said this like it was a universal truth.

I was...not sure how to respond to that.

"Very well," I nodded, adjusting my glasses when they slipped from looking down. "...It's a nice town. You're doing a good job."

Is this what he wanted to hear? Was I free to go now?

It wasn't a lie though. Namimori was proving to be a nice if not a too welcoming town. At the very least, I could say it would be among my top choices of towns to be irreparably and irretrievably lost in.

Hibari's eye widened a fraction before they creased into slight slits, mouth pursed into a small, smug quirk.

"Namimori is the greatest town."

"...I can't disagree," I responded carefully, sparing the man with the newspaper a glance.

He was very invested in the same page from fifteen minutes ago. But perhaps he got distracted or was a slow reader. Either way, he didn't seem interested in saving me from his child.

"Well, it was nice meeting you, Hibari-san," I smiled, inclining my head politely. "Perhaps I'll see you around your town."

"Very likely," he huffed and I pulled my smile to stay on my face as I ducked out the door and let my figure be swallowed by the rain.

"The kids here are weird," I whined softly to myself, clutching my umbrella close to my body.

Getting that out of my system, I stood straighter and began the journey of finding another cheap hotel for the night. Eventually, with soggy socks and a runny nose, I found a place and booked the smallest room for five nights - there was a discount and I needed every blessing I could get.

My shoes made a 'click! Click!' as I walked through the halls towards my room, key jangling in my one hand and phone in the other as I made my hourly, desperate search for any sort of activity or reboot. I refreshed login pages and checked contacts; still nothing.

A door opened just as I passed and I sent the man in his boxers and singlet a sideways glance. Our eyes met for a split second before his face washed of any living colour and he slammed the door shut, at least three locks sliding into place.

I blinked and walked a bit faster, slightly perturbed.

The room I found myself in was, as expected, quite cramped. It must have been a storage room at one point, which had then been renovated for housing. Nonetheless, it fitted my needs, and even if I repeatedly knocked my elbow into the shower knobs and stubbed my toe on the bedframe, it was more than I'd expect to get on a deal of the equivalent of $18 per night for five nights.

I sighed as I set myself down on the edge of my bed, damp towel around my shoulders and my hair dripping off after washing out the rain.

My newly purchased socks were hanging off the foot of the bed, near a radiator which warmed the small room well. I tried not to look at the ankles, which were beginning to discolour, and instead reached into my bag to plaster on fresh bandaids over burst blisters.

I should buy some different shoes...but did I have the money to spend on that? I had even skipped dinner that night.

I sighed and slumped on my side, knees drawn up to my chest as I stared at the far wall unseeingly. There was a moment of stillness, before I huffed loudly and smothered my face into my arms, listening to the rain strike the window and pull at the trees.

My feet pulsed and stung from the abuse, my stomach began to complain and nudge for dinner. The box in my head strained from all that I had crammed into it over these days.

...I'll buy some cheap, plastic flats from a sale section, or something.

I turned my eyes to the ceiling and cracked a weak smile. There, one problem solved. I'll think about the others after a quick nap…

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I ended up sitting cross legged on the bed at roughly three in the morning, my bladder waking me up and the walk down to the communal toilets and bathroom finishing what it had started. My computer was split with a calculator, internet page and an excel sheet, the light hanging overhead a clinical white that made the paper I was writing on periodically glare.

I pushed up my glasses and rubbed my eyes, a low groan bubbling in my throat as I reluctantly reduced the finances for food and moved the spare to the NTT phone bill. The more I looked at the numbers the more hopeless I felt, the finite nature of my resources laid out for all to see.

"Joyous," I sighed, moving a sliver more money into the Emergency Money slot.

There was a pulsing in the back of my head that I couldn't quite call a headache. It lingered and the pulsing accelerated and slowed in a pattern I didn't understand, but for the most part, I could shrug it off and focus on on the excel sheet, occasionally looking up command tutorials.

I winced and leant back, my back aching from being hunched over my laptop for an hour, the clock lurching into 4am and my legs tingling as I stretched them out. I flopped back onto the bed and curled around the pillow, loud thuds coming from the rooms around me until I plugged in my headphones and turned up the music on my phone.

"I'm too little for this stress," I whined to make myself feel better, before setting an alarm for 9am and tried to get some more sleep.

I didn't notice the light tapping at the small window above the bed, a disembodied mask pressed against the glass. A breath of condensation fogged the glass by it's closed lips.

I pushed my face into the pillow as the pulsing in my head beat like a racing heart. I just hoped it would go away with rest and a meal.