At first, fleeting images. Light spilling down through a green canopy. The scattered sound of birdsong. Her big sister's hand holding hers, warm and strong and safe. A bear, walking at her side, nuzzling her free hand, licking her fingers, making her laugh.

And the town, nestled down in the valley far below them, surrounded by yellow squares of shimmering grain: little brown houses with their red roofs, thin blue tendrils of smoke rising from scattered chimneys.

Hovering like some unseen spirit, I looked down upon them, those two little girls walking hand-in-hand down from the mountains. Sometimes Koishi's memories flowed before me as though I was the audience to a play, and at other times I saw things through her eyes, felt them through her skin. I suppose that if I'd been a satori, I could have controlled it. As it was, I shifted back and forth, seemingly at random, now a ghost haunting her steps, now a ghost trapped within her body. But however I saw things, the flood of emotion that poured through me was the same; such raw, violent emotion that I could barely stand it. I struggled against it, but that just made things worse. Eventually I let go, and somehow that was easier. But as I let go I forgot who I was and where I was, and all I knew was the life that dragged me along with it.

Streets now instead of paths, houses instead of trees. And people where once there had only been animals...

It wasn't long before townspeople approached and asked them the sort of questions usually asked of little girls who look like they're lost. Where did you come from? Where are your parents?

The two just smiled and shook their heads. They didn't know anything about themselves except their names: Satori and Koishi.

It was a strange situation, everyone agreed, but like every mystery there were people who were sure they knew the answer to it. The girls were obviously the children of hermits or wandering charcoal-burners or of a violated nun who had fled into the mountains to hide her disgrace and had raised them there alone. But they were such beautiful children, and so well-behaved and serious, that soon the only question anyone asked was who was going to be the ones to take them in.

That honour finally fell to the Komeiji family, the richest family of the town, and so Koishi and Satori, the two little daughters of hermits or charcoal burners or that disgraced nun, came to live with them in their mansion, alongside their own son and daughter.

The sisters proved to be voraciously curious about everything around them, especially other people. They watched and they learned, and soon it was as if they had always lived here in this little town, the pretty and popular younger Komeiji sisters.

Fingers, drawn across a row of lacy and petticoated dresses, each more beautiful than the last; fingers, drawn along the smooth coolness of black and white ivory, the keys of a piano, as she sat on her stepmother's lap, learning how to play; fingers, as she lifted a delicately iced cupcake to her hungry mouth, gazing up at the elegantly dressed adults crowding her parent's rose garden.

Koishi's elegant fingers, hers and for a moment my own as well.

As the girls matured their powers slowly revealed themselves. First Satori and then Koishi developed the ability to see into the hearts and minds of others. To begin with, it was only surface emotions that they could read, then came flashes and scattered images of what people were thinking. The sisters delighted in their new game, but it was a guilty, furtive one. They kept it secret from everyone but each other, even their adopted parents, for they knew instinctively that such abilities should not to be revealed to others.

Koishi's powers grew quickly, catching up to her older sister's, surpassing them.

Even more than the prestige and wealth of their adoptive family, the sisters' ability to read minds and emotions gave them ascendency over all the other children. But the games they played and the plans they made were childish ones, and they were always careful to hide what they knew, giggling with each other under the covers late at night as they shared the secret shames and hopes of their friends and enemies.

"Tetsuko was staring at your new dress, Koishi. Red was pouring from her like fire. She hates that mom bought the last one for you. She was saving up her money for it."

"I won't wear it around her anymore then, onee-san." A giggle. "Hey, hey. Akihiko likes you, doesn't he? He wants to marry you. It's all he thinks about when you're nearby."

Satori gave an annoyed snort. "I know. It's gross. He's such a little kid. Did you see what he was imagining we would do? Holding hands in bed?"

She grabbed Koishi's hand, making her gasp.

"Oh no, no!" squealed the younger girl, struggling to pull herself free. "Onee-san, don't! I'll get pregnant!"

They quickly became even more popular than they had already been. Everyone in the town spoke of the Komeiji sisters as blessed and destined for greatness, even those who envied them.

As they developed into adulthood and their adolescent emotions grew in intensity, so too did their powers. It was then, alongside the other changes in their pubescent bodies, that their third eyes appeared. The two girls were horrified at first as the little round organs pushed their way out of their chests from where they had grown nestled embryonic beside their hearts, the eyes' slender tendrils lifting from their limbs and twisting lovingly around their wrists and ankles: but horror was quickly replaced by joy and exhilaration at the effortless with which they could now read even the long-forgotten memories of others and make them see whatever they wished.

The Komeiji sisters knew then, truly, that they were different from everyone else.

But with their new powers came pain. As children, playing childish games, they'd never experienced serious negative emotions. Now, as young adults, in an adult world, such thoughts pressed in upon them from every side. A child who loses a friend will cry, but a young woman who loses a lover will hate. The old games they used to play, the old plans they made, became more serious, the dreams and thoughts they read darker.

It was Satori's relationship with the son of the family that brought about the crisis. The two had been close ever since they'd been children, and recently that closeness had developed into intimacy. The relationship was discovered by their friends long before their step-parents knew anything about it. Even with her powers, Satori could not keep it secret, could not make jealous hearts bless their relationship, especially not the jealous heart of her little sister.

The emerald-green macaw shivered his feathers and leaned down to preen a wing. Koishi tried to tempt him with a fly she'd caught, but he ignored her.

"Onee-san?"

"Mm?" Satori was in front of the mirror, slender hands playing with her ribbon. It was a nervous habit of hers. Koishi had started to hate it. It always meant one thing.

"Again?" whispered her sister.

Satori sighed, but didn't turn around. She untied the ribbon for the umpteenth time.

"We've talked about this," she said.

Koishi looked into the dark eyes of the macaw. It opened its beak in a yawn. She let go of the fly, which spiralled away.

Satori, hearing no response, turned on her little sister. "You hate him, don't you?"

Koishi shrugged. She put the macaw back on his perch and sat down on her bed next to her tortoiseshell cat, Tama.

"I can feel it," said Satori.

"No you can't," whispered Koishi. "I know you can't. I don't let you."

Fingers, trailing across the soft fur between the cat's ears. The pain in her chest, not from her heart, but from her third eye, hiding there, buried within her.

"Tetsuko loves him, you know."

Satori spun around, her eyes flashing. "Never mention that bitch's name to me again!" She spat the words, half-bitten, from her lips.

"She hates you," said Koishi, staring at the wall. "She hates me, too. Lots of people hate us."

Satori's fingers were trembling as she lifted the ribbon to her hair again. "I hate them, too," she whispered. "I hate them, too."

The popularity the two girls had always enjoyed began to sour. People began to speak again of their strange origin and shared stories of the unusual events that always seemed to happen around the two girls.

It was hardest for Koishi. She had been so small when they had come to the town, been so dependent on her sister, and on the love of others, that now that love had ceased to flow, or worse, been transmuted to hatred and fear, she was overwhelmed. Hurting, she found she could no longer shut off her ability. Every negative thought and emotion speared into her as if she were surrounded by a forest of blades that cut her in whatever direction she moved. She grew fearful, and angry, and slowly withdrew from everyone, including her sister. She stayed in her room, played with her pets, lay on the bed and stared up at the ceiling hour after hour, trying to shut out the tide of emotion that poured into her from every direction, like the beating waves of an incessant sea.

Their step-parents, being rich and powerful, did their best to shield the girls from the worst of the hostility and to keep the worst of the rumours under control. For a long time they were successful.

Then one winter they died from a mysterious illness that was spreading throughout the town. Many died from it, even those who were healthy and strong. One day it claimed the eldest son as well. He died in Satori's arms.

Satori and Koishi were the only ones in the village not affected by it, their immortal youkai bodies immune from the trifling maladies of humans. No one spoke now of the Komeiji sisters as being blessed. Rather, they were shunned.

They inherited much of their step-parents wealth, but it did little to help them. It only made their situation worse, as it raised the anger of the younger daughter. She had long resented the two girls, especially after Satori and the older brother had become close. In those final hours of his life it had been Satori's name her brother had called, Satori's hand he had held. The resentment festered into hate.

Satori, heartbroken, fell back again into the arms of her younger sister and the two withdrew from everyone else. They no longer left the house, instead spent all the time with their beloved pets, from whom love spilled endlessly and in whose hearts there was no bitter taint of envy or hate.

They never found out who set fire to the house in the end. Was it Tetsuko, the girl whose heart Satori had so often broken? A fearful townsperson? The step-sister? Whoever it was, one night the mansion was enveloped in a conflagration. Satori woke to find the house filled with smoke. She roused Koishi and the two fled. But their pets had been left behind and Koishi, ignoring the shouts of her sister, plunged back into the house even as the façade collapsed behind her.

The smoke was acrid in Koishi's mouth and eyes and tears flowed not only from her eyes but from her nose and mouth as well. She was almost blind, her sight a jumble of black and grey, all seen through a haze of boiling tears. The house she had known almost all her life, the rooms she had played hide-and-seek in, had become a maze of hideous smoke and heat.

As she ran she stumbled over something unseen on the ground and threw her hands out to stop herself from falling. They touched a wall. Hot as a stove-top it burned her and she screamed.

She jerked her hands away, scrubbing them together, crying at the pain. She felt the skin lifting off from her palms, the pain intensifying, and something wet, spilling from her as the tears did. And yet she could do nothing else but rub, even though the pain got worse, as she stumbled onwards through the billowing smoke.

There. The yowling of a frightened animal. Her cat, Tama.

She rushed headlong into the grey nothingness. Breathing burned her now. She thought Tama must be in the corridor that led to her room, but she couldn't make it out. She turned a corner - or was it doorway? - and blinked at the angry red and orange light that splashed immediately over her, light that carried with it unbearable heat.

Fire. She was surrounded by fire.

She thought she saw the flicker of a shadow, a tail, a panicked silhouette glimpsed against the flames on the other side of the room.

"Tama!"

She ran after it headlong, not caring, ignoring the waves of heat that had become the unseen walls of this new hellish maze.

She burst into her room. It was like stepping into a grotto in hell itself. Smoke blossomed from the broiling carpet, sheets of flame hung where the curtains had been, the walls behind them undulating like the skin of a snake being boiled alive.

There. On her bed. A bristling shadow. Her cat, screeching, his tail straight up in the air.

She forced herself through the heat to him. Panicked, he leaped from the bed straight into the flames that were coursing over the walls.

"Tama!'

Sobbing in despair, she turned to flee, but there was nowhere now that wasn't a cage of heat. She stumbled forward, blind, the tears in her eyes steaming.

Something flew past her head, a fireball of green and orange.

Her macaw, on fire.

It was too much now. She felt her skin lifting from her. The heat had transmuted beyond heat and into something else, some other grotesque sensation, reaching right around reality to a glacial coldness.

Screaming. It was her voice. Powder was falling onto her chest. Her hair.

For a moment the smoke cleared. She saw something strange on the wall before her. A cross of living red light, like a cage, the squares between it glistening like water.

It was a window. The metal pane incandescent; the glass, molten. Behind it, escape.

She reached out for it and the glass spilled over her hands like a liquid.

Then the universe collapsed, all sound and light gone in an instant.

The next day, as rain finally extinguished the fire, Satori found the body of her little sister among the smouldering ashes, surrounded by the bodies of her beloved pets she had tried to save.

Satori lifted her up. Koishi had always been small, but now she weighed barely anything at all. She carried her through the township, the townspeople watching in silence. I felt their fear, as Satori must have, washing over her, a fear mixed with hate.

But far worse than the fear was the triumphant joy surging in the hearts of many.

Following the same road that the two girls had come down so many years ago, Satori carried Koishi up into the mountains. Lions and bears and tannuki and other animals came out of the forest and began to follow her, a little funeral procession.

Eventually she came to a meadow fed by a mountain stream. There she stopped and with her bare hands began to dig a grave for her sister.

As she dug, a deer approached Koishi's body and licked her face. She coughed.

She wasn't dead.

It took weeks for Koishi's body to regenerate. With every day her body grew stronger, but her mind remained closed. Only the animals seemed to be able to reach her inside the prison she had made for herself. She would stroke them and murmur to them as they anointed her burnt and broken body with their affectionate tongues.

And all the while the horrible injustice of it all fermented in Satori's heart.

One day, in the little town, a strange thing happened. Satori came walking down from the mountains, just as she had all those years earlier. This time, however, she was alone.

Night had fallen. The rain that had begun the morning after the fire had still not abated. Everyone in the town was inside their homes, fearful of the dark skies and of the shadows of the mountains in a way they had never been frightened before.

They felt her before they saw her. Something out in the wet darkness. The braver came to the windows of their houses, peered out into the rain.

They knew it was her, the tiny figure that walked so calmly through the rain-filled streets. She looked straight ahead, not stopping until she came to the town centre. There she stood, the rain falling about her like a halo.

The bravest of the townsfolk came out, then, but they were still too frightened to approach her. They stood ringed around the square, watching, waiting.

Lightning flashed, and it was then that they saw Satori's third eye for the first time. It squirmed from inside her blouse, its tendrils writhing. Ever hidden until then, its appearance caused panic.

But it was too late for any to escape. The eye opened, the light that spilled from it as bright as if a star had descended upon the town.

The gates of hell opened along with it.

Such was the vengeance of Satori. There was no one now who doubted that she and Koishi had been youkai. Many were driven mad by the hideous things that they saw that endless night and ran raving into the wilderness. Even those who survived with their minds damaged but unbroken soon joined them, taking what little possessions they could carry and abandoning the town as cursed. They fled in every direction and took with them the story of the terrifying satori, the youkai who knew everyone's secrets and could make real the darkness hidden in people's hearts.

From then on Satori and Koishi lived together in the mountains with their animals. They soon encountered the other youkai who made the wilderness their home: the tengu, oni, kitsune and tanuki, and quickly established a peaceful though cold relationship with them. Youkai no more than humans desire to have the secret language of their hearts read, after all.

And Koishi. After the fire she was no longer withdrawn; she was simply no longer there. The whole of her body had regenerated but her third eye remained shut. Having had her ability to read minds taken from her as she healed, Koishi had felt a peace she had never felt before, the peace of the death of the ego. She clung to this nothingness, as once she had clung to her sister, and her eye never reopened.

She began to wander the forest, spending long periods by herself in some unknown place. Out of view from Satori, she simply ceased to be. She was a ghost, an invisible one, silent except for the soft footfalls that Satori sometimes heard late at night deep in the forest.

I saw other things, then. Their migration to Former Hell, their taking over of the Palace of the Earth Spirits, the crisis with Okuu and the arrival of the intruders from the upper world. But it was hard to make any of it out. Koishi walked through it all as if in a dream. Instead of the blazing emotions I had felt at the beginning, there was just nothing. It was a cold, alien feeling, like being encased naked in ice, a waking, living death. I began to panic, fearing that I would never escape it, that I was doomed to be stuck forever here until I, too, faded into a ghost.

Terrified, I struggled desperately against the freezing darkness, clawing my way out of it as from a funeral-shroud. My conscious mind slowly ebbed back and at last I woke, sweating and shivering, to find myself crouching in a room somewhere, my arms around a cool, smooth body.

Where was I?

Then I remembered. Oh yes, I'd found Koishi.

But wasn't that a thousand years ago?

Koishi hadn't moved. She was still holding the mask. I hugged her closer, spoke to her, kissed her hair, but she didn't move.

Was she dead?

Maybe she'd always been dead.

I felt ready to cry, that burning pressure in the corners of my eyes. I hadn't cried during the reliving of her life, even at the moments of her greatest pain. My soul had cried, but not my body, which had been kept separate from it.

And even now, for whatever reason, I couldn't. Perhaps I'd been driven too far across to the other side, across the divide that separates human experience from that bleak shore where Koishi now resided, where everything is numbness. I crumbled as though the props that kept me together as a person, as a personality, had been swept away. I crumbled, an avalanche of bleeding pity, and I crushed her to me, pitying her, loving her, wanting her to wake up from her nightmare.

My fingers fell on the smooth surface of the mask. I traced the indentations of its benevolent, monk-like features.

Hope. Maybe Satori was right. Hope was a risky emotion, and it wasn't a promise. Only a person could make a promise to another. For hope to be true, it couldn't just be believed in: it had to be given.

I squeezed myself closer to her, brushed the hair from around her ears.

"It's okay, Koishi," I said. "I believe you're still in there, somewhere. I have to believe it. I... I just don't have anything else."

My fingers trembled as I brought them close to her third eye once more. Maybe if I touched it, it would take me back to her, to that empty, dark, freezing place where she had fled to. I feared that place like one fears hell, and yet I was afraid of losing her more.

Doomed to roam as a ghost with Koishi in that wasteland of her heart, forever. A living hell, but one I would share with her. With the one I loved.

My fingertips touched the cool smoothness of the eye's skin.

Nothing.

So I was locked out, then. Forever.

It was then that I finally began to cry. I'd cried before, many times, of course, but never like this. It was like some weird catharsis, a pouring out of a mixture of tangled emotions, but it didn't make me feel better. Maybe there was just too much inside me. Maybe there was just no end to it.

My tears poured down my face and I felt Koishi's hair growing wet from them. I felt ashamed, then, and I turned my face away. Tears, dislodged from my cheeks, spattered on her naked shoulder.

Her skin shivered where they touched her.

I'd imagined it, of course. I swept the moisture from her with the tips of my fingers and her skin shivered again.

"Koishi?" I whispered.

My tears had stopped. Was there nothing left, or was it from my surprise? I hugged her again.

Her skin felt warmer.

I parted the hair at the back of her neck, brought my lips against the bareness there. I don't know why I did it. I guess I just wanted to be closer to her than I was right then. My lips brushed across her skin, felt the round hardness of her spine beneath it.

She shivered again. This time I knew I hadn't imagined it.

It was like I'd breathed something into her. I pulled away, not daring to breathe, my heart frozen mid-beat.

Koishi stirred. She turned her head and looked at me. She was crying, tears glistening in twin trails down her cheeks.

Hope. I feared it more than death at that moment.

But then her lips parted and she said something. It was the ghost of a whisper, but unmistakeable.

My name.

I cried out then and threw my arms around her neck and pulled her to me. I didn't care then that she was stark naked, her small breasts pushing up against my chest. All I knew was that she had said my name, that she was back. Her body was no longer that pitiful, lifeless thing.

"Koishi," I said. "Koishi, Koishi." I nuzzled my face into her neck.

"It was raining," she said.

I pulled away and stared at her. "Raining?"

She nodded. Her eyes, red with her tears, were wide with amazement. "It was cold and dark. Then I felt something warm around me, something wet on my shoulder, on my chest. It was so strange. I thought it must be raining." She lifted her fingers to her eyes. "Water, falling from my eyes." She looked at the moistened tips of her fingers and then back to me. "Tears?"

She said the word as though asking me if it was the right one.

I nodded. My own tears began again. "Yes, tears."

Koishi brought her fingers to my eyes. "It wasn't rain I felt. It was your tears." She lowered her gaze, shivered. "You're crying. Because of me. I hurt you, didn't I?"

I pulled her closer to me. "It doesn't matter anymore."

"I'm sorry," she said.

"You don't have to be," I told her. "It wasn't your fault."

"I was frightened," she whispered. "I'm still frightened."

"I know," I said. "I am too." I lifted her chin, looked into those glistening green eyes. "But with you I don't feel it quite so much anymore."

"You came back for me," said Koishi, disbelief in her voice. "You came all this way to find me, even after I hurt you. Why?"

All this way. I knew she wasn't just talking about Former Hell.

"I never used to care about being alone," I said. "Until I met you." I stumbled over the words. All of a sudden they seemed to have lost the power to express what I was feeling. "Doesn't everyone want to be with the one they love?"

"You... love me?" Her voice was a whisper.

I felt rawer then than any other time of my life. But I had to say it. It was a crime not to say it. We'd seen too much of each other, felt too much. Being dishonest seemed insulting, ludicrous, a mortal, damning sin.

"I love you, Koishi," I said.

"I..." Koishi lowered her gaze. I thought she'd become suddenly ashamed of her nakedness, but that wasn't it at all. "I've forgotten so much. But I think... I think I remember this feeling."

"Koishi?"

She raised her head. Her face in the fleeting moment she had looked down had undergone a transformation. It was as if a totally different person was now looking at me.

She was smiling. It wasn't that half- smile she'd so often worn before, or even that joyful ghost of a smile I'd glimpsed in the playground. It was her true one, revealed to me at last.

At that moment she looked beyond beautiful, the living personification of innocent happiness.

"This... this warmth." She took my hands and placed them against her chest. "Like a fluttering bird in my chest when I think of you. It's love, isn't it?" Her smile deepened. "I love you, don't I?"

I crumbled then, weeping, and Koishi held of me, lowered my head onto her bare lap. The warmth and smoothness of her body felt so safe. Her fingers stroked my hair: shy, tentative at first, but then steadier, as she remembered. Her touch calmed me. But still I cried.

I cried because I remembered what happiness was.

After I grew calmer, Koishi helped me out of my clothes and took me into her bed. We lay there under the covers together, our bodies flush, our arms wrapped around each other, so close it was as if we were trying to meld into one. Even with her gorgeous warm nakedness in my embrace, nothing happened. Our emotions were still too raw for either of us to do anything that first time.

We clung to each other like we feared the cold.

In her arms I felt safe and loved and the pain of all that had happened this night began to seem far away. I was a little frightened, though, by the intensity of what I was feeling, and what I could feel from Koishi as well. Her third eye was sandwiched between us, but it no longer disturbed me. It was just part of Koishi, after all, as soft and warm as the rest of her, and love flowed forth from it, a love so palpable it was almost a visible thing.

The smile had not left Koishi's face. Her eyes were still swollen from tears, her platinum hair a confused mass of locks and tangles.

She was so beautiful.

I knew then that she was asleep. I snuggled up against her and felt the sudden weight of everything that had happened begin to lift from me as it was replaced by the heaviness of sleep. I closed my eyes at last, unwillingly, wanting to look at her still, but my body would not let me.

I'd almost succumbed when I felt the mattress shift under the weight of something and felt a hot, wet tongue on my cheek.

I opened my eyes. A beautiful face, with long, dark lashes, staring at me.

The okapi.

He dipped his head and licked Koishi's face as well, then turned and went back to the bottom of the bed, circled three times, curled up and closed his eyes.

I sighed. He loved her too.

I already had a rival.

"Onee-san! Onee-san! Wake up! Wake up!"

It was Mia's voice.

What was she doing down here? Had she come looking for me and somehow found her way down to Former Hell? I jerked up in bed, ready with a flood of explanations for why I was asleep down here, next to a naked girl, in her bed.

I opened my eyes. It was my own bed I was in. Koishi was nowhere to be seen.

I was home.

"Onee-san?"

"What's the matter?" I asked, sitting up and rubbing my eyes.

"You wouldn't wake up," said Mia. "I was starting to get worried." She was dressed in her school uniform. She often came to say goodbye to me before going to school.

She leaned down to kiss me and I hugged her. Then she swung her bag over her shoulder and hurried to the door, but stopped and turned back to look at me, a curious look on her face.

"Onee-san?"

"Hmmm?"

"Sorry for waking you up."

"Why?"

She smiled. "You looked so happy. We're you having a nice dream?"

I brought my fingers to my mouth as I felt the edges of my lips turn up in an involuntary smile.

"No," I said. "Not a dream."

Mia was amazed to see me waiting for her outside her school when it finished, but the surprised disbelief on her face was quickly replaced by delight. She said goodbye to her friends and skipped up to me.

"Onee-san! You came to pick me up?"

I nodded as I hugged her. "I was bored hanging around at home," I said.

As we walked home Mia was quiet, deep in thought. Usually, after school, there was no way to stop a flood of information from her about everything that had happened during the day. I'd always enjoyed it, since for so long it'd been the only little window I'd had out into the real world. But now she was silent.

We were passing the zoo and the shrine when she stopped and turned to me. "Something happened to you last night, didn't it, onee-san?"

I nodded. I must have blushed as well, since Mia began to grin.

"I think I know what," she said.

I arched my eyebrows. "And what's that?"

There was a mischievous glint in her eyes. "You met Koishi again."

I shrugged, embarrassed.

We started to walk again. A few moments later she said, "Onee-san, you're in love with Koishi, aren't you?"

It was my turn to stop then. I looked at Mia, my heart beating rapidly. "What do you mean?"

My little sister's expression was suddenly serious. It seemed so adult and so out of place on her childish face that despite my nervousness I couldn't help but feel my heart melt at the adorable sight.

"I know you like other girls," she said to me, matter-of-fact. "You do, right?"

I nodded dumbly. There was no point trying to lie now. "Pretty weird, huh?"

Mia looked at me in surprise. "No. Why should it be?"

I stared at her. She was right. Why should it be?

"Well, I think Koishi is really nice," Mia continued. "She's a good match for you."

I couldn't stop the smile from appearing on my face. Mia was being so earnest about the whole thing. But then I sighed.

"I'd like her to be my girlfriend," I admitted. "But I'm not sure how she feels. We haven't talked about it, yet."

"Don't let her get away," said Mia, suddenly fierce. "Or I won't forgive you."

"Yes ma'am," I said.

We waited at the pedestrian crossing directly across from the zoo. I was turning a lot of things over in my mind and not really paying attention, so it took me a while to notice that Mia was pulling on my sleeve.

"Onee-san" she hissed. "Look. Look!"

High up on the little hill where the shrine was, standing at the top of the series of steps that led to it, was the okapi. He was standing there, watching us.

I excitedly grabbed Mia's hand. "Koishi must be nearby. Let's go find her."

But Mia just dropped my hand and shook her head. "You go to her, onee-san. It's you she's waiting for."

"But..."

Mia smiled at me. "I don't think I have to worry about whether I'll meet her again, now. Just tell her how you feel." She jogged me in the stomach with her elbow. "And don't chicken out!"

Mia turned and walked towards the bus-stop. She might have only been ten, but she was at least twice as wise as I was.

The crosswalk's little tune began and I ran across the road and straight up the steps leading up the hill, skipping two at a time. I needn't have worried about the okapi wandering off, as he was still there, sitting and waiting for me like a faithful dog.

"Hi boy," I said, patting him on his wedge-shaped head.

He stood up and led me to the little clearing among the trees where the shrine was. It was almost silent there and shady, the foliage of the maples straining the gentle sunlight into golden threads which we walked through. Soon we saw the torii and the person sitting on it.

Koishi.

She didn't see us at first. She was looking out over the treetops, swinging her legs. It reminded me of that afternoon we'd spent in the playground on the swings together, but she seemed so carefree now, the expression on her face one of childlike contentment. Then she looked down and noticed us, the sudden smile that came to her face so bright that my heart surged in my chest.

She lifted herself off the crossbar with her hands and floated down through the air. As soon as her feet touched the ground she was running to me.

I'd never seen her run before in real life. I remembered the memory I'd seen of her, in happier times, when she had been a child in that little town, chasing after her friends and her big sister.

Tears started in my eyes. I ran to meet her.

She crashed into my arms and the two of us fell to the ground. The okapi soon joined us as we laughed and dusted ourselves off, skittering this way and that like an excited dog.

We helped each other up. Koishi kept on laughing, almost hysterical. Eventually it faded to an exhausted giggle and she smiled at me shyly.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's been so long since I laughed. I'm still getting used to it."

She took hold of my hand.

"Satori says hello," she said. "She wanted me to thank you. She says you can visit whenever you like." Her eyes gleamed. "We could go to an onsen. There are lots in Former Hell, you know."

"I know," I said, grinning. "I saw them." I turned away, my heart racing, and looked up at the sky. "Would you, uh..." My shyness had returned all at once. The warmth of her hand, her scent and her closeness had triggered it. I was reminded, too, of the sight of her naked body, the pale smoothness of her skin, the petiteness of her breasts: the thought of taking a bath with her was making me sweat. I pushed myself through it. "Would you like to, I don't know, maybe go somewhere with me? Up here, I mean. It's a lovely day and, uh..."

Suave. That's my middle name.

Koishi nodded. "I'd like that."

We left the torii behind. The okapi started to follow us but Koishi stopped and knelt by him, looking into his eyes. He turned, then, and climbed the steps back to the shrine where he disappeared into the shaded darkness.

"I can talk to animals again," said Koishi when she saw my confused look. "It's another thing I have to thank you for." She trailed her fingers across her third eye, and I noticed then that it was even more open than before.

"What did you say to him?"

"I explained we were going on a date," she said. Then she blushed, "And that three's a crowd."

We walked hand in hand down the steps and waited at the intersection.

"So what would you like to do?" I asked, swallowing.

"Everything," she said, resting her head on my shoulder.

So I took her to Tully's, the chain-store café. Yeah, I know. Romantic, huh? But I guess in my defence I hadn't been on a real date for years. It seemed like a safe choice, though. I knew that Koishi, like me, was probably still nervous about interacting with other people, and seeing it was a weekday the café wasn't likely to be crowded.

Also, after years of being a shut-in, I was dying to drink real coffee again.

After we entered the café, I didn't hesitate but walked us right up to the counter. Maybe I felt like showing off, or maybe I thought that throwing myself in the deep-end was the best way to start getting used to being a normal person again.
Normal. With Koishi beside me, the word seemed to have become pretty meaningless. Maybe it always had been.

I found myself staring at the menu while the girl at the counter smiled at us in the polite but vacuous way that girls behind the counter usually have. There was about a million things to choose from, from the 'café Americano' to the 'cafe au lait crème brulée' which seemed to me to be barely coffee anymore. I started to feel a familiar surge of panic as I traced the list on the laminated menu up and down, up and down with a trembling finger, trying and failing to make a decision, but then I felt Koishi place her hand on mine.

I turned. She was smiling at me.

Somehow, without stuttering or dropping my money, I was able to order and pay for a straight espresso for myself and a café latte for her. When my name was called and I collected my coffee, though, I let Koishi try some of my drink and she grimaced at the bitterness. So I changed her order to a hot chocolate instead.

There were a number of tables free and I picked the one next to the one furthest from anyone else.

Baby steps. It was just the first day of the rest of my life, after all.

We sat down and I watched as Koishi eagerly lifted the paper cup to her lips. As soon as she took her first sip I felt waves of pleasure emanate from her third eye. It wasn't visible, of course; she'd retracted it within her body as she had those first times we had met. But I knew it was there, part of her, a little fragment of her soul, hiding inside her chest. And the pleasure rolling off it was intoxicating.

"What's the matter?" Koishi's green eyes were wide with curiosity.

I turned away, unable to look into them, my face growing hot. "I can feel you," I said, mortified by just how much exquisite pleasure was spreading through me.

Koishi placed her hand on her chest. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I... I'm still finding it hard to control myself."

"I don't mind," I muttered. It was true. It was hard not to enjoy the feeling. It was undeniably lewd to be feeling such an intense pleasure so covertly, and all just from having her enjoying hot chocolate. The fact that there were people drinking their own drinks not far away with absolutely no idea of the sensations that were flooding my body made it even more exciting. I looked up at Koishi. She was wearing a mischievous look on her face as she brought the cup again to her lips. And soon I felt that same wave of her delight, but softer this time, muted. Yet it was all the more intimate for that, like someone brushing fingertips across yours.

No longer so distracted, I busied myself with drinking my coffee and enjoying it thoroughly. Like every NEET I love my coffee. Then I felt Koishi near me. Well, part of her, anyway. It's hard to describe exactly how it felt. It was as if part of her soul had come out of her and was hovering around me.

I glanced at her. The mischievousness on her face had been replaced by shyness. "Do you mind if I..." Her voice became a whisper. "..um, if I share what you're feeling?"

I nodded. I wanted her to feel what I was feeling, to know what being me was like. I'd had a taste of it myself, when I'd lived her life alongside her down in Former Hell. It had been like sharing her at the deepest level, and I found the thought of her doing the same with me intensely exciting.

I drank the coffee, the sweetness and the bitterness melding with the buttery creaminess of the milk. Coffee has a velvety texture, good coffee I mean. I enjoyed how the inside of my mouth was coated in it, how it warmed my teeth and gums.

I knew then that Koishi was reading me. The two of us had become simpatico, and her pleasure at my pleasure was feeding back to me.

It was too much and I had to put my cup down. A warm flush coursed over me, and I felt my breath growing hot.

"Please," I whispered, my hand gripping the edge of the table as I pressed my thighs together. "Please, Koishi, it's too much."

She blushed, but behind the blush was a little look of triumph. I felt that part of her slip away from me and I was suddenly lonely without it. But at least I could drink my coffee without having to worry about having an orgasm while doing it.

We finished our coffee and left the café in a hurry, like guilty children, giggling at our escapade. Koishi ran ahead of me.

"Come on," she said, her face alight with joy. "I want you to show me more!"

We spent the rest of the day with each other, walking the streets. Koishi, like a little kid, was interested in everything and stopped every few minutes to ask me eager questions.

"I remember walking these streets," she explained. "But it was like all that happened in a dream. Everything was grey and misty. Well, almost everything."

She raised a hand to my face and I caught it, held it there. Her skin was so smooth and cool. After a while, I let it drop.

She took my hand, then, and refused to let it go.

I was looking at everything with new eyes as well. It had been a year since I'd been to anywhere other than my home or the zoo during daylight hours. I guess I knew a little of how Koishi felt. I'd been stuck in a dream as well, a grey place filled with mist, lost, looking and not seeing.

But someone had found me.

I guess we'd found each other.

It grew dark before we knew it. The shadowy streets and the lights flickering into life filled me with regret and longing. I knew I'd have to say goodbye.

I didn't want to, but I had to.

"I have to go," I said, when at last I couldn't hold things off any longer. "My mother will be..." Oh god, it sounded so lame.

Koishi felt my embarrassment, smiled and shook her head. "No, I understand. I have to go home, too. I think my sister will have started to miss me." She sighed. "We have a lot of catching up to do. And I need to return the mask."

"The mask. You mean the Mask of Hope, right? Why?"

"I don't need it anymore," she said.

In silence I walked her back to the shrine. We were climbing the steps when we heard the clip-clop of the okapi. He came down to meet us part-way. It had already grown very dark.

I grabbed Koishi's hand, stared down at it, suddenly shy.

"I'll... I'll see you again soon, right?"

Koishi said nothing. She just stood there, looking shyly up at me. Then I finally realised what she was waiting for, and I stepped forward and kissed her.

She threw her arms around my neck and hung to me. Even leaning down, I was too tall for her and she had to stand on her tippy-toes. The heat and wetness of her tongue as it timidly found mine made my heart skip. Delight surged though me, and I knew she felt the same, for I could feel her third eye, open wide at last, glowing inside her chest.

It was too much. I broke away, gasping.

Koishi beamed up at me, her face and neck flushed.

"Thank you for the date," she said. "And for the kiss, too. It was my first, you know." Her blush deepened. "I... I hope we can do a lot more than just kissing next time."

She fled up the steps, jumping two at a time, the okapi hot on her heels. At the top she waved to me, then turned and vanished into the darkness.

I was left touching my lips. Her first kiss. And I'd stolen it without realising.

I stood there for a long time, just staring at the direction she and the okapi had disappeared. Then I turned and walked home through the dark and lonely streets.

And yet I wasn't lonely, for I could feel that soft, warm fluttering, just above my heart, like the stirring of a tiny bird...

... the feeling that told me I was in love.

The End