A Lonely Girl

Yesterday was the school festival, and today I'm tired.

This morning I had a weird dream with a girl, I'm not sure if it means anything, also I don't know if the cat that Yukino had was a demon like Pakya, or not.

Today I don't have school, so I don't have any plans, but I see Yukino outside of my house, so I go with her. “Hey Yukino, how are you?”

“Fine, and you? I thought you would ignore me.” Yukino looks sad when she talks.

“I'm fine too. Nah, don't worry, I won't ignore you. If you want, we can talk inside my house.”

We enter, and I didn't notice until now, but my father wasn't around.

“Wow! your house is amazing! mine is small compared to this.”

We talk for a little about random things, then we play with cards, and we drink some tea, even Pakya is drinking tea.

“Yukino I have some things to ask you, first of all, how do you found me, or well how you chose to play with me?”

She stops drinking tea and talks, “Ah, that, I'm alone most of the time, and I wander the streets every day. One day I saw you with that panda, and I thought you were someone like me, I mean with a spirit like Nyankya.”

“who's Nyankya?”

“Nyankya as I said is... well, was a spirit, I don't remember how or when it appeared.”

“Oh, the same happened to me, I can't remember how Pakya appeared.”

“Ah! and I also needed to do a wish every four days, or then something bad was going to happen. But without Nyankya I guess I don't have to wish for anything anymore.”

The rules are a little different than Pakya's, but maybe it was a demon.

“What do you mean about something bad?”

“I'm not sure, but I didn't think anything bad would happen to me, also Nyankya is, well was my friend.”

“I see, and you haven't seen Nyankya today or after it disappeared?” I wonder what happened to the cat.

“No, yesterday was the last time I saw it, I don't know where is it, also some things about Nyankya are just blurry like if they were removed from my mind” she looks like she's telling the truth, “and what about that little panda?”

I explained all my situation about Pakya.

She responds amazed, “Wow! that panda is really bad, I thought it was more like my cat.”

“And so I'm trying to find the first wish so I can escape from Pakya, but I can't find anything relevant just randoms clues.”

“That's bad if I can help you in any way, I will do it,” Yukino suddenly looks sad, “In my case, the only way to stop Nyankya was to make my biggest wish come true.”

“Do Nyankya told you how to stop the curse?”

“Nop, I don't know why but I just knew it.”

“Perhaps your biggest wish was to have someone to play with, and that's why it disappeared.”

“Maybe, also every time I wished for friends or someone to play I couldn't do it because of that, it was like forbidden,” Yukino then starts to cry, “I didn't have anyone, I was all alone.”

I hug her, “Calm down, now you have me.”

Yukino made a small smile, and then she stops crying, “before you and Nyankya, I only had my parents and Mr. Cat”

“Mr cat? I imagine it was your mascot.”

“Yeah, I had him, but one day he died, but I didn't know, my mother told me that he escaped, but it was a lie, I felt abandoned by him, but later I discover that Mr cat just went to a better place.

My daddy disappeared some days after Mr cat passed away, my mommy was mad and really sad, I couldn't do anything, and she was just crying all the time. I felt abandoned because of my dad and Mr. cat.”

“I'm sorry,” maybe her father left home or something happened to him.

“I hope someday he comes back,” she is crying again, “after my daddy disappeared mommy was all alone and in my school, and no one wanted to play with me.

Some kids were laughing at me because I don't have a dad, or they said that according to their parents, my mommy worked in bad places, and they couldn't play with me because of that.”

I'm not sure which bad places her mom works, but maybe I should wish that she have a decent job.

“That sounds awful for you and your mom. And it looks like everything at school is awful too,” I wanted to hug her more.

“Kids also tell me that I'm a freak, and no one wanted to play with me because of that. Maybe they say it because I'm quiet sometimes but what people don't know is that I can talk a lot when I feel I can trust someone.”

“Sometimes kids are mean without any reason, don't worry. It looks like you had a really bad time in general, in your house and in the school.”

“Yeah, but after the cat spirit appeared it was all fun, it always played with me, and even though I can't remember every wish I made, at least I never felt lonely.” Yukino made a little smile before continuing. “But one day I saw you and as I told you, I thought you were someone like me, and maybe I could finally make a real friend.”

“Well, thanks to that, you finally found a friend. I think I'm similar to you in some ways, In my case, my mother died, and sometimes I can't see my dad, so I feel lonely, but at least I have met some awesome people.”

“But I don't have anyone...”

“Remember that you have me, I already told you that I'm your friend, you can always count on me on anything, and each time you want to play or talk just tell me.”

Yukino smiles, “Thank you, Meiko.”

She calms down, and I make another question, “Now that I think of it, how do you make everyone sleep?”

“I don't know, but if I want people to sleep they just slept. It help me when someone was bullying me at school.”

“Then it's a way to defend yourself.”

“Yeah,” suddenly she got happy, “do you want to see it?”

“No, thank you,” I tell her with a grin, I don't really want to see that power again and sleep for hours.

“Oh, c'mon, I will do it quickly!” she then moved her hands in some weird ways, “What? it's not working! it's like if I never had that power, to begin with.”

“That's weird, maybe with the disappearance of Nyankya every wish you did disappear.”

“I'm not sure at all, but maybe you are right.”

“By the way, Yukino, how do you know where I live?”

“You told me yesterday, remember.”

“I know, but I'm sure I saw you some days ago outside my house, with Nyankya, and you were using a red yukata.”

“That's weird, I do notice you some time ago, but I never visited your house, and I don't have any red yukata.”

This is weird, but I think the girl outside my house looked a little more like the girl in my dream.

We continue to talk about some random topics, and then my father arrives home.

My father is shouting on his phone, “how am I supposed to find something strange in this town?! I've been searching and nothing!”

“Hi, Dad, how are you?.” I try to talk to him but he's ignoring me.

He is walking in circles while talking, “and you said that if I see an animal with wings or horns that don't usually have any of these I inform you?! Are you out of your mind?”

I see Yukino in her eyes, and without saying anything, we knew something in that call is wrong. My father is arguing with someone, but it looks as if it's related to Pakya and Nyankya.

My father ends his call, and I ask him about it, “hey dad, what was that call about? You look angry.”

“Ah, I didn't see you Meiko, and hello random and unknown girl,” my father smiles, he is dumb, but at least he didn't say anything really bad to Yukino, “well my boss wants me to find something weird in this town or some sort of weird animals.”

“She is Yukino by the way,” I present her, and she waves her hand saying hi, ”I see, that's really weird maybe your boss is crazy!”

“Yeah, he's crazy! I've been searching for anything for at least one month and nothing.”

“Good luck dad, but you look annoyed, maybe you should quit.”

“Nah, don't worry, I prefer to search for random things than to work.” he now looks happy.

Maybe my dad was so bad at his work that he ended up searching for something random, but even if it's just a coincidence, what he is looking for is so specific.

My dad receives another call, and he left.

“Hey Meiko, I think your dad was calling to someone about our spirits,” Yukino is talking with a quiet voice.

“that's what it looked.”

“You should be careful, or your dad is going to suspect.”

“I know. I think I have to investigate that company because something is fishy about them.”

“If there's something I can help remember that you can call me, Meiko.”

After that, we talk for a little bit, and then I accompany Yukino to her home.

On the way to Yukino's home, I ask her, “by the way, why did you steal my diary? Did you know it was important to stop the demon curse?”

Yukino looks ashamed, “About that, when I was seeing you from far away I noticed you had it in your hand often, so I thought maybe it had some special meaning to you. So I stole it to get your attention, sorry.”

“I see, I almost faint when I notice I didn't have it, but at least I got it again.”

She looks sad, “Sorry for stealing it."

“Don't worry, just don't steal anything else again.” I give her a smile.

We finally arrive, and her home looks normal, and her mother was just arriving for work, she looks like a nice person and even invites me to dinner.

Like an hour later, I say goodbye to Yukino and her mother, “bye, see you tomorrow.”

Yukino smiles while slowly raises her hand, “goodbye Meiko, see you later.”

The company where my father works is called ALIVE. On my way home, I tell Pakya, “I wish that the company ALIVE moves to my city.”

“No! You can't ask for something that it's already made.”

My suspicion was correct, if I had wished that company to come to my city, Pakya would have told me that he had already made that wish. It looks like I never wished for that company to move into this town. I don't know why or how they know the demons, but I need to be careful about them.