Calm Before The Storm?

“Nick Shiga, who is this that you’ve brought with you?” My media professor asked.

The entire class turned to look at me. About twenty-five students, all of which I’d never talked to.

“Um…well,” I looked over to the girl walking beside me. She had pale skin, white hair, two cat ears on top of her head, and a long tail waving behind her.

How exactly was I supposed to explain this?

“Um, well…”

The rest of my class continued to stare. I really had nothing against them and I wasn’t a shy guy either. So really, the only reason I never talked to them was that the opportunity never came up. Anyway—

“Yeah, um, about her...she’s my…sister.”

“Your sister.”

“Yep. She likes cosplaying as a cat so…” I pointed at her ears and tail.

“Uh-huh.”

“You know, s-she came over and she wanted to check out the school, so I brought her along…”

“Right…”

“Right.”

“…”

“…”

“Come on Nick. You know for a fact not a single person here is believing that shit.”

“What?”

“Come on, the fact you had to think about it is enough to know you’re lying. Plus, she’s way too cute to be your sister.”

Pretty solid points if I do say so myself, but that also meant I had no method of escape left.

With every fiber of my being, I wracked my brain for an answer. Just like that, in a few seconds, I came up with the only possible solution.

I took off my bookbag and unzipped it. I pulled out a large stack of papers and walked up to the teacher. I placed the papers on the podium and slightly bowed. And after that robotic sequence, I walked out of the class with Nisa in tow.

If you can’t deal with problems, just run away from them. That’s about as much as I could think of.

And run I did.

“See you next week.” I heard my professor say as I left.

“You are back early,” Bob said the moment I entered my room.

“What happened to taking care of Nisa for me?”

“You never told me to do that.”

“Well, I mean…I guess you’re right,” I said realizing I never actually told him to take care of her while I was in class. “But I feel like that should’ve been implied.”

“I’m not a mind reader. You need to say what I should do for me to do it.” Bob shrugged. “What if I think you implied something and accidentally get it wrong?”

Realizing I was taking a second loss for today, I defeatedly walked into my room and dropped to the bed.

“You do realize that running away from your problems won’t make them go away right?”

I groaned as I heard the one thing I didn’t want to hear. Obviously, I had to go back to that class next week. There was no way around that. I did question how Bob knew what had just happened a few minutes ago, but my jumbled mind decided it wasn’t important enough to think about.

What if I drop out…

“You better not be thinking about dropping out.”

“I would never,” I said in a muffled voice.

“Good. You are already lacking in almost every other department. Having a college diploma can at least get you into a decent office job.”

“So I’m destined to be an office worker, huh.”

Ignoring the troubling future that was ahead of me, I thought back to Nisa. I had said that I would take her to buy clothes when I came back from class, and that was technically what I had done, so…

I shot out of my bed. “Nisa, we are going shopping.”

“Anything to ignore your situation, huh.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said as I walked out my room.

I found Nisa right outside my door looking up at the ceiling. Her head turned right then left, before snapping back to the right.

“What are you looking at?” I looked up to the ceiling where she was staring. Although it was very small, I could barely see that she was looking at a—

“Fly.” She plainly said.

“Right…” I answered as I turned back to face her. The blue in her eyes was overshadowed by her black dilated pupils.

Her body lowered a bit before she jumped to the ceiling, or at least tried. Unlike a cat, she was nowhere near as light or had the leg strength to do it. Jumping like one would be a hard task. All it ended up being was a small jump that barely reached the half a meter mark.

“Anyway,” I said as I clapped my hands. “We’re going to go buy you some clothes. I don’t know anything about that sort of thing, so we’re going to bring someone with us, if you don’t mind.”

Nisa looked at me quizzically, her head turned slightly to the side. Her ears turned a bit when she heard the fly buzzing away.

“Can you remind me why I’m here again?”

“I couldn’t think of anyone else who knew about clothes, so…”

“You dragged me out on my free day to help you.”

“Exactly.”

Walking to my right was a plainly dressed girl. She had a plain blue shirt and grey joggers. If I had to guess, I would say she had just woken up. Granted, it was afternoon.

This was a much different sight from the all-black clothes she was wearing the day before. Yet again, that was the exact reason I needed Ritsue on this journey.

Nisa, walking on my right, was wearing an oversized hoodie that served to cover both her tail and ears. It looked quite odd to be wearing that when it was warm outside, but we really didn’t have a choice.

“Did Nick do anything to you during the night?” Ritsue asked Nisa.

Nisa nodded.

“He did?!” Ritsue snapped her gaze at me.

“Whoa wait! What are you saying Nisa?!” I frantically waved my arms in denial.

“Covered me.”

“Covered?” Ritsue asked.

“Blanket.”

“Oh, he covered you with a blanket?”

Nisa nodded.

I let out a sigh of relief. I knew I hadn’t done anything to her, but I didn’t want any nasty rumors flying around.

“You dodged a bullet there Nick. And by that, I do really mean a bullet.”

Apart from the serious glare in her eyes, the fact that her father was a police officer was enough for me to know that her threat was more of a promise.

“Do you really have such little faith in me?”

“Rest assured that I trust you more than I do Vang.”

“That means very little”

With that out of the way, we approached the nearby mall. The large structure was one that I still wasn’t overly familiar with, seeing as I only recently moved nearby. Ritsue. on the other hand, apparently knew this place like the back of her hand, if not more so.

The inside of the mall was pretty typical. You know, a whole lot of stores in one building, that whole jazz. The one thing that did stand out was how colorful everything was. If someone told me they painted this place by throwing buckets of primary colors on the walls I wouldn’t doubt them for a second.

Nisa’s head sharply turned to every corner of the room. The high ceiling, multiple floors visible from the bottom, escalators, and all the like were probably new to her.

“Alright, we should probably avoid high-end stores. I doubt your wallet can survive that.” Ritsue looked at me.

“Yeah, I appreciate that.”

With that in mind, we headed towards the nearest escalators. Ritsue went up first, followed by Nisa, however, right before we got on, Nisa froze.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

She stood still at the edge of the escalator. I put a hand on her shoulder and felt that her entire body was stiff as a statue.

“Are you scared of the escalator?”

Silence.

I tried to nudge her forward but her entire body slammed backward onto mine. She immediately turned and buried her face into my chest. Her hands shook as she grabbed onto my torso, her nails just barely stabbing into me.

“N-Nisa…”

A part of me felt nice having her hug me, but I was mostly in pain.

With a few people trying to get on the escalator behind us, I wrapped my arms around Nisa and pulled her to the side.

“It’s okay Nisa,” I said softly while hesitantly placing my hand on her head. “You don’t have to be scared.”

Not a very helpful thing to say, but I really had nothing else come to mind. After a few seconds, her grip around me weakened and her shivering calmed down.

“Would it be better if I carried you?”

She turned to look at the escalator, then back at me. Her bottom lip quivered and her large eyes showed slight tears building up.

She nodded.

“Alright,” I kneeled and turned my back to her. “Hop on.”

Her head tilted to the side.

Right.

I realized she probably had no idea what I wanted her to do. The question of what human actions she knew and didn’t know passed through my mind, but I decided to think about it later. I got back up and this time got closer to Nisa. Once I was a few centimeters away from her, I turned my back once more and kneeled down.

“Wrap your arms around my neck.”

After a bit of hesitation, I finally felt her thin pale arms wrap around my neck. Her skin was cold and I could feel her still shivering ever so lightly.

“Now, don’t panic alright?”

I put both my arms behind her knees and pulled them to either side of me before standing back up. She squeezed tighter the moment her feet left the floor, a few of her nails dug into my chest.

“Are you okay?”

She lightly nodded.

Like that, I made my way back to the escalator.

“You should close your eyes too. That will make it less scary.”

Once on the escalator, she buried her face into the side of my neck.

This whole situation was reminding me of the time I did the same for my sister. Back then, she was deadly terrified of the escalator. Something about the way it continuously moved and the hissing sound it made really wasn’t resonating with her. She was five and I was ten, so as the older brother, I really wanted to protect her. That was when I came up with the idea of carrying her while we went up.

It was probably a really unsafe thing for two kids to do, but it worked so that doesn’t matter too much.

Once we reached the top, I walked up to Ritsue who’d been waiting there for a while.

“Aren’t you a good father.”

“Would that make you the mother?”

“Is that your way of confessing to me?” she said dramatically while covering her mouth with her hand. “I’m sorry but I don’t think of you that way.” She bowed.

“Oh no, what will I do with myself now that you’ve rejected me?” I said dramatically.

“We can still be friends.” She outstretched her arm for a handshake.

“Shakes hand.” I said, seeing as I couldn’t actually shake her hand while holding Nisa.

With that over, I looked at Nisa who was still as a rock. Even though the escalator was behind us, she still wasn’t letting go.

“Hey, Nisa, we’re already on the second floor.”

After a bit of hesitation, she opened one eye. She scanned the area, probably checking if we were on the clear, before opening the other.

“No more?” she timidly asked.

“What, the escalator?”

She nodded.

“Well, we still have to go back down afterward—”

Nisa gripped harder onto my neck.

“Guess she’s staying up there,” Ritsue said with a laugh before turning. “Let’s get going, we wouldn’t want to spend all day in here.”

I nodded before chasing after her.

Before long, we reached a clothing store I wasn’t familiar with. Not that I had much reason to care about clothes, I usually just bought the cheapest I could find, but I’d gone shopping with my sister on a few occasions, so I could name a few stores at least. This wasn’t one of them.

Either way, we entered the large store with mannequins on the display window. Even from the outside, you could already see an endless sea of clothes.

As we stepped through the doorless front, we were greeted by a woman in a blue uniform.

“Hello, will you two need any assistance?”

I turned over to Ritsue who was leading this whole operation. I would’ve imagined this store was like a second home to her, so I doubted any assistance was necessary. To my surprise, she thought about it for a moment before answering:

“We’re looking for some clothes for our little girl here.” She pointed at Nisa still on my back.

I immediately noticed her weird choice of words.

“Oh, so it’s for your daughter?”

Ritsue looked over at me with a mischievous grin. Without any words, I realized where she was going. With a slight smile back, I ran along with her bit.

“Yeah, you know, kids grow up fast,” I said before looking over at Nisa.

Although I thought her to be of high school age, the more that I saw Nisa the more I realized that wasn’t the case at all. It was probably just the fact I was too overwhelmed with the situation at the time, but now that I looked at her, she was probably barely even a middle schooler.

I wonder why I made that mistake in the first place.

“I see!” the woman exclaimed. “What type of clothes are you looking for?”

Now it was Ritsue’s turn to lead the conversation, and for me to tune out.

After a while of looking around, and still dragging the worker with us, Ritsue finally picked out an outfit. Even though we didn’t know what size Nisa would be, Ritsue was basically like one of those creepy characters in anime where they can figure out a girl’s three sizes just by looking. She, of course, only used it for clothes purposes—at least I imagined that was the case.

“Let’s go Nisa, let’s try this outfit on,” Ritsue said while placing a hand on Nisa’s back.

She wouldn’t let go of my neck. Not only was she still freaked out about the escalator thing, but now that we were inside of a store, there were more strangers to freak her out more.

“She’s pretty attached to you, isn’t she?” the woman said with a laugh.

“Pretty much,” I answered.

After a few minutes of convincing, she eventually agreed to go with Ritsue. She continued to glance at me all the way until they were covered by the trying-out rooms.

“How old is your daughter?” the woman asked, seemingly wanting to make conversation as we waited.

However, the fact she was asking that question out of all of them was troubling. Especially because I didn’t know the answer to it. Not that I’d know the answer to a lot of her questions about Nisa.

“She’s—” I started. At this point, I wasn’t past lying to her. We were already lying to her about Nisa being our daughter for no absolute reason apart from the fact Ritsue was having fun with it, so lying again shouldn’t have been much of an issue. “T-Thirteen.” I finally responded.

“I see…” she said before looking me over. “You two must’ve had her at a young age.”

An odd thing to mention, but still, I couldn’t just start ignoring her.

“Y-Yeah, we did.”

Seeing as I was barely twenty, the fact I had a thirteen-year-old daughter meant I had to have had her at seven...so yeah, a bit weird.

“I imagined you two to be in your early twenties. You don’t look much older than that.”

“Y-Yeah, we get that a lot.”

With this conversation not going too smoothly, I was hoping and praying for Ritsue to come out. Like an answer to my prayer, I hear them leave the changing room.

Thank god.

“You got to come up with better lies.” I heard the woman whisper next to me.

Before I could even react, I heard Ritsue’s voice say: “So, what do you think?”

Quickly snapping my head forward, I saw Ritsue, obviously, but standing next to her was Nisa. She wore a long-sleeve white top with a turtleneck and a black…overall, skirt thing? I honestly couldn’t know what to call it. On her feet were black shoes and black tights reaching up to her thighs.

Her tail was nowhere to be seen, masterfully hidden by Ritsue, and the ears were being covered by a beret.

“That’s so cute!” The woman next to me exclaimed. “That pinafore dress was an outstanding pick!”

I guess that’s what that thing is called.

“You think so too, right?” the woman looked over at me.

“Of course.” I quickly answered. “You look really cute, Nisa.” I walked up to her and patted her head. I caught a glimpse of her tail moving from inside her clothes.

With that settled, we went to the front to pay for the clothes. As I took out my card, the cashier stopped me.

“You should probably use this.” He handed me a blank card.

“And…what is this?” I looked it over. It really was just a blank card, apart from the black line for the card to be read.

“Use it.”

“Alright?” Following his instructions, I slid the card and it confirmed with a small ding.

“Thank you for shopping with us!” the cashier said with a smile.

“What do you—?”

“Thank you for shopping with us.” He said much firmer this time.

“So…I can…leave?”

“Thank you for shopping with us.”

“I’ll take that as a yes…”

Hesitantly, I headed towards the front door. I really shouldn’t have thought the weird stuff would start and end with Nisa and Bob, but I kind of hoped it did. Maybe that was really the beginning and things were only going to get more off the wall than before.

Part of me wished it did get a little wacky, but the reasonable part of me knew that it only meant more trouble my way.

As these thoughts ran through my mind, I was in the middle of carrying Nisa on my back once more. We were halfway down the escalator when it happened.

Someone from below yelled, “Somebody catch him!” while pointing at a guy running full speed towards the exit.

Most likely a thief, I thought. There really wasn’t much I could do, both because of my physical strength and because of the fact I was still on the escalator.

However, I felt the arms around my neck weaken. In a blur, I saw a black skirt fly off the side of the railing. At the same time, I felt a weight leave my back.

“Nisa?!”

With wide eyes, I looked at Nisa who had jumped off the escalator. As she fell, her silver nails elongated. She looked like a predator attacking its prey.

With a loud thump, Nisa landed on top of the man who was trying to run away. Her nails dug deep into the man’s back.

“Excuse me!” I yelled at the people in front of me on the escalator as I ran down the steps.

A group of people had gathered around Nisa and the thief, her nails were still firmly inside his back. Nisa’s eyes were nothing but black.

The man grunted as he tried to stand but screamed as Nisa dug her nails deeper.

I pushed past the crowd, Ritsue following behind me.

“Nisa,” I said once making it to the front.

The small girl was looking angrily at the man, but her face softened as she turned to look at me and her pupils dilated back to their normal shape.

She looked down at the man she was on top of and shook her head, eyes wide.

“Didn’t…mean…” she said in a quiet voice.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two police officers run-up to the crowd, but my full attention was on the small girl in front of me.

She pulled out her nails from his back, leaving visible wounds behind. Oddly enough, no blood came out from those wounds.

“Didn’t…mean…to...” She said once more, holding her hands to her chest.