Routines

Silence. A peaceful morning arrived. At least coming out of sleep. The early arriving sunlight broke through the curtains. Its warmth helped as much as the alarm to stir Saki awake. She reached her hand over to the clock.

A simple small analog clock with just a single button. Saki slowly pressed it down to end its call. Her finger settled into the smoothed well used surface. The plastic cover for the clock hands marred with scratches and a crack a third of the way through. A bit of the outer plastic chipped away where it had fallen one too many times.

Saki stretched a little before sliding out of bed. Her hand brushed back a few strands of hair, barely longer than a pixie cut. Cleaning up the covers, she glanced over at the other bed still deeply occupied. Once she finished making her bed, she walked over. “Time to get up, Nori,” she spoke softly.

It took a couple of calls before her little sister moved. Though as usual, it was just turning in her sleep. Taking a more direct approach, Saki petted her head, getting her to stir. Slowly coaxing her out of sleep took a couple minutes more. “Mornin’”

A slow yawn came out of Noriko as she finally opened her eyes. “Is…morning…now?” Sleep slurred her words adorably.

“Yup! Gotta wake up.”

“O…kay…”

Saki stepped away. Early morning prep continued as she waited for Noriko to get up. By the time, Saki cleaned up and changed clothes, her little sister walked out of bed. The short nine year old kept rubbing her eyes.

Helping her through their routine, Noriko finally had the energy to operate on her own. Saki sat down starting her stretches. Noriko returned in similarly designed casual shorts and a loose shirt, but in a pink and white pattern to Saki’s black and blue. Dropping down, she eagerly began trying to match what Saki did. Unlike Saki, Noriko lacked the years of practice even being younger and likely more flexible. Saki guided the same as always when she failed.

As Saki stretched, Noriko kept up her energy, as though it recharged her. By the end, she bounced around Saki. Saki tried to settle her down before they went out for breakfast. It didn’t work.

Chapter 8 - Routines

The bouncing feet creaked the old wood in the hall. Saki walked with a lighter step seeing the table already prepared. Her father sat deep in a cup of coffee. Behind Noriko’s cheer greeting, she replied as well. “Good morning.”

As they arrived, their father looked up. A young by appearance Japanese man dressed in a semi-formal attire prepared for work already. “Mornin’ you two! Sleep well?” He leaned over to help Noriko finish pulling in her chair.

“We did stretches!”

“Oh my, your commitment is encouraging!”

“Commit…ment?”

“Hard work.” He gave her a pat on the head and smiled. She grinned wide back swaying a little while waiting.

Saki politely sat down on the opposite side. Hands in her lap, she waited for breakfast to come. She watched him dote on her little sister as time slowly passed.

He turned over to Saki when it looked like Noriko had settled down enough. “How’s the new school? It’s been a month already. Where does the time go?”

“Not much different.”

“I heard you join the track team. After all the time at the dojo, I was surprised you picked track.”

Before she could answer, the food arrived. A simple fare consisting mostly of egg and bread. Behind the food, their mother stood with a stern expression. Shoulder length semi-graying dark rust colored hair tied back. Several wrinkles already began to develop along her eyes and mouth. “It was just for self defense, Hachiro. After everything she went through, you can understand. Track’s something more practical for her to pursue.”

“Naturally, if that’s what Saki wants. I know you threw yourself into it.” He looked over to Saki for confirmation.

She nodded briefly, cutting into her food. “This is what I picked.”

“If you’re having fun.”

“It’s only been a week or two.”

“Be sure to enjoy yourself.”

“Yes, yes dear. You don’t need to pressure her.” Their mother pushed the plate a little closer to him. He took the hint and stopped.

Once their mother sat down, the breakfast carried on with relative silence. Saki finished quickly and moved to get ready for school. With some alone time, she stared at the mirror in her room. Thoughts strayed between past and present. Nothing held for long.

Reflections ended when Noriko crashed the room. She hurried over to Saki’s bed to get the ribbon for her. “Thanks, Nori! Want me to help you get ready?”

“Yes, please!” She bounced up and down in front of her sister with her arms up. A small giggle came from Saki.

When it came to exit their apartment, Saki heard from the kitchen the familiarly repeated phrase. “Be safe and don’t go near him!”

“Yes, mother! I’ll be going!”

A few blocks over in the neighborhood and early morning once more, there was a distinct lack of earthquake style bouncing. Not that in his sleepy state he would have been able to discern the difference. No, dreamland kept Yuki well comforted away from reality. Especially, a new said reality that sleep might be fending him from currently.

Lack of bouncing aside, some movement or shifting was happening. In the borderline between sleep and reality, he made no sense of the difference. But what snapped his enchanting melody of fantasy dreams was the fact that it felt off, wrong maybe? For good or bad, his little brothers made it their habit to wake him up in the morning, most times before his alarm even got a chance (sad alarm noises). The different feeling this gave him sliced through his dreams.

Through those sliced dreams, his ears heard a soft voice whisper to him. “Master Yuki…Master Yuki…”

Yuki nodded his head, feeling the tickling of the breath, but rolled over to keep sleeping. “Just a little longer, Sis…” Since it didn’t sound as urgent clearly he had more time to sleep. Naturally.

“Master Yuki…” The voice persisted in his ear making it twitch. A sudden weight pressed on him, when calling out to him failed repeatedly. “Master Yuki…”

“Momoko…Ken…why are you both…” He attempted to move around, but found it to be difficult. Normally, his little brothers, while great at making an impact, couldn’t do anything yet to pin him down. Yet they managed it? Momoko did? He was really confused. That pulled him further into reality when the covers came away.

With reality and his eyes starting to open, he picked up more of his surroundings. An unfamiliar sweet aroma danced in the air. Something that didn’t make any sense for Momoko, at least in the morning. “Momo? When you’d start wearing perfume in the morning?”

“Master, you’re awake!”

“And why are you calling me ‘Master’?” He stared through his blurry eyes at a face that he could only tell was a woman from the voice and long hair. He blinked once and wiped his hands over his eyes to clear his vision. Once sight had been returned, before him was a beautiful young woman in a maid costume straddling him staring only a few inches away from his face with a warm pleasing smile on her face. “Oh a maid…”

Of course it was a maid. A dime a dozen knock off from any anime or light novel that he could think of from the last three months. Nothing strange about seeing a maid.

Nothing?

“What?! A Maid?!” He jumped back up, nearly crashing into the woman before pulling back breathing heavily. ‘What’s a maid doing in my room?’

“Master?”

“Y-Yes?” he said nervously trying to work through what was going on. ‘I’m still dreaming. This is just a dream. Y-Yeah and I just need to wake up.’ Yuki pinched himself and looked up to find the results to be no different. He slapped his face and punched himself thinking he needed more pain to wake up, but nothing had changed.

“Master?”

“AH!” Yuki pulled back in his bed trying to put some distance between her and him. She continued to follow him until he fell out of his bed dropping his back painfully. A few books dug into his back now as he found himself in an all too commonly familiar scene. If it wasn’t for the panic and confusion running through his whole mind and body right now, his young male adolescence might have actually enjoyed it.

A long shining blade suddenly beamed over him touching his neck. The point of it was very real, making him cough cautiously. “Yuki. As a samurai of honor I challenge you to a duel.” And the cliché scene suddenly flipped into non-sequitur.

Yuki tilted his head over slowly to see a man standing before him standing in full samurai armor from the Edo Period. He began to sweat at the sight, as well as the katana at his throat. Dark panicked shadows painted over his face as this new threat. ‘An assassin? In samurai armor? What’s going on here?’ The man pulled back his sword looking like he was waiting for a reply.

Yuki took the opportunity to leap away from the woman and crawl into a corner away from both of them. His eyes darted quickly between the two of them watching what they did carefully. ‘What’s a samurai and a maid doing in my room?’

‘...you are part of a group of people who can rewrite the laws of the world to create anything that our imaginations can come up with,’ said Ayumi’s voice in Yuki’s head suddenly, remembering something. The words from her story pitch came back to him and he began to piece things together.

‘Anything my imagination can come up with?’ He looked at the maid and nodded to him. ‘Yeah, she looks almost exactly like the maid out of I Quit My Deadend Job When a Maid Fell into my Life.’ The maid started to approach him again looking like she wanted to do something. ‘I made her? Like a waking dream? Is this how it works?’

He didn’t know how it worked.

The samurai stood getting impatient for a response, katana brandished in a demanding angle. ‘What am I supposed to do? How do I turn it off?’ Yuki closed his eyes hoping that it would disappear, but when he opened them again they remained. He shut his eyes once more. ‘Turn off. Turn off. It’s not working. What do I do?’ Yuki began to become panicked again seeing the maid get closer to him with the samurai taking a frightening stance against him.

He tried to think back to the night when he used his powers. ‘How did I do it before? Focusing too hard on it made it disappear…’ Yuki stared at the two really intently. They became the only thing in his vision. Unfortunately, the samurai apparently took umbrage with his stare and took two steps forward as though the challenge was accepted.

‘T-this isn’t working! Ayumi! I really wish you were here to tell me how to turn this off!’ Crawling a bit against the corner of the wall, he stood up. ‘It’s mind powers. T-think! You’ve watched and read so much anime, something in your brain’s got to have an idea.’ Rapidly Yuki did a mental file search through his media knowledge.

Pressed for an immediate answer, he stopped the search at the first idea. He winced. This was not a good idea, but definitely an idea. And backed by an unquestioningly unhealthy consumption of anime carried some validity.

It still made him pause.

A loud crash followed next with a thud. Yuki lay partially unconscious on his bed, eyes turning into spirals dazed. Shards of the unfortunate lamp scattered around his sheets.

His door opened showing an over eager Ken and Jun. “Are you playing without us?” They rushed through the forest of books to his side.

Snapping back to attention, his eyes darted over to where the samurai and maid were. Neither could be seen. A sigh of relief came to him as he pulled himself back up to greet them. “I would never play without you two! I was trying to surprise you when you came in to wake me up! Did it work?”