the ephemeral sensation of being invisible

[Cicadan]

He’d asked her out with a text. First he’d asked for the eleven digits of her phone number, then he’d texted her a few times about their last lab because he’d sworn he’d been calculating acceleration wrong. After that a week had passed. The clock Sayuna sometimes watched was on the wall, at an angle away from her desk that she had to tilt her spine and her neck at a gentle angle to see it on the other side of the projector. He’d messaged her again on Friday. Her response, sent Monday:

‘If you don’t know how would I know? Honestly.’

‘(￢ ￢)’

Then, his message:

‘Would you accompany me if I stopped at your train stop? I wanted to hang out there for a while, if you are interested in doing that with me.’

After she saw it she took her time, then she agreed. Neither of them expected to actually see the other on the train. She wasn’t sure they rode it at the same time. He explained to her during their walkabout of her town that his morning train, one of the express ones, didn’t stop at her station. Oh, okay. That’s interesting. She’d said things like that and smiled with her eyes while their conversation continued to pause rhythmically.

‘Meet me at this hair place.’

She’d sent a photo with this in it.

‘Is that where you get your haircuts?’

‘It’s a bit too expensive for me and my parents don’t like the service.’

When they first met she hadn’t had time to change out of her uniform. She wasn’t a big fan of bringing a change of clothes. It hadn’t even occurred to her that it was possible until Sada had shown her photos of the pleasantly friendly and weird thing in some public restrooms that folded up when not in use and could be stood on to keep bare feet from touching dirty tile. Helpful, but she was still nervous about crumpling her clothes with how little room there was in her backpack.

The uniform, at least, was smart. Sayuna liked the dusky blue color; she thought it suited her well. The skirt was a good length and didn’t make her feel too uncomfortable. She almost thought it was cute.

She picked her usual spot for meeting friends. The store owner, Mr. Tanaka, knew her by name as she always for assistance when near- to know she hadn't wandered too far. Nowadays he would alert her himself. When Akamine’s voice materialized out of the rumble of the crowd it was in slow motion as school clocks and the laggard beat of her heart. Suddenly he was there complimenting her hair.

She did like what she’d done with it. It was only her fourth time with a blow dryer, and the first time that mom hadn’t been breathing down her neck.

They had a good enough time, and she remembered the names of most of the snacks he’d offered to try while standing purposefully next to her. She'd noticed she was a bit taller than him, from where his voice sounded relative to her ears.

There was a nice park down a residential road, a little slice of green riverside that one could walk end to end with one hokey pokey and a turn the self around. They sat on a bench that was on the opposite side of the fence from the actual park for a while, stone warmed to be barely bothersome by the late spring sun.

He said he liked spending time with her. That made her a bit nervous but she did enjoy it more when she had time to think about it later. Different shaped smiles with him then without him, the first prettier, the second felt less tense. That Monday he saw her in class and he was very concerned about the equations about laws of motion.

[Cicadan]

Natsumi wasn’t really good with swords, which was fortunate. Who would be left to be the older sister if Sayuna met an unfortunate and early demise?

The logistics of such a non-standard family dynamic- being the older sister out of a one child family- probably only made themselves clear to someone with a more creative mind than her own. Anyways, Natsumi would probably do just fine by herself. She had a few anger issues. Not many, and she was just a young girl. Sayuna figured it’d be a matter of time before she… grew out of it? Matured.

Well maybe it’d take longer than that if Sayuna’s was the timeline she followed.

What Natsumi tended to be most easily frustrated by was how little space the two of them had when sharing a room. ‘Your stupid computer takes up so much space!’ ‘At least let me play on it more!’ Maybe Sayuna wasn’t sharing as much as she should, true. She’d gotten used to having her own room, back when they’d still lived with grandpa.

Sayuna always protested, she couldn’t pause her games. Natsumi needed to wait a little longer.

You were supposed to teach young growing up girls patience, right?

You definitely weren’t supposed to teach them the proper way to swing a sword. Sayuna had to admit she was getting a bit frustrated with it. That was the second new broom for the house she was going to have to buy in a month. They didn’t even have the dustpan anymore- Natsumi had grabbed both, and she’d been dual-wielding when she’d been throwing her tantrum this time around.

It was interesting that the dustpan had turned into one of those swords with a hook-cane thingy at the end. Sayuna guessed that it made sense.

Natsumi hugged Sayuna when she calmed down at last. That part of their arguments was always nice. It was also kind of amusing finding a place to hide the new swords. Under the bed already had too many.