In her quest to escape, Michi stumbles upon a man who might just be the friend she needs.
Chapter 3

Shin’s P.O.V (point of view)

“WHO IS THAAAAAAAT?” I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw a cute little girl all cuddled up on my bed, sleeping like a baby. “MOM?!” I shouted like an ill-mannered bastard even though I knew it would wake her up. But hey I am not the one sabotaging someone else’s bed, she is! The girl in front of me twitched a little and slowly opened her eyes.

Wow… she really was cute. I have always liked girls with long hair, and clueless expressions. I mean, look at that clueless helpless little creature. She’s so cute. And it gets better when she widens her eyes. Oh yes! Even cuter now. And then the tearing up and crying arc- WAIT WHAT?!

While I stood there hanging on to my dumb string of thoughts I suddenly realized that the cutie had started crying.

“Sorry cut-ah I mean miss. You can go back to sleep if you want to!” Go back to sleep? What the hell was I saying! I should ask her the 5 W’s at this time, now that she is awake.

“What are you shouting for?” My mom came from behind me, went up to the girl and sat beside her on the bed, looking at me with a perplexed expression. Really? She couldn’t tell why I was shouting?

“Would you come out with me for a second? I have a few things that I want to ask.” We walked out of the room and I viewed the cutie one last time before exiting. She had stopped crying the moment my mom had entered the room and now seemed a bit scared and tensed; almost apologetic too in a way.

“So?”

“What is such a cut- I mean young girl doing in my room?” I had to control my tongue more consciously now before the word ‘cute’ slipped out of my mouth.

“I picked her up from the pavement outside the house. She was lying there unconscious and looked scared and I couldn’t help but take her in”

“You sound like you just picked up a stray pup or cat” I couldn’t believe her. She picked up a person just like that. When will she understand that we are not living in a safe world anymore, never were to begin with. “Did you call the police?”

“Not yet. I just wanted her to calm down a bit before I did that”, mom tugged on my arm and pulled me closer and whispered in my ear “I think something bad happened with her”

“Why would you-“

“SHHHUUUUU your voice is too loud!”

“Sorry” now we were whispering in our own home thanks to all the detective serials she has been watching. ”Why do you think so?” I spoke as softly as I could.

“She has been crying since she came here. I asked her a lot of things but she never said anything. Just nodded or shook her head and kept on crying.” Mom looked up at me with a worried expression and I knew what she was thinking “Either she is too shocked to speak, or she is-“

“Hey” I called out suddenly, cutting mom mid-sentence.

I could see a little figure staring at us from behind my room’s gate. She looked scared and weak in more than one way and it felt like even the slightest of push could knock her down. The moment I heard that something bad could have happened, I couldn’t help but feel pity for her. But pitying her won’t do her any good. If we wanted to help her, then we might as well be frank and honest with her. Before mom could end her sentence, I wanted to know the truth from her.

“Can you speak?” there was a moment of silence in the room and the silence continued as the girl walked forward a little and stopped a few feet away from us. Looking straight into my eyes, she shook her head as a sign of ‘no’.

So the cutie had no voice.

 

 . . .

My name is Shin. I am originally Japanese but my mom and I went oversees when I had to continue my studies after dad passed away due to an illness. That is why we are a bit fluent with English. But let’s not talk about my past. I like living in the present. And at the present I am unemployed. Yes, that is the only thing that bugs me every day but I am trying to get a job as a teacher. I had been out for two days on a trip with a friend of mine and when I came back I saw a cutie in my room. As it is, she cannot speak and we don’t know anything about her. But our guts say that she needs us and so we decided to support her till we can find out something about her.

 

. . .

(Michi’s second night in the Shin residency)

“So… Um…” It had been quite some time when the dining table had three people and on top of that, one of the three was a complete stranger. “What is your name?” I asked cutie and smiled at her so she would feel a little comfortable. She suddenly got flustered and started waving her hands in an odd way reminding me that verbal conversation was not going to be possible with her. “Wait use this”

I got up from the table and came back with a copy and pen. When I gave it to her she smiled a huge smile. She really did look like a puppy. Taking the pen from us she quickly started writing down something. Probably her name, because that is what we asked her.

“At last we will know what to call you” my mom smiled at her and we waited for her to write down what she wanted to convey. She was done in a moment’s time and turned around the copy for us to read.

“Sorry and Thank you. Thank you very much”

This was all she had written. Those few written words had more feelings in them than any spoken words could convey. I looked at my mom who was looking back at me. We were at a loss of words for the moment and we looked back at her. The girl’s expression suddenly changed to one of realization and she turned around the copy and started writing again.

“I am Michi. Nice to meet you!”

Smiling widely she looked at us and pointed to her name and then to herself.

“We got it Michi. So this is your name huh?” I patted her head lightly

“Such a pretty name. Do you know what Michi means in Japanese?” my mom took her hand in her own and looked at Michi with a soft gaze. Michi shook her head for she had no idea as to what it meant. “It means ‘pathway’, so I am sure that you will definitely find your way to where you want to go and till that time you can stay with us ok?” Michi kept looking at my mom for some time till her eyes started tearing up again.

“Ah no no no! You have to stop with the crying!” I told her and gave her a slight pat on her head which ended up making her cry even more.

“Don’t hit her idiot! You made her cry!” mom glared at me and started consoling Michi. Now I was the bad guy.

“But I didn’t ‘hit’ her exactly it was just a pat!”

While we were at our little family squabble Michi stopped crying and wrote down something on the copy once again.

“I am crying because I am happy. Thank you”

“You know you don’t have to thank us so much. You are welcome.” The rest of the evening was filled with joyful chatter, laughs and filing pages. As the night grew darker mom put Michi to sleep while I waited for her in front of the room.

“Shouldn’t we have at least asked her something? We need to know about her” Michi was a good girl no doubt but knowing about her was important since she was going to stay with us for some time now.

“It’s ok. We’ll ask her when the time is right. Right now we’ll just let her loosen up a bit and have fun.”

And so my days with Michi started but what I didn’t know anything about was Michi’s dark past and how the demons born from that were coming after us. Faster and quicker.