A Matter of Family

Twilight - Chapter 7: Cheesecake

A story by Kotori Minami.

In the apartment, it was empty. Quiet, unlike usual where everyone talked or had something to do. It had never been quiet in the apartment especially since Nico-chan's birthday when she brought Cocoro-chan and Cocoa-chan as well. However, it was the first time ever it has been silent, for it was at least for the girl in the dress she just bought. The lights were out and the TV was off. Clearly no one had turned them on since it was empty.

Kotori-chan found herself inside, although she knows where the light switches were and enough to know which for which, she hadn't turned any until the day was dark. Kotori-chan walked down to look for everyone but nobody was there.

She was confused as she remembered Honoka-chan and Umi-chan being there before she went to take a nap – the day before was hard for her as she had to write another lyric to her song that she had to present to Hanayo-chan as her task during the holiday, then there was a seminar she took that Eli-chan suggested, and more work to be done. She looks around the apartment. There was definitely them, the washed glasses were still on the tray because she knows Umi-chan would want them cleaned as soon as possible. They were nowhere to be found. On her way around the apartment, she takes a peek at the cute chalk board by the door, where it says:

BRB, Kotori. Make yourself at home.

She knows it right then and there that they have left without her. It was planned that the three of them would go to the market to buy some food and some snacks before the rest comes. Blaming herself, she feels guilty because they were waiting for her to wake up and eventually took too long they had to hurry out. It was already late afternoon and the rest will come pretty soon.

Without anything else to do, she continued her walk even though she already knew where they were. She opened the fridge and opened the snack drawers. There was some food inside, but she understood it was not enough for the 9 of them to consume all. She snacks on a Pocky that she found, one that Eli-chan kept safe just for Kotori-chan. On the other side of the room, she looks through the books on the shelf – the one in the living room because the one in Eli-chan's bedroom was filled with textbooks and notebooks. She recognises the ones filled on each shelf, because she have seen them before from Umi-chan's room and house. Some thick and some thin, some are novels and some are comic books, some are English books and even Russian too, but the fashion magazines are not in the shelf but under the coffee table. For you see, Kotori-chan had a knack and high interest for fashion since high-school. She keeps some here too, besides the ones at home, because Kotori-chan often visit the apartment to see Umi-chan and most importantly, the host.

Then she recognises some of the books that Umi-chan used to bring and read. The one she knows was precious that Kotori-chan couldn't even get through 5 pages before Umi-chan wanted it back. It has a brown cover with elegant drawing on the cover. As far as she can remember, Umi-chan likes the seventh chapter. So she takes it from the shelf and skim it through and it is nostalgic. Then it somes to her, that she never finishes that book because Umi-chan always wanted to read it. So she skips a few until she get to the last chapter. Again, she skims just to get the gist. However, she can't finish it because the last page, or maybe it was the last few, was torn off. It doesn't look like it has fallen out but it was neatly torn using a ruler. It seems that it was on purpose. Unsettled by the hanging of the story, she places the book back where it was.

She then notices again, a few books on its right and also its left, a few on top and some at the bottom that there are missing pages at the end. The novels she recognises that belonges to Umi-chan and the ones that even Eli-chan likes, have the same case. She doesn't have to check every one of them but she knows they are all missing. Again, unsettled by the missing pages, she returns the books back.