Chương 113: A Shelter, But Not Home

June pinched his ragged hemp shirt and dragged it up to his nose to sniff it with a scrunched face. The two were currently wandering a small indoor plaza that didn't quite meet the criteria of a mall. In its centre was a large circular room with tables dispersed throughout the centre, with natural sunlight gleaming through the dirtied glass dome above. The half-mall was filthy, cracks and imperfections marred the floors and ceiling, and several stores lined the walls of the circular room.

If not for the natural light and the few people who had stopped by for a meal, the idea of the complex being abandoned was not an irrational assumption. Several moments of silent walking, only occupied by the echoes of unrhythmic silent footsteps and seemingly ongoing chatter that simultaneously fit the mall aesthetic and added a sense of eeriness to the near-empty complex went by before June made an astute observation.

Assisted with a gentle hand resting on its jaw, the figure craned its head to the sides, letting out a series of cracks, then let out a long sigh.

"Why is everyone here… faceless?" June walked up to a passerby and looked at a blurred slate that shifted artificially.

"We don't remember faces often, and this is a memory!"

"Hm… I don't like this place; it feels…."

"Stifling? I was thinking the same too. I just can't figure out why."

"Maybe it's how the place smells?"

"I thought so too at first, but it's probably not that?"

"Maybe it's how the place looks? It's rundown, dusty, mouldy… Do I need to worry about having my allergies act up right before fighting that ONI fella?" The figure raised an arm, coughed politely into their elbow, and snorted as if they had a runny nose.

"Maybe? I think we should leave… Let's head to our room in the shelter instead." With a snap of its fingers, the world around them dissolved into black and suddenly flourished with colour as they found themselves right in front of the shelter.

"Why are we in front? I thought we were going straight to our room?"

"I… just wanted to see the shithole for what it was once again!" The two opened the first door leading to a second airlock door; the figure then waved its hand in front of a fob scanner, prompting it to beep before the door slowly crept open. They walked in and down a carpeted hallway that permeated the intense smell of lacquer and acetone. Then they rounded a corner and saw an office door with a grated window blocked by black craft paper.

To their right was a small dark food hall with dimming and flickering lights, and to their left….

"Why is it mosaic blurred like the faces earlier? Isn't this the way to our room?" You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"I guess we forgot the way to our room too!? Let's… just go check out the cafeteria before I bring us there." The figure led on towards the small cafeteria, and while entering the room, June shielded his eyes from flickering lights and felt an uncomfortable coldness assault him; it was not a wintry cool like Lilia's aura or simply cold. Instead, it felt like a cold breeze touched all his exposed skin, with a disgusting warm smell lingering in it.

It felt odd to feel something and remember something so subtly mean; the sensation didn't carry nostalgia, just a slow-burning cold that centered around his chest and refused to permeate around his body, which inexplicably made his heart tremble weakly in a battering melancholy. June liked the cold, but he never really understood why. His family wasn't the type to let him play outside, and in turn, he didn't have many, if not any, nice memories in cold weather.

He enjoyed Christmas, but that couldn't simply be the reason he enjoyed the snow or enjoyed the cold itself. Insignificant small memories drooped back to him quietly; he remembered often sneaking into the food hall alone after midnight and right before the sun kissed the sky with its warm colours, and he remembered sitting in a dark corner of the poorly lit hall with a trembling hand, eating warmed canned soup.

6 years from then, and the trembling in his body never really left him; at first, he thought it was simply from not eating properly, then he thought he had developed some sort of issue, and recently, a doctor had informed him it was simply from stress, which felt like the easy, right reason, but at the same time felt incomplete. The dying lights and a few flickering lights assailed his eyes, making him feel lightheaded. The warm waft that carried the strange, chilling breeze made his mind quiver.

He repeatedly found himself keeping an eye on the hallway that worked as the only entrance and exit to the food hall. The figure let out a long and winding exhale. It seemed like June wasn't the only one recoiling, and with a snap of its fingers, they found themselves in a crammed bathroom with an obnoxious white light.

"... Why are we in the bathroom of all places?"

"Oh, I wanted to see it; it's been a while after all… a long, long while…" June looked around at the familiar place he often visited at the crack of dawn; funnily enough, it was where he wound down with a silent shower and, simultaneously, one of the places he most dreaded being.

"I'm assuming that annoying girl isn't here?"

"No…. Authenticity is good, but I think we both would rather stew in a pit of worms than deal with her again." During his time at the women's shelter, June understandably felt out of place; after all, no men were allowed on the premises. He watched a few other boys his age come and go, not speaking with any of them, but still having a silent sense of camaraderie among them before they moved away to better places.

While the bathroom was a respite that didn't directly remind him of his uncomfortable living conditions, he was only able to use it at the crack of dawn, the time he would brush his teeth for the day, and shower was often a few hours near midnight for a single reason. June eyed the doorknob, waiting for someone to try forcing their way in. The neighboring room had a girl of a similar age to him, whom June would always see glaring at him from behind her door.

If he ever tried to go to the bathroom, she would, without fail, dash out and into the room before him, even if his hand was on the doorknob first. He also had a couple of uncomfortable experiences with her trying to force the door open while he was in the showers, which eventually gained him a habit of barring doors when using any lavatories.

He couldn't really tell what the deal was with the girl next door, maybe an unbridled hate for men hidden under a petty exterior, or some weird sense of competition with him, and by the time she moved away, he never found out. Despite the figure bringing June into the memory under the clause of helping him confront his past, June had a feeling the figure was also confronting his.

A shared sense of disgust and tepid melancholy settled between the two individuals who, for some reason, tried to act stoic in front of each other, despite their connected emotions and thoughts. The figure pressed its finger on its brow and let out a sigh, and in response, June attempted to lighten the mood with a sarcastic remark.

"You're sighing a lot more than usual!"

"You are too! … let's… go to our room this time… without detours."