An Ordinary Day - Chapter 1: A Glimpse of a Better Life
#3 of An Ordinary Day
Here's Chapter 1! It's also short and is baisically describing Hikari's house. It's from Kuroi's point of view. To think I only posted the prologue 2 days ago. Well, without further ado, let's start!
An Ordinary Day
Chapter 1
A Glimpse of a Better Life
A quiet street, a modern Japanese style home. All is as it seems, until you enter a house of magic. This holds true especially when the house you enter is that of your best friend and confidant of fourteen years. My friend Hikari has dabbled in the magic arts to the point where he can do pretty much everything a normal person takes hours to do with manual labor in minutes with a wave of his hand. He also knows that with knowledge comes great responsibility, clichéd, I know, but still true. He makes it a cardinal rule that it never be used outside of his home, but, if absolutely necessary, he will make an exception.
Entering his house, I felt a little culture shock. While the exterior is designed with clean straight lines befitting modernity that won't go out of style, the inside is as old Japanese as you can get without being completely outdated. There are soft greens and beiges in almost all design aspects. There are tatami mat floors in the sitting area with a mahogany short table and sage green cushions to sit on. The walls were painted a shade of beige so subtle it was bordering on white. There are stairs to a second floor to the right of the door. We walk through the kitchen, which is a normal functional kitchen with stainless steel appliances, to what can only be described as a meditation room.
"This is the room that I use for magic rituals and summoning. I would recommend acquainting yourself with this room since I will need to teach you some magic in order to deal with some of the things that may, quite literally, come out the woodwork."
I admire the simple furnishings of the room. It's a mid-sized room about fourteen feet by ten feet. It's small enough to be used as a spare bed room, if need be, and would fit a twin sized bed, maybe a queen sized. There is a table that runs half the length of the opposite wall, the ten foot wall, with a large cupboard taking up the remaining footage.
"You realize that I see all of this every time I break in for food, right?"
"I do, and the only reason you can actually get in is because my barriers recognize your energy and unseal the door.
"What would happen if they didn't recognize my energy?" A small amount of nervousness crept into my voice.
"You would completely forget why you came here and think you had to be else where."
"Well, that's not so bad."
"It is if the reason you forget is because of a huge electrical charge running through your body."
"That would have happened to me if it didn't recognize me! And you put those barriers up knowing I would steal food from you! You know, electricity stops peoples hearts right?"
"Oh, it's not an actual electric shock. It's spirit energy, but it's such a huge amount that it feels like an electric shock. It's completely harmless, but you might feel a slight buzzing sensation in your head afterwards."
"I feel funny..."
"How funny?"
"It feels like a slight pressure all around me."
"Ah, you're feeling the magic in the room. Leftover energy from the spells and such. Don't worry, it's harmless, and you won't notice it after a while. By the way, that cupboard in the corner is much deeper than it looks. I created an ever-expanding space inside the confines of the cupboard. The space gets larger every time I add something to the cupboard and shrinks every time I take something out."
"How do you find what you're looking for then?"
"I summon a little imp that can read your thoughts and send it in. I summon the same one every time so it knows exactly where everything is. You simply think of what you need and it will go get it. I find he's rather tidy and, when I last checked inside, has every thing filed alphabetically by use and by school of magic."
"There are schools that teach magic?"
"No, silly, in this day and age, magic is seen as superstition and is frowned upon as an actual study. When I say 'school of magic' I mean what type of magic it is used for. For example, one would use a crystal ball for divination, a cauldron for potions, a truckload of chalk is used in summoning with all of the magic circles that need to be drawn. Which brings me to the topic of the floor."
"The floor? What about it?"
"The tatami mats in this room are easily removed and underneath them the floor is made entirely of the same rock, who's name constantly escapes me, as the kind used for chalkboards. When summoning one of the beings I have written in the book on the desk it'll have a number written beside the instruction and will usually be something like '1 x 2' meaning that you need to remove a square one mat by two mats. The first number is the long side of the mat while the second is the short side."
"Ah, very precise, are we?"
"Only when it comes to magic. You really have to be, otherwise you could end up as demon food."
"Ugh..." I shiver, partly because the thought disturbs me and partly because inside the house is a little chilly.
"You must be cold. Let's get you a change of clothes."
I follow him back to the sitting area and up the stairs to his room. He takes me across the room to his closet and he pulls out a plain dark blue shirt to go with my dark blue pants.
"That should do for now. We can go get you a new wardrobe after lunch."
"Thanks..." I notice how much the shirt smells like him.
"I don't have the other bedroom set up right now and I don't trust any summons to make it up to my standard so I'll arrange it tomorrow. For now, you can sleep in my bed."
"Then where will you sleep?" I get a quick mental image of us cuddling in the bed together.
"I'll be in the magic room adjusting the barriers and replacing some old wards I set up. It could take all night so if I finish before then I'll conjure up a bed in the sitting area and sleep there."
"Okay, if you insist."
"Which I do, so I'll let you get acquainted with the rest of house. I recommend you do not enter the magic room for your own safety. I'm going to reinforce the wards outside."
He left quickly, and I sensed that there was something malicious outside the barrier. We made a good team back in elementary school. We would pretend to destroy ghosts around the school at recess. We didn't realize at the time that they were real ghosts. I had the ability to sense the ghost and their intent, while Hikari had the spiritual power to use magic and purify them. We only purified the evil ghosts though, we were actually friends with the good ghosts. Of course, that being said, not many people wanted to hang around weird people who "played pretend" throughout elementary school.
"Well, at least it won't be boring!" I say happily wagging my tail and breathing in the scent of Hikari's shirt.