"I'm ho - ome." Arisu sighed into the soft silence of the apartment, somewhat happy that there was no one to answer back. Sliding off her shoes before dropping her bag on the floor, she stretched, gazing around the empty room. It wasn't that she'd become a hermit, she still had plenty of friends and potential boyfriends, if she wanted to ask. Now, though, for some inexplicable reason, she felt the least alone when there was no one else around. It had taken her a long time to understand the feeling, calm and steady... as if she was connected to something greater, or that she had a guardian angel that just happened to hover a little closer than usual. //I'd think it was spiritual, maybe it is... or that I like nature, the wind and the sunlight, and it's just an extension of that - but it feels so... personal, somehow.// It might have been some inner intuition, telling her to return to Japan for good, maybe explore a little further into her religious side on familiar soil. It wasn't as if she didn't like America all right, it was certainly an adventure - but at times it seemed that she hadn't succeeded, that whatever she'd been expecting to find here still eluded her. //No... that's not it. I didn't come here looking for anything - and anyway, I'm needed here. I have to help close this deal, at least.// Arisu the calm, confident businesswoman. It certainly seemed a long way from where she'd started, where she'd ever planned she might end up. If her first love hadn't turned out so wishy-washy, she might never have been motivated for more... //First love...// Arisu took out the clips in her dark hair, watching in the mirror as it tumbled down around her face. Laughingly, she pouted for a moment like a model. //He was rather boring for a first love.// "Ah yes, but you are Arisu the supermodel... hah. What have you ever done that's been so exciting?" She poked at the mirror, challenging it to answer. "You're getting absentminded in your old age, Arisu, you've never had much to talk about." She sighed again, a little sadder this time, she wasn't old but it was coming, sneaking up closer and closer with every day that passed. It was true, her life wasn't very exciting, and she couldn't think of exactly when it had started to matter so much, that things were so mundane. Where had that carefree spirit of hers gone, and could she even get it back? //Maybe this is what it means to grow up.// The phone rang. Arisu grimaced at the annoying tone, she hadn't yet found a way to shut it off or even turn it down. Quickly, she unbuttoned her blouse, tossing down belt, skirt and the rest quickly, so that she wouldn't be tempted to cross the room and answer it. "Arisu? It's Ben." His voice was too loud and deep, and melted her name into a taffy blob. "I was wondering if you'd like to go out tonight. I thought I heard you were going back to Japan soon, so I figured you might want to enjoy a night out, see the sights? Call me back, all right?" Arisu sighed, drowning out the closing beep by turning on the shower. Ben liked her, if she went out she would probably have a wonderful evening. He would pay for everything, no doubt, wine and dine her and give her a goodnight kiss - a gentleman's date. //... so?// No one knew about most of these feelings, Arisu liked to keep her less happy moments private, but she was sure her friends would all agree, somewhere along the way her standards in dating had gone well past 'high' into downright astronomical. She couldn't explain it, and she certainly hadn't ever been impolite, but all the men she had met, here or at home or even in studies abroad seemed to be lacking... something. Cliché as it sounded, she knew the problem wasn't with them, but herself - but what /was/ the problem, exactly? After a long deliberation, Arisu had finally even forced herself into a gay nightclub, absolutely certain she had a glowing neon sign - "does not belong here" - over her head the entire night. Still, maybe there had been something she didn't see, something about herself she didn't know - and it had certainly been exciting, to be so completely out of her usual surroundings. It didn't seem to make things any better, though... none of the women she watched that night seemed any more intriguing than her male dates. No one interested her. //As if it's their job to interest you, Arisu. It's all just a mid-life crisis, that's what it is.// Arisu made sure the water was warm before jumping in, scrubbing with the soap determinedly, as if the action could somehow make up for the hesitant, waffling bent of her thoughts. //Everyone goes through a point in their life like this, when they're not sure of what they're doing, or if what they did -// Arisu stopped, watching the water run over her fingertips, washing away the soap suds, suddenly and completely lost in that thought. //What they did. What I did, something in the past?// It wasn't as if she really thought about the past, there wasn't that much to remember, really. A normal childhood, school and clubs and friends... Friends. No, it wasn't as if much had happened, nothing apart from the normal teenage years... but there was something she was forgetting. Arisu knew it, could sense the split in her thoughts, and the nagging feeling she had left something behind, a memory she should have tried to place long ago. //You think you have more intuition than you do, you know. It just sounds so pat, that if you could remember, it would change everything, that whomever you've forgotten... that's what's missing. It probably isn't something all that important - you probably skipped a birthday card or forgot to call someone.// Still, the feeling had become stronger lately, like a powerful dream on the verge of being remembered. Arisu found herself doing odd things, nothing anyone else would notice, but still odd. Leaving the Navi in the room on, all the time, though she barely touched the machine except for the occasional e-mail. It was like a beacon, one of those old-time lighthouses, left to call someone home. //Call someone...?// Arisu sighed, uncapping the shampoo and taking a deep breath, enjoying the few lush moments she had to herself in the shower, the way it felt safe and protected and - //Lain.// Arisu blinked, nearly jumped as the shampoo slid from her fingers, landing on the shower floor with a dull thud. It took her a moment to collect it, and to take hold of her strangely fluttering thoughts - it was annoying the way her body remained so steady, Arisu thought, her heart ought to have been racing, or at least she should have had the cold shivers. //Lain. I knew a girl named Lain.// Arisu did feel her heart start to pound, as a sudden, complete stillness seemed to fall around her, half-crouched with the water still falling down around her. She strained to hear past the patter, ears ringing with the resounding silence, as if the entire world were holding its breath, waiting... If this were a movie, this would be the 'Psycho' moment - Arisu swallowed hard, reaching up, the rest of her body tensing to leap out of the way as she threw the shower curtain back, the steel rollers seeming to screech across her nerves - nothing. A moment later, she realized how ridiculous it must have looked, grown woman crouching naked in her shower in a ludicrous fighting pose... and the shampoo was nearly dripping in her eye, too. //You're getting water on the floor.// Arisu rolled her eyes, drawing the curtain closed and quickly rinsing the rest of the shampoo out of her hair. //Lain. Iwukara Lain, I remember her... but nothing else? No background at all.// It was strange, Arisu was sure there was more, but most of the memories seemed to be hiding. She could remember a girl, a little shorter than she was, quiet... dark hair worn in a somewhat original style, but very shy, childlike. The kind of girl to forget simply because nothing about her stood out. //No, that isn't true.// She paused, waiting, the strange heavy silence still filling the air - waiting, waiting for her, maybe... if this Lain was important, why forget about her? //Maybe you wanted to forget.// Arisu frowned, now that just seemed silly. A girl, especially a girl like that, what could be so frightening? Of course, who knew what might have seemed frightening to a high-school girl. She felt a moment of sudden guilt, betrayal - what if this Lain had confided in her? A real problem, pregnancy or drugs or something worse, and she hadn't been able to deal with it? She had run away rather than risk whatever horrible thing she thought might have happened? //The monsters that were so scary in childhood, when you finally grow up and turn the lights on them, they're something else entirely.// The older she became, the more Arisu thought that boredom was a worse feeling than the fear of the unknown. Realizing that her life was so small, and relatively tedious, really - she knew would have said something different to this Lain, if she had been the person she was now. One hand against the blank-feeling wall of the shower, Arisu turned the knob, speaking to herself for reasons even she couldn't explain. "I'm not afraid anymore." She froze, breath catching in her throat - noticing quite distinctly the feeling of water dripping off the backs of her calves, warm rivulets dividing into individual droplets - and a hand, small, pressed against her skin, just below her right shoulder. Arisu didn't move, not until she could feel puffs of cool air coming in around the shower curtain, and the slightly sticky, tight feeling from her skin drying in the air. Waiting... the whole universe was waiting. //It's a hand, Arisu... and the fact that no one should be able to get into your apartment, let alone your /shower/... it's still just a hand, and it hasn't done anything to you. Nothing's happened yet.// Arisu braced herself, and finally just swung around, eyes closed - snapping them open to find... nothing. She spent a long time later with her relief, trying to decide if it was really what she felt at all.
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