Hideki opened his eyes slowly, squinting under the brightness of the light.  Lamps with edison bulbs hung from the ceiling, casting down cones of light on a wooden floor, lighting his path forward through the darkness.  Beyond the edge of the narrowly lit path was nothing but pure blackness; a darkness so stark that he couldn’t be sure the world didn’t simply end at the edge of the light.  He took a few shuffling steps forward, and another light clicked on, then another.  He could hear soft voices in the distance.

“Hello?” Hideki asked as he walked, his vision clearing and adjusting to the strange atmosphere.  He began to walk with a bit more urgency toward the voices, asking, “Who’s there? Do you… Do you need help?”

He followed the path of lights, beginning to jog, before breaking into a run.   The sounds of voices overlapped in a cacophony of noise, before suddenly all falling silent at once.  It was at that moment that Hideki caught himself just before tumbling into the darkness, as no further lights appeared in front of him.  He stood there, panting to catch the breath he’d lost in his panic.

“Please hold,” a woman’s voice said.

Suddenly, rows of lights clicked on in front of him, blinding him once more, and he threw up his arms to shield himself from the lamps.  He peered through his splayed fingers to get a glimpse at what was revealed to him, though it did nothing to explain his situation.

In front of him, he could see three women from behind, sitting in chairs.   All three of them had curly, chestnut brown locks, held back with red ribbons tied into bows.  The three ladies all had headphones over their ears, and they sat facing a wall covered in plugs and wires.  They spoke quietly under their breaths into the microphones on their headsets, as their hands moved wires from plug to plug.

“Who are y-you?” Hideki stuttered, slowly lowering his arms as he stared at the three ladies; “Where am I?”

A fourth brunette stepped from the darkness beside him. She leaned past his shoulder, and smiled up at Hideki, with a touch of mischief in her crimson eyes as she asked, “I thought you needed help?”

Hideki nearly lept out of his skin when he looked at the woman who so suddenly appeared beside him.  His heart was pounding and he clutched his hand over the front of his uniform shirt as he stared at her.

She was dressed in a slender red suit with slacks, and a white blouse with a black ribbon tied at the neck.  Atop her head was a red porkpie hat, with a black ribbon band around it.  She lifted a black gloved hand to remove the hat, holding it over her chest as she bowed, her short chestnut curls framing her face.  She tilted her head to smile up at him, the smile shining in her red eyes, and asked, “You called for help, didn’t you?”

“I called for an ambulance!” Hideki shouted, “Where the hell am I?”

The woman lifted her hat up and placed it on her head again, standing straight and saying, “I like to call this place Temenos.  Please, there’s no need to panic… You’re standing outside of time right now.”

“Outside of time?” Hideki asked, rubbing his face, “There’s a guy bleeding to death right now… if I don’t go…”

The red-eyed woman just smirked at Hideki, watching him with a level gaze.   Finally, she made an exaggerated shrug, and with a resigned sigh, she said, “I suppose you’re just not ready to start making connections yet.”

“Make connections?!” Hideki shouted, lowering his hand from his face and balling it into a fist.  His eyes widened at the red-eyed woman, fury crinkling his brow as he realized how calm and casual she was about all of this.  His hands and shoulders shook as he shouted, “I WANT YOU TO CONNECT ME TO A DAMN HOSPITAL!”

The woman didn’t move, even as the force of Hideki’s breath stirred the soft curls that framed her face.  She slowly turned her head to look toward the three girls nearby, and asked with a pleasant smile, “Cara, my dear?”

The middle of the three women swivelled in her chair, and looked back.   Unlike the woman in red, her eyes were a piercing blue that took Hideki by surprise.

“Would you please send Hideki-kun back for now?” the woman in red requested.

Cara swivelled in her chair to face the switchboard again, and said softly, “Transferring.”

With the click of a plug, everything went black. The wooden floor vanished from under Hideki’s feet, and he felt himself plunge into the dark.

Hideki felt as though he ‘fell’ into his own rigid body, as though he were pulled from the free fall like a rubber band snapping back.  He’d felt the ‘falling’ sensation before, sometimes jarring him awake just as he was about to fall asleep.  Unlike waking from a shallow dream, however, Hideki was standing on his feet.  The dead receiver of an old payphone was still in his hand, held lightly to his ear.  He stared at the sun-bleached pink payphone box, as flickering red lights flashed across the enclosure.  When Hideki looked around, he saw that the sky was now dark and the moon hung high above.  Nearby, several police cars were parked, and barricades had been set up where he once saw the girl and the bleeding boy.

“What…?” he whispered under his breath, the phone receiver slipping from his hand and falling until it swung from its cord like a pendulum.  Hideki stared at the police talking to residents and taking reports, while keeping other onlookers back behind the line.

Hideki felt ill. His stomach churned and he felt a chill coursed through him.   He looked down at his book bag and cellphone on the ground, grabbing up both of them before he began to run down the street, looking for the next alley to slip down.

He wasn’t entirely sure how he found his ‘home’, but soon enough, he was standing on that welcome mat again.  A piece of clear tape was still stuck to the door where his terse welcome note had once been posted.  Hideki shakily fished the key from his pocket, and unlocked the door, before stepping inside.

He froze in the foyer, before he could remove his shoes.  He was not seemingly alone in the house this time.  A woman in her late-twenties sat halfway up the stairs, with her elbows resting on her knees and her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee.  Her brunette hair was pinned up in a messy bun, and she was wearing rather simple blue-gray pajamas.

“Do you know what time it is?” she asked.

Hideki was silent.

“I know what time it is,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee before placing the mug on the step next to her, “I know it’s well past my bedtime. What I don’t know is why I came home to an empty house with no boxes unpacked… Do you know why that is?”

Hideki swallowed the lump in his throat, but could still find no words.

The woman stood up and slowly descended the steps, asking, “Do you know what a curfew is?  Do they have those in Tokyo or Hokkaido or wherever you’re from?  Do you know what kind of trouble I could get in as your guardian?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Hideki said quietly.

The woman faintly snorted, a momentary hint of what was almost a chuckle, before she lifted her arm and pushed back her sleeve to eye her delicate wristwatch, before saying, “I’m glad you didn’t mean to, but I’m pretty concerned how you could just lose track of… oh… I don’t know, what is it, over six hours?!”

“Six hours?” Hideki asked, surprised.

“It’s after midnight!” she snapped, her voice raising, “Even if you already joined a club you should’ve been home by six-thirty.  Just what were you getting into?!”

Again, Hideki fell silent.  The woman stared him down, looking furious, before the anger began to subside.   She exhaled heavily, and shook her head.

“I’m sorry we had to meet like this,” she said, “I’m Hirano Shion, and I’m responsible for you now, so I’d hope you’d show me a little more respect than this.”

Hideki bowed deeply, lowering his head.

“I’m sorry to burden you,” Hideki said, “I know this can’t be your ideal situation…”

“To be honest, I can’t even say ‘that’s what family is for’,” Shion replied, “You’re my sister-in-law’s husband’s boy, so we share practically no relation at all.   Still, I’d prefer you call me your ‘aunt’ while you live here.  I don’t want the neighbors thinking anything illicit is going on while my husband is away, especially when you come stumbling in at ungodly hours of the night.”

“Your husband is away?” Hideki asked, surprised.

“He’s travelling for business,” said Shion, “I work a lot too.  Unfortunately I’m going to have to telecommute tomorrow, I told them I had a ‘family emergency’.”

Hideki winced, as she once again drove home just how much he’d inconvenienced her.

“I’m sorry,” Hideki said quietly, “I won’t let it happen again.”

“You won’t, or I’m telling your father to send you somewhere else,” she said firmly, before turning to ascend the stairs.  She scooped up her near-empty coffee cup and said, “Home immediately after school, and you’re spending tomorrow on homework and unpacking only.”

Hideki watched her leave, not pausing to wait for his reply.  He heard her feet travel across the upper floor before her bedroom door slid shut firmly.  He stared up the stairs quietly, as he mulled over her words in his mind.

“Send me somewhere else,” he whispered, before trudging up the stairs.