Momoko furrows her brow and shakes her head a little. "I...see." A criminal then. She had just fought alongside someone who was likely a criminal. She can't help it; her face curls up in disgust and anger. "No, I don't have any more questions." She says as she walks to the door. Before she leaves, she looks over her shoulder at the official and forces a smile. "I'm glad to have been a help!" She says honestly. "Thank you for having me," she finishes, and leaves. She walks as fast as she can, keeping her head dipped down to the ground. She can't decide if she wants to hate herself or hate Amiko. She just wants to get home. She can hide out in one of her dad's Illusionspaces there.
As she's hurrying back home, she hears her crystal ball tinkling away in her bag. Though she's only a few blocks away from her home, she pauses in the middle of the empty street to answer. She slips her crystal ball open and answers the oncoming call, walking backwards a little towards an empty bench on the side of the street.
In the surface of the crystal ball,
a girl can be seen. She's evidently in her kitchen, having set her crystal ball on the counter while she eats cereal standing in her pink and white rabbit-print pyjamas. Her glasses slide down her nose and she pushes them up with the handle of her spoon. "Hey, Mo," she says casually.
Momoko smiles. "Good morning, Yuuki," she says, but her face looks decidedly saddened.
Yuuki tilts her head as she sets down her cereal bowl. "You...don't look right. What's up?" She asks.
"Ah..." Momoko trails off, looking away as she wipes her forehead with her sleeve. "Nothing. I'm fine. Why'd you call?" She answers, voice dragging on every word more than it usually would for the cheery Momoko.
Yuuki's face turns stone cold, carefully examining each aspect of Momoko's obvious lie. "Something's up. I'll be over in ten minutes." She declares, and before Momoko can get another word in she's hung up.
Momoko groans and tips her head back, letting her crystal ball drop into her lap. '
Damn you, Yuuki, damn you!' She thinks, pushing herself up to her feet. There's no way to get away from Yuuki when she thinks that there's something amiss, but that doesn't mean that she isn't going to try.
'I'm fine, honest!' Momoko texts.
'9 mins' Yuuki texts back instantly, and then goes offline.
With a defeated sigh, Momoko drops her crystal ball into her bag and speed-walks back home. She lets herself in and finds that she's home alone, her mother and father both having gone to work. She leaves the door unlocked for Yuuki to just let herself in, and she hurries upstairs, hoping to mash together some sort of 'today has been entirely normal' look. She changes into her pyjamas and puts her hair down, using her hair brush to mess it up a little. Then she rushes back downstairs to the living room, picking up her crystal ball and sitting on the couch, doing her best to look casual.
In this moment where she's alone, Momoko's thoughts go to Amiko. She cups a hand over her forehead as she thinks. "A bloody criminal..." she mumbles to herself, but stops before she can think anything more. How could she know that she was a criminal, really? The official had just said that she was wanted for questioning. She soon enough stops herself. Why would they want her for questioning if she wasn't suspicious? She had to have done
something.
The thing was, whatever she had done couldn't have been all too bad. She didn't look the strongest, and didn't seem capable of anything like terrorism. Maybe it was a non-murderous crime, like fraud or petty theft. That didn't make her feel any better. She'd been paired up with some sort of criminal for an exam! Any number of things could have happened, and she felt so relieved that nothing had. She had stood right next to a criminal, but the worst part was that she quite liked her.
A minute later, the door opens as Yuuki lets herself in. She's dressed in a pair of navy flare jeans, a mint green t-shirt, some dark green trainers and glasses with mossy green frames. Her hair is in a high ponytail and she's wearing a dark green baseball cap. She walks immediately into the living room and gives Momoko a look. "What's up?" She asks again, sitting close to Momoko on the couch with her feet pulled up onto the seat.
Momoko shakes her head. "I told you, nothing!" She says lightheartedly.
"But you've changed your hair. And your clothes." As if to indicate, she picks at the neckline of Momo's pyjamas. "So, I'm willing to bet that something's happened that you don't want to talk about, so you want to make it look like you've been inside all day."
Momoko tries to play off Yuuki's observations with laughs, but it all sounds too forced. The silence stretches out, and eventually Momoko sighs.
"Something did happen, but I'm not supposed to tell you." She admits quietly.
Yuuki lifts her head a little in curiosity. "Is it to do with the exam?" She asks, pointing to the letter on the other side of the couch.
Momoko chews the inside of her cheek. "Kinda," she mumbles after a pause. "An official guy said that I should keep it to myself, or something like that."
Yuuki screws her face up and stands up. "Then we'll go to an Illusionspace, and I'll just forget it after." She offers, pulling Momoko up to her feet.
Momoko shakes her head. "What's the point of telling you, then?" She asks as Yuuki takes her by the hand and leads her upstairs, towards the room that was filled with solely Illusionspaces.
"I don't care about gossip. I can just give you advice." Yuuki replies as she opens the door.
The inside of the room would appear a little odd to anyone with no context. It's empty, apart from wooden cubby holes lining the walls. Each cubby holds an item, which eludes to whatever Illusionspace is behind it. One of the cubbies holds a porcelain horse, another has a thick encyclopaedia, one has a climbing helmet, and so on and so forth. The massive amount of Illusionspaces were due to Momoko's father's unwillingness to stop practicing his trade.
Yuuki walks over to one of the cubbies near the front of the room. She points to the insides - a large seashell. "Beach?" She asks, and Momoko nods. In perfect synchronisation, they reach out and place one finger onto the shell's smooth surface.
The next second, they're both on the beach, Momoko still in her pyjamas. Her bare toes sink into the pale sand and she laughs at the sensation. "I haven't been here in forever," she remarks, turning to look out at the beautiful, shimmering blue sea.
Yuuki laughs. "I've missed it," she admits, rubbing the toe of her shoe into the sand.
They stand in silence for a moment, before Momoko turns to Yuuki. "Let's start walking and I'll start talking." She says, hooking Yuuki's arm with her own.
Yuuki chuckles. "Speak at will."
It takes around ten minutes for Momoko to explain everything, and by the end she's sniffling a little. "I mean, I obviously didn't know her for that long, but she was really nice and I thought we were gonna be friends, or something."
Yuuki pats Momoko's shoulder comfortingly. "I understand." Yuuki says quietly, nodding her head knowingly.
"I mean...a criminal." Momoko breathes. "What if she was a murderer? What if she got angry during the exam and killed me?" She asks pointless questions.
"She doesn't seem like a murderer," Yuuki points out. "Most murderers are sociopaths or psychopaths. She doesn't-"
"Doesn't seem like that! At all." Momoko finishes. "I just feel...wronged. By Amiko and by the officials." She sighs. "I mean, how could she not tell me that one little bit of vital information? I trusted her!"
Yuuki sighs and shakes her head. "Criminals are-"
"-deplorable?"
There's a long pause. "...complicated."
Momoko tilts her head and furrows her brow. "What do you mean?"
Yuuki shifts, as if she's uncomfortable. "If she was nice to you before, maybe she did it to protect you, or something. Maybe if she told you you would have been arrested along with her."
The two keep on walking along the beach in silence, until Momoko stops. "I think it's time to go." She announces.
Yuuki nods. "Alright." And without another word more, they're back in the Illusionspace room.
Momoko eyes Yuuki for a moment as she blinks to clear her fuzzy vision. "Remember that?" She asks.
Yuuki considers this, then shakes her head. "Nope. Did I say anything dumb?"
Momoko hesitates, thinking hard for a few seconds. "Yeah - one thing - but don't worry about it."
"Sorry about that, then. Are you feeling better, though?" She asks.
Another pause. "Yeah." Momoko lies. "Thanks. I think I'm...gonna go for a nap now."
"I'll see myself out, then." Yuuki says, and just one minute later she's walking down the road back towards her home.
Momoko steps away from the front door and locks it. She rubs her forehead, moaning softly. The prospect of Amiko having protected her was...scary. Could she have seriously been jailed if Amiko had told her the truth? She really doesn't want to think about it. She walks up the stairs and across the hall to her lavish bedroom, with it's four poster bed, velvet curtains, thick duvet, feather pillows and mattress for a king. She doesn't bother to do anything else except for fall into the covers, but for ages she can't sleep. She can only think about Amiko, and she's the last thing she thinks about before she finally drifts off.
