There’s usually one other person who spends as much time in the library as Emi.

Quite frankly, she tends to forget they’re even there most of the time. They seem to embody the spirit of Cognito completely.

Dark hair that she could never quite name a single shade to was usually curtaining their face as they read at one of the tables. She knew she’d seen their face before, they were in her class after all, but could she remember it? Nope. The only thing she really remembered about them was the fact that they always had a juice box with them, whether here at the library or during classes. It was usually apple juice, and their drinking of it was the only thing that really broke the silence between them in the library.

Still, silence with company was something she enjoyed, even if she didn’t always realize their presence.

This changed on one October day.

Soon, another person seemed to join them in the little corner of the library she and the dark-haired person frequented.

He was someone she did recognize, also in her class. His name was Seth. Everything about him seemed loud. Bright hair, colorful jackets with fur collars when the weather allowed him to get away with it, and pink-lensed sunglasses.

Pink.

She didn’t know why, but she hated that.

But that was fine, she guessed.

What wasn’t fine was him curling up on the window seat like a cat and staring at her.

Her handwriting started to become shaky across the page as her hand trembled from fight-or-flight-but-really-just-flight adrenaline pumped through her at the attention. She didn’t like attention.

But freaking out would just draw more. So she kept filling out her homework with her shaky hands.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Finally, after a whole month of this, Seth spoke.

“So, what are you?”

Emi slowly turned to the boy in the window. A month of silent staring, though in class she had definitely heard him talking to their peers. He was, rather, one of the most talkative, though she wouldn't say the nicest. Every time she had bothered to tune into his conversations, there was always biting sarcasm underneath.

"Excuse me?" She asked.

"What are you?"

She blinked. So she had heard him right.

"You're going to have to be more specific."

He rolled his eyes. "Good God, are you planning on going outside the walls or something? Or are you just one of those weird role-players?" His lip curled. "Or, wait, I bet you actually want to be human."

Well, now she was entirely confused. "Last I checked, I'm human."

"Uh-huh, sure. Alright, what are your parents then?"

Dead.

"My father is Japanese," She blurted out, thinking perhaps this was a very strange, roundabout and maybe mildly racist way of asking for her ethnicity. "My mother was Turkish. Or, that’s what my dad said."

He stared at her. "Is this a guessing game or something? So, what, one of those... those fox things?"

"Kitsune," Said the other person at the table, making her jump. God, she forgot they were there. Again. They tapped two fingers against their temple.

"Yeah, sure, that."

"Um, no?" Ok, so he was actually asking her if she was... human. Or rather, he was asking what other thing besides human she was.

"Look, I don't know much about yokai, alright. It's yokai, right Azzy?"

"Mm-hmm," said the apparent Azzy, flipping a page in their book and taking a sip from the box of apple juice.

"Right, so throw me a bone here."

What was happening?

"I'm human," She said firmly.

Seth rolled his eyes. "Oh, for the love--"

"She genuinely thinks she's human, Seth. Leave her alone."

"Oh, great, she's insane."

"No she isn’t. Probably." Azzy gave her a small smile, which she didn’t really appreciate considering the context.

"She is right here and really confused," she snapped, annoyance managing to penetrate the cloud of anxiety around her.

"Welcome to Cognito, the place where no one is human." Seth made jazz hands, and she suddenly noticed that his fingernails were rather long. And pointy. And... metallic.

That better be a really elaborate manicure.