Ding dong

The door opened soon after I rang the doorbell, as if she knew I was already there.

“Hello Este!” I said.

“H-hello Sia. Come inside,” said Este.

“Gladly. Sorry for the intrusion~.” I said as I walked into the house and took off my shoes.

Our kindergarten year recently ended, and we were currently in the middle of our spring vacation. During the past few days, Este and I have been playing together since our houses are very close. 

Since we’ve been together frequently, I’d like to think that the atmosphere between us has gotten friendlier. Although she isn’t the best playmate, she’s a good listener.

Este always comes to my house, so this is the first time I’ve been in her house. Do you know how hard it was to get in here? Every single day I had to ask her if I could go to her house and she would say “T-there’s nothing to do there…” with that passive voice of hers. Me going to her house was the only thing she’d object to, although softly. Sadly for her, I am a genius, so it was only natural that she would lose in a battle of perseverance against me. If you want to beat me you must gain more experience first!

Now that I’m inside her house, I understand why she didn’t want me to come. My first impression is that it’s clean, yet dreary. There’s not much to see, and it seems like the Cana family only buys things that are absolutely necessary, because so far all I’ve seen is furniture, and even then there’s not much of that. 

We were walking to Este’s room, and on the way I saw a picture of a woman with long red hair and a cheerful smile. She stood in a field of flowers and held a sunflower in her grasp. It’s the first thing I’ve seen in this house with actual character, so it must be pretty important.

“Este, who is this?” I said as I pointed to the picture of the red-haired woman.

“That’s my mother. She died after giving birth to me so I don’t know much about her.” 

Now that I think about, her mother was introduced as dead in the game. She wasn’t an important character so whatever she looked like was up to our wild imagination. Wait a minute… Her mother was dead… Hmm… I feel like I’m forgetting something important. Oh well. If I can’t remember it now then it’ll come to me later.

After making a brief stop, we arrived at her room which is on the second floor. Her room was the same as the rest of the house, and had nothing that showed her character. It’s kind of sad… You’d expect a children’s room to have stuffed animals or toys, but there’s absolutely nothing in here except a futon and her clothes.

“Why don’t you have anything in your room?” I asked.

“I don’t really ask for stuff, so Papa just get’s me whatever I need.”

“Why don’t you ask him for stuff?”

“W-well… There’s nothing I really want, and asking Papa for things is a bit…” She couldn’t finish her sentence, but I could guess the rest of what she wanted to say.

I see. She’s either so shy that she doesn’t have the courage to ask her father for things, or their relationship isn’t that close. Hmm… She does call him Papa though, so it’s probably the former.

“Speaking of him, where is your father right now?”

“Work.”

Every time I ask Este about her father, she answers with the same thing. Their family isn’t in dire need of money anyway. How busy could he be that he’s almost never home?

My mother was also worried since there wouldn’t be any parents to supervise us, and after the kidnapping incident her worries are justified. My aunt was planning on visiting our house, and I didn’t want mother to cancel her plans because of me. I somehow managed to convince her that she didn’t have to come. That kind of thing rarely ever happens anyway, and if something does happen our houses are close by. Also, Este’s house has a telephone so I can contact her.

Now that I think about it, one time I asked Este if she cooks for herself since her father is never home, but she told me that he buys takeout and leaves it in the fridge for Este. Is that a good thing or a bad thing I wonder? Despite this, she says that her father is a nice guy.

I think it’s sad that Este almost never gets to see her father, but why is it that every time I think about it I get a bad feeling in my stomach? ...Let’s put the bad feeling aside for now. Today I came to play.

“What do you want to do, Sia?” asked Este. A good question indeed… What would be a good game to play in a desolate place like this?

“How about hide-and-seek? You’ll hide first and I’ll search,” I suggested.

“Okay.” After confirming what we were going to play, I counted to ten and waited for her to hide.

Although I suggested this game, it’s not like there are many places to hide anyway. According to the sound of her footsteps, she went left the room and went to the right… If I’m correct then there’s only one room on that side.

When I entered the room, there were several pictures of Este’s mother in the room. Must be her father’s room. The first place I looked was under the bed and sure enough, there she was.

“You already found me? It’s only been a minute though…” said Este as she got out from under the bed.

“Don’t feel too sad about it. I’m a genius after all.”

“I know,” she said as she smiled. “Are you ready? I’ll start the countdown now.” I affirmed that I was ready and she started the countdown.

“Ten.”

I walked around the room with the quietest footsteps I could create.

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“Eight.”

I’m sure Este wouldn’t think I’d hide in the same spot as she did before, so I went under her bed. It wasn’t a difficult solution. The hardest part was being quiet.

“Three. Two. One.” I heard Este finish the countdown, and as I expected she left the room first. 

Wow, it’s quite clean under this bed. Does Este clean the house? It looks like we have a future housewife-in-the-making. She must clean since there’s nothing else for her to do. I’m sure if I looked under my bed I’d find a few dusty books and spiders. Eww… Spiders. I hate spiders. Even in my past life I hated spiders. One time there was a spider on my PS3, and sure enough it thought of it as it’s own little home. I didn’t use my PS3 for days after that and ended up buying a new one even after the spider left. Oops, I’ve remembered some bad memories.

It’s great that Este is good at cleaning, but isn’t she taking too long to search for me? It’s already been about fifteen minutes and I’m sweating over here. I can’t even hear her footsteps…

It’s quite hot under here, so since it’s been awhile I’ll just consider this my win. I looked around the house to see where Este could be. In her room there was a window that showed a view of a tree. Well, usually it would be a view of a tree, but right now it was a view of Este on a tree branch with a cat in her arms. Wait, what?

“Este?!? What are you doing there!?” I asked.

“T-the cat couldn’t come down and it’s injured.” When I looked closer, there was some blood on the cat’s leg.

“Stupid!! It’s great that you want to rescue a cat but at this rate you’ll be injured too! If you wanted to save it you should’ve told me first!” 

“I couldn’t find you so…”

Tsk

I went towards the window to where Este was and my first instinct was to look down. I’m so stupid! Why did I look down? Why is this tree so high up… and how did she get there in the first place?! That branch that’s holding Este doesn’t look like it can hold her weight...

“Give me the cat first,” I told Este as I brought my body out as far as possible. S-scary… When Este handed the cat to me I could hear the tree branch creak a little. After placing the cat on the ground I reached towards Este next.

“B-be careful Este!” I warned her.

“Y-yeah…” As soon as her hand touched mine the tree branch broke. I heard a loud thump as Este fell to the ground.

“Este?! Are you okay?!” She was laying there and gave no response… Is she hurt?! I quickly left the house to check up on her. Her pulse is there but she won’t wake up… she must have fainted! W-what am I supposed to do in times like these… I-I should call my mom first, she’d know what to do! 

I went back inside Este’s house to call my mom using their home phone. Why don’t I have a cell phone for desperate situations like these!? When I was blaming myself, my mom picked up.

“Hello?” asked mother.

“Mother, i-it’s Sia!”

“Sia-chan, what’s wrong? Calm down and tell me.”

“E-este… She was trying to help a cat and… S-she fell… S-she’s on the ground right now and she w-won’t wake up…” My hands were shaking from fear and I couldn’t get a good grip on the phone. I dropped it, and tears started falling down my eyes. 

T-this is just like the last time, and she slept for three days… What if she doesn’t wake up this time?

When I was thinking of the worst possibility, mother came with ragged breath and her indoor clothes. She must’ve rushed here for me…

“Sia! Where is she?!” she asked.

“O-over here!” I said as I showed her to where Este was. The first thing mother did was check her pulse and breathing.

“I’m not sure if it’ll work, but… [Low Heal],” said mother. She touched Este’s chest and activated a magic spell which produced a green light.

“It’ll be okay, Sia… I called the ambulance on the way here, so they should arrive soon,” she said as she tried to comfort me. I could only nod in response to what she said, and wait quietly for help to arrive.

Just as she said, the ambulance arrived quickly and Este was taken to the hospital.

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“It’s nothing too serious. She gained a few bruises but she should wake up in a few hours,” said the doctor. “I also called Estelia’s father, who should be arriving any minute now.”

Hearing that she would wake up in a few hours with only a few bruises relieved me, and my trembling had stopped.

“Isn’t that great, Sia?” asked mother. 

“Yeah!” I said. When we were rejoicing, a man in a suit came in. 

He was a handsome young man that had Este’s features, except manlier. His messy brown hair showed how little he cared about his cleanliness. His green eyes were a beautiful color comparable to that of a jade’s, but were lifeless from overworking. He also had some stubble on his chin. One look at him and everything I couldn't remember before connected like a jigsaw puzzle.

“My daughter... is she okay?” asked Este’s father.

It came to me once I saw him. The reason why I had a bad feeling every time I thought of Este’s father.

In the game he is introduced through a picture of him in Este’s room. It was said that there were multiple pictures of him around the house, and although we got to see what he looked like through pictures, he was never actually around the house during the game. The reason was because he had died of a heart attack when Este was just entering the 4th grade.