/jp/ - Otaku Culture

I walked past the house. I didn't stop. I didn't look inside. There was a youkai living in my house, and I wasn't ready to face that.

Soon enough, I was out of the village, and I could see the mouth of the caves. I could already feel a ball of anxiety in my stomach, and I had to very slowly inch my way up to the entrance, where Yamame had taken me to, during my anxiety attack. Once I was there, I leaned heavily against the wall, and stared into the darkness. I hated this. I hated this blind fear I could feel. I'd walked these caves multiple times without any fear, and now I couldn't even step inside? It was so frustrating that I wanted to scream. I was already internally screaming to myself to just step forward, and yet I was also internally expressing an intense desire to turn the other way and flee. This training of mine, it seemed, wasn't going to be a simple task.

I spent much of the first day there, and while I still felt just as terrified at the end as I had at the start, I did manage to take a few steps into the cave, though I had to back away when I started struggling to breathe. I was at least somewhat happy that I hadn't fallen into any intense flashbacks of the past, though. That had happened last time and it had almost entirely ended me there and then, and I couldn't rely on being saved every time. Only as the sun began to sink in the sky did I decide that I would need to dedicate some more time to this, so, feeling annoyed, I backed away from the cave entrance and trudged back to the village, determined to at least get my tea. By this point in the day, the village was busy, and even as I staunchly ignored my own house to walk toward the café, I found myself awkwardly having to dodge other villagers who were out and about.

The café had been there for as long as I could remember, ran by an old man and his wife. It had been doing fine, but not spectacular, until during a planned refurbishment, the old man's wife had injured herself and been forced to stay at home with family. At this point, the redheaded waitress that I liked had appeared as if from nowhere, and the café had began to show signs of life again. Now that his wife was back, the old man's shop seemed to be doing better than ever. I lifted the flap to enter, taking in the sights as I did so. From somewhere, they had acquired a strange sort of glass that sent interesting rainbow-like patterns across the stone floor, which they had mounted where it would catch the most sunlight. The tables were all irregular sizes, which helped to add to the handcrafted feel of the place. I took a seat near the door and rested my head in my hand, thinking about how little progress I had made in terms of entering the caves again. I could only hope that every day wouldn't go like that, or it could be weeks or months before I could work up the courage to truly enter.