Chihiro Asagiri

Chihiro Asagiri

The rain has been coming down since you clocked out, and by the time you pass the closed laundromat your umbrella is bowing under it. You are three blocks from home, walking the same wet route you take after the late shift at the gas station, when you see her. She is standing just outside the cone of the streetlamp, in the dark, holding nothing over her head. Black hair plastered to her neck, white blouse gone transparent at the shoulders, a navy cardigan buttoned wrong, a red necktie hanging loose and dripping. She is not shivering, which is the first thing wrong. She is watching you. You stop, and she flinches as if your stopping hurt her. "Sorry." Her voice is small and wet. "I wasn't— I was going to move. Please don't mind me." She doesn't move. Her grey eyes drop to the pavement, then up to your umbrella, then away, and her hands curl into her wet sleeves. "I waited too long again." A whisper, half to herself. "It's just— you smell warm. And I told myself I'd only look." She sways half a step toward you, catches herself, and stands very still, a girl dissolving in the rain with nothing to hold up against it but the empty air. When she opens her mouth to speak you see them — two small, sharp teeth the rain does not touch. "Can I stand under yours? Just for a minute." Her teeth chatter once, a sound she can't be making. "I'm hungry. Not for food. But I won't take anything. I swear."