Chapter Text
It was to be known that Kyoko Kirigiri, or Kirigiri Kyoko, was a collector of sorts-- she collected people. Every conversation, every mannerism, every personality, she kept it all like books in the personal library of her mind. She understood the undeniable fact that nobody truly had their life together, and found genuine enjoyment in discovering what exactly it was that prevented a flawless personal life. She saw her interactions as this: When someone would introduce themself to her, that would be the cover. Some nights later, they'd have a drink at the lounge. They would talk. She'd get to read the little blurb on the back that'd tell you all about what you're about to get yourself into.
It was an early morning a few days before Christmas, and Kyoko was driving to work. At one point in her life, she had a black Toyota Camry-- she wanted most of everything black, or at least dark. The man who sold her the car begged her to get a white model, because white models were less risky and not as heavy with insurance, he stated. And of course, should she get the white model, she'd need to enroll with his personal insurance company. So, after Kyoko bought the black model, as soon as she got home, she started building a case against that man, and had done so with such success that a week later, he was on the offenders list rather than the initial charge of fraud.
She drove, alongside the passing grain and all the same houses as she saw yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. Fields turned into rows and rows of vending machines, and the small convenience stores melted together into huge department stores. She was a little bit under or beside Yokohama now, and she soon pulled into the police station's parking lot. She adjusted the tie hung around her neck. She threw her shoulders back and exited the vehicle. A few paces away, she stopped and bowed to the Commander Nijima, who was standing beside the doorway, and he reciprocated. A young prick-in-training. He was the type who would always, no matter what, try to get a leverage over people. Let it be because he was older than you, or woke up earlier than you, or walked faster than you. He was your senior, and you should always give him the utmost respect.
"Good morning, Commander Nijima."
"As cheerful as ever, Officer Kirigiri!" He chuckled sheepishly, and after a moment opened the door for Kyoko. "What I'll have you do today is a simple task. Some old geezer keeps calling this station about some junkie who wont leave his graveyard, and so now it's our problem... I'll give you the address."
Kyoko nodded, and punched in. The prefecture she moved to was stuck in a bygone era, so absolutely everything had to be paper. She had to learn to use a typewriter her first month at this station, and they still had the sort of printing press that needed to have the wooden characters arranged to press. She hated wasting paper, and hated unnecessary steps, so she was definitely having a lot of fun.
"What are you doing this holiday, Kirigiri?"
"Working." She mumbled.
"Ah... no... nobody to come home to, er...?"
Kyoko stayed quiet.
"Because, not to sound old-fashioned or anything--"
"I've got no other responsibility, other than my job, Nijima. I'm quite fine with that."
"Oh, I see..." Nijima slinked back into the corner, feeding paper into the fax machine.
As she was leaving, Nijima called out, "I prefer Commander Nijima, Kyoko." After a pause, he chortled, and turned back to the fax machine.
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Kyoko drove to the cemetery, which was a foreign style. There wasn't any polished stone in sight, nor geometric headstones, and no incense. It didn't seem to be a popular site, for there were only about a dozen or so headstones haphazardly placed down. It was all contained in shoddy wooden fencing about waist-high, and the 'gate' was actually a large but thin sheet of rusted steel one was expected to move out their way themselves to get by. Preferring getting a splinter over contracting tetanus, Kyoko climbed the fence. Her boots landed in the snow, which was nearly ice. She scanned the area, looking for dark corners and peering at the shadows. It was winter, though, and the dark blue early morning wasn't helping any. Finding nothing, she decided to investigate the headstones row by row, hand on her holster.
Before she stepped to the last row, a shadow other than Kyoko's had moved, and as it did, Kyoko's transceiver screeched, signaling an incoming message.
"Kirigiri? Is everything alright? Over."
Kyoko swallowed her heart and responded, "Yes, over."
"If it's necessary for me to send over additional units--"
"You are not helping. Over." The transmitter screeched to cut off communication. Kyoko sighed, and looked for the elusive figure. They weren't hiding it very well, but they were behind one particularly slanted headstone. Kyoko wasted no time drawing her taser.
"Come out, with your hands up." Kyoko said to someone. There was no movement, but Kyoko wasn't bluffing. She began to tread closer to the headstone.
"I said, come out with your hands up. You are not under arrest." She repeated. With no response, she moved closer to the shadow, and as she was a few inches away, the shadow popped out, and Kyoko immediately tazed whatever it was. Well, by now, Kyoko could see that 'it' was a 'she', and 'she' was now rolling on the ground, wailing in agony.
"Agh! Ugh...!" The woman, clad in dark clothes, wailed and writhed for many moments while Kyoko watched. Kyoko eventually returned her taser to the holster and extended a hand to the woman, who promptly tossed it aside and stood up by herself. One striking feature was absolutely her hair. It looked as if two giant sea urchins had made a home on each side of her head. She had v-shaped bangs and locks of hair cut diagonally at the ends framing her face; it was all solid black.
"...Can you say something? Such as 'sorry'?” said the woman. “You said I was not under arrest, and then you shock me…" she muttered, brushing the snow off her blouse. It was a black, cinched tunic shirt with dark maroon accents, all embroidered clearly by hand. From far away, it didn't look so amateurish. Over her tunic was a leather corset and above that was a harness for the breast made of a similar texture. At the center of her breast, each end of the harness met and was attached to a metal o-ring. Below that, she had a ruffled, loose maxi-skirt. She wore large, heavy leather boots partially obscured by her feet being buried in the snow.
"I'm not sorry for anything. This is private property, and you have overstayed your welcome."
"'Overstayed my welcome', you say? Do you even know how long I have 'overstayed'?"
"How long have you been staying here, ma'am?"
"The better side of one-hundred. Years." Kyoko scoffed and took out a breathalyzer device from the back of her utility belt.
"Blow into this. That is an order."
"Well, how should I blow into it? With my mouth? Or perhaps my nose? I'm fairly new to this." The woman looked for bewilderment, or anger, somewhere in Kyoko's countenance but found none. Nothing, in fact. Unnerved, she feigned nonchalance, shrugged and blew into the device's tube. Kyoko read the number.
"Nothing. Nothing at all." Kyoko wasn't confused now, but more so stuck. The woman hadn't been drinking, but she surely was under some sort of influence. She would need a urine sample. However, Kyoko had just electrocuted the woman just a minute prior, and a shock of that caliber would have surely voided any sort of waste in the woman. But from what Kyoko could see, the snow beneath the woman was still white, only tainted with grey footprints, and from what she could tell, her clothes smelled of none. Had she just ‘gone’ recently?
"Can I ask your name?"
"Which name would you like? The name I prefer to go by is 'Celestia Ludenburg', which of course would sound odd to the German speaker, but I find it rolls off the tongue well, yes? No?" There was silence. "...By birth, my name is Taeko Yasuhiro."
"Do you have that same name on your ID?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" The woman teased with a lilted, presumptuous tone, as if Kyoko were a weak-willed man.
"I am the authority here, Ms. Yasuhiro. If you don't treat me with respect, I will change my mind about not arresting you."
"But you can call me Celeste," the woman said, not regarding Kyoko's statement. "Call me Celeste."
"Ms. Yasuhiro, I will reiterate this is private property. Do you understand that? ...Do you currently have a place of residence?" Celeste had her back turned to Kyoko now. She seemed to want to oppose the force of the wind, her arms loosening out a little perhaps in the hope it would carry her away. Well, she was so frail that it could have been a possibility. Kyoko suddenly had the funny idea that the wind had blown the woman away, leaving only her heavy boots behind.
"Ms. Yasuhiro!" Kyoko called out to her attention."
"I live here. I haven't set foot from this cemetery in decades, officer."
"I'm sure our rehabilitation program can move you into a fine women's shelter, Ms. Yasuhiro."
"I appreciate the thought officer, but it's getting quite late. And I would like for you to do something for me, if you do not mind." Kyoko was about to ask what, before Celeste stopped her by raising her index finger. She left and came back momentarily with an object in her hand. It was a dangerous, pointed silhouette; Kyoko drew her taser once more.
"Drop your weapon at once!" Rather than doing so, Celeste appeared passive, slowly walking towards Kyoko. She seemed to want to put the object in Kyoko's hand, but it was occupied for she had two hands on the tazer. So she placed it awkwardly, slowly, into the crease of her elbow, and stepped back through the malleable slush until she were laid flat against a leaning headstone. Kyoko took a closer look at whatever had been placed into her care, and saw that it was a stake. A wooden stake, seeming to have been chiseled with little care, but with much duration.
Celeste, resting all her weight against the gravestone sighed, but there was no visible evidence of it even in the bitter cold. She then reached around to the back of her blouse, and undid the knot that cinched it about her waist. Her hands re-emerged to travel upwards, and to unbutton the few buttons near the collar of her shirt, revealing more and more of her otherworldly pallid skin. She had hardly any fat nor muscle cushioning the bones beneath her skin; her ribs strained against her skin, giving it protruding textures. She stretched open the top of her blouse, revealing her heart within her chest, centimeter by centimeter, until her entire chest--all of it-- was bare.
"I would like for you to kill me."