Part 3
?There she goes! She?s headed for that building over there!?
Parsee and Ran pushed through the crowd on the sidewalk, trying not to lose sight of the woman in red. Only when they broke through did the woman disappear through the door.
Parsee ran up to the building that the woman went into and looked up at the eye-searing sign overhead that read ?Convenience Store?. Upon looking through the windows, she saw some humans milling about among very neatly-stocked shelves of?something. It was hard to tell what exactly was in there, because everything seemed like it was in a package. Curious, she headed for the door, only to find that it opened by itself when she walked near it.
?Whoa!? Parsee stepped back, and the door closed again.

She grinned and stepped near it again, and it opened again. She repeated this process a few more times before Ran walked past her and through the doors, looking happy that her tails didn?t get caught.
The convenience store was even more impressive on the inside. One thing was for sure: whoever owned it was very, very organized. The shelves were lined up in perfect alignment in the middle of the room and along the walls. Every shelf was packed full of items: all the ones in similar-looking packages were next to each other. At the doors were stacks of baskets, one of which the red-haired woman was carrying as she made her way to the back of the store. The shelves back there were covered with glass doors. When the woman opened one, a cloud seeped out.
As Ran made her way towards the red-haired woman, Parsee headed over to the nearest shelf and looked at its contents. There were pictures of food on all of them. In particular, pictures of all sorts of noodles that would be made instantly, according to the labeling. Further down the aisle were packages featuring pictures of sweets, and Parsee?s mouth watered. She picked up a tightly sealed cup bearing a picture of noodles with vegetables and beef and tried giving it a shake.
To her surprise, she heard a rattling sound rather than the sloshing of noodles and broth. This wasn?t what she was expecting. Still, this made her all the more curious, and she tried picking at the plastic covering the cup of noodles.
~
"Gosh, Chen, you don't eat it straight out of the cup like that! You're supposed to pour boiling hot water into it first and stir it, okay? It'll taste much better like that, trust me."
"Heh heh, sorry~"~
Meanwhile, Ran was watching from behind a shelf as the red-haired woman reached into her dress pocket and extracted a cell phone. Ran?s fox ears perked up from underneath her hat, but she wasn?t surprised. Even she had one of those; Yukari-sama had given one to her when they first came out, so that it would be easier to keep in touch when they were far away from each other.
Beep?beep?beep?The cell phone in the woman?s hand was red, just like the rest of her outfit, and bore cute little charms in the shapes of strawberries, UFOs, stars, and?an ICBM missile with a cartoony face on it. How endearing.
The charms jangled as the woman held the phone up to her ear, waited a few moments, and began to speak.
?Hello! I?m making a snack run right now, anything you want?? The woman balanced the phone between her cheek and her left shoulder as she turned a carton of ice cream over in her hands before depositing it in her basket. ?I?m near the ice cream right now, I?m getting strawberry flavored?Vanilla? That?s kind of boring?Strawberry is not boring!? The woman laughed a little. ?Okay, fine, you win?? She picked out another carton of ice cream.
??Ehh, is that so? I, on the other hand, will have to grade those tests tomorrow?Well, no, we?re busy all the time?? As the woman said this, she turned away from the shelf and came face to face with Ran, who was standing mere feet ahead of her. They both stared at each other for a good long minute, before the woman started stuttering into the phone.
?Wha?! No, I mean, yes! Oh my gosh, you have
fox tails?!? The woman?s eyes were as wide as plates, and only by some miracle did she not drop her phone. Her mind was running a mile a minute, and she couldn't quite grasp anything she wanted to say. ?Not you, her! Um, by her I mean??
The woman looked back to Ran, only to find that her fox ears and nine tails had disappeared.
?Huh?? She blinked in surprise, but her only response from Ran was a puzzled look. ?Uhh, nevermind. I?ll, uh, see you later, Chiyu. I?m taking the shortcut home so I?ll be there in half the time. Bye!? The woman slammed her phone shut and stared at Ran, who stared back curiously.
?What?s the matter?? Ran asked.
?Wha?you?what?? All the woman could do was stammer, and her face started growing as red as her clothes when she realized that her outburst had attracted many pairs of curious eyes.
When Parsee had tried to open the cup of noodles to see why it was rattling once and for all, she heard someone squawking about fox tails and almost dropped what she was holding. No one else had even seen the two of them or even said anything about Ran?s tails, so why now?
However, when she looked over, she noticed that Ran was lacking said tails, not to mention the ears on her hat were droopy. She looked like any other human now, albeit a strangely-dressed one. Parsee was admittedly disappointed; Ran?s tails were one of the main things she used to identify her, and one of the things she liked to imagine Ran was known for. Well, she?d ask later?
The woman barely glanced at Parsee before hastily making her way towards the counter, thus missing the fact that Parsee?s ears were pointy and moving up and down. In fact, the woman avoided all eye contact with just about everyone but the cashier until she had her bag and was out of the store. She kept walking until she was at an alley sloped down into a staircase, leading into a dark tunnel. It was a passageway that would lead under the city and out the other side, where she could go back to the quiet suburbs.
Then, she stopped and wheeled around to face Ran and Parsee, who were still following her.
?What?!?
It was then that Parsee realized that this might be a little harder to explain than she originally thought?at least, it would have been then.
?Well we?re kinda looking for something and we thought that maybe you might be some sort of clue or marker since you really stick out like a sore thumb,? Parsee explained without missing a single beat. ?Oh, and I?m Mizuhashi Parsee, who are you??
?Okazaki Yumemi?? Yumemi answered almost immediately, but then realized what Parsee had said to her. ?Hey, wait a second, I don?t stick out that badly!? she cried in frustration, her cheeks flushing red again. Sure, she loved red more than any other color, and even her eyes and hair were just the right shade, but to go that far?
Yumemi sighed and, feeling humiliated enough, turned and started down the stairs. ?You know what, nevermind. I?m going home.?
Parsee watched as Yumemi walk away. It was very dark, but she could still see each individual stair, leading down into the stone tunnel, but that?s where it became a bit hazy. There were thousands upon thousands of what looked like urchin?s spines, pitch black and bearing a scrolling pattern of the stars. That was all Parsee could make out, that and the tunnel seemed to just keep going down.
Just looking at it made her dizzy.
?Wait!? Parsee started down the steps after Yumemi, vaguely noting Ran?s footsteps as the kitsune pursued the both of them. However, Yumemi was already in the tunnel.
Standing there among the spines, but completely unharmed, she looked into the abyss. ?Huh? That?s strange, I?m pretty sure this tunnel doesn?t work like this, but...this is definitely the way to go, I think,? she said to herself as she continued walking. Looking at the sea urchin spines around her she felt a little claustrophobic, but all that was forgotten when she turned back to see Ran and Parsee following her. ?You two are still here? Leave me alone.?
When they didn?t leave, Yumemi turned away from them, deciding to ignore them completely. Up ahead, she could even see a small, purplish light at the end of the tunnel. She was almost out, and maybe if she ran, she could shake them off. With that in mind, she put a little hop in her step as she cleared the tunnel and skipped out into the open. When she looked at her surroundings, however, her heart sank.
??A cave??
~
I think I belong here. Why does the moon feel so familiar? I was wondering why I was staring up at a pitch black sky, but when I finally reached the end of my journey, you were here, standing at the doors and saying, ?Welcome home?. When I go past you and through the doors, I see many smiling faces before me, the cause of their joy being my return.
Somehow, going home feels not like reaching the future, but being in the present.