Your sister is an hour late coming back from school. Even the old lady running the coffee shop is worried, and that only makes your anxiety even worse. Seeing your distress, the ex-psychiatrist chooses her words carefully but still essentially tells you to take the rest of the day off to see what’s going on. You accept, of course ― you want to see your sister as soon as possible ― but by the time you reach the locker room in the back of the shop, you’re having difficulty breathing, and your shaking hands hinder you from changing out of your uniform.
You mentally scold yourself. Your sister is probably at some after-school activity you’ve forgotten about. This reassurance doesn’t help your nerves, however, and you blame your increased anxiety on the nightmare you had a few days ago.
The smell of hazelnut coffee fills the room, and the shop owner gives you a reassuring smile while patting your back with her free hand. She gives you the to-go cup filled with her special brew, and you thank her as she accompanies you back to the front of the store. She tells you not to worry and repeats the reassurance that your sister is probably having fun at school. You wonder why hearing this from her calms you down more so than when you tried convincing yourself of the same thing.
But all of your boss’s little assurances are for naught when you see the friend your sister walks home with outside the café. The child is crying, and her mother who should be at work is relieved to have found you.
You don’t know what’s worse, the anxiety or the fear, as the child’s mother tells you what happened. No one knew how to reach you, she says, because your sister’s emergency contact is your father who hadn’t picked up the phone. The mother says she would have come sooner to tell you, but the police just finished clearing everyone’s story at the school.
The anxiety that hits you then almost knocks you to the floor, had your boss not been supporting you. You’re unable to get any words out, and the mother is very reluctant to continue. Your boss is the one brave enough to ask why the police were at the school.
Your sister’s friend is the one who answers, hysterically wailing that her best friend has gone missing.
Kyorinrin's Writing Dump 