Tsubasa bounces on her heels nervously, the steady rhythm somehow keeping her nerves at bay as she knocks on the door of this dingy, sketchy building for the 3rd time. Maybe coming to Kage's house wasn't the best idea if its this far back in the slums.
"Who even lives in a place like this? It looks like I'd get tetanus just from ringing that doorbell… I doubt it even works." She groans to herself, bouncing faster.
After waiting what she considers an "acceptable" amount of time, she tries turning the knob and watches in suspicion and disbelief as the door swings open.
"Not… Locked? Is this really his house?" She checks her phone and looks back at the mailbox again before steeling herself and taking the daunting first step into the dark interior of the building. "Hello? Kage?"
She is met with no response but the tapping of her shoes as she removes them, finding the floor surprisingly clean despite the clear signs of age on the interior and exterior of the building. As she walks through the halls and up the stairs, poking her head into each room to flip on the lights and check them, finding each one empty. She calls for Kage again, as if saying his name might somehow summon him despite his obvious absence.
She makes her way back down to the main floor, ready to gather her disappointment and leave, but just as she puts her shoes back on, she hears a crashing sound from bellow the floor. "A… basement?"
Her feet move towards the stairs again, this time around them to look for a set leading down. She finds a door painted the same color as the walls. When she tries to open it, the door sticks in the frame and creaks on worn hinges.
She follows the stairs down to a similar door and, finding this one ajar, peeks inside. She sees a dimly lit room, pale blue light washing the floor and walls from a monitor on a desk. There is a bed in the corner, a dark figure sprawled across it, dressed in all black.
She pushes the door open further and notices some kind of blue object laying on the bed next to the darkly dressed figure as she walks towards it quietly. The object is hard to make out in the dim light.
As she reaches the bed, she is able to make out Kage's face despite the poor lighting, she crouches next to the bed, smiling down at his exhausted, resting expression. "You know what? You're kinda cute when you aren't scowling~" She whispers as she reaches down to flip over the blue object.
Her fingers brush the cool surface — smooth, curved, and oddly familiar. The faint reflection of the monitor light glints off it, and her breath catches as she sees it clearly — the blue mask. Kurai's mask.
"No way…" she whispers, stumbling backward but, as she shuffles her feet, trying to move quickly through the darkness, she trips and knocks over a chair, the crash that follows making Kage shoot upright in the bed, his training moving his body before his mind has time to catch up.
She runs, barely halfway up the stairs before she hears him slam into the wall behind her. She screams and runs faster. "GET AWAY FROM ME!"
Kage tackles her at the top of the stairs, trying to pin her arms despite the way she thrashes and hits him. "Tsubasa—!? What are you—why are you here?!" His voice cracks from panic and disbelief. "You shouldn't be here!"
He has her arms pinned above her head, but she doesn't stop resisting. "GET OFF ME! LET ME GO! If you don't want people in your house then LOCK THE DAMN DOOR!!"
Kage releases her, his heart sinking as she backs away from him quickly, curling up in a defensive ball in the corner of the stairwell. He sighs and sits opposite her, rubbing the exhaustion out of his eyes. "Why are you in my house?"
She doesn't respond, tears prickling in the corners of her eyes.
Her distress makes Kage uncomfortable, he's never had to comfort someone before. "Hey… I'm sorry, okay? I didn't know it was you…."
His only response is a silence that feels heavy and suffocating. As if the air between them had suddenly frozen solid, pressing against his chest with a cold, bitter edge.