Name: Jack
Story: commonplace
Colors: White Cross 6. Shining Cross
Supplies and Styles: pastels (for the 'four-leaf clover' square on my Cotton Candy Bingo card)
Word Count: ~250
Rating: PG
Notes: Akane after her conversation with Kether, at shipwreck_light's request.

Akane copied the address down almost immediately when she got back to her room, just for safe-keeping. She told herself that the card itself wasn't that important, but somehow when she went to bed that night, it ended up under her pillow.

After a week of that, however, she woke up in a panic with no crisp cardstock under her fingers. She finally found it between her futon and the mat below but after that she wasn't taking chances. It went in her wallet.

It stayed there.

When her days were long, when she was in the bathroom pretending not to cry, when she sat in the cold specimen storage room and whispered to her gerbil, she would pull it out and run her thumb over it. There was a slight texture to each character in Keiji, to the simple 本 and the bumpier 屋 that told the story of a bookstore-refuge in Yaanga.

Eventually the edges furred like velvet from handling, and the ink threatened to rub off altogether. Akane started leaving it in her wallet more, but she knew it was there. She thought about it and she drew strength from it as she waited.

It was her lucky charm, reminding her that she only needed one good chance to escape, and when the time finally came, that card, and the memory of it under her fingers, was what kept her walking away from her family and toward Yaanga.