It reminds me of when we're playing hide-and-seek—I'm hidden crouching in the pitch-dark closet and suddenly Deko throws open the sliding door, sunlight pouring in as she shouts, "Found you!"—that dazzling glare followed by an awkward pause, and then, my heart pounding as I adjust the front of my kimono and emerge from the closet, I'm slightly self-conscious and then suddenly irritated and annoyed—it feels similar, but no, not quite like that, somehow even more unbearable. Sort of like opening a box, only to find another box inside, so you open that smaller box and again there's another box inside, and you open it, and one after another there are smaller boxes inside each other, so you keep opening them, seven or eight of them, until finally what's left is a tiny box the size of a small die, so you gently pry it open to find... nothing, it's empty—more like that feeling. Anyway, it's a lie when they say your eyes just blink awake. Bleary and cloudy, then as the starch gradually settles to the bottom and the skim rises to the top, at last my eyes wearily open.
