I own nothing.

Jessica hadn't gotten a good look at him at the funeral. Her eyes had been blinded with tears over something so stupid that she didn't have any pictures of her parents to put up, and she was so relieved to be given the offer of a roof over her head and a place for Ange as well that wasn't with Aunt Kyrie's creepy relatives that she hadn't really seen him. She hadn't gotten a good look at him.

In retrospect, that had been pretty stupid of her, considering that this was the man Jessica and Ange were going to be living with indefinitely.

Jessica had never felt more than passing curiosity about her mother's family. That was something else that had been stupid of her. However, the little tidbits of information Natsuhi gave her coupled with the sharp scolding she'd get if she asked too much (This is your family, Jessica, you and me and your father and grandfather; this is your only family) had dampened Jessica's curiosity to the point that she hadn't really asked about them since elementary school. Natsuhi always told her that her father's family was her only family, told her this with such vehemence that now, when Jessica could no longer hear her voice, she wondered for the first time just what her mother had meant by it.

All Jessica knew of her mother's family was that they were an old, aristocratic family who traditionally were the keepers of a shrine out in; there was something small weighing down her pocket, proof of that. Well, that and that her maternal grandmother had died when she was twelve. Jessica still remembered the way Natsuhi's face had turned pale and closed-off when she received the letter, the way she had returned to her room for the rest of the day and hadn't come down for supper in the evening, despite Krauss's protests and Kinzo's mockery. Sometimes, Jessica wondered if she had been crying in there. Sometimes, she wondered why she hadn't tried to talk to her mom, after that.

"Can you handle that bag, Ange?"

They were going to have to leave some of the luggage at the mouth of the driveway and come back for it later. Most of it was Ange's, the clothes and books and stuffed animals she had refused to part with and Jessica couldn't bear to make her leave behind, along with her hairbrush and toothbrush and all the other things a young girl needed.

In comparison, Jessica had relatively little. She had used some of her newfound wealth to buy a few changes of clothes, the toiletries she needed, a couple of books from the last gas station the man who got them here had stopped at, and a suitcase to put it all in. The only other things she had were her guitar, since she kept it at school, and the clothes she had been wearing when… when it had happened. Even her inhaler was new.

Ange shot her a defensive look, saying nothing as she hefted the pink bag in her small arms. Jessica bit back a frustrated sigh as she watched her cousin start to walk down the long, dusty driveway they'd been told to follow.

Ange had cried for what felt like forever when she found out that she was going to have to leave her grandfather's house, but after she stopped crying, she fell into a surly sort of silence that she only broke with one-word answers to questions. She didn't like this, not at all. She didn't have to. Ange's grandfather had seemed alright, but the rest of the Sumadera family gave Jessica a really bad feeling about the "plans" they had for Ange. The six-year-old may have thought differently, but she was better off away from them.

"Wait up, Ange!" Jessica called after her. She grabbed a few of the bags and ran after Ange until she caught up with her cousin.

As they walked up the driveway, Jessica wondered why the house was so far back from the road. It was within easy walking distance of town; that, Jessica understood and was grateful for, because she didn't have a driver's license and somehow she doubted that their host had a car. But the house was so far back from the road that, thanks to the trees in the field out in front of it, Jessica couldn't even see the house.

I guess if the family's as old as Mom said it was, the house could have been around since before there were cars. So people would have come up here in carriages or wagons or on horses or whatever people got around in back then. But that wouldn't have been any better, and what about the people who had to walk.

Eventually, they got close enough for Jessica to get a good look at the house. It was every inch a traditional-looking house, the exact antithesis of the sort of place Jessica had grown up in. (She wondered if the house had central heating or air conditioning; the latter she could probably live without, but life without the former would get uncomfortable come winter, given that Jessica and Ange had both up to now lived in houses with central heating.) The house was very reminiscent of the Sumadera family compound, down to the little garden, pond and water basin just off to the side. It was just as large and imposing, but when Jessica looked at it, she didn't get the same oppressive feeling that she had gotten looking at the Sumadera's estate. This house just felt… empty. It was a bit like the field out in front of it; those trees weren't enough to make it feel like anything with anything in it, and if the wind blew over the roof, that would just make it feel even emptier.

There was a man standing at the end of the driveway.

Jessica felt her breath catch in her chest. It wasn't the kind of catching that would necessitate whipping her inhaler out of her pocket, but all the same, it wasn't comfortable. As they approached, she wished, over and over again, that she'd gotten a better look at him at the funeral.

She had never met anyone from her mother's family while Natsuhi was still alive. She knew that her maternal grandmother was dead, that she had two uncles and might have cousins too. And here, here was her grandfather, waiting to greet them.

He was a small man, shorter than Jessica, back bent with age. His face was clean-shaven and deeply lined, his head completely bald except for a thin layer of wispy silver hair. The elderly man wore traditional clothing, a kimono and hakama in shades of somber gray. Behind his thick glasses, the look in his dark eyes was a sad one.

"Good afternoon, Jessica," he said quietly, bowing briefly to her.

"Good afternoon, Grandfather," Jessica replied nervously, bowing back and feeling utterly gauche as she did so. She had been taught to curtsey, not bow, and it only reminded her of how out of place she was, how different the Ushiromiya family had been from the outside world.

All of a sudden, Ange dropped the bag she had been holding and hid behind Jessica, latching her arms around her cousin's leg. Jessica, eyebrows raised, stared down at her, and saw Ange frowning dubiously at the man standing before her.

He noticed as well, it seemed. "Good afternoon, Ange-chan," he greeted the girl gravely, inclining his head in her direction. "Furude Akihito, at your service."

Ange made no response, frowning even more deeply at Akihito than before. Jessica considered trying to make her speak, but bit her tongue. She tried to force herself not to notice the way her grandfather seemed like someone barely going through the motions of life, nor the way Ange radiated distrust. She couldn't quite manage it, though, and she was left fighting the urge to run away and scream where no one could hear her. "Umm, we had to leave some of our stuff at the road. Can you show us where we're staying, so I can run and go get the rest of it?" Jessica was a bit proud of how calm she managed to sound, even if her voice was a bit squeaky.

"Of course."

The interior of the house gave off the same impression Jessica had gotten staring at it from the driveway: emptiness. Some of her friends in Niijima had lived in traditional houses, as opposed to Western-style houses. It wasn't like she was unused to being inside of a traditional Japanese house. But none of her friends' houses had felt so empty as this one. It wasn't just the dearth of furniture, though that certainly didn't help. This house felt as though it hadn't been really lived in for years.

Once she had gotten the last of Ange's luggage inside, Jessica paused for a moment in her new room, before going to help Ange unpack. It was about the same size as the room she had had in the mansion on Rokkenjima, but thanks to the fact that it was mostly lacking in furniture, it seemed much larger. The floor was not carpeted, but bare hardwood slats. There was a large window covered with blinds; the only furniture was an empty bookcase and a large, free-standing wardrobe, inside of which Jessica found a pillow and a futon and blanket folded neatly away.

It took about five minutes for Jessica to put away her clothes, put her toiletries in the bathroom, and carefully lay her guitar in a corner of the room. She stared at it bitterly, feeling a lump grow and harden in her throat. How many times had Jessica wished that she could take her guitar home and show her family that she could play, without fear that her mom would scold her and make her get rid of it?

Well, she didn't have to worry about that anymore. But it didn't really seem like it was worth it.

-0-0-0-

The house, despite its old-fashioned appearance, was home to a number of modern conveniences (Including space heaters in both Jessica and Ange's rooms). All the same, Jessica was surprised to see a raised table and chairs in the kitchen come dinnertime. Akihito waved it off, saying that as he grew older, he found it easier to sit in a chair than on the floor while he ate. He also said that there was a dining hall, but that it was no longer used. Jessica wouldn't be surprised if she found out that it had been years since enough people had come to call on Furude Akihito for him to open the dining hall in his house.

It felt weird, sitting at such a small table while she ate a meal with her family. Natsuhi or Kinzo had always insisted that the Ushiromiya family take every meal in the mansion's dining hall (Except for when Kinzo had shut himself up in his study and insisted on having Genji take his meals up to him). Jessica was used to sitting at a massive table that was, at times, completely full, but more often had just three or four people sitting at the very edge. She was used to that feeling of the rest of the table falling into oblivion.

Jessica was not used to sitting at a table in a kitchen that only sat four. She was not used to eating dinner in the same room as the one where her dinner had been prepared. And while her mom knew how to cook, and Jessica had been taught how to cook as well, she wasn't used to eating her meals at the same table as the one who had cooked them.

There were no servants here, none that Jessica had seen. It had occurred to her that this branch of the Furude family, while old and prestigious, might not be as well off as the Ushiromiya family. The sheer number of shut-up or completely unfurnished rooms she had encountered while wandering the house for a while had given her that impression. While there were many unused rooms in the Ushiromiya family mansion, never were they shut up or left unfurnished; they were always left well-kept and ready to be used.

She guessed that meant that she and Ange would be called upon to help clean up when the house needed to be cleaned. That was fine. Jessica had some experience cleaning up at school, and in the past few months, her mom had started to insist that Jessica shadow her when she did her rounds in the mansion, checking to be sure that the servants had cleaned up as they were supposed to. This may have been her grandfather's house, but it wasn't like she had anywhere else to go. Jessica didn't want to risk seeming like a burden to her host—or more of a burden than she already was, anyways.

Compared to what Jessica was used to, the food was plain. A bowl of rice, tuna sashimi, and a bowl of tsukemono* consisting of umeboshi, cabbage, turnip and what Jessica suspected was eggplant. It was plain, but after days of having no appetite at all, and then only being able to eat greasy takeout and junk food, it was such a relief to eat real food again. Ange seemed to feel the same way; she had dug into her meal with more enthusiasm than Jessica thought that she had ever seen her show.

The meal was also one taken in silence, also something Jessica wasn't used to—she just seemed to be running into that again and again. Ange wasn't interested in talking, and neither, it seemed, was Jessica's grandfather. Akihito sat at the table across from Jessica, saying nothing. Frankly, he seemed to be avoiding making eye contact with her or Ange.

It didn't feel right, trying to initiate a conversation if her grandfather seemed uninterested in talking. Of course, Jessica had to admit that she was thinking of Kinzo. When Kinzo wanted silence, Kinzo got silence; if anyone besides Doctor Nanjo or Genji or sometimes Kumasawa broke this rule, they would regret it dearly. Jessica was amazed that she still had this mindset, when Kinzo had been dead for two years and she had been helping her parents hide it…

No, better not to even think about that. The police had asked her about that, gently, but their questions had been probing enough that Jessica knew it was better not to even think about that. Ushiromiya Kinzo had been alive until the second day of the family conference in 1986. No one could ever be allowed to dispute that.

Her maternal grandfather was nothing like Kinzo. He was quiet and little. From what little Jessica had seen of him, he seemed grave and serious, but not brooding or tyrannical. He didn't strike Jessica as the sort of man who'd hit his children or grandchildren or threaten to withhold food from them if they didn't live up to his dining standards.

She wished he would talk, though.

She couldn't think of anything to say to him, and wished even more that she could.

I ought to have a thousand questions to ask him. Mom barely told me anything about her family. This is her father, my grandfather. There's so much he could tell me. But… But I can't think of anything to ask him. There's nothing I want to say.

Right now.

Not all of the dinners eaten at the dining room table in the mansion had been so fraught, however. Gohda always loved to show off his cooking skills even when he didn't have a large audience to appreciate it. Her parents would discuss Krauss's business ventures. Doctor Nanjo would bring news from the mainland. Jessica would talk about her day at school, and sometimes, sometimes it would turn out that she'd done something outstanding enough to earn her parents' praise.

In comparison to the silence in which she now sat, Jessica would take those days back, even if they had to be the days when they feared Kinzo's wrath.

-0-0-0-

Ange was looking at her. It wasn't a particularly pleasant look.

They were getting ready for bed, Jessica wondering what it would be like to sleep on a futon after sleeping all her life on raised beds, Ange maintaining her stubborn silence. But just as Jessica was about to turn off the lights and lay down, Ange appeared in the doorway, wearing the look that Jessica saw now.

"What is it, Ange?" Jessica asked with a false note of cheer in her voice. No, she did not like that look at all. It was way too piercing for a little six-year-old girl, too piercing and too cold.

Ange mumbled something. She was staring down at the ground now; Jessica watched with some trepidation as her slight shoulders drew up and began to shake.

"What's up, Ange?" she asked again, getting down on her knees in front of her cousin.

"…I want them back," Ange muttered.

Jessica felt her breath catch in her chest again, another hard lump forming in her throat. She was already pretty sure that she knew what Ange meant. In Jessica's mind, there was only one thing Ange could mean. But on the off-chance that she meant something else, on the off-chance that a show of ignorance could keep this talk from going where Jessica didn't want it to go, she would gladly feign ignorance. "Who, Ange?"

Ange's face scrunched up; angry color flooded into her cheeks. "Mom and Daddy and Onii-chan, I want them back!"

Oh God, why?

"Ange…" Jessica's voice cracked. "I can't…"

"I want them back!" Ange half-shouted, tears dripping down her cheeks. Her voice dropped down to a quavering moan. "I want them back." Her words were garbled by sobs.

Everything Jessica had been holding in since after the funeral broke forth like water escaping from a broken dam. The world before her blurred as her eyes filled with tears. A ragged sob tore from her throat. There were so many things she couldn't tell anyone, especially not Ange. There were so many things she wanted to say.

She wanted to see her parents again. She wanted to thank them for trying so hard to raise her to be a good person. Show them her guitar, show them that she had a talent that neither of them had guessed at, show them that she had something that, maybe, some day, they could be proud of. She'd apologize to her mom for being such a pain sometimes, and to both of them, for not being the daughter they had wanted her to be. If she could.

End Notes:

* Tsukemono—Japanese preserved vegetables usually pickled in salt or brine.