P r o l o g u e: Shijin no Uchuu
i. . . In life, our every move is dictated by chance. If we had done something different in our childhood, we would do something different ten years later because we would not be suddenly reminded of that occurrence and become distracted. Some of these changes, such as a baby being burned by a fire which disfigured their palms, therefore making him pyrophobic for the rest of his or her life . . . they are the spur-of-the-moment changes, things that occur in a second, last for a little longer, and then leave almost as abruptly as they came. Out of the two kinds of chances that occur to effect someone's life, these are the weakest. Their affect is almost always confined to one aspect of a person, and only causes that person to do one or two things differently. The /iconsequencesi of those actions are what really changes a person's life. However, the most potent force to change a life is the buildup of small occurences, things that seem paltry and superfluous enough to look over at normal glances, but when taken into account years later as a whole . . . they are what psychologists nod their heads at and say "oh, this is what started this problem for you." Replace this1 and this2 with anything you wish. . .
. . . For a lot of tiny changes to amount to something huge, however, the weaker force in a person's life - those violent, sudden changes that affect and whose direct consequences are few - one of those kinds of experiences must bind all the little chances together, and forge that huge and sometimes monstrous thing called one's past. It is ironic that we, as the only creatures on the planet that realize the present are most effected by events outside it. Things that could occur, things that did occur . . . very rarely does someone make a decision based on something that could be defined in the present tense, an occuring thing . . .
. . .But, those decisions . . . they do happen every once in a while . . . These decisions are the most dangerous, for they are based on an instinct which is designed to preserve the self at all expense, disregarding human emotion and the human sense of selflessness. Instinct is perhaps the most selfish thing /iabouti a human being. But, instinct, too, is based on chance. Past experiences passed on through some part of the body we can not see, all combining to make the human race. . .
. . . We often want to change things that happenned to us in our lives. Make things that went wrong, go right, give ourselves a perfect life with no pain and no suffering . . . but, without such pain, what would be the difference between happiness and pain? One cannot exist without the other; their very defintions are interdependent: happiness is the absence of discontent, while discontent is the absence of happiness . . . delete one, and you render the other meaningless. . .
. . . Therefore . . . come, listen to the tale of a world spun off balance by the actions of one group. Come! You will see what happens when that which is outside our own comfort zones is shunned and banished. Come! Here is the tale of a generation whose actions never harmed one soul, and yet they are the ones who must pay the price of retribution for their ancestor's past actions! Come . . . for this is a story of soldiers long buried; they and their actions and their action's consequences . . . their children, even . . . every aspect of their lives deserves to be remembered./i
"iSeiryuu no Miko/i," the disembodied voice echoed throughout her dreams as though in desolate rocky canyonland, the voice seemed so weak that she could not help but envisage a man starving to death, his moans of hunger the ones that caused the echoes. . .
"Are you not the one who summoned me? iSeiryuu no Miko/i!" searching as hard as possible, she still could not find the source of the voice.
"iSeiryuu no Miko/i. . . you sleep. Awaken. Your call is needed once more," the voice began again, startling her with its urgency. Then, it seemed . . . almost surprised. "You have fallen from the iShikai/i. I have fallen from iTengoku/i. Watashi wa . . . sui no ryuu."
"Who are you?! What do you want?" she called to the voice. "What do you mean by iShikai/i?"
"iHayaku . . . hayaku/i!" the voice responded, the diminishing strength of his body transmitting through a wearying voice. Suddenly, a symbol flashed in a black void of her dream, bright blue, and unrecognizable. Scrolls of silk patterns suddenly began to appear from the distance, and spin ever faster until each strip was a blur of color, the lengths multiplying until they formed as sphere of rotating cloth, causing storms and wind to envelop her, her dreaming form tossed back and forth in the violent maelstrom. Suddenly, the bolts of cloth began to tighten, the storm rotating on a tighter and tighter axis, until all she could see was grey wind, she could hear was the roaring cacophany of wind and lightning and rain.
And with that, she awoke.
In her room, the alarm clock set for five in the morning blares, conspicuously not achieving its goal of awakening its owner: after all, its owner was already conscious. For a while, all Yui could do was stare at the ceiling. Feeling old bones creak as she pushed herself up from bed, Yui found tears on her cheeks, and when she had begun to cry. Wiping her tears roughly away, Yui stopped from getting up when the door to her bedroom began to open. Hastily putting on her glasses to see who was coming in, Yui smiled to see that it was her granddaughter, timidly opening to door, her hand on a doorknob that she was scarcely taller than.
"iBaa-san/i," Her granddaughter began timidly, "I had a bad dream."
Yui's eyes sharpened, her shock written plainly on her face. Her granddaughter looked up at her questioningly, wondering what was wrong, or what she had done wrong. Shaking aside the implications of that fact, Yui forced her expression to soften, and held out her arms to her granddaughter, moving in her bed so that her granddaughter could sit in her lap.
"Come here, Suzumi," Yui said softly. Wrapping around her arms around her imagomusume/i, Yui smiled quietly at how much she was reminded of her own child when holding Suzumi like this. Aoi had often experienced nightmares in her childhood, and Yui remembered many a time when her daughter had meekly peeked into her mother's room, asking quietly and politely whether she could sleep with her mother. Yui had always laughed at her daughter's seriousness inwardly, but she would always beckon her daughter to lie down next to her, scooching a little closer to her husband to give her daughter some space. Remembering what she had always done to help Aoi feel safer, Yui did the same with Suzumi in hopes that her granddaughter would not be as afraid - she was trembling so badly Yui could feel it through Suzumi's bedclothes!
"What did you dream about, iYume-chan/i," Yui asked quietly. She felt Suzumi stiffen under her arms. Her granddaughter sniffled a bit, and drew in closer to her grandmother. Yui held her granddaughter tighter, hoping that the trembling would stop. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, iYume-chan/i."
iYume-chan/i was her affectionate name for Suzumi, rising from the fact that Suzumi had been a perfect baby, almost never waking her mother up from her dreams. Aoi's nickname had been iSei-chan/i, arising from her daughter's early interest in the heavens, and the fact that she had always stared at the night sky through her room's window. Even as a baby, just watching the night sky and the occaisionaly night bird fly across her window had been enough to make the baby Aoi coo with delight. Brought out of memories by the fearful child in her arms, Yui waited for Suzumi to answer. After a while, her granddaughter shifted position a little and began to speak.
"It was about some man, iBaa-san/i," Suzumi said. "He was invisible, and I couldn't find where his voice was coming from." Yui stiffened from shock, although she was careful to keep her hug comforting to her granddaughter.
"He kept telling me I was a imiko/i to a thingy called "iSeiryuu/i" . . . are dragons real, iBaa-san/i?" Suzumi asked, suddenly. Fumbling to make an answer, Yui decided to reply truthfully, trusting her granddaughter's innocence to take her seriously, since she meant her answer honestly.
"Dragons were real, a long time ago, Suzumi," Yui said, "But they've all gone away now. You can't find them very easily any more, not like in the older times."
"Were you around then, iBaa-san/i?" Suzumi was too young to realize that her question could be taken insultingly; but, Yui didn't mind. Laughing softly, Yui found herself reflecting on how old she had become suddenly, and how it seemed only yesterday that the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho had enveloped her and Miaka with its mystery.
"No, Suzumi. Dragons were hiding long before I was even born." Yui replied. "But, tell me about the rest of your dream." Suzumi shivered again.
"It was creepy. Right when I thought I could find where his voice was, he started telling me to wake up. I don't know why." Suzumi said, resuming her story. "I kept asking him what a iShikai/i was, but he only told me to hurry. . . why do you think he said that, iBaa-san/i?" Yui looked down at her granddaughter, giving her a little squeeze.
"I don't know, iYume-chan/i," Yui replied worriedly, anticipating what was coming next, "Did you dream anything else, Suzumi?"
"Yes . . . " she said quietly, her voice shrinking to an uneasy tone suddenly. "There was a big storm . . . all these long pieces of silky stuff starting wrapping around me, and the storm kept getting bigger and bigger . . . It was really scary . . . but right before I was going to scream, I woke up. . . did I wake you up, iBaa-san/i?"
"No, Suzumi, I was already up," Yui said immediately, perhaps too quickly. "Don't ever think that you inconvenience me, okay? I'm always waiting here if you need me. . . ihai/i?"
"iHai, Baa-san/i," Suzumi said quietly. Yui could tell her granddaughter was already becoming sleepy again. Pressing her cheek onto the top of Suzumi's head, Yui tightened her grip protectively around her little dreaming girl, as if trying to scold away the movements of life that threatened to take her granddaughter from the safety of her home . . . for there could only be one reason that a daughter of her blood could pick up a dream that only the iSeiryuu no Miko/i could attune to.
Aoi fought to keep her calm. She'd not had these dreams since childhood, but she was an adult now, a woman who was also a mother, and she was more than old enough to keep from hysterics. What could it possibly mean that now, of all times, these dreams were resurfacing? Turning in her bed, Aoi tried to ignore the empty spot next to her among the bedspreads. Her father had warned her about marrying an American; they always seemed to find a job that would keep them away from home, they never seemed to care: for an American, her father had said, divorce was something that was easily done, and was done for almost any reason. Well, even if Michael hadn't divorced her yet, he might as well have placed a restraining order on her for all the time he was at home . . . in that way, her father had been right.
She had met Michael when he was nothing more than a tourist speaking phrases from a travelbook; one that was out-dated at that: Aoi had been forced to quell laughter at how old he sounded using such traditional language. Of course, if he had been casual or informal, she would have been offended, probably, but she had met him for about an hour, and had told him where to find the iShinkansen/i station nearest, and that was that. For her, at least . . . Aoi smiled when she remembered the time that Michael had come back to Japan almost three years later: she hadn't remembered him at all, but he had told her after they'd been married that once he had met her, he hadn't forgotten at all.
At first, it had been a fairy tale marriage, with a wonderful daughter and a perfect husband, but now . . . she'd left Suzumi at her mother's after their last fight. His job as an airplane pilot was what had gotten him back to Japan, but now it was constantly taking him away from her, for longer and longer periods of time, as he signed on for or was signed onto more and more prolonged flight patterns. The first one had only been Tokyo to Seoul, he had gone and come back within three days. The next ones had been about a week or so long, spaced about a month apart, with the occaisional short flight within Japan. On those, he had usually pulled some strings and had allowed her to fly with him in first class, able to get up and talk to her husband, visit parts of Japan, eventually with Suzumi, that she would have never seen otherwise . . . but, now, that was past, and her husband took on the longest flights that paid well but kept him away for so long. . .
Suzumi had begun to cry after she'd had a violent verbal fight with her husband over video-phone. Since she had planned on visiting her mother the next day, and since she was also in no emotionally stable condition to help her daughter, Aoi had done her best to calm her daughter and then had grabbed her walet and the already-packed suitcases, and had flaged down a taxi, heading to the nearest iShinkansen/i station. Getting out her cell phone, Aoi called her mother and had warned her about their early arrival, feeling so guilty about it that nearly every word was part of an apology. After her mother had reassured her it was all right, she had hung up, and settled down in her chair to sleep, setting her phone's alarm for an hour later - the trip would take an hour and a half.
Her dreams had been plagued on that train, and Aoi had the distinct feeling that the only thing that kept her from nightmares was the fact that her sleep on the train was kept shallow from the quiet noise of conversations of people in the train: she had always been a light sleeper. But now, her childhood had come back to plague her, and Aoi had no idea why. Getting up from the cot on the floor - she had insisted that Suzumi get the extra bed in the guest room - Aoi stood achingly from sleep to check on her daughter. But, where her little girl's peaceful expression and raven-black hair would be, there was nothing: only empty space. Aoi felt bile rise in the back of her throat, but she immediately put down her fear. Even if Suzumi was sleepwalking again, she would still be in the house.
Near the edge of panic and about to fall over it, Aoi searched every room in the house before she noticed that her mother's room was open. Quietly walking to the door, she peeked in, and saw her mother quietly singing Suzumi to sleep. Why hadn't she woken up herself? She would've been more than glad to comfort . . . but then again, Suzumi had never seen her mother yell at anyone, much less her own father, so she was probably still uneasy. Slowly walking in, Aoi went to her mother's bed and sat down lightly next to her. Yui looked from her daughter to her granddaughter uneasily.
"Did you have a dream as well?" she whispered. Aoi was stunned. She looked from her daughter to her mother, and slowly an inescapable thought invaded her unwelcoming mind.
"You don't mean that . . . " she couldn't believe it. Oh, she prayed every night that her daughter would never have to go through the horrible nightmares she had had to witness in her childhood.
"Yes. I don't know what it means?" her mother asked after a while. Aoi nodded numbly. Yui sighed slowly.
"Aoi, I don't know what this all means . . . " she began slowly, showing her age through her voice, "it woke me up only a few minutes before it did Suzumi. It was a bodiless voice, then a silk-wrought storm. Right?"
Aoi nodded again, numbly. They had always shared dreams, she had her mother. Right from the very first dream, Aoi had suspected it: whenever her dreams awoke her, her mother had always been up as well, sitting in her bed, waiting for her daughter to come. Of course, she had never asked, but she knew . . . how she knew, that was beyond her. However, if her daughter was going to have to go through this as well . . . she'd no idea how to comfort her daughter when those dreams still frightened her as well.
"iOkaa-san/i . . . " Aoi began tentatively, "If Suzumi must go through this . . . Michael is going to be gone for the remainder of the month . . . can we stay here with you for a little while?" Yui smiled softly. She wasn't the best of mothers, she knew, but right then, she could not resist her daughter's will, not when she was so vulnerable like this. She had never been strict enough with Aoi . . . but then, she had turned out to be a beautiful woman and a wonderful person in spite of all her mother's mistakes, hadn't she?
"Of course, iSei-chan/i." she said, a girlish grin on her face belying her years. Aoi smiled, for the first time that night, in a long time, a real smile.
"You haven't called me that since I went to iJounan/i." she said, keeping laughter down to avoid waking her peacefully sleeping daughter, her little dream.
"That's because she haven't looked up at the sky since then . . . " Yui replied, sadly at first. But then, she smiled, and looked at her daughter once more. "It's good to see you smile again." Content to be silent for a little while, it took a bit for Aoi to realize Suzumi was still in her mother's arms. Aoi looked at Suzumi, then her mother quesitoningly.
"Do you mind if she sleeps here with you?" she asked. Her mother smiled, and mouthed the word "no." After a small, unsure pause, Aoi asked, "Then, do you mind if I sleep here too?"
Her mother smiled again with that girlish smile of hers. Returning the grin only with her eyes this time, Aoi got up to retrieve her bed mat, and unplugged the alarm clock. It was late, and none of them needed to be up the next morning. Besides, her daughter deserved a break after so long. What better gift than a week or so at her grandmother's? It was Summer Vacation, at least that much was convenient: any nightmares she had she would learn to cope with before school began, and they wouldn't rob her of too much needed sleep, like they had for her. Unable to keep herself from smiling again, Aoi walked back to her mother's room, and laid the mat on the floor.
Catching a tossed extra pillow from her mother as if the two were best friends at a sleepover, Aoi watched her mother carefully lay Suzumi down on the inside of the bed, in case she started to move in her sleep, and the followed suit, the pillow a welcome comfort to her neck. Sleep didn't come that quickly, but a sense of peace that kept her content arrived soon afterwards in it's stead, and that was enough.
i. . . In life, our every move is dictated by chance. If we had done something different in our childhood, we would do something different ten years later because we would not be suddenly reminded of that occurrence and become distracted. Some of these changes, such as a baby being burned by a fire which disfigured their palms, therefore making him pyrophobic for the rest of his or her life . . . they are the spur-of-the-moment changes, things that occur in a second, last for a little longer, and then leave almost as abruptly as they came. Out of the two kinds of chances that occur to effect someone's life, these are the weakest. Their affect is almost always confined to one aspect of a person, and only causes that person to do one or two things differently. The /iconsequencesi of those actions are what really changes a person's life. However, the most potent force to change a life is the buildup of small occurences, things that seem paltry and superfluous enough to look over at normal glances, but when taken into account years later as a whole . . . they are what psychologists nod their heads at and say "oh, this is what started this problem for you." Replace this1 and this2 with anything you wish. . .
. . . For a lot of tiny changes to amount to something huge, however, the weaker force in a person's life - those violent, sudden changes that affect and whose direct consequences are few - one of those kinds of experiences must bind all the little chances together, and forge that huge and sometimes monstrous thing called one's past. It is ironic that we, as the only creatures on the planet that realize the present are most effected by events outside it. Things that could occur, things that did occur . . . very rarely does someone make a decision based on something that could be defined in the present tense, an occuring thing . . .
. . .But, those decisions . . . they do happen every once in a while . . . These decisions are the most dangerous, for they are based on an instinct which is designed to preserve the self at all expense, disregarding human emotion and the human sense of selflessness. Instinct is perhaps the most selfish thing /iabouti a human being. But, instinct, too, is based on chance. Past experiences passed on through some part of the body we can not see, all combining to make the human race. . .
. . . We often want to change things that happenned to us in our lives. Make things that went wrong, go right, give ourselves a perfect life with no pain and no suffering . . . but, without such pain, what would be the difference between happiness and pain? One cannot exist without the other; their very defintions are interdependent: happiness is the absence of discontent, while discontent is the absence of happiness . . . delete one, and you render the other meaningless. . .
. . . Therefore . . . come, listen to the tale of a world spun off balance by the actions of one group. Come! You will see what happens when that which is outside our own comfort zones is shunned and banished. Come! Here is the tale of a generation whose actions never harmed one soul, and yet they are the ones who must pay the price of retribution for their ancestor's past actions! Come . . . for this is a story of soldiers long buried; they and their actions and their action's consequences . . . their children, even . . . every aspect of their lives deserves to be remembered./i
"iSeiryuu no Miko/i," the disembodied voice echoed throughout her dreams as though in desolate rocky canyonland, the voice seemed so weak that she could not help but envisage a man starving to death, his moans of hunger the ones that caused the echoes. . .
"Are you not the one who summoned me? iSeiryuu no Miko/i!" searching as hard as possible, she still could not find the source of the voice.
"iSeiryuu no Miko/i. . . you sleep. Awaken. Your call is needed once more," the voice began again, startling her with its urgency. Then, it seemed . . . almost surprised. "You have fallen from the iShikai/i. I have fallen from iTengoku/i. Watashi wa . . . sui no ryuu."
"Who are you?! What do you want?" she called to the voice. "What do you mean by iShikai/i?"
"iHayaku . . . hayaku/i!" the voice responded, the diminishing strength of his body transmitting through a wearying voice. Suddenly, a symbol flashed in a black void of her dream, bright blue, and unrecognizable. Scrolls of silk patterns suddenly began to appear from the distance, and spin ever faster until each strip was a blur of color, the lengths multiplying until they formed as sphere of rotating cloth, causing storms and wind to envelop her, her dreaming form tossed back and forth in the violent maelstrom. Suddenly, the bolts of cloth began to tighten, the storm rotating on a tighter and tighter axis, until all she could see was grey wind, she could hear was the roaring cacophany of wind and lightning and rain.
And with that, she awoke.
In her room, the alarm clock set for five in the morning blares, conspicuously not achieving its goal of awakening its owner: after all, its owner was already conscious. For a while, all Yui could do was stare at the ceiling. Feeling old bones creak as she pushed herself up from bed, Yui found tears on her cheeks, and when she had begun to cry. Wiping her tears roughly away, Yui stopped from getting up when the door to her bedroom began to open. Hastily putting on her glasses to see who was coming in, Yui smiled to see that it was her granddaughter, timidly opening to door, her hand on a doorknob that she was scarcely taller than.
"iBaa-san/i," Her granddaughter began timidly, "I had a bad dream."
Yui's eyes sharpened, her shock written plainly on her face. Her granddaughter looked up at her questioningly, wondering what was wrong, or what she had done wrong. Shaking aside the implications of that fact, Yui forced her expression to soften, and held out her arms to her granddaughter, moving in her bed so that her granddaughter could sit in her lap.
"Come here, Suzumi," Yui said softly. Wrapping around her arms around her imagomusume/i, Yui smiled quietly at how much she was reminded of her own child when holding Suzumi like this. Aoi had often experienced nightmares in her childhood, and Yui remembered many a time when her daughter had meekly peeked into her mother's room, asking quietly and politely whether she could sleep with her mother. Yui had always laughed at her daughter's seriousness inwardly, but she would always beckon her daughter to lie down next to her, scooching a little closer to her husband to give her daughter some space. Remembering what she had always done to help Aoi feel safer, Yui did the same with Suzumi in hopes that her granddaughter would not be as afraid - she was trembling so badly Yui could feel it through Suzumi's bedclothes!
"What did you dream about, iYume-chan/i," Yui asked quietly. She felt Suzumi stiffen under her arms. Her granddaughter sniffled a bit, and drew in closer to her grandmother. Yui held her granddaughter tighter, hoping that the trembling would stop. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, iYume-chan/i."
iYume-chan/i was her affectionate name for Suzumi, rising from the fact that Suzumi had been a perfect baby, almost never waking her mother up from her dreams. Aoi's nickname had been iSei-chan/i, arising from her daughter's early interest in the heavens, and the fact that she had always stared at the night sky through her room's window. Even as a baby, just watching the night sky and the occaisionaly night bird fly across her window had been enough to make the baby Aoi coo with delight. Brought out of memories by the fearful child in her arms, Yui waited for Suzumi to answer. After a while, her granddaughter shifted position a little and began to speak.
"It was about some man, iBaa-san/i," Suzumi said. "He was invisible, and I couldn't find where his voice was coming from." Yui stiffened from shock, although she was careful to keep her hug comforting to her granddaughter.
"He kept telling me I was a imiko/i to a thingy called "iSeiryuu/i" . . . are dragons real, iBaa-san/i?" Suzumi asked, suddenly. Fumbling to make an answer, Yui decided to reply truthfully, trusting her granddaughter's innocence to take her seriously, since she meant her answer honestly.
"Dragons were real, a long time ago, Suzumi," Yui said, "But they've all gone away now. You can't find them very easily any more, not like in the older times."
"Were you around then, iBaa-san/i?" Suzumi was too young to realize that her question could be taken insultingly; but, Yui didn't mind. Laughing softly, Yui found herself reflecting on how old she had become suddenly, and how it seemed only yesterday that the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho had enveloped her and Miaka with its mystery.
"No, Suzumi. Dragons were hiding long before I was even born." Yui replied. "But, tell me about the rest of your dream." Suzumi shivered again.
"It was creepy. Right when I thought I could find where his voice was, he started telling me to wake up. I don't know why." Suzumi said, resuming her story. "I kept asking him what a iShikai/i was, but he only told me to hurry. . . why do you think he said that, iBaa-san/i?" Yui looked down at her granddaughter, giving her a little squeeze.
"I don't know, iYume-chan/i," Yui replied worriedly, anticipating what was coming next, "Did you dream anything else, Suzumi?"
"Yes . . . " she said quietly, her voice shrinking to an uneasy tone suddenly. "There was a big storm . . . all these long pieces of silky stuff starting wrapping around me, and the storm kept getting bigger and bigger . . . It was really scary . . . but right before I was going to scream, I woke up. . . did I wake you up, iBaa-san/i?"
"No, Suzumi, I was already up," Yui said immediately, perhaps too quickly. "Don't ever think that you inconvenience me, okay? I'm always waiting here if you need me. . . ihai/i?"
"iHai, Baa-san/i," Suzumi said quietly. Yui could tell her granddaughter was already becoming sleepy again. Pressing her cheek onto the top of Suzumi's head, Yui tightened her grip protectively around her little dreaming girl, as if trying to scold away the movements of life that threatened to take her granddaughter from the safety of her home . . . for there could only be one reason that a daughter of her blood could pick up a dream that only the iSeiryuu no Miko/i could attune to.
Aoi fought to keep her calm. She'd not had these dreams since childhood, but she was an adult now, a woman who was also a mother, and she was more than old enough to keep from hysterics. What could it possibly mean that now, of all times, these dreams were resurfacing? Turning in her bed, Aoi tried to ignore the empty spot next to her among the bedspreads. Her father had warned her about marrying an American; they always seemed to find a job that would keep them away from home, they never seemed to care: for an American, her father had said, divorce was something that was easily done, and was done for almost any reason. Well, even if Michael hadn't divorced her yet, he might as well have placed a restraining order on her for all the time he was at home . . . in that way, her father had been right.
She had met Michael when he was nothing more than a tourist speaking phrases from a travelbook; one that was out-dated at that: Aoi had been forced to quell laughter at how old he sounded using such traditional language. Of course, if he had been casual or informal, she would have been offended, probably, but she had met him for about an hour, and had told him where to find the iShinkansen/i station nearest, and that was that. For her, at least . . . Aoi smiled when she remembered the time that Michael had come back to Japan almost three years later: she hadn't remembered him at all, but he had told her after they'd been married that once he had met her, he hadn't forgotten at all.
At first, it had been a fairy tale marriage, with a wonderful daughter and a perfect husband, but now . . . she'd left Suzumi at her mother's after their last fight. His job as an airplane pilot was what had gotten him back to Japan, but now it was constantly taking him away from her, for longer and longer periods of time, as he signed on for or was signed onto more and more prolonged flight patterns. The first one had only been Tokyo to Seoul, he had gone and come back within three days. The next ones had been about a week or so long, spaced about a month apart, with the occaisional short flight within Japan. On those, he had usually pulled some strings and had allowed her to fly with him in first class, able to get up and talk to her husband, visit parts of Japan, eventually with Suzumi, that she would have never seen otherwise . . . but, now, that was past, and her husband took on the longest flights that paid well but kept him away for so long. . .
Suzumi had begun to cry after she'd had a violent verbal fight with her husband over video-phone. Since she had planned on visiting her mother the next day, and since she was also in no emotionally stable condition to help her daughter, Aoi had done her best to calm her daughter and then had grabbed her walet and the already-packed suitcases, and had flaged down a taxi, heading to the nearest iShinkansen/i station. Getting out her cell phone, Aoi called her mother and had warned her about their early arrival, feeling so guilty about it that nearly every word was part of an apology. After her mother had reassured her it was all right, she had hung up, and settled down in her chair to sleep, setting her phone's alarm for an hour later - the trip would take an hour and a half.
Her dreams had been plagued on that train, and Aoi had the distinct feeling that the only thing that kept her from nightmares was the fact that her sleep on the train was kept shallow from the quiet noise of conversations of people in the train: she had always been a light sleeper. But now, her childhood had come back to plague her, and Aoi had no idea why. Getting up from the cot on the floor - she had insisted that Suzumi get the extra bed in the guest room - Aoi stood achingly from sleep to check on her daughter. But, where her little girl's peaceful expression and raven-black hair would be, there was nothing: only empty space. Aoi felt bile rise in the back of her throat, but she immediately put down her fear. Even if Suzumi was sleepwalking again, she would still be in the house.
Near the edge of panic and about to fall over it, Aoi searched every room in the house before she noticed that her mother's room was open. Quietly walking to the door, she peeked in, and saw her mother quietly singing Suzumi to sleep. Why hadn't she woken up herself? She would've been more than glad to comfort . . . but then again, Suzumi had never seen her mother yell at anyone, much less her own father, so she was probably still uneasy. Slowly walking in, Aoi went to her mother's bed and sat down lightly next to her. Yui looked from her daughter to her granddaughter uneasily.
"Did you have a dream as well?" she whispered. Aoi was stunned. She looked from her daughter to her mother, and slowly an inescapable thought invaded her unwelcoming mind.
"You don't mean that . . . " she couldn't believe it. Oh, she prayed every night that her daughter would never have to go through the horrible nightmares she had had to witness in her childhood.
"Yes. I don't know what it means?" her mother asked after a while. Aoi nodded numbly. Yui sighed slowly.
"Aoi, I don't know what this all means . . . " she began slowly, showing her age through her voice, "it woke me up only a few minutes before it did Suzumi. It was a bodiless voice, then a silk-wrought storm. Right?"
Aoi nodded again, numbly. They had always shared dreams, she had her mother. Right from the very first dream, Aoi had suspected it: whenever her dreams awoke her, her mother had always been up as well, sitting in her bed, waiting for her daughter to come. Of course, she had never asked, but she knew . . . how she knew, that was beyond her. However, if her daughter was going to have to go through this as well . . . she'd no idea how to comfort her daughter when those dreams still frightened her as well.
"iOkaa-san/i . . . " Aoi began tentatively, "If Suzumi must go through this . . . Michael is going to be gone for the remainder of the month . . . can we stay here with you for a little while?" Yui smiled softly. She wasn't the best of mothers, she knew, but right then, she could not resist her daughter's will, not when she was so vulnerable like this. She had never been strict enough with Aoi . . . but then, she had turned out to be a beautiful woman and a wonderful person in spite of all her mother's mistakes, hadn't she?
"Of course, iSei-chan/i." she said, a girlish grin on her face belying her years. Aoi smiled, for the first time that night, in a long time, a real smile.
"You haven't called me that since I went to iJounan/i." she said, keeping laughter down to avoid waking her peacefully sleeping daughter, her little dream.
"That's because she haven't looked up at the sky since then . . . " Yui replied, sadly at first. But then, she smiled, and looked at her daughter once more. "It's good to see you smile again." Content to be silent for a little while, it took a bit for Aoi to realize Suzumi was still in her mother's arms. Aoi looked at Suzumi, then her mother quesitoningly.
"Do you mind if she sleeps here with you?" she asked. Her mother smiled, and mouthed the word "no." After a small, unsure pause, Aoi asked, "Then, do you mind if I sleep here too?"
Her mother smiled again with that girlish smile of hers. Returning the grin only with her eyes this time, Aoi got up to retrieve her bed mat, and unplugged the alarm clock. It was late, and none of them needed to be up the next morning. Besides, her daughter deserved a break after so long. What better gift than a week or so at her grandmother's? It was Summer Vacation, at least that much was convenient: any nightmares she had she would learn to cope with before school began, and they wouldn't rob her of too much needed sleep, like they had for her. Unable to keep herself from smiling again, Aoi walked back to her mother's room, and laid the mat on the floor.
Catching a tossed extra pillow from her mother as if the two were best friends at a sleepover, Aoi watched her mother carefully lay Suzumi down on the inside of the bed, in case she started to move in her sleep, and the followed suit, the pillow a welcome comfort to her neck. Sleep didn't come that quickly, but a sense of peace that kept her content arrived soon afterwards in it's stead, and that was enough.