Miyu awoke with a start, opening her eyes. At least she thought she opened her eyes. Surrounded by darkness so palpable she could practically feel it touching her skin, she assumed it must still be before dawn. She had forgotten how extreme the darkness could be here in the mountains.
Too much of her life had been lived in the city surrounded by electric lights. The last few years she had spent all of her nights awake. She never missed the darkness.
Extending her right arm, she patted the bed, searching for Kuki. Her fingertips brushed across what she believed to be his back. Rolling onto her side, she wiggled over to him to press her body to his.
"Mmmm," he groaned, moving around a little. "How do you feel?"
"Still tired," she murmured, pressing her lips to the back of his neck. "How about you?"
"The same. I could sleep for days."
"Then I'll leave you alone. I need a shower. I'm so gross."
Miyu reluctantly slid away from him, leaving the warmth and comfort of the cozy bed and her boyfriend. Sweat and dirt had formed a crust on her body. Oh, yuck! Peeling her clothes off, she desperately wished she had not fallen into an exhausted sleep being so grimy and disgusting. Thankfully, it was nothing lots of soap and hot water would not fix.
Flipping on the bathroom light temporarily blinded her because her eyes had adjusted to the black void filling the room to enable her to get there without stubbing her toes. After the black spots subsided and she could see again, she searched for towels and soap finding the bathroom had been fully stocked for their needs including her favorite shampoo. How thoughtful.
Miyu had never tried to get to know her step mother or her step siblings. Although she knew it was irrational and immature, she felt as if she would be betraying the memory of her mother if she allowed them into her heart.
Meeting her step siblings face to face yesterday had been awkward. Being exhausted and out of sorts, she had not been sure how to react to them. She had treated them coldly like strangers because that's what they were to her - and it was mostly her fault.
Miyu had so much in common with Kuki. They had both shut down and shut out the world to spare their own feelings. It was just easier that way. Yet somewhere along the way, maybe due to her intrinsic nature, she needed to have to feelings in her life. She needed to have them for other people and receive them others as well. Emotions were an essential part of being a succubus.
Once she had been sufficiently scrubbed from head to toe and boiled to thoroughly sanitize her skin, she emerged from the shower feeling like a new woman. Her empty tummy rumbling for food created a fluttering sensation under skin. Hastily dressing in a red and black flannel shirt and jeans, she pulled on a pair of socks and headed downstairs to the kitchen.
A light from the kitchen beckoned her like a lighthouse leads a ship into shore. When she rounded the corner from the back stairs, she slid to a stop upon seeing she was not the only one in the kitchen so early. To her surprise, her father stood in front of the coffee pot scooping heaping spoon fulls of grounds out of a bag and pouring them into the filter lined brew basket.
"Breaking out the good stuff for your prodigal daughter," she joked, coming to stand beside him.
"Coffee snob. Maybe if you were around more often I'd treat you to fancy schmancy coffee made with one of those special little gadgets you like," he shot back, opening the cabinet to get two cups.
He pulled out the two lopsided, slightly misshapen ceramic mugs June had made at summer camp when she was eight. The brown one had Dad scrawled on it in black paint, the other Miyu in purple paint on a rainbow background. Her father had told her about the mugs in a letter. Instead of sending hers to Japan, mostly for fear of it getting broken, he told her she could use it the next time she visited. Him remembering such a small, seemingly trivial thing brought a smile to her face.
Her tummy grumbled again sounding like a far off peal of thunder. Her cheeks burned with a blush of embarrassment when his head whipped around toward her.
"Wow, I thought there was a monster in the room for a second," he teased, not knowing the simple jibe actually pricked her feelings like a sharp needle.
Miyu stayed silent, the corners of her mouth drooping and her lips quivering as she tried to push them back up to maintain her smile.
"I'll make you some breakfast. Is bacon and eggs okay?" he asked, crossing the kitchen to the refrigerator.
"That sounds amazing. Did Eliza make cinnamon rolls?"
"Hey, kid, beggars can't be choosers. I'll ask her if she will make them tomorrow morning though." He gave her a brilliant smile, his blue eyes sparkling under the fluorescent kitchen light. "Toast? I can do that. The bread is homemade."
"Oh, yes, please," she returned.
The wonderful and inviting scent of coffee filled the kitchen. Unable to find her patience this morning, she pulled the half full pot out from under the basket to stick her cup underneath allowing the black liquid to pour directly into her cup.
"Impatience makes you talented apparently," he joked.
"Cream?" she asked, summarily ignoring his taunt.
"Second shelf toward the back."
"This is nice," she said, reaching into the refrigerator.
"Yeah. It's new. Our old one died last month," he returned, placing a slice of bacon in the pan.
"No," she giggled. "Being here with you. Having a nice conversation. Making breakfast. Well, you're making breakfast."
"It could be like this all the time if you'd just move here." He kept his voice even and calm, non-accusatory.
"Dad," she sighed, sitting down on one of the white cloud like cushions covering the round seat of the backless bar stool.
"Just sayin'..."
"Yeah, I know what you're just sayin', " she shot back. "If I was always here, our time together wouldn't be special."
"Yeah, it would. My baby would be home with me, and I wouldn't have to worry so much about her being a world away."
"Dad - "
"Oh, by the way," he went on as if she had not spoken. "I'm sorry about the whole party thing, If I had known how sick you really are, I would not have planned a homecoming party. You should have told me."
"Yeah, I know," she agreed, staring at the bottom of her empty coffee cup. "May I have some more coffee?"
"Sure thing." He exchanged her empty cup for a full plate of food.
"Thank you," she murmured when he slid a full cup of coffee over the counter to her.
"No problem. I like indulging you when you're here."
"Yeah, I enjoy it quite a bit myself."
"That boyfriend of yours seems like a great guy," he stated flatly, changing subjects fast enough to give her whiplash.
"He is. I'm glad you like him," she said, shoveling food into her mouth.
"I never said I like him. All I said I think he might be a good man. He would have to be to follow you here."
"He wouldn't take no for an answer. I begged him to stay home. But he wouldn't," she explained with her mouth full of half chewed food.
"Do you eat like that in front of him?" her father questioned her, grimacing.
"Yes," she mumbled around more food.
"Wow, you are a pig. If that didn't scare him off I guess nothing would." He paused, considering her carefully over the top of his asymmetrical coffee cup. "Does he know everything?"
"No."
"Has he seen your..." For a moment he struggled to find the words, rolling his eyes up to ceiling as if they were written there. "Other side?"
"He's seen me human and like this. That's it. I don't want him to know about the other side," she said, speaking the last two words pointedly.
"That's not fair. You know everything about him. Have you seen him in his fully activated ghoul form?"
"No, not yet."
But I will soon enough. Fuck. I still need to tell Kuki about my discussion with Kaneki, she thought to herself, pushing her food around the plate with a piece of buttered toast.
"How much are you hiding from him?" her father inquired.
"Dad, I - "
"No, never mind," he interjected, holding up his hand for her to stop speaking. "That's between you and him." He scoffed, smiling at her. "You're so much like her. You're mother was wild, carefree, beautiful. Mysterious, unpredictable, determined. Later those attribute became something different entirely. She was irresponsible, fickle, secretive, deceptive, and hard-headed. All the reasons I loved her are the same reasons I grew to hate her."
Miyu swallowed, almost choking on her food because of the painful lump of emotion that swelled in her throat. Her face heated with anger. At the same time, the pain in her heart made her chest constrict so intensely she found it difficult to breathe. She put down her fork leaving the last few bites of food uneaten since her appetite deserted her. Taking a deep breath, she delivered her next words very carefully with a deceptively calm, affectless tone.
"So are you saying you will grow to hate me too?"
"That's not what I'm saying at all," her father answered truthfully.
He put down his cup, reaching across the counter to take both of her hands between his. His eyes met hers, boring into them to relay his sincerity.
"I will never not love you. You are my child. But your boyfriend is a different story. He will only be able handle so many lies, being shut out so many times, before his heart can't take it anymore, and he has to let you go."
Was he speaking from his experience? Tears stung that back of her eyeballs, but Miyu chewed the inside of her cheek to keep them from falling. The metallic taste of blood seeped into her mouth as she bit through the tender flesh.
"Are you two ready to go?" Eliza inquired innocently, walking into the kitchen. She glanced from daughter to father and back, perplexed by the tension in the air. "Did I miss something?"
"No, not really," Mitch piped up cheerily when his daughter ignored the question. "We were just discussing a few important things."
"Dr. Burrell will be ready for us soon," she announced, putting on her jacket.
"Burrell? Do you mean - " Miyu queried, unable to complete the question before her father answered. He sure did keep interrupting her a lot.
"Everett's wife."
"Shit."
~\..'../~
Miyu shifted uncomfortably on the crunchy paper covering the examining table located in the front room off of the sun room. The sun room acted as a reception and waiting area for the doctor's office which took up half of the Burrell house.
She was not quite as ill at ease as she could be. At least Everett was no where around the house at the moment. Without her asking, the chipper redheaded receptionist volunteered the information that he was already gone having left for his first patrol of the immediate perimeter before dawn.
Miyu pulled nervously at the front of the cloth gown she had changed into for the examination. Her father and Eliza sat in the waiting room, enjoying sunshine and eating cranberry orange scones. She loved cranberry orange scones. She would rather be anywhere but here. Finally the doctor walked in.
Dr. Burrell's belly entered the room first - big, round, ready to pop any day - covered with a red sweater and framed by her white doctor's coat. Her coal black hair hung in waves that cascaded down her back to her waist. Her skin was the warmest shade of coffee mixed with cream. Honey brown eyes met Miyu's, and a friendly smile stretched the woman's full lips painted bright crimson.
"Hello, I'm Vida," she introduced herself, putting out her hand.
"What an awesome name. Doesn't it mean life?" Miyu asked, shaking the doctor's hand. The woman had a self-assured, firm grip instead of the limp, dead fish handshake.
"Why, yes it does," she returned happily, her golden brown eyes glittering. "Everett told me you were beautiful and kind. I can see why he was in love with you as a teenager."
Miyu felt herself blush from the roots of her hair on her forehead all the way down to her chest. Idiot, she thought, why the hell would you tell your wife that?
"Don't worry. He told me to take very good care of you because you were a friend of his. The way he talked about you though, I could tell he had once been in love with you," she explained, sitting down on the rolling stool. Propping the clipboard on her belly, she clicked her pen.
The receptionist who also acted as a medical assistant had taken Miyu's vitals and gotten the overview of her health history. This is not what Miyu had anticipated. She had expected more of an informal talk, not a clinical and modern approach.
The last time she had come for a cleansing ceremony it had been a quick and easy affair. There had been lots of lit candles in a small room crowded with books and jars of miscellaneous powders, liquids, and herbs. Incense and sage were burning, filling the air with smoke and a heavy, cloying scent. There was incantations spoken by the medicine woman, her father, and a few of the elders. The ritual had been completed in an hour.
"I understand you were here for a cleansing ceremony fifteen years ago," the doctor stated matter of factly, flipping through the pages attached to the clipboard.
"Yes, Miss Mary Clara was the medicine woman," she replied.
"Miss Mary Clara was my mother," Dr. Burrell rejoined, smiling broadly. "I had heard her talk about you from time to time. The exotic half breed succubus."
Miyu stared at the forthright woman. Did she have no filter whatsoever? Succubi were all about being open and honest, but this woman seemed to forget about emotions entirely, stomping on them until it hurt.
Maybe Miyu had become too human. Perhaps she had lived far too many years keeping to herself, avoiding getting close to other people. She had spent a long time staying quiet about her feelings and trying desperately not to get tangled in the emotions of others. In the last few years, she had failed miserably on the part about not getting emotionally involved with others.
"You, and your mother, were like legends around here," the outspoken woman continued. "You were something akin to urban legends in the colony. Your mother became a cautionary tale of what can happen to our kind if they venture too far out into the world, if they dare to mix with an ordinary human. Then you served as a reminder why it's never a good idea to forsake your home, your family. It only leads to trouble and can kill you."
How can this damn woman say such hateful things with a smile on her face?, Miyu wondered, glaring at the placid doctor. She remained quiet, unsure of what to say in rebuttal. Unfortunately, no matter how crude her words, there was truth to them.
Dr. Burrell proceeded to give Miyu a typical exam: pressing the stethoscope all over her chest and back to check her heart and lungs, thumping knees and elbows to test reflexes, shining a light in her nose, eyes, and ears. Generally poking, probing, and palpating to determine the overall status of her inner and outer health.
"We will need a more in depth cleansing ritual this time. You've gotten yourself into quite a bad state here."
"More in depth? Meaning?" Miyu prompted her. She could not help but be suspicious the woman might be trying to poison her when she handed her a pint jar full of a mixture of herbs that looked more like random leaves and twigs.
"Blend that up with water in the morning and drink it. Think of it as a wheat grass smoothie," she advised her. "It will cleanse your inner body and your aura."
"Mmmm, sounds delicious," she muttered, grimacing at the jar.
Next, Dr. Burrell pushed a corked tube of clear oil into Miyu's palm.
"That's the frankincense for your bath to begin the ritual to cleanse your outer body."
Miyu received a second tube, this one full of a viscous amber fluid; myrrh to be mixed with wine and drank before for the ceremony. A large fire would be built and the entire colony would gather to chant and sing. Bundles of sage and cedar branches would be burnt to chase away lingering negative energy. Then she would spend at least a week resting. Once recovered, she would be free to return home.
"That's it?" Miyu asked receiving the lengthy spiel of the progression of events.
"It sounds simple, but I assure you it's not," the doctor warned, her smile fading at last. "This is going to be a difficult process. You're going to go through hell and back. You will be forced to face all of your demons."
"I'll be fine," Miyu assured her with a smile. "I've faced demons before. More than once. I'm not afraid of them. As a matter of fact, I have one waiting for me to return to Japan."