Chapter 1 - The Awakening
She didn't know what was worse. Having been completely engulfed in darkness for who-knows-how-long, only her own thoughts to keep her company, or suddenly being ripped from that darkness into a world of intense light and way too much noise.
She had no idea what was going on. All she knew was that she was cold, hungry and being man-handled as if she weighed nothing at all.
She hated it.
She wanted to yell, demand what was going on, but all that escaped her throat were screams and high-pitched wails.
She heard voices, muffled and LOUD and she couldn't understand what they were saying. It was terrifying.
Then… then she was wrapped in something warm and soft, and she was put down on the most comfortable surface in the world, a soothing beat just beneath her ear mixing with a soft humming. Someone held her close, murmuring things to her.
Tired and scared, she tried to fight off the exhaustion that hit her. To no avail.
She fell asleep between one breath and the next.
She was here. She was finally, actually here. His first grandchild - no, his granddaughter.
Solomon Mutou was a proud man. Or rather, he used to be, when he was younger. Indeed, he had been able to count the times he cried as an adult on one hand.
He wasn't that same young man anymore. And so he openly cried as the precious little life, swaddled in a cheery pink blanket, was handed to him.
"She's so beautiful," he whispered to no-one in particular. "She's the most magnificent thing in the entire world, and I couldn't be happier". His voice broke as he rocked her back and forth, ever so gently. He looked at his son, who was sitting next to his wife, Solomon's daughter-in-law, and smiled. "Yakumo, my son, I haven't been this happy since the day you were born. Congratulations, with all of my heart, congratulations".
Yakumo smiled at him, bowing his head in thanks. "Thank you, Tou-san. It's a new beginning for all of us… but as long as Yume and I have each other, I think we can do anything".
Solomon practically glowed with pride. "Wise words, my boy. I wish you both a bright and happy future". He looked back down at the little wonder in his arms. It appeared that she had skipped out on their family's three-coloured hair (a strange trait that had baffled many a doctor or stranger), instead having just brilliant golden hair covering that little head of hers. "Have you thought of a name for her? I know Yume had a list as long as Tokyo Tower is tall," he chuckled, careful not to startled his little granddaughter, lest he wake her from her sleep.
Yume was the one to answer him, this time.
"Youko," she whispered, still exhausted. "Our little Sun Child".
"Not Ocean?" Solomon quirked an eyebrow at the two new parents. Yakumo just laughed.
"Not with hair like that - she's going to shine brighter than a sun. Mark my words, Youko will be able to light up an entire room, just with her presence, just you wait and see".
If Solomon felt a sudden weight fall over the room, as if something of great importance had just happened (just like it had back then, in Egypt, when he'd faced a spirit and lived), he chose to ignore it.
Fate would have to run its course, and who was he to interfere with the will of higher powers?
She doesn't remember much after falling asleep that first time. Only fragments really. She supposes it was because her brain was not mature enough to handle an adult's mind.
There are only vague impression, sensations, and feelings when she tries to think back to those first few months. Her mind simply cannot grasp or focus on that time. She supposes that that is a blessing really.
All she knows for certain is that one day… she awakens. From one moment to the next, she goes from being in a place that is way too bright and falling asleep against something soft and safe, to finding herself on a little blanket made of what looks like big puzzle pieces, surrounded by absolutely giant furniture.
She looks around in confusion, wondering what has happened. It had been dark and quiet, then bright and loud, and now… now things are clear, if not ridiculously over-sized. Had she shrunk? No… that would be impossible, the rational side of her mind decides, but what else could've happened? Was someone playing a trick on her?
She decides she will learn nothing of her situation just by sitting there, so she tries to stand… only to have her body disobey her. She falls over with a little cry of distress, intending to call out the word "help!", but it only comes out as an odd little squeak.
Then there's a chuckle behind her and a hand at her back, helping her back into a sitting position. "Up you go then, little one. Quite eager to walk already, aren't you?"
She turns her head to look at the source of the voice and finds quite possibly the oddest looking man she has ever seen. His hair sticks out in all sorts of crazy spikes that look so unnatural it's unsettling, and while some of it is grey, she can still catch hints of a bright, lipstick red colour, mixing with black and streaks of blonde.
She's not quite sure how to feel about it...
"Who are you?" She settles on asking, though she would much rather like to ask "what's happening with your hair?", but decides against it, as it would be rude.
But… nothing that can be understood comes from her mouth. Instead a series of odd ooo and aaa sounds escape her mouth. Again he chuckles.
"Not quite there, little darling. It's grandpa - Ojii-san.Graaaand-paaaa, Jiiiii-saaaan" he says to her slowly, exaggerating the sounds, as if she's incapable of understanding basic speech.
The odd part is she could only understand every other word he was saying. The rest is foreign to her.
"Okay, no, I'm really confused, what's going on here?" She, again, tries to ask, but she just can't form the words and only babbling noises come from her, much to the older man's delight and her mortification.
He picks her up and lifts her into the air, smiling widely. "Such a talkative little girl you are. I wonder what you'll grow up to be… maybe a storyteller? Or perhaps there's a singer hiding in you?" He hugs her close, but gently, to his chest, rocking her back and forth. "Sweet, little Yo-chan~" the old man sings quietly, happy as can be.
She freezes in confusion and fear, trying not to freak out because she's being held like a baby by a strange man and she can't understand what he's saying. 'What the everloving fuck is going on!?'
"Grandfather, please be careful with Youko, you're just going to scare her," says a feminine voice from somewhere behind her and the strange man. Youko… that sounds like a name to her. But as far as she knows, she's the only other person in the room. Not just that, something in her is responding to that voice. Recognizing it. But her name isn't Youko, it's-
"I'm sorry, Yume dear, but it cannot be helped. She's just such an adorable child," the man says, before he finally puts her back down on the blanket. "You know, she was trying to walk just a few moments ago! She's going to do great things, I know it".
If something in the air shifted again, as if in agreement with him, Solomon choses to ignore it. (Like he has done countless times before).
Youko on the other hand shivers as the invisible weight settles around her. She looks around trying to spot anything that would make her feel that way before she freezes again. Her thoughts shift, pulling her mind back to the time when she was in the darkness.
"You have been chosen."
"You have been deemed more suited elsewhere."
"You are worthy to carry out our purposes"
No. No. It had to be a lie! A nightmare! This couldn't have happened!
But it had, something inside her whispers. No one, even supposed gods, could be that cruel could they? To kill someone to suit their purposes and desires somewhere else?
Something heavy sinks inside her and she starts to hyperventilate. Her panicked breathing is followed by tears and then, she breaks. Great heaving sobs and wails tear through her throat as she screams and rages. Her body thrashes as she fights against an invisible force. It's not fair! Her rage turns to anguish as she realizes that she has lost everything. Her life, family, everything she had gained, her very being is gone. All because of some gods' whims.
She is vaguely aware of someone picking her up again, rocking her back and forth repeatedly, trying desperately to calm her down, but she doesn't want to. Everything has been stolen from her - what reasons does she have to be calm? So instead of calming down as they want she screams and cries louder. And louder. And louder.
She reaches her loudest when, in an attempt to calm her, the woman starts to sing a painfully familiar song. One her mother had sung to her all the time as a child. At the thought of her now lost mother- oh how she must be so devastated by her only child's death- she wails in more anguish, her poor underdeveloped vocal chords being brutalized by her screeches and sobs. Her cries worsen. She wants her mother- 'mommy! I want my mama!'- is all she can think about.
She doesn't know how long it goes on, but she only stops when the darkness comes again and she passes out from both emotional and physical exhaustion.
Her baby is crying. Oh gods above, her baby is crying and won't stop. She doesn't know what to do. Her Youko had been such an angel since she was born, never fussing or causing any problems. So she is now at a complete loss as to what to do. Her child is in distress and she can't fix it.
"Oh, what do we do, what do we do? Where is Yakumo when you need him, dear gods, Solomon, what do we do?!" She cries, almost running in circles with little Youko held securely in her arms.
Solomon himself feels helpless as Youko just cries and screams and wails without stop. Had he scared her when he lifted her? But she loves it - at least, he thinks she does. She always smiles and falls asleep right away when she is held.
For the first time since Youko's birth, he really wishes his late wife was there. She would have known what to do. Of course, there is one thing he knows always worked on Yakumo, when he was a baby...
"Sing to her!" He almost yells, so Yume can hear him over her daughter's screams. "It worked on Yakumo when he was that age, and she likes to listen to people speak!"
"Yes, of course! A lullaby, but which one?" Yume mumbles to herself, trying desperately to think clearly and get past her worries for the crying child.
And then she remembered... and old song she'd heard once, a long time ago when she went across the ocean to America.
"You are my sunshine... my only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are grey. You'll never know dear... how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away".
It doesn't. Work. If anything it makes her cry harder, and Yume tries desperately to keep calm. Dear gods, she made it worse. What's wrong with her baby? Is she hungry? Does she need a diaper change? Is she sick? But no… she can't feel anything from her. No smell, no alarming temperature. And Yume knows she fed her baby just an hour before.
Dear gods. What is wrong with her baby girl!?
It's an hour or so of constant noise and fighting before Youko finally calms down, though not out of her own will, if Yume understands the screaming. Her baby has simply exhausted herself to sleep.
When Yakumo comes home, they will discuss what happened and hopefully figure out what was wrong with baby Youko.
The next day they will take her to the doctor and find out nothing is wrong with their baby, nothing that could explain the sudden crying… but something is wrong, as they will learn.
Little vocal chords damaged by the intensity of her screams. They'll hope it won't hinder her ability to speak, that it'll heal. Ideally, the doctor will say, she shouldn't speak for quite some time. But who can expect a small child, just a little older than a year, to keep silent?
Even later, when Youko finally does speak… her voice will have a slight rasp to it. Yume will blame herself for not finding a way to stop her crying until the day she dies.
Grief is something she didn't think she'd have to experience for many more years. Not to the degree she has experienced it for the past few days.
She is confused. She is angry. She feels so very hollow inside that it hurts.
She has tried everything she could to reach the gods again. Silent prayer being the most used one, considering raging and screaming and cursing at them got her nothing but a throat that's constantly hurting her.
So she lays there, listlessly. Only her thoughts to keep her company. They brew and simmer in her mind. And they are not good thoughts. Her mind spirals further down with each new thought. At times, she wonders if this what depression is and if it's what her friends had to go through when fighting.
She worries her new family. She knows for sure that that's who they are, now. She uses family loosely, she can't bring herself to accept them or her situation yet. It's hard, so very hard to go every waking moment longing for her family and life. She swings between extreme rage and deep depression for what she thinks is a few months. (It's only a month really, but she has no way of keeping track and her depression doesn't help) She knows her 'family' is at their wits end, wondering what caused such a dramatic shift in their baby and are at a loss as to what to do.
It all changes when that old man, her new grandfather (Ojii-san, as he tries to make her say sometimes) takes her up on his lap one day, when her "mother" is out and her "father" at work, and looks at her with such big, sad eyes.
"Little Youko," he whispers, calling her by her new name, for once, and not some variation or odd nickname. "Child of Sun, Child of Light. What is it that saddens you so much, I wonder? Why do you scream as if in agony?"
He speaks to her with such tenderness that she almost can't bear it. Even if she can't quite understand the language, yet, she can hear all of the love and worry in his voice.
Tears well up in her eyes again, but for the first time in weeks, they aren't accompanied by agonized wails. Instead, she weeps for the deception that is her very existence in the life of this little family. She weeps and mourns for all that she's lost. She lets it all out. And in that moment, she lets go and accepts what has happened. She accepts that this is her new family, and with a start, she realizes that they love her.
They love her.
She doesn't know if she will ever be able to return it.
Maybe that moment of realization is when she actually starts to love them. To see all they do for her, just to ensure her happiness.
She thinks a lot the next few weeks, following that moment with her new grandfather, when she had cried silently and he had hummed a wordless tune to her, mumbling soothing things into her hair, until she fell asleep again.
Her new mother, Yume - as she comes to learn - is almost always home, save for the few times she leaves the house to get groceries or spend time with the other mothers of the neighborhood. When she (Youko, she has to remind herself constantly, her new name is Youko) has gone a week without crying all day, Yume takes her with her. And she gets to really see the outside world for the first time in what feels like ages.
The city is loud and bright and so much more different than the world she came from. (Especially the odd hair… turns out her new grandfather and father, too, aren't the only ones into weird haircuts and odd dye-jobs).
Her new father is busy. Often away from home for days at a time, Youko thinks he's some kind of businessman. Not very high up in the ranks, but he makes decent money, or so it appears, based on their house and the shop beneath it. She cannot tell if she knows the man well enough to say for certain that she will grow to love him, but he acts a lot like he loves her, bringing her little trinkets and sitting with her when he gets home, playing little games and such when he has the time.
Her new grandfather, though… yes, she is willing to say for sure that she will grow to love him. He spends all the time he can with her, sometimes even taking her down to his shop, where he sells all sorts of games, so he can watch her and talk with her while he works. She would call him kindness incarnate, and it is because of him that she ever so slowly starts figuring out her new native tongue. And she is oh so grateful for him because Japanese is a challenging language to learn.
And ever so slowly… her "new family" becomes her family. "New mother" becomes "mother" which turns into Mama/Kaa-san. Same for her father and grandpa.
She still grieves for the life and family she lost. She still wakes up crying, after dreaming of being reunited with the people from that old life, but it is made better by her mom quickly rushing to her side and comforting her, or her dad or grandpa picking her up so very gently and holding her close, rocking her to sleep, their heartbeats the best lullaby. She figures that her new family isn't all that bad, even if they are all a little strange.
In the end, Youko decides, her new life really isn't as bad as it could be. Sure, the idea of being reborn, and not just that, but remembering it happening as well, is a little scary to her. Even more, being chosen for some big task by all-powerful gods?
Terrifying.
But her family is kind and loving, and she knows that she will soon wish to do everything for them. Especially any future baby siblings (a girl can hope) that she has, she will love and protect them fearlessly. She lost one family. She isn't going to go through that a second time.
So, several months later, as she falls asleep, having accepted her new life and feeling content, she thinks she will survive.
And hey… if she can survive this, she's sure she can survive whatever the gods throw at her. Still, she wouldn't wish this fate on anyone else.
"At least they only took me," Youko thinks, content and happy, before dreams finally claim her.
No… the gods wouldn't have stolen two people from their old lives without warning. That was just silly. And needlessly cruel.
A/N:
Hey guys! Welcome to chapter 1 of CitG! I hope you enjoyed reading this. Nordic and I certainly had fun writing this chapter. The lovely and talented NordicTwin wrote more than I did this time, she's so amazing.
So this chapter we introduced my first and main oc, Mouto Youko. There are other ocs and we will do our best to give all the ocs enough "screen time" and show different perspectives in this story.
I've noticed in many fics that some authors don't think about it at least show the ocs fully realizing the consequences of their situations and the grief and other things they go through. So I wanted to focus a bit on that.
Lots of foreshadowing in this chapter for sure, Nordic did a great job with those details.
Anyways I'm not really sure what to say in these A/N's tbh…..
Big thanks to treavellergirl, datsonyat, Mermims91, Kohanita, and Contentkarma347 for the follows and favorites on FFN!
And thank you for the kudos and to cherrypup for the follow on ao3!
And a big shout out to my little sister Moirei for beta-ing the chapter for us!
Thanks for reading everyone and see you all next time!
Counting Sinful Stars
A/N: Hello everyone! Welcome to the first official chapter of Caught in the Game - The Awakening! I hope you enjoyed reading it, it was certainly fun to write.
So lots of stuff going on this chapter. Introducing: Youko Mutou/Mutou Youko, whichever way of saying it suits your fancy. While we'll have other OCs in this story, Youko will be the main one, as you have probably already noticed. But don't worry - we've got much more than just her story to tell, that's for sure.
About her name: the website says about the name Youko:
From Japanese 陽 (you) meaning "light, sun, male" or 洋 (you) meaning "ocean" combined with 子 (ko) meaning "child". Other combinations of kanji characters are possible.
That's what Solomon is asking about - their choice of characters for her name.
And about the switch in tense: that's a very dilebrate move on our part. Anything written in past tense happens either as a flashback or before Youko is 100% aware of her surroundings and she's recalling what happened. So whenever such a switch happens - that's why.
So now that we've gone through the first year or so of Youko's life, what else could be in store for her? She's accepted her new place in the universe, but will she be ready for the trials ahead? What new adventures could await her? Learn that, and more, in the next chapter of Caught in the Game!
Thanks for reading, and we will see you guys next time!
NordicTwin