V
"The path winds ever on and on/betwixt the black abyss and white/leading from eternal fight/to future oneness long forgot."
-Path Song. Traditional.
Akari blew out through her lips, flicking through the latest news on her D-Gazer. Why was she even here again? This was her day off of school, and yet here she was, sitting with a gaggle of giggling parents who were waving to their kids at their desks and having far too much fun at an elementary school to really be adults.
It was visiting day at Yuma's school. Her mom and dad had been so incredibly excited, chattering incessantly at Yuma over the breakfast table about what they were most excited to see, and Yuma was just absolutely obnoxiously ecstatic, almost knocking over his juice more than once as he gestured hugely about how much he was going to kattobing for them. Geez. That weird word again. What was up with this family's obsession with 'kattobing?'
There were so many kids chattering and buzzing with excitement, sitting up in their seats to wave at parents standing in the back. The teacher kept shushing them and trying to get them to pay attention to the show and tell, but it wasn't really working. They were all too excited.
Yuma was, of course, one of the most excited, practically shaking back and forth in his seat, constantly looking back over his shoulder to smile as big as he could at his parents, sister, and grandma. Geez, they probably had the biggest group here for one kid, what was with this family?
Akari really couldn't help but smile, though...her brother's smile was just so huge and shining.
Send me some of that enthusiasm for things, won't you? she thought. I could use it...
"Tsukumo-kun, it's your turn," the teacher called.
Yuma sprang up out of his seat like a loaded rocket. He turned over his shoulder to wave frantically at his family with one arm (the other was occupied holding his sketchbook), as though they might miss him if he didn't catch their attention. Their father grinned widely and swung his arm in a huge wave back, causing a few people behind him to jump and glare. Akari flushed and did not wave back to Yuma.
Yuma kept waving as he walked to the front—and promptly tripped and fell on his face.
The whole classroom burst into laughter. Akari could see little Mizuki Kotori, Yuma's friend, groaning and laying her head down on her desk in exasperation at Yuma's antics.
I feel ya, kid, Akari thought.
Yuma scrambled back to his feet. His face was as red as his bangs as he brushed off his knees, clutching his sketchbook to his chest. He looked desperately over the snickering kids for some support. He got it in the form of a pair of thumb's up from his mother, and his smile returned, albeit a little smaller. Akari folded her arms and settled in. She didn't really know what Yuma was going to talk about. What was in the sketchbook? She had seen him doodling in it a lot but he always hid it before she could see what he was drawing. It was a surprise, he said.
Yuma cleared his throat.
"Hi! I'm Tsukumo Yuma, and I'm seven!" he announced. "For show and tell I'm going to tell you about my friend Lua-kun!"
He fumbled with the book in his arms for a moment, trying to pull it open.
"I couldn't take any pictures of us, so I drew some instead..."
"Are you talking about your magic fairy boyfriend?" someone in the second row shouted.
Akari's eyes snapped to the boy in question. A beefy sort of kid with a square jaw and beady eyes. She didn't like the look of him. And she didn't like the way that Yuma's shoulder drew up around his ears when he looked at him. A defensive position. Akari felt her fingers twitching up into fists instinctively.
"Lua-kun is not a boy," Yuma said. "And they're not a fairy either."
He returned to his sketchbook and peeled the pages open to a scribbled drawing made almost entirely out of different shades of purple.
"Lua-kun is a dream spirit who lives in the Dream World. I can only go see them when I'm sleeping."
Akari blinked. Oh. Oooh. This was Yuma's little dream friend that he liked to talk about sometimes, wasn't it? Sometimes it would come up over the dinner table. "Lua-kun said..." "Lua-kun thinks..." An imaginary friend. Akari wondered if this was okay for show and tell, but the teacher seemed pleased with the effort that Yuma had put into his drawing, because she was smiling and nodding at him.
"That sounds like a fairy to me!" the big boy shouted.
"Kenji-kun!" the teacher snapped. "Be quiet and listen!"
"If Lua isn't a boy, does that make Lua a girl?" one of the girls next to Kotori asked.
"Yeah, is she your girlfriend?" Kenji called.
"Lua isn't a boy or a girl!" Yuma said. "They told me about that kind of thing! Sometimes you're not either, and Lua isn't one!"
But his smile was slipping and he looked like he was starting to fold inwards on himself. Akari's fingers were rolling up into tight fists, and she glared at the back of Kenji's head. Yuma didn't like to talk about school sometimes, especially when Akari asked him about what he did after school. Was this the reason why?
Keep your meaty hands off my brother, you little snot.
"Go on, Yuma," the teacher said encouragingly. "You still have some time to talk."
Yuma looked up towards his family, eyes searching all of them. He looked nervous all of a sudden.
Their father, of course, winked and sent a huge thumb's up. Their mother nodded and smiled, and grandma even sent a peace sign. Akari found herself giving him a pair of thumb's up too, smiling at him. Anything to get that kid off his back.
"L-Lua-kun lives in the Dream World," Yuma said again. "It's a magic place! Since it's a dream you can do just about anything, so Lua-kun and I made a bunch of things. This is the Galaxy Ocean that I made!"
He pointed to a darker spot of purple beside the scribbled stick figures. One of them was clearly himself, with the bright red bangs, but the other was just a strange, pale lavender sort of color that seemed to glow against the rest of the scenery.
"You can't make an ocean, stupid," Kenji said.
"You can in the Dream World, cause it's a dream!" said Yuma, face scrunching up.
"Kenji-kun! Be quiet!" Yuma's teacher snapped. "Sit and listen like you're supposed to!"
Kenji glowered at Yuma and Yuma glowered back. Akari found herself cracking her knuckles almost without thinking.
You wanna fight, kid? She thought at Kenji. Because you're asking for a fight.
Yuma fumbled with the pages of his notebook again and showed another page. This one was made of lighter purples, and had little dots of other colors scattered around it, with a darker stain in the scribbled form of trees at the back.
"And this is the Deep Woods and the Butterfly Meadow!" he said. "We made a Twilight Garden inside the Deep Woods too! It has a really high wall with vines growing on it and a big gate, and inside, there are lots of trees that grow all bendy and they have glowing blue fruit that tastes like anything you want it to! The garden is Lua-kun's favorite."
Kenji leaned forward in his desk.
"That's stupid! You made a stupid girly garden!"
Yuma drew himself up, shaking slightly.
"There's nothing wrong with girls," he said. "Do you think there's something wrong with girls?"
Atta boy, Akari thought, a smile breaking across her face and pride swelling in her chest despite herself.
"Boys don't make gardens!"
"Yes they do!"
"Sato Kenji, for the love of—be quiet," the teacher said. Her hazel eyes snapped over the crowd of parents as though searching for Kenji's, probably to try and convince them to get their kid to stop being a little shit.
Yuma let out a breath and flipped to the next page.
"And this is me and Lua-kun in the Butterfly Meadow. You can see the mountains in the back! We climbed up those together and I left a coin at the top to show we were there!"
Akari had to glance at her dad for that. He had a twinkle in his eye and that wide, deep smile of his on his face, the one that made his whole face crunch up with joy. She smiled slightly herself, settling back to watch Yuma.
"Lua-kun teaches me lots of stuff! They know about all the different worlds and they tell me all about them! Someday, I'm gonna go visit all of them!"
A few kids laughed at this, but Yuma was busy staring right at his family, and Akari was kind of getting into this so she made sure to send him another thumb's up. He was able to finish his show-and-tell without much more interruption besides the normal chatter and buzz of the excited students.
"Thank you, Yuma-kun," his teacher said, her eyes crinkling with her smile. "Chihiro-chan, you're next..."
Yuma hugged his sketchbook to his chest as he walked back to his seat, grinning at his family. Akari sent him the biggest smile she could muster—okay, so yeah, this was kind of a silly thing, but Yuma was happy, and his happy was infectious.
And then her smile dropped as she saw Kenji's foot snap out across the aisle and she stepped forward but not fast enough and Yuma yelped as his foot caught in Kenji's and he went tumbling face first to the ground.
The students roared with laughter again.
"Didn't your fairy boyfriend teach you how to walk?" Kenji said with a huge, belly roaring laugh.
The world seemed to stand still for a moment.
Sprawled in the middle of the cafeteria, rolling up into a ball, clutching hands over her ears to try and block the milk carton being flung at her head and block out the sounds of shouting and laughing and now they were throwing pieces of their vegetables and she couldn't move she was too scared to get up why had she ever picked up that goddamn card game—
The blood roared in Akari's ears as she stood straight up, stepping forward, hands curled into fists—she was ready to physically punch this child in the face. But then Yuma launched himself from the floor at Kenji. The other boy tumbled out of his chair with a tiny squeak and then both of them were rolling around on the floor, throwing their tiny fists at any part of the other that they could reach.
The class exploded. Kids were jumping out of their chairs and onto desks to see what was going on—shouts rang as a few kids started a "fight, fight, fight" chant. The teacher tried to wade through the crowd of kids, shouting over them. Kenji's mother—a skinny, sharp chinned women—pushed through the parents to start screaming at Akari's mom, who immediately turned on the woman with that ice cold stare of hers that could literally stop a tiger in its tracks. Kotori had leaped from her seat and tried to run back towards Yuma but was blocked by the ring of kids and left to simply shout uselessly into the commotion at Yuma to "please, stop, Yuma, it's not worth it—"
Akari darted out in front of her father. She wove around the kids with an ease taken from spending hours navigating the city streets, and grabbed Kenji by the collar to pull him away from her brother.
Yuma's eye was starting to swell up already and he tried to launch himself at Kenji again but Akari put a hand on his chest and held him back.
"I think you got him," she said. "I think you got him."
Yuma's eyes were full of tears and he had a bruise forming on his cheek as Akari let go of Kenji. Kenji looked like he was whimpering a bit too, stepping back as though he were dizzy, and his mother swooped in to grab him up in her arms and whisper soothing things to him.
"I don't believe this, both of you!" the teacher was saying over and over. "Should know better—can't believe—"
Yuma threw himself at Akari, burying his face in her chest.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry."
Akari just stroked his hair, humming softly under her breath. She looked over his head to see her parents. They were watching her, her mother with a small smile on her face, and her father with that vague twinkle in his eye. If you didn't know him, you wouldn't know that he was pleased with how that had turned out.
"Both of you, in the hall, I'll talk to you later," the teacher said. "I'm so terribly sorry everyone, I don't know what came over them..."
Yuma pulled abruptly away from Akari and marched out into the hall as he was told, his arms swinging a little too widely. Akari sat there for a moment to watch him go. She felt a tightness in her throat.
Her eyes dropped down to the floor. The sketchbook was still lying there, open on the ground. She reached for it, drew it up. Flicked through a few of the pages.
"You really like purple, huh?" she murmured.
Her eyes fell on the lavender figure beside the stick figure of Yuma.
So you're Lua, huh...?
Akari knocked on the trap door over her head.
"Yuma? You up?"
She heard the clomp of feet jumping off of the hammock and the patter of Yuma running over to the door. He pulled it open and peeked down at her. She felt something tighten inside of her at the sight of his swelled up eye.
"Can I come in?" she asked.
"What's the password?" he said.
"Conqueror," she said automatically.
He grinned at her and tried to make a cross eyed face.
"That was yesterday's password, nee-chan. You need a new one."
"Oh, really? And how do I get the new one?"
"You gotta guess."
Akari grinned at him deviously.
"Ooooor," she said. "I could just..."
And she reached up to tickle him under the ribs. He squealed, falling backwards into his room, and she came up the rest of the stairs so that she could still reach him, pushing through the hole in the floor.
"T-that's cheating, nee-chan! That's cheating!" Yuma giggled, rolling back and forth on the ground.
"That's how siege works, kiddo," she said, giving him one last tickle. "Gotta be more careful who you open the door to."
She stopped tickling him and he just laid there for a moment, giggling, tiny tears in the corners of his eyes from laughing. She laid her chest across the floor beside him, still standing on the stairs. She rested her head on her hand.
"How's your eye?" she asked, once his laughs had died down.
"I can't see very well," he said.
"Yeah, that's normal. Did you use the ice?"
"Uh-huh."
She nodded. Her eyes wandered around the little attic room. Sometimes, she didn't understand why anyone would want to live up here. It was small, it was dusty, and he was cramped. Yuma had a bedroom, on the floor just below this room. But then, some days, she realized that the things that she wouldn't have liked about it were the reasons why Yuma loved it. It was a mysterious place. Packed with all the artifacts from mom and dad's adventures. Ancient Aztec masks, small totems and statues, pieces of jewelry on stands. It smelled of adventures and far off places. It was a secret hideaway just for him. She guessed if she was his age, she'd still be enamored by the place too...but they had moved here after Yuma was born, so she really hadn't been interested by then.
She looked back to Yuma. He had sat up by now, cross legged with his hands on his ankles.
"Does anything hurt too much?" she asked.
Yuma shook his head. She frowned, somehow getting the idea that he was lying.
"Yuma...does that Kenji kid bother you a lot?"
Yuma's head ducked down immediately. Akari's lips pressed together as she remembered...things she didn't want to remember about elementary school.
"Yuma...it's okay. You don't have to be scared of talking to us, you know. If you don't want to talk to me, you can talk to mom, or dad, or grandma even."
"It's okay," Yuma said. "It's really okay. I'm okay."
Akari frowned. She hefted herself up from the stairs so that she was sitting with her legs dangling out the trap door. Then she put her arm around Yuma and pulled him beside her.
"It doesn't have to be okay," she said quietly. "It's okay to not be okay."
Yuma stiffened at first. And then he relaxed, and his shoulder shook slightly.
"He...he's a bully," he mumbled. "I dueled him once and he beat me. And he won't stop saying that he beat me."
Akari tightened her grip on his shoulder.
"He makes me duel him when I'm dueling Tetsuo. And when we duel he says that if he wins I have to do things. And if I don't do the things then he pushes me a lot."
"Why didn't you say anything?" Akari whispered. "Don't you think your family wants to help?"
Yuma shivered.
"I told him I was gonna tell," he said. "But he said that if I told that everyone would think I was a scaredy cat."
Akari shook her head.
"Telling isn't being scared," she said. "Talking to people is a strong thing. You did a really courageous thing when you told me...and when you punched him in the face. That was pretty great."
Yuma looked up at her, and she smiled. He smiled tentatively. Then he sighed and buried his face into her side, and she tightened her arm around him.
"He's not going to bother you ever again," she said. "And if he does...you send him my way. Got it?"
"Kay."
She smiled at him, patting him on the head. Then she glanced around the floor, noticing all the sheets of paper and crayons, mostly shades of purple like usual.
"Still drawing the Dream World?" she asked.
"Uh-huh," he said, without moving from her grip. "It was a surprise for show and tell day. But now I can show everyone all about it all the time."
Akari smiled, reaching for one of the pictures and glancing over it. She frowned. This didn't look like the purple landscapes like the others. This one was just a mass of red scribbles. It looked like it might have a shape but...
"What's this one, Yuma?" she asked, turning it towards him.
Yuma peeked up from her. His eyes narrowed to little slits and he shivered deeply.
"That's a nightmare," he said.
And he buried his face into her side again, as though she were a shield from the thing that scared him. She looked down at the scribble of red again, frowning.
It was just a scribble of crayon on a sheet of paper. Just the fanciful imagination of a child.
But she couldn't help but feel an odd shiver creep down her own spine too...
She wiped off the last of the dishes and put them back into the cabinet.
"Thanks for helping out, Akari," her mother said, smiling as she undid her ponytail, letting the orange hair fall thick around her shoulders.
"No problem," Akari said.
She glanced over her shoulder. Yuma was still at the kitchen table. He was kicking his legs back and forth as he showed their father and grandma all of his pictures, explaining everything in detail with his shiny eyes. Their father grinned and looked at every single picture and every detail he pointed out, asking all the right questions to get him started talking again.
Akari noted that the red scribble was not anywhere in the pile.
"He's got quite the imagination, doesn't he?" Akari said.
For some reason, she saw her mother's smile falter a bit. Akari blinked, but when she looked again, her mother was smiling that same soft smile of hers. Maybe she had imagined it.
"He certainly does," she said, untying her apron from around her waist. "Could you put that into the cabinet?"
She handed Akari the apron and Akari folded it up, sticking it back where it belonged. She glanced back over at Yuma, and had to smile at the bright look in his eyes and the excitable way he talked. Her smile faded though as she again remembered that red scribble. Why did it bother her so much?
"Hey...kaa-san..." she said. "I think Yuma's been having bad dreams too. Besides these ones with the dream world and stuff."
"Oh?" her mother said, glancing at her. "What makes you say that?"
Akari glanced over at Yuma. She bit her lip. Then she looked back at her mother.
"Well...okay. I was talking to him, and for one thing, that Kenji kid has been bothering him. A lot."
Her mother's eyes darkened, brow coming together. Akari shivered in spite of herself. Even when it wasn't directed at her, mom's anger was a terrifying thing to behold.
"I knew it," she said, throwing her towel angrily into the sink. "And that foul woman was angry at me for not controlling my child. I'm going to have a talk with her..."
"That's not all, kaa-san," Akari said. "He drew another thing...I saw it in his room but I guess he's not showing you guys..."
Her mother relaxed a bit, at least to look at Akari and listen to what she was saying. Akari hesitated. That red scribble was imprinted on her mind.
"It was...weird," she whispered. "Just...red. And when I asked him about it, he looked...really scared. He said it was a nightmare."
Akari did not miss the flicker that passed through her mother's eyes. Although...she had no idea what it meant.
"Kaa-san?"
Her mother turned to look at Yuma. Akari thought she saw her hands shaking at her sides.
"Kaa-san? I think he's having trouble...it might have to do with something at school, stress, maybe. I think maybe he might need to talk to someone if it's bad enough to make him have bad dreams."
Her mother startled out of some kind of trance.
"Oh," she said, putting a hand to her breast. "Oh, right...that's a good idea, Akari."
She smiled and pushed her hair behind her ears. For a moment, she just stood there. Then she put a hand on Akari's shoulder and squeezed, meeting Akari's eyes.
"You're such a good big sister," she said. "You take such good care of him..."
Akari shrugged, blushing a bit.
"He's my brother...I have to look out for him, don't I?"
Her mother smiled and hugged her briefly.
"Thank you for being so good with him," she said.
It seemed a strange thing to thank her for, but Akari didn't have much a chance to ask why before her mother was floating away, coming behind Yuma's chair and resting her hands on the back of it, smiling as Yuma craned his neck back to chatter at her about the Dream World.
Akari stood there for a moment, just watching. Brother, father, mother, grandmother. Her whole family, standing there. Happy, peaceful. She wished she had her camera with her right now. That would have been a great shot.
Instead, she saved it in her mind, filing the picture away for the next time she needed a sense of peace and security.
Then she walked over to her family and joined in the oohing and aahing over Yuma's pictures.