"From quiet red/to silent blue/the spectrum glows/unnatural hues."
– Path Song. Traditional.
Akari found herself staring at that box for the first time in seven years.
It sat on her lap, staring at her. Glaring. Accusing. She shuddered. It was just a box—just a small, brown, cardboard box, small enough that when she held it in both hands, her fingers overlapped each other. Nondescript. Not even a label, unlike the rest of her meticulously organized closet. Not that this box had been there, not that this box had been placed in plain view with the other file boxes. She had just dragged this one out from underneath the bed, where she had flung it at the age of seven and never looked at it again.
Her finger twanged the rubber band that held it shut. The sound seemed to vibrate through her, all the way down to the bed underneath her. She shuddered again.
It's just a box, she thought at herself, angry. It's not going to bite.
She knew, though, that it wasn't the box she was scared of.
It was what was inside it.
She worked her finger under the rubber band again, hesitated with the rubber stretched over her nail. So simple. Just flip the band off, and then take off the lid. The things she had tried to forget were tucked away in here. Should she even start to remember them?
She ran her tongue over dry, chapped lips. Her heart rate was already picking up, already thrumming in her ears like a siren. She could feel her throat closing up. Panic attack. She might be having a panic attack.
She took her finger out from under the box, flung it against the headboard of her bed. It bounced, landed on the pillow, toppled over upside down.
It still stared at her. She could still feel it, vibrating against her fingers. If she cracked the lid, she was positive she would hear them again, calling out to her.
She knew she couldn't handle that.
Akari swallowed down a brick of frightened tears in her throat. Frustration hummed against her skin for how stupid she was being. This was just game.
She pulled her legs up onto the bed, dropped her head between them, and hugged herself into a ball.
It wasn't just a game.
Not for her.
Damn you, she thought at her parents. Damn you for bringing this up again.
It had been no more than twenty minutes ago. A car ride back from the camping trip they had been on for the weekend. Yuma had actually worn himself completely out running around all weekend, and he had dropped to sleep the moment he had landed in the car. Her mother told her she could sit in the front seat.
"So you won't have to listen to him snore on your shoulder," she laughed, and then she climbed in beside Yuma and tugged the little boy gently to lean against her instead of laying with his neck tilted back at an awkward angle.
With Yuma asleep, the ride was silent. Akari popped her earbuds in, hummed along to the latest tune from her favorite Korean girl band. The world zoomed by them in a blur, wild forest dotted with the occasional log house nestled in the leaves. Only a few cars joined them on the four lane row, zipping by in the other direction or meandering at a steady pace alongside them.
It was quiet up this far north, she thought. A slow sort of life, still thick with trees. It was amazing, really, she mused, that Japan had any forests left. She had read in her history books how development had eaten away slowly at all of the mountains, the trees, the fields, subduing all of nature under steel and glass. And then one day, development had just...petered out. Some cited a tanking economy, family units who were starting to knit together in smaller spaces rather than branching out to new places. Others claimed it was the sudden stagnation of Japanese population that had accompanied the second Russo-Japanese War and the peak of the economy during it, resulting in less children born and fewer left still around after dying in the war. And some of the crackpots insisted that it was because Japan's natural spirits had finally broken through to the people, convincing them at a primal, soul level of an apathy towards expansion, trying to preserve their last spaces. Whatever the reason, Japan was still home to a vast wilderness that didn't show signs of vanishing any time soon.
She had been almost about to fall asleep herself, eyes drooping, head falling slowly towards the window, when her father's soft, deep voice had broken the silence.
"How are you doing, Akari?"
She blinked awake with a jerk, her hair flapping against her neck.
"Hmmmm?" she mumbled. She yanked one earbud free and glanced over at him, blinking away the dregs of sleep.
"We didn't get as much of a chance to talk this weekend as I wanted," her father said, shrugging with that helpless smile of his. "I'm sorry. Yuma always takes up a lot of time."
Akari shrugged.
"I mean, it's not like I'm a kid anymore," she said. "You don't have to spend every minute keeping me entertained, like that little spazz back there."
Her father chuckled, and Akari blushed as she heard her mother laughing softly too. She hadn't known her mother was listening in.
"I guess not," Kazuma said, still smiling. His eyes flickered to her briefly, dark orbs meeting her for a moment before jumping quickly back to the road. "But that doesn't excuse us for neglecting you. I wanted to check in with you. How's school going?"
"It's...school," Akari said, shrugging. "It's not very interesting, or I would have told you more about it before."
"Your school newspaper just won an award, didn't it?" her mother said from the backseat. "For excellence in high school writing."
"What? I didn't know that," Kazuma said, eyes widening. "Akari, why didn't you say anything? Was there a ceremony or something?"
"It was during school hours, and you guys were traveling," Akari said quickly. "And it's not a big deal. They won that award two years ago, too. It wasn't because of me."
She bit her lip and let her eyes drop to her lap, hoping that her father wouldn't glance at her again. He didn't want him to see her jaw tremble slightly.
She had tried to call them after the paper had won. She remembered pulling herself free of the editor-in-chief hugging her so tightly that she couldn't breathe so that she could type out her parents' number—she had to do it three times because her fingers were shaking so badly. Her editor-in-chief had been gushing over Akari's writing skills and choice of topics for the front page as Akari waited for the phone to ring. Telling Akari over and over that it was her help that had pulled them out of their loss from last year and drove them back up, thanking her for joining over and over. Akari had smiled but she had been waiting for the phone to pick up. And waited. And waited.
They had never answered.
She felt like she was going to cry about it again—but she didn't want to, didn't want to make her parents feel bad. It wasn't their fault that their jobs took them all over the place all the time, they couldn't be there for everything. She rubbed at the side of her eye, trying to make it look like it was just itchy.
Her mother's hand touched her shoulder. Akari choked.
"Akari," her mother whispered. "I'm sorry. I know...I know it's hard."
Akari swallowed through the knot in her throat and shook her head quickly.
"It—it's fine," she said thickly, like she was speaking through soup. "Anyway—uh—yeah. School's fine. Writing for the newspaper a lot. Tetsuko wants me to do a piece for the youth Duel Tournament next month. I'll probably go."
"That sounds like fun," Kazuma said. "Mind if I tag along? We're not headed out anywhere else for two months."
Akari shrugged.
"Sure, I mean—it'll be pretty low-tier, probably not interesting...the kids might be worse at the game than Yuma," Akari joked.
Kazuma laughed.
"He's learning," he said. "He just forgets what order the actions go in. And the directions to put his cards. And to read his card effects."
He shook his head with a smile.
"But then, you were about the same at his age, weren't you? Trying to summon advances without a tribute, XYZs without an Overlay."
"Well, it was confusing when you had ten different voices telling you what to do at the same time," Akari said defensively.
And then she realized what she had said, and her voice died. For a moment, the world went white. She didn't know what was happening, where was she, what—
She must have only blanked out for a few seconds because when her vision cleared again that same road sign she had seen in the distance was still in front of them. Her mother's hand was on her shoulder all of a sudden, cool and tight, like water gripping her, supporting her. Her father's hand was on top of her hand, his face suddenly stone—besides the flicker of worry that kept flashing over his eyes, the way that he kept trying to look at her even while he knew he had to look at the road.
"Akari," Mirai whispered. "Akari. You're okay. You're right here. Just pay attention to my voice."
Akari tried to swallow and almost choked. She pressed a hand to her mouth. Her K-Pop band was still singing in one ear, popping to a cheerful rhythm that she could not currently relate to. She fumbled with the cord for a second and finally ripped it free of her ear. Leaving her in comforting silence.
She leaned her head back against the chair, just trying to focus on the feeling of her parents' hands. She could feel tears pricking in her eyes.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
"Oh, no, sh, sh, sh," Mirai whispered. "It's okay. It's okay."
"I'm the one that should be sorry," her father said, his voice coming out in a scratchy growl. "I—I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."
A tear escaped her eye and she tried to suck a breath through the narrow hold of her throat.
"Why do you let him play that game?" she mumbled. "Why do you let Yuma play it? What if he—what if he's like me?"
"Akari..."
"Akari, there's nothing wrong with you," Kazuma said. His voice was harsh all of a sudden, frustrated, like sandpaper. "There is nothing wrong with me."
Akari knew he was wrong, but she didn't argue. Arguing with her father never went well. She couldn't handle it right now. Her father's hand curled around hers, tightened, as though he could pull her free of her nightmares as easily as he could pull her over the side of a climbing wall. His hands were rough and calloused. Real. Solid. Akari's breaths were slowing down. But the same question was still on her mind, running over and over.
"Why do you let him play that game?"
For a moment, neither of her parents answers. She could hear only her heart in her throat and the moan of the tires against the pavement as they sped down the freeway.
"Yuma's dueling will one day lead to a greater destiny," Mirai said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. "And...maybe yours will too."
Akari's throat closed for a moment. She didn't understand. She didn't understand.
Akari opened her eyes back on her own bed. The car ride still danced at the back of her head, and she didn't want to keep thinking about it.
Stupid, she thought. So stupid for pulling that back out.
She picked up the cardboard box in one hand, held it against her palm. She knew what was inside. It was still memorized, the list of cards she had carefully pulled together after researching each pack and the probability of pulling the necessary cards from a certain number of packs, to maximize her findings for her dollar. She had been such a weirdo as a kid. But either way, her childhood self seemed to still be nestled inside her heart. Whispering the names of the cards over and over to her, one after the other.
Remember, that voice insisted. Remember. Remember all of them.
"Yuma's dueling will one day lead to a greater destiny. And maybe...yours will too."
For a moment, Akari sucked down a steadying breath. She tried. She tried to remember.
And then she whited out again.
When she came out of it, her mouth was dry and tasted of bile. She knew logically that only a minute had passed on her clock but she was shaking so badly and thought she must have been gone for days. It wasn't true. She had to remember, the attacks only lasted for a few seconds to a minute. Think of the facts. List them off. The doctor said it was a form of seizure. Almost epileptic, but not quite. Almost PTSD, but not quite. Thinking too hard about the incident when she was seven made her lose consciousness for a few moments. Not long enough for her to lose balance or fall and hurt herself, but long enough to make her panic, long enough to maybe trigger a second episode, and then another one.
She had to focus on the facts, bring herself out of it. Breathe. Count breaths. One, two, three, four, five, still breathing too fast, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Akari held the box so tightly that she was almost crushing the cardboard. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
I failed you, she thought at the box's contents for a moment. But I just can't do it.
She threw the box back under her bed.
Then she pulled herself back up, dragged the covers up and over her head, and tried to disappear in the stuffy darkness beneath the blankets.