This one's an extra story written for the 2020 Secret Santa project initiated by ProfAllister.
Victim: ProfAllister
Prompt: “If these walls could talk”—choose a location/fixture of the KS setting (e.g. mural, rooftop, Rainbow Wizard, track shed, gardens, Aura Mart); over the course of some time period (day, month, year, more?) what does this location/fixture “see”?
=====
Something Arrives, Something Leaves
Trees don’t store memories the way squirrels do. There’s a squirrel. Here’s a squirrel. They go in one direction, then another. Towards the sun. Away from the sun. Towards the water and the soil. Away from them. It’s the way squirrels are. I always know when there’s a squirrel. My leaves are moved. My nuts are grabbed. There is life in and out of me.
I know when there are humans. Their vibrations are different. They last longer than squirrels and the air they send from inside themselves is different. There are different chemicals, ones that you don’t normally find. If you live long enough, you learn to tell which humans are which. Squirrels? They don’t live long enough to be very different—but I can tell when they are.
I have four memories for you, summer and winter, springtime and harvest. If you can tell which is which and when is when, then you’ll have a human story. If not, then it’s a tree story, a sorry story or a glorious one. Light and water, air and soil, they are what life is to me, but that’s not directly true for you.
How are you getting these words? Ah, well. Some humans last long enough to understand trees.
*****
There’s a male human. Testosterone and oil. A thousand types of chemicals that can’t be masked. He walks, the weight of his roots pressing down as if under heavy rain. In his hands is a burden, mineral, sealed, lightning-struck silicates. I savour ash and defeat, loss and despair.
He digs, I feel the earth shift between two large roots. He digs deep enough that when the earth returns, nobody will find the glassy cyst he buries. Salt falls in small organic droplets from his face. If you turn to the sea, as some of my branches do, you will feel something akin—but not alike.
He speaks, low vibrations. “We did not know you,” he says. “It was not long enough. And now you are gone, and she is leaving.”
Humans, like trees, they leave. Our leaves fall. Their falls leave.
He replaces the shifted soil. He pats it down, a few little thumps. He moves a rock, heavy enough that the carbon dioxide puffs out from him in clouds. It must be a marker. Humans do that. They move clay and stone until it makes them feel better.
*****
Two humans come. One is the suspiciously light female one, and one is another and male. It is dandelion season. The little weeds will dust the land with small weedlets in a while, whenever the winds blow. It is a pleasant time.
I recognize the light female. She’s like a flower, all stalk and hardly any leaf. She has a name for me. She has a name for all of us, a light sonorous vibration that she uses to tell herself which of us she touches, and which of us touches her. She passes like a ghost amongst us.
But today, she is like a squirrel. She leads the male past the flowers. She tosses her head like a dandelion. She goes one way, and then another. The male exudes confusion and delight. They clasp and twine, unclasp and release. The scent of them is very different from the scent of the weeds, but is as full of the impulse to make new life.
She says more than she is speaking, and so does he. She climbs a rock, like a flower that sprouts madly from a cliff. And in the fresh and breezy air, she says she cannot find the words. But he can. And they do.
*****
Two humans come. They are slender ones, with much hair. They are celebrating the imminence of sprouting in a quiet time. The air is warm.
“This is my secret place,” the male says. Ethanol vapour is released. By both of them. They vent, they shed petals and reclaim them. It is not really their place, but I am the sharing kind. I know colleagues who will poison the soil around them so that others cannot take root.
The young male will come to this place again, many times. He will be heavier, he will never be this light again. She is joyful. She will only return one more time. Over the years, I will see the young male as an old male. And I can tell you how many rings I have that span his life.
She is carrying seeds. She will one day be carrying nothing. Humans sometimes grieve when this is so. It releases their salts, I hope it makes them feel better.
*****
One human comes. It is a female. She is like a naked stem with curly roots. “Tree, you must have a name,” she says. She always does this. She likes us to be different, to have a different vibration for each season. The light she reflects is what she calls ‘red’. It is rare to find humans here whose topmost leaves are red.
I know she will be sad before she will be happy. In my memories is a place, a ring that tells me she was joyful, and that she climbed towards the sky, with the wind blowing her sudden branches around. I have memories of her finding a rock placed by a burdened man. In those memories, she calls me a sad name.
She has so many names for things, and yet cannot name the thing that gives her the greatest joy. And that is all right, because the young male she will have brought can tell her what it is.
*****
One day, the humans do not come again. It is what most of this existence has been like for me. But in my rings I have their stories, like little sharp spikes of salt and metal. I don’t have the words for what they are, but they are not squirrels, and I love them differently for it.
END
=====
alt index
Alt Dreams [One-Shots] (#73—'Stripping')
Alt Dreams [One-Shots] (#70—'Leaves')
Post-Yamaku, what happens? After The Dream is a mosaic that follows everyone to the (sometimes) bitter end.
Main Index (Complete)—Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/Akira • Hideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of Suzu • Sakura—The Kenji Saga.
"Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
Main Index (Complete)—Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/Akira • Hideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of Suzu • Sakura—The Kenji Saga.
"Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
Re: Alt Dreams [One-Shots] (#70—'Leaves')
Utterly beautiful! Cannot get over how well you fuse what is a man-made symbolism with a more 'natural' spiritual world. Tremendous!
My Molly Route
Ekephrasis and Other Stories
Ekephrasis and Other Stories
- CraftyAtomI hate when people ruin perfectly good literature with literary terminology.
Re: Alt Dreams [One-Shots] (#70—'Leaves')
You're very welcome. These few years have made us all see things in new and different ways.
Post-Yamaku, what happens? After The Dream is a mosaic that follows everyone to the (sometimes) bitter end.
Main Index (Complete)—Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/Akira • Hideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of Suzu • Sakura—The Kenji Saga.
"Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
Main Index (Complete)—Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/Akira • Hideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of Suzu • Sakura—The Kenji Saga.
"Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
Alt Dreams [One-Shots] (#71—'Returns')
This one's an extra story written for the 2020 Secret Santa project initiated by ProfAllister.
Victim: EuroBeatJester
Prompt: It's pretty common for graduating students to go back the first year or two for their school's festivals. Write a story about your favorite KS couple (Hisao x any of the girls) going back to visit Sendai and Yamaku for Tanabata the year after they've graduated.
Note: EBJ knows this girl far better than I do, so compromises have had to be made, for which I apologize most sincerely—forsaking all others, cleaving only unto her, so to speak. I’m still learning to fly.
=====
Returns
“Hisao?” she murmurs, her throaty voice somehow both matter-of-fact and alluring at the same time. It’s as if she’s taking me for granted and also asking shyly and sincerely for my attention. I have never been able to fully solve the enigma that she is, and believe me, I have tried for a very long time.
I turn, still struggling with my jacket and wondering about the silly idea of a bowtie.
“Do you like this?”
I take a moment. There is too much to see, and yet not enough. Part of her is the woman I’ve known thus far: honey-coloured hair, expressive eyes, a determined but somehow delicate jaw, a figure that is slight but with significant presence. And part of that presence is both enhanced and concealed by a dark maroon traditional gown, with finely wrought sea-dragons in gold thread.
There’s a sea-dragon’s head atop her deadly-looking blackwood swordstick too. Or at least, it would be a swordstick if it weren’t a cane, or the bow for a stringed instrument, or a staff of power. I have fantasies too, as does she.
I surreptitiously take a deep breath, attempting nonchalance while looking desperately for words. “Not an orange and red yukata?” I say, carelessly.
It’s not a question, and she knows it. “One shouldn’t repeat oneself, unless it’s a matter of training by repetition, Mr Nakai.”
“Well, gold on maroon is quite similar. But it’s nice, and I like those dragons.” I wasn’t ever very good at snappy repartee, and I’m blessed that she doesn’t mind doing the sarcastic put-downs which I, in turn, don’t mind.
This time, however, of the many times we’ve done this, she half-grimaces and half-pouts. Then, she disappears into the depths of her wardrobe.
I start thinking of a more traditional yukata myself. Perhaps the whole tuxedo thing is putting her off her game. I do have an old grey one that I once borrowed, and I’m sure that…
“Nakai?” she says, her voice oddly flat, summoning my attention peremptorily.
How many yukatas can a girl have in her wardrobe? It beggars my imagination, and I once thought I might have a chance of writing fantasy novels. I turn again, awkwardly, with my jacket half-off.
Deep blue fabric, with the charcoal ghosts of trees, each tree with small dragonflies and summer pennants. At her waist, you can see a distant harbour, with a single ship waiting for its crew. Damn.
“A ship about to sail?” I say, no trace of humour in my voice—rather, I’m a little shaken because of what it might mean.
“I have an ancestor who was an admiral. He helped to found the Imperial Navy.”
I’m not expecting that, which is a lot better than what I thought it might be. I nod respectfully as her voice takes on imperious tones of its own. How can such a soft voice sound so large?
*****
It takes a while to get there. In the summer, we make visits, and our visitations cover much ground. The journey from Kichijo-ji, in Tokyo, to Yamaku takes a fairly long time, even for comparatively young travellers. We always look out from the windows of the train, as the stars flash by in the evening and the traffic soars both ways on ribbons of light and concrete and steel.
“Enomoto?” I tug at the strings of her attention.
“Yes, Hisao?” she replies.
“Did you ever think you could love someone forever?”
“Well, I always think I could love you for the rest of my life, if that counts.”
That’s the bittersweet part. There are now treatments that can prolong the inevitable for people like Saki, and my condition in most people can be managed for a significantly long time and perhaps even a normal life.
But who are we kidding?
I smile at her. “That’s enough, you know.”
“It’s never enough,” she whispers, and places her head gently against my shoulder, releasing the tension slowly, as if gradually entrusting her weight to my strength.
As we go up to Sendai, we can see the eastern seaboard and the lights of fishing vessels beginning to return in the evening. She’s next to the window, as always, and sunset is behind her, lighting up the warm amber tones in her freshly trimmed locks.
She sighs a little at the extra warmth, and I hold her closer, the layers of fabric rustling under the movement of my hands. She reaches back, and I feel a spark of warmth as she rubs against me.
The light falls just right, illuminating the outline of her breasts for a moment before the sun falls away from us. I have fond memories of Tanabata.
There will be a car waiting for us at Sendai. There would be. My life-partner has somehow always been one to make long-term plans. I don’t question this very much. It’s just the way she is, Saki Enomoto, the one and only.
*****
By the time we arrive, she’s cheerful again. We’re at Sendai Station, and the evening sky is still bright and cloudless; sunset this year should be at around 7 pm, they say.
“I wonder who’ll be here this year? Maybe someone unexpected. If it were someone unexpected, who do you think it’d be?” she chatters on, leaning slightly on her sword-cane while we walk from the platform.
“You can’t think about the unexpected because it is unexpected. You can only do two things: prepare for everything and prepare to absorb damage.”
That’s a rude interruption, but sometimes, interruptions can be interesting. I look up and to the left at the source. It’s a familiar voice, and really one I hadn’t expected.
“Kenji!”
I hail him as positively as I can under the circumstances, adding, “How have you been? Where have you been?” This question-barrage thing is something I swear I have picked up from Saki.
“It’s the drinking train, you know, the carriage which the whisky manufacturers sponsor? Moves smoothly down your throat, gets you to places that you’d like to be. If you drink enough, they give you a free ride. It’s a neat conspiracy, but I have them on the rocks.”
I shake my head, just as I spot a twinkle in Saki’s demeanour. “What are you wearing, Mr Setou? It’s very summery and full of happiness.”
“Aha, you like it? Damn! I thought women didn’t go in for this kind of thing. I need to engineer new designs for my antifeminist camouflage prints.”
I take a good look at him. He’s wearing a lemon-yellow yukata, with little red-brown ornaments which I realise are actually slices of salami, whisky bottles, and cherries. It’s something you wouldn’t notice unless you looked carefully. But what Saki’s looking at is that scarf, striped red-yellow-green and apparently unchanged and unwashed since the days we were in high school together.
Then again, perhaps it’s the overall effect. His spectacle lenses are as opaque as ever. I used to wonder a lot about how blind he really was, but now, as he saunters along with us, I’m quite sure he isn’t blind at all.
*****
When we reach the school gates, the black iron has given way to garlands. The gates are wide open, and summer lanterns hang from the trees. The school grounds are decorated more lavishly than the former student council had ever dreamt possible. I wonder where Aoi found the funds. Probably pale Rika’s insanely rich family, or green-haired Keiko’s extremely charming wheedling and deedling (as we used to say).
We pass through the game stalls, the food stalls. I see a fish-catching game, and whisper to Saki, “Coffee filter.” It triggers a surprised giggle which I savour, an in-joke which we can share while Kenji ponders the significance of caffeine in his web of conspiracies. Our juniors are way too busy having their own lives to notice us as we climb the hill so that we can book a spot to watch the fireworks later.
“I still say the rooftop is better. You can see for miles around. Besides, I like that place, always have been drawn to it. And it has proper seating. Up in the woods, you get the moonlight shadow all around you. Creepy.”
We’ve outvoted him, and he’s still a bit unhappy about that.
“Well, Mr Setou, you can always go off on your own, you know. An independent spirit like you, surely that’s a possibility?”
The spectacles tilt slightly. “Ever the pawn of the global feminist conspiracy, Enomoto. If I went up there on my own at night, on this night of all nights when fireworks are exploding in the sky…” his voice trails off as he takes the time to shudder a little. “Well, it might not go so well for me. I might be taken out by a stray runner or a one-armed boxer. And nobody would hear the sound of my demise.”
I look at Saki. That word, ‘demise’, it has an effect on her most times. Tonight, however, she just has a wry and somewhat wistful look on her face as she replies to our paranoid acquaintance.
“Kenji, just remember that you’re wearing your yukata right over left.”
“Wha-at? I would never…”
He scowls and turns away, towards the men’s dorms. He’ll find his way up there and down again, through the mysterious methods of the dedicated conspiracy theorist. He and his drinking!
I sigh, only to find Saki doing the same. She grins. “It’s always fun to tease people, but with Kenji, I never know if he gets the joke and doesn’t like it, senses there is a joke and doesn’t quite get it, or is just annoyed that we’re not listening to him.”
“Yeah, back when he was always hanging around my room, he was always annoyed that nobody was listening to him. He should be used to it by now.”
Immediately after saying that, I feel a little regret. Things change, people change, life goes on. Being cruel to someone by reflex, that’s just mean. We should be getting better as time passes, I reflect.
She playfully smacks me on the back of the head, as if she can read my mind. “Come on, Mr Nakai, we have a few flights of steps and some rough ground to cover before we get to our place. If Shizune and Misha or some other people get there before we do, I shall be most unhappy.”
*****
“This isn’t the roof,” I gesture.
“No, it is not.”
“This is indeed the creepy spot crazy Kenji mentioned. I didn’t think he was telling the truth.”
“You, of all people, Nakai, should know that there’s nothing to be afraid of up here,” she chuckles, softly and elegantly.
I sense that she’s probably right, and she wants this to be good, and I’m just being my old stubborn self. It’s amazing how much difference one year can make.
This is a dense part of the woods on the hill behind the ladies’ dorms. A little cobbled path leads up like a particularly lazy serpent, deeper into the woods. I worry about Saki’s footing, while noting that there’s no reason for that sort of anxiety, really.
We follow the path upward, and eventually, the woods thin out. We’re looking far down over a bend in the river, and a bit further away, the old harbour of Sendai Bay. It’s a beautiful view, with darkness like ink and orange lights like streaks of lava.
I rest my head on her shoulder as I clasp her from behind. My heart echoes with a fire that has been burning for many months.
“There’ll be fireworks, Hisao. Remember last year? We had some of our own.”
I can hear her grinning in the dark. I’m about to reply, but I’m silenced when Saki turns around out of my grip, and a finger is planted against my lips, shushing me. Saki’s eyes are two deep pools, drinking in all the light around us, and staring straight into mine, just as they did last year.
She reaches down for me as my left hand finds itself drifting into the folds of her yukata. I can feel her nipple swelling as I wish I had warmer fingers. She carefully puts her cane down.
There’s a lot less material between us than there was last year. We’ve learnt a lot since then. We find a spot in the shadow of the trees, and I warm my other hand on her right hip for a while.
We’ve hardly any breath left to catch. I don’t think I’m breathing as my hand moves down between her legs. There’s a moment when neither of us remembers to breathe.
Fabric moves, slides, flutters. I feel her take me in, already wet, her weight somehow adjusting as I find her tightness almost too much.
A rain of fire erupts above us. The fireworks are beginning. There are several explosions of flowers and stars and the salt air of the sea. The ships come into the harbour. The concussions climax to one last roar in the heavens. And as above, so below.
When she began to fold her yukatas right over left, it broke me. But our love never went away. Kenji might never figure it out, but we have. There is life after death, and there’s a lot of it.
END
=====
alt index
Victim: EuroBeatJester
Prompt: It's pretty common for graduating students to go back the first year or two for their school's festivals. Write a story about your favorite KS couple (Hisao x any of the girls) going back to visit Sendai and Yamaku for Tanabata the year after they've graduated.
Note: EBJ knows this girl far better than I do, so compromises have had to be made, for which I apologize most sincerely—forsaking all others, cleaving only unto her, so to speak. I’m still learning to fly.
=====
Returns
“Hisao?” she murmurs, her throaty voice somehow both matter-of-fact and alluring at the same time. It’s as if she’s taking me for granted and also asking shyly and sincerely for my attention. I have never been able to fully solve the enigma that she is, and believe me, I have tried for a very long time.
I turn, still struggling with my jacket and wondering about the silly idea of a bowtie.
“Do you like this?”
I take a moment. There is too much to see, and yet not enough. Part of her is the woman I’ve known thus far: honey-coloured hair, expressive eyes, a determined but somehow delicate jaw, a figure that is slight but with significant presence. And part of that presence is both enhanced and concealed by a dark maroon traditional gown, with finely wrought sea-dragons in gold thread.
There’s a sea-dragon’s head atop her deadly-looking blackwood swordstick too. Or at least, it would be a swordstick if it weren’t a cane, or the bow for a stringed instrument, or a staff of power. I have fantasies too, as does she.
I surreptitiously take a deep breath, attempting nonchalance while looking desperately for words. “Not an orange and red yukata?” I say, carelessly.
It’s not a question, and she knows it. “One shouldn’t repeat oneself, unless it’s a matter of training by repetition, Mr Nakai.”
“Well, gold on maroon is quite similar. But it’s nice, and I like those dragons.” I wasn’t ever very good at snappy repartee, and I’m blessed that she doesn’t mind doing the sarcastic put-downs which I, in turn, don’t mind.
This time, however, of the many times we’ve done this, she half-grimaces and half-pouts. Then, she disappears into the depths of her wardrobe.
I start thinking of a more traditional yukata myself. Perhaps the whole tuxedo thing is putting her off her game. I do have an old grey one that I once borrowed, and I’m sure that…
“Nakai?” she says, her voice oddly flat, summoning my attention peremptorily.
How many yukatas can a girl have in her wardrobe? It beggars my imagination, and I once thought I might have a chance of writing fantasy novels. I turn again, awkwardly, with my jacket half-off.
Deep blue fabric, with the charcoal ghosts of trees, each tree with small dragonflies and summer pennants. At her waist, you can see a distant harbour, with a single ship waiting for its crew. Damn.
“A ship about to sail?” I say, no trace of humour in my voice—rather, I’m a little shaken because of what it might mean.
“I have an ancestor who was an admiral. He helped to found the Imperial Navy.”
I’m not expecting that, which is a lot better than what I thought it might be. I nod respectfully as her voice takes on imperious tones of its own. How can such a soft voice sound so large?
*****
It takes a while to get there. In the summer, we make visits, and our visitations cover much ground. The journey from Kichijo-ji, in Tokyo, to Yamaku takes a fairly long time, even for comparatively young travellers. We always look out from the windows of the train, as the stars flash by in the evening and the traffic soars both ways on ribbons of light and concrete and steel.
“Enomoto?” I tug at the strings of her attention.
“Yes, Hisao?” she replies.
“Did you ever think you could love someone forever?”
“Well, I always think I could love you for the rest of my life, if that counts.”
That’s the bittersweet part. There are now treatments that can prolong the inevitable for people like Saki, and my condition in most people can be managed for a significantly long time and perhaps even a normal life.
But who are we kidding?
I smile at her. “That’s enough, you know.”
“It’s never enough,” she whispers, and places her head gently against my shoulder, releasing the tension slowly, as if gradually entrusting her weight to my strength.
As we go up to Sendai, we can see the eastern seaboard and the lights of fishing vessels beginning to return in the evening. She’s next to the window, as always, and sunset is behind her, lighting up the warm amber tones in her freshly trimmed locks.
She sighs a little at the extra warmth, and I hold her closer, the layers of fabric rustling under the movement of my hands. She reaches back, and I feel a spark of warmth as she rubs against me.
The light falls just right, illuminating the outline of her breasts for a moment before the sun falls away from us. I have fond memories of Tanabata.
There will be a car waiting for us at Sendai. There would be. My life-partner has somehow always been one to make long-term plans. I don’t question this very much. It’s just the way she is, Saki Enomoto, the one and only.
*****
By the time we arrive, she’s cheerful again. We’re at Sendai Station, and the evening sky is still bright and cloudless; sunset this year should be at around 7 pm, they say.
“I wonder who’ll be here this year? Maybe someone unexpected. If it were someone unexpected, who do you think it’d be?” she chatters on, leaning slightly on her sword-cane while we walk from the platform.
“You can’t think about the unexpected because it is unexpected. You can only do two things: prepare for everything and prepare to absorb damage.”
That’s a rude interruption, but sometimes, interruptions can be interesting. I look up and to the left at the source. It’s a familiar voice, and really one I hadn’t expected.
“Kenji!”
I hail him as positively as I can under the circumstances, adding, “How have you been? Where have you been?” This question-barrage thing is something I swear I have picked up from Saki.
“It’s the drinking train, you know, the carriage which the whisky manufacturers sponsor? Moves smoothly down your throat, gets you to places that you’d like to be. If you drink enough, they give you a free ride. It’s a neat conspiracy, but I have them on the rocks.”
I shake my head, just as I spot a twinkle in Saki’s demeanour. “What are you wearing, Mr Setou? It’s very summery and full of happiness.”
“Aha, you like it? Damn! I thought women didn’t go in for this kind of thing. I need to engineer new designs for my antifeminist camouflage prints.”
I take a good look at him. He’s wearing a lemon-yellow yukata, with little red-brown ornaments which I realise are actually slices of salami, whisky bottles, and cherries. It’s something you wouldn’t notice unless you looked carefully. But what Saki’s looking at is that scarf, striped red-yellow-green and apparently unchanged and unwashed since the days we were in high school together.
Then again, perhaps it’s the overall effect. His spectacle lenses are as opaque as ever. I used to wonder a lot about how blind he really was, but now, as he saunters along with us, I’m quite sure he isn’t blind at all.
*****
When we reach the school gates, the black iron has given way to garlands. The gates are wide open, and summer lanterns hang from the trees. The school grounds are decorated more lavishly than the former student council had ever dreamt possible. I wonder where Aoi found the funds. Probably pale Rika’s insanely rich family, or green-haired Keiko’s extremely charming wheedling and deedling (as we used to say).
We pass through the game stalls, the food stalls. I see a fish-catching game, and whisper to Saki, “Coffee filter.” It triggers a surprised giggle which I savour, an in-joke which we can share while Kenji ponders the significance of caffeine in his web of conspiracies. Our juniors are way too busy having their own lives to notice us as we climb the hill so that we can book a spot to watch the fireworks later.
“I still say the rooftop is better. You can see for miles around. Besides, I like that place, always have been drawn to it. And it has proper seating. Up in the woods, you get the moonlight shadow all around you. Creepy.”
We’ve outvoted him, and he’s still a bit unhappy about that.
“Well, Mr Setou, you can always go off on your own, you know. An independent spirit like you, surely that’s a possibility?”
The spectacles tilt slightly. “Ever the pawn of the global feminist conspiracy, Enomoto. If I went up there on my own at night, on this night of all nights when fireworks are exploding in the sky…” his voice trails off as he takes the time to shudder a little. “Well, it might not go so well for me. I might be taken out by a stray runner or a one-armed boxer. And nobody would hear the sound of my demise.”
I look at Saki. That word, ‘demise’, it has an effect on her most times. Tonight, however, she just has a wry and somewhat wistful look on her face as she replies to our paranoid acquaintance.
“Kenji, just remember that you’re wearing your yukata right over left.”
“Wha-at? I would never…”
He scowls and turns away, towards the men’s dorms. He’ll find his way up there and down again, through the mysterious methods of the dedicated conspiracy theorist. He and his drinking!
I sigh, only to find Saki doing the same. She grins. “It’s always fun to tease people, but with Kenji, I never know if he gets the joke and doesn’t like it, senses there is a joke and doesn’t quite get it, or is just annoyed that we’re not listening to him.”
“Yeah, back when he was always hanging around my room, he was always annoyed that nobody was listening to him. He should be used to it by now.”
Immediately after saying that, I feel a little regret. Things change, people change, life goes on. Being cruel to someone by reflex, that’s just mean. We should be getting better as time passes, I reflect.
She playfully smacks me on the back of the head, as if she can read my mind. “Come on, Mr Nakai, we have a few flights of steps and some rough ground to cover before we get to our place. If Shizune and Misha or some other people get there before we do, I shall be most unhappy.”
*****
“This isn’t the roof,” I gesture.
“No, it is not.”
“This is indeed the creepy spot crazy Kenji mentioned. I didn’t think he was telling the truth.”
“You, of all people, Nakai, should know that there’s nothing to be afraid of up here,” she chuckles, softly and elegantly.
I sense that she’s probably right, and she wants this to be good, and I’m just being my old stubborn self. It’s amazing how much difference one year can make.
This is a dense part of the woods on the hill behind the ladies’ dorms. A little cobbled path leads up like a particularly lazy serpent, deeper into the woods. I worry about Saki’s footing, while noting that there’s no reason for that sort of anxiety, really.
We follow the path upward, and eventually, the woods thin out. We’re looking far down over a bend in the river, and a bit further away, the old harbour of Sendai Bay. It’s a beautiful view, with darkness like ink and orange lights like streaks of lava.
I rest my head on her shoulder as I clasp her from behind. My heart echoes with a fire that has been burning for many months.
“There’ll be fireworks, Hisao. Remember last year? We had some of our own.”
I can hear her grinning in the dark. I’m about to reply, but I’m silenced when Saki turns around out of my grip, and a finger is planted against my lips, shushing me. Saki’s eyes are two deep pools, drinking in all the light around us, and staring straight into mine, just as they did last year.
She reaches down for me as my left hand finds itself drifting into the folds of her yukata. I can feel her nipple swelling as I wish I had warmer fingers. She carefully puts her cane down.
There’s a lot less material between us than there was last year. We’ve learnt a lot since then. We find a spot in the shadow of the trees, and I warm my other hand on her right hip for a while.
We’ve hardly any breath left to catch. I don’t think I’m breathing as my hand moves down between her legs. There’s a moment when neither of us remembers to breathe.
Fabric moves, slides, flutters. I feel her take me in, already wet, her weight somehow adjusting as I find her tightness almost too much.
A rain of fire erupts above us. The fireworks are beginning. There are several explosions of flowers and stars and the salt air of the sea. The ships come into the harbour. The concussions climax to one last roar in the heavens. And as above, so below.
When she began to fold her yukatas right over left, it broke me. But our love never went away. Kenji might never figure it out, but we have. There is life after death, and there’s a lot of it.
END
=====
alt index
Post-Yamaku, what happens? After The Dream is a mosaic that follows everyone to the (sometimes) bitter end.
Main Index (Complete)—Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/Akira • Hideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of Suzu • Sakura—The Kenji Saga.
"Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
Main Index (Complete)—Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/Akira • Hideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of Suzu • Sakura—The Kenji Saga.
"Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
Alt Dreams [One-Shots] (#72—'Blizzard')
This one was written for the 2021 Secret Santa project initiated by ProfAllister.
Victim: Lap
Prompt: A blizzard strikes just before winter holidays, and although most students have already left for the winter, a few are trapped at school together, trying to make the best of a bad situation. So, what do Hisao and his sweetie (your choice) get up to?
=====
Inflourious Basterds
“Mom’s stuck way out. She’s just going to park her beautiful butt at a capsule hotel and wait for it to blow over.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Hisao, stop even hinting at dirty thoughts! Pervert. Hmph!”
Hisao stretched, feeling his lower back click slightly. How was he expected to not have a reaction to his girlfriend talking about a beautiful butt being blown over? Especially her mother’s beautiful butt, which Emi was inheriting. Nope, he told himself, not saying anything.
Emi’s death stare drilled into him.
“Ouch!” he said involuntarily. Casting around desperately for a change of subject, he yelled, “Turkey!”
“Turkey?” Emi sat up, the blanket gracefully falling from her shoulders to her hips. “What are you talking about?”
Her eyes were almost crossed in confusion, Hisao noted. Her nose was wrinkled, rather cutely. And her nipples were hardening in the cold air…
He closed his eyes. “Turkey,” he repeated. “Kenji’s away and the fridge has a frozen turkey in it. I thought it might be a good cooking project.”
“Hisao, I’m not great at cooking.”
“It might be fun.”
“Do we have anything to cook with it? Do you know anything about cooking a turkey? Do you roast it, stew it, what?”
“We still have a gas oven in the pantry. And I think there must be some other things in there: breadcrumbs, stuffing, something. Kenji has a stash.”
“Ooh, it’s cold!” Emi gasped, as the chill finally got to her. She dived back into the blankets, and encountered quite a bit of Hisao.
“Argh! Your hands are cold!”
“Too late!”
=====
“So, how does this work?” Emi mused, absent-mindedly rubbing her bottom.
“First, you’re supposed to take out the giblets and clean the insides.”
She looked skeptically at him, all the while thinking how adorable he looked staring blankly at a grubby piece of paper.
“Where’d you get those instructions?”
“Kenji.”
“Kenji?!”
“Kenji. Wait, it says here that that’s already been done, this is a hollow turkey. Do you know how to baste a turkey?”
“Let me see that!” She grabbed the paper from him, wondering what the hell they’d gotten into, or perhaps what hell they’d got to.
Hisao released the paper a fraction of a second too late, and now each of them had half the instructions, torn down the middle where Kenji had obligingly penciled a line between two columns.
“There are four tubs in the fridge,” Hisao read slowly. “They contain panko and egg substitute, and flour, and spiced salt.”
“Rub the spiced salt in tub #4 into the turkey until evenly salty,” read Emi.
Hisao rummaged around inside the fridge. “Erm, these tubs are all over the place. There are eleven tubs with numbers like 3.1 on them.”
Emi shrugged. “Maybe he… oh, right, here he says that he diversified his holdings into separate tubs so that if one went bad the others would survive.”
“I think he ran out of tubs. There are some tubes here too. Does it say ‘tubs’ or ‘tubes’.”
Emi tapped her titanium toes on the tiles. “His handwriting is very small, Hisao.”
“Hrrrm.” Hisao continued rummaging. At least, he thought, Kenji had been decent enough to label all the plain white plastic containers. Although Emi was perfectly right about the small writing.
In the end, he dumped all the containers out on the table, more or less arranged by number.
=====
“Pretty tasty, though it’s a bit weird,” she said, daintily licking up breadcrumbs and eyeing the huge plate of leftovers. “Mom might like some.”
“Weird? What do you mean?”
“Kind of an ethereal lemony taste. Feels a bit familiar, although I don’t know why.”
“I think we did everything right. Maybe it’s like lemon chicken, except that this is a lemon turkey recipe. Let me look at your half. Perhaps we should’ve taped them back together.”
“Yeah. But it’s a good meal. I feel energetic again, Hisao! Mum won’t be in till tomorrow earliest, we can do lots of things before then!”
“Hmm. Yes! We can do whatever we want!”
Emi grinned fetchingly.
Except for one thing, Hisao mused. The now reassembled instructions he was reading said, “And don’t use the lemon lube, it looks just like the oil/mayo mixture.”
END
=====
alt index
Victim: Lap
Prompt: A blizzard strikes just before winter holidays, and although most students have already left for the winter, a few are trapped at school together, trying to make the best of a bad situation. So, what do Hisao and his sweetie (your choice) get up to?
=====
Inflourious Basterds
“Mom’s stuck way out. She’s just going to park her beautiful butt at a capsule hotel and wait for it to blow over.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Hisao, stop even hinting at dirty thoughts! Pervert. Hmph!”
Hisao stretched, feeling his lower back click slightly. How was he expected to not have a reaction to his girlfriend talking about a beautiful butt being blown over? Especially her mother’s beautiful butt, which Emi was inheriting. Nope, he told himself, not saying anything.
Emi’s death stare drilled into him.
“Ouch!” he said involuntarily. Casting around desperately for a change of subject, he yelled, “Turkey!”
“Turkey?” Emi sat up, the blanket gracefully falling from her shoulders to her hips. “What are you talking about?”
Her eyes were almost crossed in confusion, Hisao noted. Her nose was wrinkled, rather cutely. And her nipples were hardening in the cold air…
He closed his eyes. “Turkey,” he repeated. “Kenji’s away and the fridge has a frozen turkey in it. I thought it might be a good cooking project.”
“Hisao, I’m not great at cooking.”
“It might be fun.”
“Do we have anything to cook with it? Do you know anything about cooking a turkey? Do you roast it, stew it, what?”
“We still have a gas oven in the pantry. And I think there must be some other things in there: breadcrumbs, stuffing, something. Kenji has a stash.”
“Ooh, it’s cold!” Emi gasped, as the chill finally got to her. She dived back into the blankets, and encountered quite a bit of Hisao.
“Argh! Your hands are cold!”
“Too late!”
=====
“So, how does this work?” Emi mused, absent-mindedly rubbing her bottom.
“First, you’re supposed to take out the giblets and clean the insides.”
She looked skeptically at him, all the while thinking how adorable he looked staring blankly at a grubby piece of paper.
“Where’d you get those instructions?”
“Kenji.”
“Kenji?!”
“Kenji. Wait, it says here that that’s already been done, this is a hollow turkey. Do you know how to baste a turkey?”
“Let me see that!” She grabbed the paper from him, wondering what the hell they’d gotten into, or perhaps what hell they’d got to.
Hisao released the paper a fraction of a second too late, and now each of them had half the instructions, torn down the middle where Kenji had obligingly penciled a line between two columns.
“There are four tubs in the fridge,” Hisao read slowly. “They contain panko and egg substitute, and flour, and spiced salt.”
“Rub the spiced salt in tub #4 into the turkey until evenly salty,” read Emi.
Hisao rummaged around inside the fridge. “Erm, these tubs are all over the place. There are eleven tubs with numbers like 3.1 on them.”
Emi shrugged. “Maybe he… oh, right, here he says that he diversified his holdings into separate tubs so that if one went bad the others would survive.”
“I think he ran out of tubs. There are some tubes here too. Does it say ‘tubs’ or ‘tubes’.”
Emi tapped her titanium toes on the tiles. “His handwriting is very small, Hisao.”
“Hrrrm.” Hisao continued rummaging. At least, he thought, Kenji had been decent enough to label all the plain white plastic containers. Although Emi was perfectly right about the small writing.
In the end, he dumped all the containers out on the table, more or less arranged by number.
=====
“Pretty tasty, though it’s a bit weird,” she said, daintily licking up breadcrumbs and eyeing the huge plate of leftovers. “Mom might like some.”
“Weird? What do you mean?”
“Kind of an ethereal lemony taste. Feels a bit familiar, although I don’t know why.”
“I think we did everything right. Maybe it’s like lemon chicken, except that this is a lemon turkey recipe. Let me look at your half. Perhaps we should’ve taped them back together.”
“Yeah. But it’s a good meal. I feel energetic again, Hisao! Mum won’t be in till tomorrow earliest, we can do lots of things before then!”
“Hmm. Yes! We can do whatever we want!”
Emi grinned fetchingly.
Except for one thing, Hisao mused. The now reassembled instructions he was reading said, “And don’t use the lemon lube, it looks just like the oil/mayo mixture.”
END
=====
alt index
Post-Yamaku, what happens? After The Dream is a mosaic that follows everyone to the (sometimes) bitter end.
Main Index (Complete)—Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/Akira • Hideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of Suzu • Sakura—The Kenji Saga.
"Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
Main Index (Complete)—Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/Akira • Hideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of Suzu • Sakura—The Kenji Saga.
"Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
Alt Dreams [One-Shots] (#73—'Stripping')
This one was written for the 2022 Secret Santa project initiated by ProfAllister. Apologies for extreme lateness. My cat died in late 2022 and this piece failed to get written for a long time.
Victim: ProfAllister
Prompt: Several cast members are somewhere isolated (e.g., snowed-in cabin). Perhaps against their better judgment, they decide to play a strip game (e.g., strip poker). Halfway into the game, there's a knock on the door.
=====
Stripping
It was yet another Yamaku winter. The dorms were mostly empty at this time of year, and the roads had been closed because of frost. In some parts of the school, groups of students isolated themselves, for activities that perhaps were best done without the overt knowledge of the authorities—or of other students.
“This is a stupid game.”
“Well, when Kenji explained it to me, it sounded like fun.”
“Hisao, we’re playing a game that Kenji invented?”
“Sort of. Your turn.”
“More oil.”
Miki squinted, her posture awkward. Her tanned skin was beginning to glow, and though she wasn’t going to say it, it was rather exciting. She gave the long tube another half turn.
“Aaarhhh,” sighed Suzu. “How is it that life can’t be this relaxing all the time?”
Click. “Oooooh,” said Hisao, his voice trembling. “Almost there.”
“Y’know, I bet Kenji taught you this because blind people are really good at it once they get started. It’s hard to do it with only one proper hand, though. But since you people aren’t used to that, I have a clean —” Miki wiggled a furry pipe-cleaner suggestively and then gave a little gasp of satisfaction. “ — advantage, me.”
She turned to Hisao, who closed one eye and bent over to look at what her nicely lubed fingers were doing.
There was a knock on the door. Suzu, her concentration total and intense, let out a faint grunt, but her rhythm never faltered. Miki, no stranger to lawbreaking, closed her eyes, her lips showing the slightest shadow of frustration. Hisao, not the most reliable partner in any illegal act, groaned, “Coming!”
The door opened.
“Good evening, I couldn’t help but overhear you mention differently-sighted people. Also, there’ve been intermittent and slightly irritating sounds.”
“Hello, Lilly!” Hisao said brightly, with an underlying frisson of indefinable guiltiness.
“What exactly is this game that Kenji has been teaching you? Do you think I’d be good at it?”
“Aaaaaaaaah,” moaned Suzu. “Yesssss!!” She ran her fingers along the instrument of destruction. “Sooooo good!”
Hisao looked up at Lilly, his eyes wandering down from her clear blue eyes to her long slim fingers. “It’s probably illegal, we had to borrow these things from Kenji and you’ve spoilt my timing anyway. I can teach you.”
The blonde girl wrinkled her nose slightly, but she held her hands out anyway. He grasped her wrists tenderly.
“Can you feel this knob? Before you use it, you have to check that this is empty and you have to make sure you’re safe…”
Lilly gasped at the sudden contact and what she felt in her delicate hands.
“Let me introduce you to the M16A1, and welcome to Kenji’s one-handed stripping and cleaning challenge.”
END
=====
alt index
Post-Yamaku, what happens? After The Dream is a mosaic that follows everyone to the (sometimes) bitter end.
Main Index (Complete)—Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/Akira • Hideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of Suzu • Sakura—The Kenji Saga.
"Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)
Main Index (Complete)—Shizune/Lilly/Emi/Hanako/Rin/Misha + Miki + Natsume
Secondary Arcs: Rika/Mutou/Akira • Hideaki | Others (WIP): Straw—A Dream of Suzu • Sakura—The Kenji Saga.
"Much has been lost, and there is much left to lose." — Tim Powers, The Drawing of the Dark (1979)