未来
Pai was sleepwalking again.
This time, Shin was prepared for it. He had been expecting this to happen again, in all honesty, what with all the revelations that had come to light over the past few days. Ever since last time he'd been keeping an eye on Pai, watching for any sign of it, especially now that he knew who it was he'd seen through Pai last time, and the meaning behind her broken pleas for forgiveness.
Kuniumi.
His immediate goal wasn't to rouse Pai from her half-slumber. He wanted to get answers, if he could, while she was stuck in this strange subconscious state akin to hypnosis. She didn't have those answers that they both needed, but there was one person who did.
The strange woman had shown herself once before to him.
She'd spoken through Pai before and, much as he hated it, he knew that he needed that woman to find out anything he could from her. Now, with Pai in this in-between place where she wasn't entirely sleeping but not fully awake either, he knew that this was a chance to at least try to speak directly to Kuniumi again.
He wasn't sure it would work. Pai had told him how taciturn and almost childishly playful Kuniumi was with the way she taunted Pai with all the things she knew and wouldn't reveal. He knew there was a high chance she would do the same with him, but he still had to try. He could not bring himself to just sit around waiting for something to happen, not with Pai's life on the line.
Of all the things that were happening to them now, it was the very real possibility that Pai might die that scared him most. He could accept that she was Hanyou, with an [ability] that mimicked Ayakashi powers. He could deal with the fact that she'd had to do things that hurt her and others just to survive what So Fu did to her, even if she couldn't deal with it herself yet. He could, grudgingly, accept Kuniumi's presence, even though it killed him that she was an unknown factor he didn't know how to protect Pai from.
He didn't understand why Pai was so calm about Kuniumi, either. She looked like she had resigned herself to the fate of living with a strange presence in her mind for the rest of her life, and that irked him. After seeing how tired she got when she used her [ability] with Kuniumi's help, and the spike of true fear and malice in her darkened eyes when Kuniumi briefly flared up inside her to prove her existence to him, he'd been in a stressful, almost never-ending state of constant worry about it. Kanou still hadn't turned up anything useful in figuring out who Kuniumi was, or what she wanted with Pai.
The not-knowing aspect of the whole situation, coupled with the strange fact that he couldn't get through to some of Shinigami's memories that remained foggy and just beyond his reach – almost like Shinigami was still separate from him and teasing him with what he knew even though they were one now – drove him mad.
But the one thing he didn't know how to come to terms with, wasn't sure he'd ever be able to, was that Pai was dying.
She was the home he wanted to come back to, the only love he could ever have, the star he enjoyed gazing at, the butterfly he yearned to touch. He didn't know what he would do if something happened to her. Even as Kamigami, he didn't know if he could survive what was coming to steal the only one who mattered from him. The uncertainty of whether or not Pai would come back didn't help.
At the moment, the only one he saw who could possibly answer the myriad of questions plaguing him was Kuniumi.
Pai said that Kuniumi had mixed feelings about him. Sometimes she liked the things he did that made Pai happy. Other times she grew annoyed with his increasingly hostile attitude about her very existence. He didn't care how Kuniumi felt, never bothering to hide his dislike or mistrust of the woman.
Maybe he would have been more understanding of the loneliness Pai claimed haunted the woman in her mind, if not for everything that had happened to Pai in her past, everything she was going through now. In hindsight, he knew perhaps that was cruel of him, to be so totally focused on Pai that he disregarded another's suffering, but then he remembered what Pai said last time she was in this sleepwalker's state.
You condemned me to this madness!
Any stirrings of pity for Kuniumi withered away at the memory.
He didn't like that Kuniumi was another unknown factor in their lives. She wasn't a lonely, grieving woman to him. To him, she was a threat he didn't know how to protect Pai from.
He didn't know how to feel about how she clung to Kuniumi, either. A part of him thought he could understand where she was coming from, afraid to let Kuniumi go because of that all that grief and loneliness. Part of the reason he'd hesitated to agree to Kagetora's training – besides his incurable hatred of the goddamned Kitsune – was because he worried about what would happen to Shinigami once he didn't need his Mask anymore.
His ability to relate to what Pai felt about Kuniumi wasn't the problem though. Not exactly. He was worried that she was drawing parallels between her own grief and Kuniumi's. He couldn't be sure of whether or not she was using Kuniumi as a crutch who understood the parts of her Shin was yet to see, the parts of her she was afraid of letting out.
Was her reliance on Kuniumi more dangerous than what her memories would eventually reveal?
He was more worried than he could remember ever being in his life, so much so that his classic poker face hardly ever dropped these days. It was his coping mechanism, in a manner, a way he could deflect questions from himself and redirect them where they needed to be. The only times the mask did slip and break away was when he was with Pai, when she smiled.
That wasn't happening nearly as much as he wished.
He was glad for the fact that becoming Kamigami, however slow-going it was, came with the relief of not needing to sleep anymore. It had taken him two days worth of trying to figure out that he didn't need it anymore. His body wasn't worn out by exhaustion and sleep deprivation. All he really needed was a few quiet hours to himself, away from the flurry of activity at home, and he'd be fine.
At first, he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. Those quiet hours meant his thoughts and the worries that consumed him could rage on and loud until he found something to occupy his attention. He did not appreciate that – but then he found something that did keep his restless thoughts at bay.
The first night when he and Pai were up on the roof of Ayashi House, watching the glittering stars and talking about nothing and everything, she fell asleep in his arms despite trying so hard not to. He'd decided it was quite possibly the best thing to come out of the hell he'd gone through on Ukabarenairei to get to this point.
It meant he could stay up and watch her sleep for as long as he wanted. He could marvel at the way she let out little puffs of air in contentment after shifting around every once in a while to a more comfortable position. He could allow his hard demeanour to drop for a while as he watched the small smile grace her lips when he moved just so that her head was nestled more comfortably against his chest, or against the crook between his shoulder and neck, pillowing her.
Watching her sleep, knowing that she trusted him enough to hold her and keep her safe when she was at her most vulnerable, after everything that had happened in her life, after she'd hidden herself from everyone around her for so long for fear of rejection, had him falling deeper and deeper in love with the butterfly of his life.
Sometimes, he wondered if his love for her would break him one day. It didn't take him longer than a few seconds to realize, remember, that he didn't care if it did. He had her now. She'd chosen to be with him rather than run from the troubles he lugged around everywhere on his shoulders. Spending even just a short time being with her would be a better fate than lasting an eternity never knowing the strength of his love for her.
He would fight to protect her and keep her happy for as long as there was breath left in him.
Shin's bare feet on the polished wooden floor padded silently up the stairs as he followed behind her a few feet away, keeping a careful eye on her to make sure she didn't miss a step and slip. Her path for the last two minutes had remained sure and steady, leading him think that somehow, in her mind, she knew where it was she wanted to go.
The Palace was completely silent this deep into the night. Only the occasional thwump-thwump of guards running patrol around the expansive grounds of the Palace broke the quiet. A few noticed Pai wander up the halls, white hair shining from the moonlight chasing away shadows all throughout the Palace from the skylight far up ahead. They made moves to approach her, maybe to stop her.
They didn't get very far before Shin had his hand wrapped around their wrist or shoulder in a bone-crushing hold, his glare silencing any questions they had. They scurried off remarkably fast after that. He would have found it amusing, if the niggling realization inside him hadn't already alerted him that, maybe, just maybe, he knew where she was going.
She climbed stairs, turned right, then left, and kept going up. Their rooms were all on the third floor of the Palace; now they were already on the fourth, and still she kept going, showing no signs of stopping.
When he cast his mind back, back to when he was still a normal Hengen, back to when he'd decided to let her in by telling her who his tanto blade originally belonged to and why he killed the stray Nue, he realized that she was following the exact same path he'd shown her as they made their way up to the novice Palace Guard training area on one of the many roofs of the Palace.
There were several of them scattered over the Palace. She could have gone to any one, guided by an unseen hand – yet she was using the route Shin had shown her. That had to mean that some part of her was lucid enough to realize what she was doing, right?
He didn't bother to try waking her from this dream state now. Last time it took a fight that exhausted her to snap her out of it. He didn't want to re-enact that here. It would draw too much attention, and if Kurama got wind of it, keeping him from imprisoning Pai would be difficult.
Things between Shin and his Sojobo were already strained enough. His shift to Kamigami might be a good thing when it came to covert threats and warnings to other Clans and Oni hostile to the Tengu, but when it came to his loyalty to his King, the situation got decidedly more complicated.
The Tengu were his people, the Clan was his to protect, and this village was his home. He would never betray Sojobo Kurama, or Kouta, but that didn't stop Kurama from questioning it. Shin was Kamigami now, Kurama had reasoned without explicitly saying so. Such a thing wasn't likely to go unnoticed by other Kamigami for very long. Kurama didn't need to say it for Shin to know that the King wondered just how steadfast Shin's loyalty could be when he was drifting further away from what he had been all his life.
He didn't want to admit it, but he wondered the same too, sometimes.
His thoughts came to an abrupt halt when they reached their destination. He'd barely noticed climbing the rest of the way here, the route so ingrained in his memories that his body made the turns automatically. He could have gotten here with his eyes closed.
His feet whispered over the cold wooden floor as he came to stand beside Pai, eyeing her warily. She didn't react; it was like she couldn't tell he was there at all. Tentatively, he reached out and brushed her hair back from her face, over her shoulder. His body was wound tight, muscles tensing as he readied for any kind of backlash.
None came.
She didn't blink at his touch. Her eyes were focused straight ahead in what might have been pin-point focus, but there was a blind quality to it, like whatever it was she was seeing didn't quite line up with the reality of what was in front of her.
Shin lowered his hand when she stretched out her arm. She curled her hand around the heavy-weight padlock that held together the chains that kept everyone without a key out of the training area. Was she here because she wanted to go out there? She wouldn't be able to unless she had the key, so what did she plan on doing?
He got his answer seconds later.
It started as a slow, golden burn in her eyes. The light brown of her eyes darkened for a moment before the brown returned and started to deepen, to become more. It gave way to amber, and before long her eyes were a beautiful shade of honey-gold that glowed like burning twin suns – just like they had in the split second before they faded to normal after she released her power in the Main Hall to prove the merit of her words.
Something about the way she used her [ability] was different this time. The sensation of ice crawling over his skin with steel-tipped points remained the same, but her eyes were different, now. When she used her [ability] as they flew over Kyoto, her irises went black, but today, now, it was gold.
Was this how he'd be able to tell who was using that strange power? Kuniumi was black, Pai was not? What did it mean that Kuniumi could so easily tap into Pai's [ability], whatever it really was?
He jumped when a blanket of animate black smoke burst out from her hand in total silence, enshrouding the entire door. He took a step back from it, jaw slackening as his eyes darted from one end to the other. The darkness was so complete, so total, he could have been staring into the bottomless pit of a black hole.
A chill crept through his bones as he stared at the door, a deep frown pulling his brow low. He blinked, and the eyes with which he saw life through when he used his Ability showed him what he wanted to see, what he was afraid he would see, what he knew he would see; Pai, standing in a thin sphere of darkness, devoid of any flickering lights that danced across the surfaces of the walls and skimmed the floor.
The lights that loved life.
Aching loneliness swept through him as he looked at her standing there, alone, untouched by the colourful sparkles he knew where visible – mostly – pieces of the fabric of what it was that made things alive.
He glanced back at the door, uneasy to see how it mimicked the blackness surrounding her, like an aura.
A harsh gasp broke out of her, and he ripped himself away from gaping at the empty space where the door was supposed to be, if not for the darkness concealing it. Pain twisted her face, her brows pulled low as she glared at the darkness. He reached out to her, but before he could touch her, her lips pulled back over her teeth in a silent snarl as she yanked her hand back over her shoulder.
There was a strange sound, like all the air in the space between them was getting sucked into a vacuum. The black shadow writhed for a brief moment before disappearing into nothing, evaporating into invisible mist faster than he could blink. There one second, gone the next.
So was the door.
Nothing remained of it, save for the wooden frame that kept it held in place for so many years. The padlock, the chains, the door handle, the door itself – all of it was gone. The wind howled through the empty space, sending long strands of his hair from his face.
She stared at the awning hole that was once the door to the training area, motionless, hair shifting over her shoulders from the cold breeze that wafted in. Beyond lay the dark night dotted with crystalline stars shining on the backdrop of the night sky. Further along the horizon were the city lights of Kyoto. If he walked over to the balcony railings and looked down, he would see the lights of his home sleepily winking as the village stretched out beyond the expanse of the Palace.
Shin frowned at her total lack of response. Even when she didn't want to, she shivered when she was cold. She hated being cold. She hardly walked out of Ayashi House without her haori settled over her shoulders. She'd walked into the dining room at home with her blanket wrapped snug around her shoulders more times than he could count, something he found insanely adorable.
She could have turned to a block of stone now, for all she reacted to what she'd just done.
Pai walked forward, stepping over the little rise that was supposed to keep the smallest Tengu children from sneaking into the training area solely reserved for the older ones. The wind buffeted her hair, sweeping it in a long white cloud that streamed down her back as she moved soundlessly across the wooden floor.
Cautiously, he followed, keeping a foot between them. He used his other sight again, not needing to go invisible the way he used to before becoming Kamigami. The black aura that clung to her with something like desperation only moments ago was gone, replaced with her own light blue aura that lay an inch above her skin.
Pai walked over to stand by the railing, the wind kicking her hair into a pale storm about her head as she looked over the Palace grounds stretching out down below, and further ahead Kyoto city twinkling in the night. Shin came to a stop beside her. She hadn't attacked him yet, so he thought it was safe enough to remain close by her.
Together, muted by the quiet howl of the wind, they stood in silence and watched the two worlds they were both so a part of, separated by the dark forest like a belt keeping the two from colliding. As he had many times before, he wondered what would happen if the human world were to discover that the supposed monsters of their nightmares and stories were real. Not just one or two humans who were responsible for the birthing of Hanyou children, but the entire human world.
There would be chaos, certainly. Humans thought they were at the top of the food chain. Upon realizing that was the furthest idea from truth, they would scramble to figure out where they fit in the world order if they weren't the big It any longer. He was sure enough of them would instigate conflict with Hengen, to try and prove something.
But what if humans surprised him and didn't immediately resort to violence? What if they decided to try learning more about the mysterious beings they hadn't known had been living alongside them for millennia upon millennia? What if, instead of bloodshed and death, there was patience and understanding between the two races no one thought could peacefully co-exist?
Foolish idealism like that has gotten many killed, Shin. You will not be the first. You will not be the last.
He didn't make a move when a voice whispered by his ear – one he had heard before. Gooseflesh crawled over his skin at the innate sense of knowing someone was speaking to him when he couldn't see them.
He closed his eyes, dragged in a deep breath, and opened them again. It didn't take him so long to adjust to his other sight as it had when he was still a normal Hengen. He glanced around him, searching, but there was no one there. Nothing to indicate Kuniumi's presence that he felt with disturbing precision, standing between him and Pai, except for how his whole right arm felt like it was dripping with ice water running rivulets down his skin.
Your sight will never see us. Kuniumi remarked glumly. No one sees us. Don't bother trying.
The sorrow in that warning was a sigh spoken on the winds that whipped his hair around his head. He looked at Pai, still standing where she was, emptily gazing out at the two cities before her, one hidden in the forest and one sparkling under the open sky.
"She's not reacting to anything."
A vague hum of acknowledgement. She is sleeping. We let her be. She needs what rest she can get.
He didn't bother contesting that when it was true. Instead, he asked, "Why can't I see you?"
Many see us only through what shows double of ones, she answered. There was a sombre tone to her that was unlike the manic glee with which she'd spoken to him last time he'd seen her through Pai's phone.
He looked down at Pai again. It was strange, talking to a person he couldn't see. Was this what Pai dealt with on a regular basis, so much so that it became normal for her?
He hated it.
"So," he sighed heavily, crossing his arms over his chest as he tipped his head back and expelled a stream of air that clouded in mist in front of him. "She doesn't know what you look like, either?"
A faint giggle that drifted on the breeze before disappearing as fast as it came. We didn't say that, did we?
No, he thought, scowling. No, you didn't.
Do you want to see what we look like? her voice floated in, teasing. What we really look like?
He hesitated. Pai had told him the woman had mixed feelings about him, that she was of flighty mind never fixed on one thing for too long – but she also told him that Kuniumi rarely did anything without reason. Often it wasn't obvious what that reason was until sometime later on. Why would she offer something like that to him, now?
"Will you show me?"
Will you see?
"Yes." He was relatively certain he would, at any rate.
He felt her pause. There was a heavy silence that hung about him, a draft of cold breeze brushing behind him. His shoulders tensed at the sensation. He couldn't see her, maybe no one could without looking at her through some reflective surface – but that didn't mean she wasn't physically there with them, somehow.
You will, won't you? she remarked quietly, a disembodied voice whispering right by his ear. She couldn't. When we asked her if she wanted to see, she said yes, but she wouldn't be able to. She is perceptive to the actions of those around her, but blind to the emotion that drives them. Just like she couldn't see how you care for her until you had to say it to her face.
He absolutely did not like that what she said was true. He was unnerved by how precise she was about what Pai was like. It disturbed him more than he would voice that Kuniumi knew enough about Pai to say such things with utter surety.
"What did you mean?" he asked instead. "About foolish ideals."
There is a reason Kigen do not reside in Takamagahara with Kamigami. There is a reason those you are like now are tasked to keep Hengen and humans apart from one another, she answered blithely, as if they were talking about something merry. As if there wasn't anything wrong with the fact that she inhabited the space of Pai's mind and was now talking in his like it was the most ordinary thing in the world.
"And what's that?" he asked, trying to keep the bitter undertones at bay from his voice. He needed some kind of answers from her. It wouldn't do to piss her off and have her disappearing the way Pai said she was wont to do whenever she so fancied.
Something dark flickered at the corner of his eye and he looked to his left. He blinked once, twice, at the young woman who stood there. She wore Pai's skin as naturally as the real Pai did, but where her hair had laid open, tumbling down her back, it was now pulled up in a high ponytail. She was clothed in unusual, militaristic black gear that set off warning bells in his head.
He remembered what Pai said about how some 'Mad Chiasa' had her uniform custom made from snakeskin. She'd said 'uniform'. Was this it? Was this what So Fu Agents wore when they did their killing?
Was this what Pai once looked like, thanks to her sister?
He tensed and stepped back so as to face her fully as she turned to him with a beatific smile curling her lips, a smile that did not belong on Pai's face. It was sad, tinged with madness. Her tongue flicked out and ran over the bottoms of her upper teeth as she watched him. Her eyes were blacker than the night surrounding them, pupil indiscernible from her iris. Hazy smoke curled around her, embracing her form.
Kuniumi.
He doubted that was her real name. Even Pai wasn't sure of it. He didn't think that, whoever Kuniumi really was, she'd hand her true name out like a business card. Names carried power; he, more than anyone, knew that.
His gaze flickered from her to the real Pai standing beside her clone. He looked back at Kuniumi, and scowled. "I thought you said you can't be seen without a mirror image."
She smirked. "We said many see. We didn't say we can't be seen." She leaned forward slightly with a wicked gleam in her eyes. "You are one of few."
Another silver-tongued word twister. He thought he'd had enough of that with Kagetora. It didn't escape his notice that she'd avoided answering him when he asked what would happen if all the hidden species of this world knew about each other, either.
She cocked her head to the side, eyeing him speculatively. "Do you know what she's dreaming of now?" she asked.
Shin glanced past her shoulder, to where the real Pai stood, staring blankly out over the balcony, a glazed look in her eye. He thought about all he wanted to find out from Kuniumi, but a curiosity to know what she was talking about now drove him. Without saying a word, gauging the carefully constructed void of true emotion on this stranger's face, he shook his head.
"She's confused." Sadness stole across those infinitely dark eyes. "Because she's having a good dream."
"Why?" why would something like that confuse her?
"She truly believes that all she deserves are nightmares and pain after all she has done. To dream of a future, with you, of a family, with you, is one of luxury. The one thing she wants most in this world, and it is with you she wants it."
A family.
Pai was dreaming of a family. She wanted a family – so did he, but that wasn't what surprised him. It surprised him that their desires ran so in track with one another. His heart ached to think about the family she had loved and lost, the one she had now that she was afraid of losing because of what she'd done.
Kuniumi smiled emptily, as if she knew what he was thinking. "You have a daughter and son together. Do you want to know their names?"
Mutely, he nodded, unable to speak a word, afraid that if he did, he would lose this rare insight into the complicated mind of the woman he loved.
"The girl is three years old. Her name is Touka." Her voice was suspiciously thick when she said the name. "The boy is five – his name is Seiran." His breath halted. "You named the girl. She named the boy."
Kuniumi stretched her hand out, merely smiling when he shot her a warning glare. She ignored his black look and touched the tip of her icy finger to his temple.
It happened between one blink and the next. He was standing close to the sleepwalking Pai, talking to the one who was not Pai – and then he wasn't.
He found himself in a dense forest, on the porch of a large house that was built with comfortable luxury in mind. Trees packed close to one another surrounded him on every side, and a single path wide enough for a big four-wheel drive to get through stretched from the front porch and the little outhouse connect to the side and went into the forest, disappearing in the thick green. Cicadas screeched all around him, hiding from the summer heat in the cool bushes.
It was sometime during the day, for everything around him was lit with the sun's rays filtering in from the canopy of leaves overhead. Shin stood on one end of the porch, looking outward. He blinked at the forestry all around him, up at the foliage that kept the worst of the heat and brightness of the sunlight at bay. What he could make of the sky left him frowning at its oddity.
The sun threw the grey clouds in a strange brown light, a bruise in the sky covered by pale bandages rolling over its expanse. The clouds broiled in heavy expectation in the distance as they heralded the coming of a storm.
He turned away from the distorted sky when he heard an engine revving. Shin could see a cloud of dust kicking up behind a Land Rover that drove towards the house, still some distance away, and another car – silver and flashy – driving up behind it. When he focused, he realized that the people in the second car were the Daitengu, with Kouta and Shiori seated at the front of the Land Rover.
He looked away from the approaching car in confusion, and his eyes widened in shock as a steel band wrapped around him tight, squeezing so tight he forgot to breathe.
Behind him, standing by the banister surrounding the porch, was him.
Shin stared at the version of himself that Pai saw, through her eyes. He recognized himself in the way the other Shin stood, the black hair running into red around the longer strands hanging over his right shoulder, his body, his clothes...but it was like he was seeing a part of him he'd never noticed before, never glimpsed in his own reflections in the mirror. The hard lines of his face no longer looked quite so brutally detached. The glow of his eyes that unsettled so many were like diamonds, and his smile...
He could never have imagined he could look so kind, so gentle and tender as he did then, smiling down at a confused Pai. Her hair fell in long, loose waves down to her waist as it did in real life, a little messy at the back to show she'd just woken from sleeping. Only, her hair was the black of her past rather than the white of her present. She was wearing yellow pyjama shorts frilled at the hems and patterned with pink hearts, and what looked like his favourite black sweater, even though it was too big for her.
She was blinking in a stupor at everything around her, but she didn't see the real him as her eyes passed right over where he stood on the other end of the porch from her. The other Shin said something to her that he didn't hear, and she looked up at him, his hip cocked out as he carefully held a sleeping baby girl in his arms. The little girl had Pai's lips and his nose, short tufts of light brown hair curling on her head resting against the other Shin's chest.
Beside the other Shin stood a widely grinning little boy, sharp blue eyes set under arching dark brows as he tugged on his father's jeans, trying to get Shin's attention without waking his little sister up.
Their children. Pai and Shin's children. Touka and Seiran.
This was their family.
"This is the perfect life she wants, Shin," Kuniumi voice was a mere echo around him, a dulled version of how he imagined she sounded to Pai. "This is all she wants from this world. To be happy, with you. To build a family, with you. Always with you. Maybe you're worth it."
Shin looked to the right when he heard a crunch of feet on gravel, to see a black-haired boy who looked to be about Pai's age approaching the steps leading up to the porch. He had a camper's bag strapped to his back, hiking boots on his feet under blue jeans and a loose black t-shirt. A radiant smile graced his face, teeth flashing as he waved at the small family on the porch of the house. Coming up a little distance behind him was Kaede, lugging a large pile of chopped wood in his arms. Kaede was smiling fondly at the boy.
Shin frowned, wondering at the light brown eyes that mimicked Pai's, the curved brows that were like hers, the corners of his lips tucked inwards a little the way hers was. This boy looked like how he imagined Pai would if she were born male. And what was Kaede doing here? Why was he looking at this boy with such warmth in his eyes?
The little boy by the other Shin turned at the sound of someone approaching, and his face broke out in a beam of elation as he abandoned his father's side and sprinted down the steps, shouting, "Ri-chan, Ri-chan!" in excitement. As soon as he reached the path, though, he started walking funnily, head turned to the ground and an intense look of concentration drawn on his face.
"Oi, kid," the dark haired stranger (Ri?) drawled in a strange accent (was that Russian?). He paused a few feet away and watching little Seiran pick his way over. "Why're you – "
"Shh!" Seiran gestured wildly with a finger to his lips. He pointed back to the other Shin, whose lips twitched in an effort to keep from laughing. "Touka's sleeping!"
Ri(?) grinned, shooting that Shin a salutary wave in greeting, to which he received a nod of acknowledgement. He went down on his haunches, bracing his elbows on his knees as he watched little Seiran delicately pick his way over.
Shin frowned in confusion. Clearly, in Pai's mind, he and this stranger were close friends. But who was he? Why was Pai dreaming of him?
"Why're you walking like that, little man?" Ri whispered loudly.
"Ants," Seiran returned, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he focused intently on where he put his feet. "I don't wanna step on the ants. Mama said it's not their fault for being small."
Ri laughed heartily at that, lifting his head and cupping his hand by his mouth to call over to the dream Pai, "Sure, coming right from the mouth of a small woman herself!"
Shin turned and caught the look of amusement – and acceptance? Really? The other Shin, Pai's dream Shin, was okay with this stranger? – on the other Shin's face before he focused on Pai. She was blinking stupidly at 'Ri-chan', her mouth falling open in surprise.
"I'm not that small," she said quietly, almost despite herself, though her look of flabbergasted confusion remained.
He wondered if this man was the one Pai had mentioned in her near-hysterical state when she told him, and then Kouta and Shiori, about So Fu, and what she did to survive it. She'd named that man; a name Shin couldn't quite grasp the memory of now.
He watched the other Shin, noting the total lack of suspicion or mistrust, which, on principal, was how he found himself looking at any man who so much as glanced Pai's way. Why? Who was this man to Pai that the other Shin, her dream version of him, trusted? Why did Pai care so much about him that she even talked of him in her waking life, when she otherwise never breathed a mention of her past unless she absolutely had to?
What made him so special?
"Rikuto," Kuniumi murmured. "He is Rikuto."
A jolt went through him; that was it. That was the name. Ri-chan was Rikuto.
He opened his mouth, paused, wondering if he'd be heard, if he'd wake Pai by speaking when he was watching her dream like this. He decided to risk it anyway.
"Do you know who he is?" he asked quietly. He wasn't looking for a name now – he was looking for why Pai would have this man, Rikuto, here, in the dream of what she envisioned a perfect life to be.
"Soon," she returned, sighing regretfully. "Soon, you will all know why he matters so much more than he thinks he is worthy of."
"You're...here?" Pai said to Rikuto, bringing Shin's attention back to the dream. "You're okay, you're not – "
"Of course he's here," a voice said behind them. "You guys invited everyone over for dinner, remember?"
Shin glanced back to see a woman walk out of the open door leading to the inside of the house. A waft of mouthwatering aroma drifted from inside. The woman wore an apron over a simple white t-shirt and denim shorts, and a large cooking glove on one hand. Her black hair was cut in a short, sharp bob just at her chin, and her eyes were an unusual shade of green he couldn't help feeling like he'd seen before, somewhere. He cocked his head as he watched the woman walk over to dream Pai and gently ruffled her hair.
Pai tensed, and that was his first clue.
Haru constantly messed up her hair. Shiori did too, seconds before using it as an excuse to fix Pai's hair up into some elaborate hairstyle that Pai only tolerated for an hour or so. Shin himself did it, and she always blushed like mad, which was half the reason why he did it in the first place.
She never before looked like a deer caught in the headlights of an incoming car when someone ruffled her hair.
Now, she looked wary of the woman as she stood stock still, taking a step back as soon as the woman moved away. Pai didn't just look cautious; she was scared, anger and hurt flashing in her eyes as her bottom lip trembled. The name she uttered came out in a tremulous whisper, but he heard it nonetheless.
"Mitti-chan?"
He blinked. Midori. This was her sister.
The one who was likely responsible for Pai being in So Fu.
"Even after everything Midori has done, she still wants her sister back," Kuniumi grumbled irritably. "She dreams her sister here the way Midori once was, and not as she is."
That wasn't what he was thinking about now.
"Why does Pai look like that?"
"Like what?"
"Her hair," he said thickly. "Why do I look the same, but her hair is black?"
There were so many more things he knew he should be asking instead. How was Midori responsible for Pai's entrapment in So Fu. Who was the strange dark-haired boy who looked so like Pai. Who was Kuniumi, and why did she cling so tenaciously to Pai. How did Pai lose all her memories of the last three years of her life, as if someone had erased all traces of So Fu from her mind. How could he keep her from dying when the only person who knew anything about what was happening to her – Aihara – said there was no way to stop what was coming, and that there never had been.
Yet it was none of those questions that tripped off his tongue and into the air, unable to be taken back. It was the need to know why he was the same, but she wasn't, that consumed him.
"You in this dream is as you are in reality because she thinks you are perfect. She doesn't believe anything about you needs to change to fit her mould of the ideal." Remorse throbbed in the air around him, the air Kuniumi inhabited as she walked in front of him, unseen, watching the scenario of Pai's dream unfold. "She does not think the same of the person she is now. She does not see herself as the strong woman she is capable of being; she does not see the beauty in her that you do."
Shin swallowed around the lump those words brought to his throat. It saddened him more than he could say that he knew that was probably true. She'd barely been able to accept that he had feelings for her, that he loved her, and not for any reason he'd have guessed.
She'd looked like a bomb dropped on her head when he kissed her the first time, thinking that he could have any other woman, struggling to believe him when he told her that she was the only one he wanted.
She'd thought he would abandon her once he knew of all she had been hiding for so long.
How could he make her see herself the way he did? How could he make her see that she deserved to be loved, that she deserved to be happy, after everything that she suffered? She killed, but her regret and guilt for what she did was punishment enough.
How could he keep her with him if she was barely hanging on?
"By loving her," Kuniumi answered, catching the thread of his thoughts despite the iron walls he built in his mind to keep her out. "Be there for her where all others will leave. Love her as you do, love her as she should herself. That is how you will keep her sane from us. That is how you will not lose her when she needs to die."