Subject: [FFML] [original] Ganmo to Iroke: everblue again.... Part One
From: "Rob Barba" <rob@mitsukai.com>
Date: 8/18/2002, 5:02 PM
To:

ja ne,
- Rob

rob@mitsukai.com
Mitsukai!- www.mitsukai.com
Tokyo Teleport - www.tokyoteleport.com
Megami Studios - coming soon
"'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' -- that is all
Ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know."
- John Keats, Ode On A Grecian Urn
================================================

Ganmo to Iroke: everblue again....
By Robert R. Barba
The Neo-Kaidan World (c) 2002 Robert R. Barba/Mitsukai Digital Design Co.
Ltd.

=======================================
Written in Memoriam: Eriko "Air" Matsuda (1975 - 2002) Dedicated to Fae
=======================================
"A stone's throw from Jerusalem
I walked a lonely mile in the moonlight
And through a million stars were shining
My heart was lost on a distant planet
That whirls around the April moon
Whirling in an arc of sadness
I'm lost without you
I'm lost without you
Though all my kingdoms turn to sand
And fall into the sea
I'm mad about you    
I'm mad about you"
-Sting

New Moon - The Letter

Rosso Jazz Life was a combined Jazz club and bar in the cozy, upscale
Westwood section of Los Angeles.  Only a stone's throw from the University
of California at Los Angeles, it was a fashionable, upscale bar that catered
to expensive clientele, the UCLA student body and businessmen wanting
somewhere other than Santa Monica for a charming visit.  Modern, manmade and
bright, the district was everything that people thought of Los Angeles to
be, whether for good or for ill.  It was glitzy, elegant, and cozy, yet
managed to combine all three descriptions into a working, profitable model.
Besides, the waitresses were cute.

At the moment, the bar was somewhat busy, with spatterings of people at the
various tables here and there.  But one table, in particular stood out in a
sense.  At first glance, it didn't seem to be much different from the norm,
two women and a man having a nice chat in a leisurely setting.  The first
girl was dressed in a simple jacket, turtleneck and jeans, all the while
turning from her friends to sign something that was brought to her.  The
man, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, did much the same thing, also handing out
autographs.  The other woman, however, an expensive button-up shirt and bow
tie, combined with a vest and slacks.  To the casual onlooker, she looked
much like a buxom, tuxedoed fighter from a videogame, down to the lightened,
short hair, but where that fictional character wore a cocky attitude, this
woman looked rather morose.

"Sorry about that," Hikomei and Aoi said with apologetic grins, "but
sometimes fame can be a bear."  The two looked at each other, realizing
they'd said the same thing, then smiled knowingly with twinned grins of
love.  Shuzen Hikomei and Aoi, Japan's famous husband-and-wife writing duo
had weathered fame amongst so many other things quite well, and it was in
fact part of that fame, a deal for the US publishing rights for their books,
that had brought them to America.  But also, it was something slightly more
important that had brought them here to Los Angeles after having spent a
week in New York. 

"No problem, you guys deserve the credit you get," the tux girl said while
gripping a paper napkin in her hands and wringing it as though it were
someone's neck.  A second later, she realized what she was doing, and
dropped it as though it were a scorpion.  Instead, she reached over for her
own drink, an expensive Japanese import beer that was out of place for the
bar but typical when one knew the girl in question.  "Look, I'm really
surprised that you came to visit.  I hadn't expected you to be in town, and
really, I don't know what to say."  She smiled demurely.  "I didn't have
anything planned for a visit...and besides, it's not like you're going to
want to go see Disneyland or anything, ne?"

"You know," Hikomei said as he ordered another beer, "this fey and demure
bit really doesn't work with me - I've known you for too long, remember?"  

"Of course you do...we grew up together.  Or didn't you tell your wife I was
the first girl you saw naked?"  The girl smiled wolfishly while Hikomei
rolled his eyes and Aoi took the comment with slight confusion.

"Um, Soyoko, that's because we were children, remember?  My mother used to
bathe us together when we were babies."

The girl leaned over table, face resting in her hands and looking at Hikomei
with a saucy grin.  "Hey, if you think I looked good then, you should see me
now."  Winking, she laughed softly at his discomfort and grinned.  "Score
one for the Beika-nihonjin."

Aoi looked at both, seeing the fondness in the eyes of her husband and this
new girl, and wondered.  "Anata," she asked, "Um, not that I'm, um, jealous
or anything, but who...?"

"Oh, Soyoko?" he asked, pointing a thumb in her direction.  "Thought I told
you about her.  She's my little sister."

Aoi did a double-take on that; if the previous comment had her nonplussed,
this was certainly beyond the pale.  "That's not something that I expected
to hear.  I thought you only had a brother?" she asked, looking at the
Japanese girl with natural tea-colored hair and brown eyes.  "And I thought
I'd met all of your family at the wedding," Aoi added, punctuating her words
uncomfortably by finishing off her glass of wine and gently waiving for a
waitress to order her another. 

Hikomei was about to answer, but the girl stopped him.  "Okay, technically,
no, I'm not his little sister, I'm his cousin - but his parents raised me as
well, so they're pretty much like my natural parents.  And I apologize for
not showing up for the wedding or the birth of your daughter, but I did it
because, well...our grandmother and I didn't get along well.  But that's a
story for a little later."  The girl flashed the brunette a grin.  "And my
name is Soyokaze, though the family still calls me Soyoko.  The rest of the
world, however, just calls me Breeze - the English translation of my name.
You can call me whatever you'd like."

"Well, I tried 'calling' you while I was in New York, but you didn't answer.
Didja change your phone number or something?" Hikomei deadpanned as he
formed one of his hands into the approximation of a cel phone's shape.

"Um, yeah.  Long story about that...and honestly, ni-chan, I don't know if I
should be telling you."  Breeze's usually bright smile darkened for just a
second, like a cloud momentarily flitting across the sun before the warm and
brilliant light burst forth again with its incandescence.  "But enough of
that, we can talk about that later.  How long are you two staying in town?
I've missed you so much, and I was hoping that we get a chance to touch base
again."

Aoi, once the cursed ghost known as the Zashiki Bokko Hina, looked at the
girl in front of her.  She'd seen that look throughout the many centuries of
her curse, had even felt that several times in her non-life herself.  No
doubt her successor as the ghost doll was feeling something like that now.
It was the look of someone who while not suicidal or on the verge of mental
breakdown, was obviously heading in that direction.  Pausing to gather her
words, she finally said, "We'll be in town as long as you need us, Breeze,"
Aoi answered for both of them, "because it's blatantly clear, despite how
much you're trying to dance around it, that you need my husband for his
advice as well as his company."

The table went silent for a second, with the only sound around being the
clinking of ice in Aoi's drink.  After a few seconds had went by, Breeze
shook her head and whistled appreciatively.  "Yup, you're everything my aunt
said you'd be, Aoi, smart and perceptive."  Turning to Hikomei, she added,
"You married well.  Wish I could have said the same for myself."  

"Thanks, Soyoko," Hikomei said, putting his hand on hers for support.  "But
I'm sure you'll meet the right guy someday."

As always, the ghost girl was quicker to catch meanings.  "Anata, I think
she meant she was already married.  And if my guess isn't mistaken, you also
mean it in the past tense."

"Maybe you're *too* smart, Aoi."  Breeze announced her commentary with
dread.  "Remind me not to let you guess my weight - and don't answer that,"
she added abruptly.  "This isn't something that I'd like to bring up in
public.  C'mon, grab your drinks and we'll head to the back office."  Waving
a few hand signals to a couple of her staff, she took the pair down a short
corridor in the back, and into a cozy yet clearly businesslike room in the
back.

"This place is nice," Hikomei commented.  "You've really done well for
yourself."  When her answer was a tight nod, the pair realized that there
was more to the tale than just the Typical American Dream Success Story.

"Well, this is the center of my kingdom, such as it is," Breeze shrugged.
"Have a seat, and we can continue."  While the two sat down in front of the
desk, Breeze plopped herself down in her familiarly worn leather desk seat.

"So do tell, sis, how did you end up with your own bar?  You came here on a
scholarship, and though my parents sent what money they could, they didn't
send that much.  And if you got married, you certainly didn't tell anyone
about it," he commented in hurt tones.

Breeze sighed.  "Ni-chan, I was an idiot, a stupid, stupid idiot.  It's part
of the reason I never came home.  I couldn't bear to hear the old bag say,
'I'm not surprised because she's a half-breed.'  Not exactly good for my
quality of life.  Plus, I couldn't bear to tell your parents what I was
going through, and then when I heard about your relationship with that one
girl just before Aoi, here, well...."  She shrugged, a sheepish look on her
face.  "Can you blame me?"  Seeing that there was a question that Aoi had
planned to ask, she added, "Well, maybe I should explain a few things,
first, ne, Aoi?"

"For starters, if you would.  I might be able to catch up on things here and
there, but if I don't know the full story, I can be just as clueless as my
husband sometimes," she said, laying a playful kiss on his cheek to take the
sting out of her comment.  "But please, feel free and tell me.  I'm all
ears."

Breeze nodded.  "Well, as you may have or may have not guessed by my
tea-colored hair and green eyes, I'm only half-Japanese.  My mother hooked
up with some gaijin, and had me just before they eloped and left...leaving
me behind.  My mother is years younger than my aunt, and was only 16 when
she left.  My grandmother wanted to send me up for adoption, because I was a
child out of wedlock and totally 'un-Japanese'.  But my aunt, bless her,
took one look at me and decided no other place would I belong except for my
family.  But they paid a price for that: the old witch mostly ignored us and
it wasn't until I left for college that she started speaking to my family
again.

"I accepted a scholarship to an American school because I wanted to see 'my
other half'.  To tell the truth, I don't know if my father was American,
German, whatever, but it was clear that he was a foreigner, and they say
that America's the big melting pot of foreigners, right?"  Breeze smiled
again, but this time, it was a little sadder, a bit more like the girl that
had left home and not like the pseudo-American girl that sat there now.  "So
I studied hard and got my scholarship.  And though I knew I'd miss my
family, I left to find myself.  Instead, I found Yokotsura."  Breeze looked
at Hikomei, a look he knew too well, one he'd seen a dozen times when she
was on the verge of crying.  Back then, all he had to do was to hug her,
promise her everything would be okay, and occasionally bribe her with an ice
cream.

But the woman in front of him didn't cry...and the grief was too much for
simple hugs and offers of double-scoop cones to ever solve.  "I was so
lonely, just a girl barely out of high school, in a foreign land, and while
I understood the language, I didn't understand the cultures.  And then *he*
showed up, just like a prince to rescue the damsel in so many stories.

"I never thought anything wrong of Yokotsura at first.  He was a nice guy,
handsome, refined.  He was from a well-to-do family in Japan, well traveled
and much more open than my grandmother was.  Between all that and his
charms, not to mention my loneliness and na�vet�, how could I not fall in
love?  The courtship lasted a year, and I was so dizzied by the stupidity of
young love, I, um...."  She blushed.  "I couldn't tell anyone, not even you,
ni-chan, because I didn't know hot to say that I found the happiness that I
was looking for."

"Well, we all figured that's what happened when you called and told us you
were planning to stay after you graduated," Hikomei responded.  

"No," she responded in a strangely quiet, tight voice.  "That was after I
got divorced.  That was when I realized I couldn't go back, because I was so
shamed and so wronged.  I came here to find myself, but I lost even more."
Breeze looked at him, and this time, there were tears in her jade eyes.

"Soyoko...." he whispered, feeling very ashamed of himself.  The girl that
was like a sister to him, and she felt that she was damaged by her tragedy.
What had happened?   More importantly, even if this had happened in the
past, if there was something that he could do about it, he would.  His eyes
slid momentarily on his wife, and she had a dark stare in them, one
all-too-familiar.  To the casual onlooker, it would be one of mere anger.
But to the person that crossed those ghostly, stormy eyes....safe to say the
last person who had done that was now suffering an eternal, unimaginable new
variety of hell.

Fortunately, Breeze only noticed his.  "Ni-chan, I'm fine now.  It's in the
past, but I brought it up, and you deserve to know, so I'll tell you.  It
was a month after we'd gotten married that I began to see what he truly was
like.  I'd never seen his temper before that.  At the time, it was because I
thought that he had a bunch of troubles lately - being a few years older
than me, he was teaching undergrads while working on his doctorate - and
that he was just stressing out.  Besides, it soon went away and he became
the Yokotsura I loved once again."

She sighed.  "But eventually came a time when he changed...and didn't come
back.  He started to want control over me, to make me do whatever he wanted,
when he wanted.  He stopped wanting me for a person, and started wanting 'a
proper Japanese wife.'  The arguments got worse and worse, yet I forgave him
for it because I was too young to know better and every time he knew he went
too far, the old Yokotsura would peek out again.  If I knew then what I know
now, I should have realized that was the worst warning sign of all."
Without realizing it, she had begun to crawl into a fetal ball, shrinking
into herself, making herself appear as vulnerable as she was probably
feeling at the moment.

"Then one night, one final night, he stepped over the line, hurt me too hard
and too far.  I was his wife, his loving wife, and he didn't care...."  The
tears came freely now, the sobs too clearly of pain and suffering.  "All my
life, I've known nothing but love, despite my being a half-Japanese.  That
was what I thought was one of the things that Yokotsura loved about me - my
exotic looks."  Wiping her eyes, she looked lost, worse than the little girl
that Hikomei remembered, worse by degrees than anything he could ever
remember.  But as he reached out to take her hand in comfort, she jumped
back in shock, reeling over her chair.  The look in her eyes was wild,
terrified.  "Hikomei," she spoke in the softest, most barely audible voice,
she asked, "Do you still love me?"

Alarms went off in his mind.  For Breeze to ask him that worried him deeply;
she shouldn't have had to ask at all.  Worse still, she called him by his
full name, not the diminutive "ni-chan" she usually used.  "You know you
don't have to ask that, Soyokaze," he answered, standing up and offering his
arms to her.  "We're family.  You know you're loved."

"I thought I did," she whispered, her voice riding a wave of pain that came
from the past.  "I should have known...I should have known...."  She sank
down momentarily, sobbing.  "I should have told you, ni-chan.  You would
have protected me.  I'm so sorry...I'm so damn sorry...."

"For what?"  Hikomei was sure he didn't want to know the answer.

"For not being beautiful anymore.  For being ugly."

Aoi, in a heartbeat, knew what was wrong, yet prevented herself from wanting
to do something about it.  Breeze and Hikomei were siblings after a fashion;
it was something that he had to do to help; the ghost girl couldn't be of
much assistance save to her own husband.  Yet there was something that she
had to ask to break the growing tension, something minor that she could do
to at least break the dam that was hurting Breeze.  "Breeze, from what I can
see, you're a beautiful young woman, successful and strong."

Breeze's response shocked Aoi: "No, not strong.  Not beautiful.  Not even
brave enough to prevent *this*!"  Without warning, the young woman tore off
her clothing, ripping cloth and fabric with a sudden burst of anger and rage
that could only be directed at herself.  She moved fast enough that by the
time Hikomei moved to her side to stop it, the damage had been done.  "Look
at me, ni-chan!  Look at what he did to me!"  She looked back at him, her
face now tearstained, eyes revealing confusion.  "This is why I am ugly!"

Behind him, he heard his wife gasp, then could practically feel the
radiating waves of hatred that she was emitting.  Hikomei knew it was
probably taking Aoi all of her patience to prevent her from slipping into
old habits and hunting someone down.  But the fact was, she wouldn't react
that way unless there was a reason to.  Reluctantly taking his eyes away
from her eyes, he gave her a complete look, and what he saw brought him to
tears.

Breeze stood before him naked, just as she had as a little girl in their
childhood baths together.  Though the years had made her a very beautiful
and alluring woman, someone had taken that beauty and abused it in ways that
no person should have to suffer: dotting her skin were the scars of slash
marks, burns and other injuries he didn't want to identify.  Running down
the front of her body, from just at the cradle of her cleavage to just past
her navel were scars cut in kanji, as though she'd been branded...and not by
her own hand, either.

There was an inhuman scream that uttered, and for a second Hikomei thought
that Aoi had lost control.  It took him a few more seconds to realize that
the tortured snarl had been his own.  

Breeze leaned up against him, shaking and shivering, more from fear than
from cold.  "Please don't hate me, ni-chan.  Please don't hate me for this."
She looked up at him, green eyes lined in red from tears as she whispered,
"Please forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive," he spoke, his voice odd and detached.  Pulling
her as close to him as he could, he simply held her in an embrace as she
finally lost it and cried uncontrollably, breaking down in his arms.  The
look on his face was a tear-stained shame that he'd only found out now about
it, too late.  Taking a glance at his wife, he saw that, as expected, she
had a murderous look on her face, her beautiful blue eyes glowing with the
power that came as the Zashiki Bokko Hina.  For once, he didn't signal for
her to calm down; he felt much the same way.  But all he could do was to
stand there and hold Soyoko, being there for her now as he couldn't be for
when she'd suffered.


A few more minutes passed before she was calm enough to speak again.  "I
left him that night courtesy of an ambulance, and he left our home as well,
courtesy of a black-and-white.  A few days later, some of my friends came to
visit me in the hospital long enough to help me fill out the divorce papers.
One of my friends, fortunately, was studying law at UCLA, so she talked her
professor into taking my case.

"Yokotsura laughed at first, laughed all the way while in jail and when he
was released on bail.  He laughed until we got to court and things got
serious for him.  While I'd been patient enough in our relationship to hope
the storm would go away, others I knew weren't as naive.  He was besieged by
a huge amount of information that not even I knew about, countless details
of his emotional and physical abuse to me.  By the time he'd realized what
was happening, the divorce papers had been signed and I was left with
everything - the bank account, the house, the car, everything...and most
important of all, the chance to file abuse charges on him, with the chance
to put him behind bars for a very, very, very long time."  She paused for a
second, a moment that seemed more as though she was pursing dramatically
rather than genuinely fighting back the tears.  "But I didn't," she added,
her voice barely audible.

Hikomei and Aoi stood there for silent minutes, digesting that information.
It took pain-staking minutes more before Hikomei was finally able to ask,
"Why?"

"Because I loved him, because part of me still remembered the man who would
make me breakfast in bed, cuddle with me at night and constantly comment
that my smile was as bright as the sun rising over Fujiyama, only four times
more grand.  That's the Yokotsura I remember, not the insane bastard that
was beating me.  Maybe a part of me wanted to have the old Yokotsura back.
Maybe a part of me hoped that if I let him go, someday he would heal
himself.

"But instead of taking it as I wanted to, he didn't.  He simply left, and in
that motion, my love for him was gone, gone forever," Breeze responded.  "In
retrospect, I wonder sometimes how I could have ever loved him, why I didn't
see what was so crystal clear to everyone else."

"I just have one question: why didn't you come back home?"  Hikomei sighed
as he sat back down.  "We missed you terribly and when you simply said that
you weren't planning to return to Japan again, that cut us all.
"Personally, I felt terrible."

Feeling comforted by that, Breeze answered, "Thank you, ni-chan.  You have
no idea how much that means to me.  It really does mean a lot."  Opening a
drawer on her desk, she pulled out an oversized T-shirt, slipping into it
and covering herself again, at least enough to protect her modesty.  "But I
couldn't.  I didn't want to disappoint your parents, and especially you.
You're practically my older brother, Hikomei, I couldn't face looking at
you, knowing that I suffered in hell and it was all my fault.  Also, there
was the fact that grandmother, had she heard about it, would have laughed
about it and said that I deserved it because I'm nothing but a gaijin
half-breed.  And lastly, Yokotsura lives somewhere in Japan, I'm not sure
where, though.  Probably in Tokyo, but I'm not sure."

"I would have protected you," he said, dully.  "Against anything, against
anyone, Soyoko.  You know that."

Breeze nodded as tears came to her eyes again, but for a different reason.
"You have no idea how you make me feel when you say that.  I wish I could
have been born as your little sister for real, and not your cousin.  I wish
I told you."

Hikomei made to answer, but it was Aoi who moved this time.  Heading over to
Breeze and enveloping the girl in an embrace, the ghost girl said, "You are
his sister.  Maybe not in blood, but in his heart and yours.  And he - and I
- will protect you and be there for you whenever you need us, Breeze.  I
promise."

"Thank you, Aoi.  That means a lot to me."  Wiping the tears from her eyes,
she looked at her desk, finally noticing the piles of papers that had grown,
as well as the fact that family or not, she was still half naked.  "Damn,
and I have to finish this paperwork before I go home for the day, since we
have supplies coming in next week."  Sitting down back at the desk, she
forced a smile to her face and drolled, "Well, ni-chan, Aoi-chan, I'm sure
you two have better things to do than to sit here and watch me fill out
paperwork.  Tell you two what: why don't you go off to a museum or two, and
when I call it a night in a few hours, we can go out to dinner at this one
place in Santa Monica that I know about.  You'll like the place, I promise."

He glanced at his watch.  "Well, we have a couple of days in town, as well
as some business to finish up, but if it means spending time with you again,
it'll be worth it."  Thinking a second, he added, "Well, the Getty Museum is
nearby, and it does have some of the research facilities we wanted to use."

Breeze smiled as she tossed him a set of keys.  "My car's the black 911
parked out back.  I have an old college buddy who works as the research
center at the Getty, so I'll call ahead and see if he can let you in."
Feeling a bit more chipper now, she leaned over the desk and added, "Oh, and
one last thing."

"Anything," Aoi responded for the both of them.

"Now that you've seen me naked again, you think I've filled out okay,
ni-chan?" she laughed.  "Oh, and don't I get to see the same in reverse?
Can we take a bath together again, like old times?"  When both of them
started to blush, Breeze grinned and said, "That's my ni-chan for you, too
prudish for his own good.  See you two in a few hours."

~[*]~

When they'd first met in this lifetime, years back, Aoi had instinctively
known the heart of Hikomei, known it from his previous lifetime and how he
was now.  When they'd finally become a couple, the magic of their union
caused a mental bond between the two, not quite a psychic link but enough
for them to be able to understand each other.  Two years of marriage and a
child had only worked to strengthen that bond, as did their love.  Yet as
Shuzen Aoi tapped at her laptop, taking time from looking at the screen
every now and then to see her husband's matching laptop sitting there,
unused, and seeing the books he'd taken off the shelves unused, she couldn't
understand what was going through his mind.  That hurt her, not because she
was afraid for him, but because she knew she couldn't do anything to help
him at the moment.

Hikomei stood several feet away on the private patio of the research section
of the museum, staring out at the City of Angels from the museum's location
atop the Los Angeles hillsides as though the skyscrapers and urban sprawl
held some key to the clue of what had happened to Breeze and why.  The city,
the second largest in this country, yet there had been not a single person
out there that had been able to protect her from what had happened.

"Anata...." Aoi said softly, under her breath, but knowing he could hear.
She could have been back in Japan and said it, and he still would have
heard.  It was a testament to their love that the bond between them worked
the way it did, and while most of the time it was good, sometimes, such as
now, she wished she could do without it, as she wouldn't hurt just a little
less in being able to help her husband.  "Anata, it's not your fault.
Breeze said so."

"Did you know that my parents wanted to adopt her?" he said, speaking to no
one in particular.  His voice was soft and sad, almost as though he was
reluctant to make the statement.  "They were practically her parents
throughout her life, and they wanted to take the next step.  But my
grandmother intervened, fought it all the way."  He turned his eyes from the
cityscape to gaze at the Getty's garden below, hoping that if steel and
mortar couldn't supply the answer, flowers and xeriscaping could.  "If it
was up to her, she'd told my parents, Soyoko would have been given to an
orphanage and been forgotten.  She told my parents that she could barely
tolerate them raising Soyoko; adoption was out of the question.  Grandmother
wanted nothing to do with Soyoko; the baby reminded her too much of my aunt
Masaki, who they never saw again."  Finally he turned and looked at his
wife.  "Masaki...Soyoko's mother...never named the baby.  It was my mother
that gave her the name Soyokaze, the name she was always going to call her
daughter should she ever have one."

Aoi left her seat and went over to her husband.  Holding him, she whispered,
"Anata, you never cease to amaze me.  I've always known how big hearted you
were, but I've never known you to be like this.  Breeze is your sister,
whether it's official or not, and I know that you're hurting because of what
she had to say and what she had to go through."

Hikomei kissed his wife on the forehead.  "I would have going through hell
if it meant protecting her."

"You already went through hell - at least until Kogimi left you," Aoi said
in jest, hoping the words would help.  When that only brought a slight smile
to his face, she looked at him in the eyes and said, "If it will help, I'll
kill Yokotsura."

Hikomei was taken aback.  "Nani?  Aoi, you've *got* to be kidding!"

She shook her head, and spoke to him, her voice strobing in the tones of the
avenging ghost she truly was.  "Sometimes you forget I'm more than just your
wife.  I'm still the Zashiki Bokko Hina, even if I'm sort of retired from
that job.  I can do it, or I can force Kogimi to do it - the kami know she
needs the practice."  Holding her palm up, she willed a sphere of energy
into her hand.  "Maybe it's stretching the rules a little, but one of my
duties is to uphold the harmony of my home, which means my family.  Breeze
is family, and if she hurts, I hurt."

Hikomei stared at the ball of power in his wife's hand, looked at her
burning eyes, heard her multi-tonal voice ringing in his ears.  Though he
knew what she was, and had seen some of her powers before, this was the
first time he'd ever seen her truly as the Zashiki Bokko Hina.  "No, that
won't be necessary," he said, holding her close, knowing the revenant before
him to be his loving wife.  "I love you, Aoi, and there's no need to dirty
yourself by doing so.  Besides, I'm sure Soyoko wouldn't want you to go
to...all that trouble...for her sake."

"It wouldn't be trouble at all," Aoi answered, her voice returning to normal
as she banished her power sphere.  "I've done it so many times, you can't
imagine."  But she leaned her head on his chest and closed her eyes, hearing
his beating heart.  "But to tell the truth, I'd rather be a wife and mother
than an avenging spirit any day.  The job security of my old career might be
nice, but the benefits I get now are so much better."  She leaned up and
kissed her husband, smiling.  "So if you don't want me to, I won't.  But
should I have Kogimi scare the daylights out of him?"

Hikomei winced at the mention of his ex-fiancee, now the primary Zashiki
Bokko Hina...and not by her choice, either.  Nor was he aware as the senior
ghost, Aoi had that much control over his ex.  "No, leave the poor bastard
alone.  He's already lost the best thing he could have ever had, so that
should be punishment enough.  Besides, I don't want Kogimi getting any ideas
that we're actually paying attention to her."  The pair held each other for
a few more minutes before he sighed.  "Well, I guess we've wasted a trip
here.  We're not going to have enough time to get everything done before we
head back to get Soyoko.  I'm sorry."

Aoi smiled.  "It's not a problem, anata.  If you're happy and smiling, then
it's worth the effort to come up here.  Besides, we still have an hour left,
and that should be enough time to get everything done.  Just leave it to
me," she said, mock-rolling up her sleeves even though she was wearing a
sleeveless shirt.

"Well, I know that you're the better researcher," he answered as he sat down
at his laptop, "but there's a lot of material to cover before we leave."

"I can take care of it.  We ghosts have a way of managing these things," Aoi
said as she slid into her ghost form, her body turning transparent before
disappearing.  "Just work on whatever you were going to tell Breeze tonight
and I'll take care of the rest."

Hikomei paused.  "I hadn't mentioned that.  How did you know?"

A soft, disembodied laugh flitted in his direction.  "I'm your loving wife.
Of course I'm going to know.  Besides, if you wanted to keep it secret, you
shouldn't have left the files open on your laptop."  Some papers on a nearby
desk a few feet down the way ruffled in a mysterious breeze as Aoi walked on
down the hall, the only sign that anything was near there.

Hikomei closed the files, popping open his latest set of research notes for
their new novel.  But his mind wasn't there.  He was of two thoughts, first
being what he was going to tell Soyoko tonight at dinner.  The other thing
was an admission that he was damn glad to be married to his wife; though she
could still surprise him at times (or shock him, like just now), he knew
there was no one he'd rather have been with.

~[*]~

Dinner was a nice, simple affair at Verdi, the premier Italian restaurant in
Santa Monica.  Though people were usually used to dressing more sharply for
the place, Breeze, true to form, merely showed up in a crop top and khaki
jeans, with a pair of diamond earrings just for the sake of dressing up.
Behind her, dressed a little more for the occasion, were Aoi and Hikomei,
sporting a dress and a suit and tie, respectively.  Though she didn't have a
reservation, the maitre d' was a regular at her bar, so she got in with no
problem.

During the dinner, the three bandied around and chatted about other small
talk, how Hikomei and Aoi's daughter was doing, how some of their friends
back in Tokyo were fairing now, and many other things.  Over a couple of
bottles of wine, the trio rekindled bonds and grew new ones, and an hour
later, Breeze was happily calling Aoi "ne-chan".  Aoi smiled, blushing from
both the wine and the compliment.  

"Well, now that we're pretty relaxed," Hikomei said, "I can get to the main
reason that Aoi and I came to visit.  Soyoko, I came to visit not only
because I came to see you, but because it's time that you received your
birthright."

Breeze blinked, not sure she'd heard him through the buzz of the wine.  "My
birthright?"

He shrugged.  "That's what grandmother told my mother at her deathbed."  He
reached in his inner pocket and pulled out an envelope.  It was a
traditional style Japanese envelope, with gnarled, shaky kanji on it,
characters that read *GAIJIN*.  "This is for you.  Grandmother wanted you to
read it, but only when you were ready."  He noted the word on it and
sheepishly said, "She wrote it, obviously." 

Breeze looked at it as though it were a live snake.  "Ni-chan, I don't want
it.  I want nothing that the old bag has to say to me."  To prove her point,
she took the letter from him and tossed it onto the candle.  "I didn't
matter to her in life, and those words prove I don't matter to her in
death."  Breeze's face looked vicious in the dim light of the restaurant,
enough so that for a second, Hikomei wondered which of the women he was with
was an avenging spirit.

But to the surprise of all three, the letter didn't burn in the candle, nor
even catch flame.  Instead, the flames wrapped around it, giving a slightly
oily smoke.  The paper just sat there, not even getting warmed by the fire.
Aoi took one look at it and said, "Interesting.  I haven't seen anything
like this in centuries."

"What is it?" Hikomei asked, while Breeze thought she misheard Aoi.

Reaching into the flames without fear of being burned, she lifted the
letter, inspecting it.  "Ancient magic.  A special paper, from hundreds of
years ago, meant to be written on and sealed and only to be opened by the
person.  Your grandmother wrote it for you for a reason, and if it was
written on this sort of paper, then you have to read it...or you can leave
it be, but it cannot be opened by anyone other than you, Breeze."

"Bu...but...but h-how would you know that, Aoi-nechan?" Breeze asked,
staring at the letter Aoi had been holding, as well as the fact that she'd
stuck her hand into the flame without even worrying about being burnt.  A
split-second later, the tea-haired girl sighed in realization.  "Oh, your
research.  You must have known that the paper has some sort of protective
magical field around it that covers your hand, ne?"

"Something like that," Aoi responded enigmatically.  As she handed the
letter to Breeze, there was something knowing in her glance, an emotion that
Breeze couldn't read but was clear to Hikomei, who wisely said nothing.

"Something's on your mind, isn't it, Aoi-nechan?"

Aoi smiled demurely.  "Take it from me, Breeze.  Family is the most
important thing you can have in the world.  I love my husband so much,
sometimes it seemed like thousands of years that I waited for him to come
into my life."  Hikomei jokingly muttered under his breath something about
it only being hundreds of years, but Aoi merely elbowed him in the side
playfully.  "If your grandmother, who couldn't stand you your entire life,
gave you an ensorcelled letter like this, then can you ignore it?  Giri
demands that you at least take a look at it, but more importantly, do it for
Hikomei."

"I don't understand."  Emerald eyes never wavered from the letter long, save
to look at her relatives.  "I just don't understand."

Hikomei reached over and took Breeze's hands in his.  "Soyoko, I wish I
could give you answers, but I don't have them.  I don't."

The girl's eyes had wandered to the magical letter.  Without taking her eyes
off it, she asked, "It just doesn't make sense.  I mean, she thought of me
as less than dirt throughout my entire life and now she gives me this.
Why?"

"I don't know.  She wouldn't tell anyone, simply just to deliver it.  She
said you would understand when you opened it, and that we shouldn't be
around when you did."

"But what if it's poisonous?" Breeze asked, holding it like it was a live
snake.  "You know she'd do that, just for the hell of it."

"No, I don't think so," Aoi commented.  "For two reasons: one, you know that
if it was poisoned, Hikomei would have never given it to you.  We would have
checked and there are ways of finding out.  Secondly, as much as your
grandmother didn't like you, she adored Hikomei.  Do you think that she
would put her favorite grandchild at risk like that?"  Her eyes were
sorrowful as she added in a soft voice, "Even if she hated you with the
vilest anger on this world, she couldn't bear to hurt those she loved."

Breeze's eyes were flat; though she knew that Aoi's words never meant to
hurt, the prospect didn't help her much.  "Well, if you think it's safe,
I'll read it tonight, and we can talk about it tomorrow at breakfast."

Hikomei nodded.  "Hey, what's a big brother for?"

"Thank you, ni-chan," Breeze said, flashing him the warmest of smiles.  "I
appreciate that, everything both of you are trying to do.  I really, really
do.  But I do have one more question, if you don't mind."

"And that is?"

"Do I get to be tucked in tonight?" she laughed.  "It's been the longest
time since you did that."  The apoplectic look on his face kept the trio
laughing long into the night.
    
~[*]~

Later that night, seated at the dinner table with a coffee mug in front of
her, Breeze engrossed herself in the letter.  From the look on her face, she
felt uncomfortable opening the letter, but she knew she had to.  A part of
her wanted to wake up Hikomei, but that would have been unfair, as it was
two in the morning and he and Aoi were still asleep, recovering from the
effects of jet lag.  Additionally, it was something she had to do, a demon
she had to face on her own, whether she liked it or not.  So she took
another drink of her coffee and continued to stare at the letter.

Despite the impressive scene back at the restaurant, the letter looked
rather ordinary.  The paper looked like old parchment, the kanji on it
written in a gnarled but elegant script.  A silk cord was wrapped around it,
symbolically holding it shut, even though not even the strongest person in
the world would have been able to open the spellbound missive.  Yet to her,
it would be no different than opening an ordinary envelope, perhaps even
easier, if it had been keyed somehow to her.  All it would take to open the
envelope would be a slight deft motion of a hand or two, yet she couldn't do
it.  And so the letter sat on the table, right next to the Chips Ahoy crumbs
and the doll.

Breeze took her eyes from the letter to look momentarily at the doll.  A
gift that Hikomei and Aoi had brought, it was one of those traditional
Japanese dolls, except that for some reason it looked a lot like Aoi.  The
doll was dressed in a gray-and-plum kimono, and had beautifully brilliant
blue eyes, much again like Breeze's pseudo sister-in-law.  Hikomei said that
it was a doll from Hakone, meant to be a replica of the famous Zashiki Bokko
Hina of the area.  It was said that the ghost doll was a protector of men,
defending them from cruel and spiteful women.  Additionally, it was said
that anyone, whether male or female, who had a clear heart would always be
protected in the ryokan by the Zashiki Bokko Hina.  The end result was that
the replicas were apparently sold as good luck charms, suitable for
protecting homes and keeping harmony within the family.  

Even still, it was easy to see how such a case could be.  The doll looked
very friendly, as though if it were going to come alive and plant a sweet
kiss on Breeze's cheek.  Breeze smiled and left the doll on the table
instead of putting it on the curio shelf.  It felt as though there was a
friend here, someone to be at her side and give her the strength to open the
letter.  

Reaching for the letter, she tugged gently on the silken ribbon...and the
letter glowed with a soft white light.  To her surprise, the letter began to
open itself as a flower would, the ribbon, undoing its own intricate knots
and the envelope unfolded.  Within the center of the envelope, appearing in
a flash of snowy white energy, a folded piece of paper appeared, too large
in its trifolded form for the envelope.  She didn't even have to move her
hand before the letter unfolded itself as it floated just above the envelope
before gently wafting down to the tabletop in a shower of sparkles.  As it
settled, the soft glow went away, leaving the dim light of the room to
illuminate all that had remained.

Breeze reached towards the letter...then paused.  "I'm just not ready for
this," she murmured.  Part of her wanted to go back to bed and just crawl
under the sheets.  Another part of her wanted to sneak into Hikomei's bed
and sleep next to him just as they did when they were kids...although Aoi
might find that a bit strange.  So many options, all of which were wonderful
and quite helpful towards the main goal of avoiding the problem at hand.
But again, this was her demon to face down, her birthright, as Hikomei had
said.

Besides, the doll looked at her with a comforting glance in its painted
eyes, like an old friend there for Breeze in her time of need.  Chuckling
softly, she tussled the artificial hair of the doll and grinned.  "You know,
you really do live up to your reputation.  I really owe ni-chan for this
one."  Glad that the doll had somehow given her a bit more courage, she
reached for the letter and picked it up, turning her attention to the aged
letter:

=======================================================
Hafu:

Know that you are my granddaughter, whether I care for it or not.  Know that
I cannot escape this destiny anymore than you can.  Though I am loathe to
admit it, the ancestral family home has always passed to the oldest
daughter.  Since my own daughter has decided to forgo the ownership of my
house, I leave it to you.  Though I would rather burn it to its foundation
than to give it to you, fate cannot be denied.  Though I write this knowing
that I cannot change the past, I must follow the course of the days to come
and pass on the home to you.

When I die, hafu, you will own the house and all the land around it.  As
soon as you are given this letter, you are to return to Japan at once to
claim your destiny.  I have no idea what is to come to you in the home, but
I promise you that it will not be what you expect.  Eventually, you will
find out your destiny.  I only regret that I will not be there to watch it.
=======================================================

Breeze set the letter down, her skin crawling.  ((She called me hafu.  She
didn't even bother to sign her name to the letter.))  The slang insult for
Japanese people of mixed ancestry, "hafu," meaning half-breed or mutt, rang
in her ears.  But as she thought of it, the less it made sense.  Getting up
from her chair, she began to pace around the room.  It just made no sense.

((She calls me a half-breed and insults me in the greatest way, yet gives me
a spread that's worth even more than what I have right now.  She says she'd
rather burn it to the ground, yet tradition and heritage forced her to give
it to me because my aunt didn't accept it.  She really didn't consider me
her grandchild, why didn't she just use that excuse to burn the place or
sell it or something?  Yet she didn't.  What did it mean?

Breeze stopped pacing and thought about it.  There was no way she'd find the
answers here; the key to it all led only in Japan, in a home that she never
felt at home in, previously owned by a relative that she detested as much as
that relative loathed her.  Far away from her home, from everything she
knew...and just as bad, the manse was a distance away from Tokyo and her
family there.  She'd be isolated, solitary and facing the ghosts of the past
by herself.  What would her fate be?

Part of her seemed to shrink at that thought.  As she yawned and thought
about sleep, she knew she'd have to seek her brother's advice in the
morning.  He'd know what to do; he always did, and even though she'd grown
up and moved to her own beat now, having him here was something she needed.
Taking the time to kiss the doll on the head - somehow it seemed the right
thing to do - and whisper a soft, "Thank you," she headed for her own
bedroom, never realizing that the doll watched her as she sadly marched off.


Aoi stood still for a few more minutes as she watched Breeze head off to her
room.  Satisfied that the coast was clear, the ghost doll moved across the
table to the letter.  She read on, feeling bad about spying on Breeze, but
Hikomei was clear that he wanted to help her in any way she could, and there
were, as Aoi pointed out, many advantages to being a spirit doll; this was
one of them.  A couple of minutes later, she stopped reading the letter,
puzzled about how neutral and restrained the letter had been.  From what the
ghost girl had remembered of Hikomei's grandmother, she had always been an
austere yet refined woman, definitely someone who was used to the Japan of
old (or at least old insofar as the woman had known).  To see this letter
now almost spoke of a different woman, one that was filled with the venom
and hatred for someone who'd never deserved it but had learned to return it
in kind.

Maybe if the old woman were still alive, there would have been some way for
the breach to be gapped, some way for Hikomei and Aoi to do something about
it.  But there was really no way to, and now that old woman was amongst the
ancestors, in a place that not even Aoi could go.  But that was a problem
that could not be taken care of now, and there were other ones that were far
more prevalent in her mind.

Hopping off the table and changing back to her human form, she thought about
it.  The letter, aside from the brusqueness and restraint, was...well, there
was just something not right about it, nothing that the ghost girl could put
a finger on, though.  Maybe more would be clear in the morning when Breeze
told them about it; between Aoi's husband and some sleep, some sort of
answer would be clearer. 

The ghost girl looked once more at the letter, thinking about Breeze's
dejected state and how hurt she looked.  Once again, loved ones were hurting
and it was time to act.  However, this time it was more in the nature of
Shuzen Aoi to help, rather than the Zashiki Bokko Hina, and that would be
how she would handle it.

Taking the time to magic a replica doll into existence, she set it on the
table, turned off the lights and went back to bed.  Tomorrow would be
another day, and another part of the adventure.

To Be Continued


Author's Notes
This is a two-fold dedication.  First this story goes out to my friend Air,
the inspiration for Breeze from my aborted story Bossa for Sakurajima.  The
Breeze in this story is a little more like Air actually was (the BFS Breeze
was more like she idealized herself to be).  When she died, a part of me
went with her, and I couldn't continue BFS because of it.  But here I hope
to have found a way to honor her and let her live on.

While I was putting the story together, another thing happened to my artist
partner and girlfriend Fae, a rather distasteful event that I won't go into
here other than the fact that it disturbed her enough to the point that one
day when I made an inadvertent comment, I got a verbal strike for it.  The
story has nothing to do with her in particular, but it does touch upon the
fact that people can be abusive.  Just as the first everblue.... story
showed how women can be abusive to men, this one shows the reverse,
something that is sadly more common.

This is also going to be another couple of firsts for me.  Not only is this
the first sequel I've ever done to one of my stories (yes, all the
Neo-Kaidan World stories are interrelated, but bear in mind with the
exception of the cameos and crossovers, they all stand alone), but this is
the first extended original series I'll be doing.  Ganmo to Iroke (Wishes
and Desire, for those who would like a translation), will be several parts,
and if people like it, the second volume of an ongoing series of
everblue.... stories.  It's also a nice bit of practice as I'm segueing from
fanfiction to novel writing.

Next - 
Waxing Moon - Betsushikime

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