Part I - Summer - "... we couldn't sleep."

That first night, Cameron couldn't sleep.

After lying awake for hours—Heinrich out cold in the guest room next to him, his snores audible even through the wall (though it wasn't the snoring that kept Cameron up; after three years he was more than used to the sound by this point)—Cameron sat up, crawled out of his futon, and left the guest room that had been prepared for him, his bare feet still unaccustomed to the texture of the tatami floor below—yet another characteristic of the classical elfen-style housing that Cameron still hadn't completely gotten over (M: "What's that look?" C: "Huh? No, nothing." M, pouting: "You're surprised we having running water and crystal power, aren't you?" C, who wasn't even sure there was going to be a proper sewage system in Lazumere: "N-no … Of course not …")—and crept silently through the dark hallways of the Nocturne estate.

As he walked, his head was filled with the scent of the fragrant oils that had seeped into his skin wafting up from his body.

… He smelled really good.

Earlier, after a delicious, if not slightly awkward, dinner ("This is good soup, Mrs Nocturne! We don't have soup in Crystal City." "You … don't have soup in Crystal City?" "Oh, er—I mean, we do, but … just … different." "Oh. I-I see …")—during which Miyu's father left the table after finishing his bowl, saying a grand total of zero words to the new guests (C, afterwards: "He hates me!" M, reassuringly: "He doesn't hate you … Papa doesn't actually speak too much Common, you know? You're gonna have to learn some elfen dialects if you wanna talk to him more …")—Miyu approached Cameron with a smile and a clean towel, folded neatly in her hands.

"The water's ready," she said. "You're the guest, so you get to go first."

"Oh, no," said Cameron, shaking his head, "I don't take baths. I'll just shower—"

"You should bathe."

"No, really, I—"

Miyu, smiling, closing in: "You should bathe."

"Um, I don't know if—"

Still smiling, despite the area around her eyes darkening, as if in shadow: "… I'd be very happy if you would consider bathing."

"O-o … okay."

And so he took the towel and went into the bathroom—literally, a room for the bath, with nothing but a square bathtub filled to the brim with scented water (atop the surface of which a lone purple flower floated), with a showerhead and small stool just outside the tub.

He was familiar with the elfen style of bathing—at least, conceptually. Clean yourself outside of the bathtub first (scrub, rinse, etc.), and then get into the tub and soak.

Which to Cameron, all seemed like a considerable waste of time. Because okay, now you're clean, but then you sit and wait in water? For what reason? It just seemed like time where he could be doing something productive. Or time he could be spending with Miyu. Or doing anything else, really.

… And as such, it was not without a certain amount of begrudgement that Cameron, after scrubbing his pores clean of all the sweat and grime that had accumulated over the course of Yuka's Wild Ride in the midday sun and rinsing all the soap suds off his body, entered the bathtub, slowly, starting with his feet, then one leg, then both legs, the tub overflowing as he lowered the rest of himself into the hot water, the displacement of the water making an admittedly satisfying—and somehow relaxing—sloshing sound as it splashed out of the tub, onto the stone floor below, slightly angled as to direct any and all displaced liquids into the horizontal drain along the bottom of the tub; and it was about the time when the water level reached Cameron's upper chest, the warmth of the bath enveloping him completely, that something clicked inside him, and he understood, all at once, why the elves bathed the way they do.

"It's like the water," explained Cameron, after he finally got out (he could've stayed in there for hours, if Heinrich hadn't knocked), to Heinrich, "just releases all of your stress. I didn't even realize I was stressed, until I got in. I can't describe it. It's like …" He sighed, blissfully. "… It's like being back in the womb."

Heinrich, incredulously: "… 'Being back in the …'—and here I thought saying weird shit was my thing."

"(That's, uh … unexpectedly self-aware.) Anyway, you're up next. You gotta try it."

"You know, I'd love to, but you keep talking to me. Can you go away? I'm trying to get undressed here …"

Later that night, after everyone had bathed, Miyu's parents retired to their bedroom, and Miyu, Cameron and Heinrich played cards in Miyu's room for a bit (H: "S-so this is what … a girl's room … smells like …" C, quickly changing the subject, afraid Heinrich was about to pivot to the topic of sweat enzymes: "Does, um—Would your brother like to join us?" M: "Elegia? No … Probably not …") before they found themselves too tired to continue, their eyelids too heavy to keep open any longer. (Yes, including Cameron's.)

… Which made it all the stranger when, after Cameron retired to his own designated guest room and crawled into his futon, sleep never came.

He was certainly tired enough.

In fact, he should've conked out as soon as his head hit the pillow.

So … what gives?

Now, in the middle of the dim, moonlit hallway, Cameron stopped in his tracks, jolted out of his reverie by the sudden sight of five faces on the wall, staring back at him through the darkness, the features of each visage still—despite being obscured by shadow—instantly recognizable; after all, he had been with four of them the entire evening. … Which meant that the one unfamiliar (well, perhaps not entirely unfamiliar, given that Cameron had seen that same face on the altar earlier …) face in the painted family portrait, the young red-headed boy, must have belonged to—

"—Boo."

At the sound of the sudden voice behind him, and the accompanying tap on his shoulder, Cameron's skeleton literally jumped out of his skin.

"M-Miyu! You scared the sh—…" He lowered his voice. "What are you doing up?"

"I could ask you the same question," whispered Miyu. "Can't sleep?"

"Can't sleep," nodded Cameron.

"And … you thought that standing in front of our family portrait would help? You were staring so intently at it," she whisper-laughed. "Stop looking at it."

Which set him up nicely for all sorts of teasing retorts, such as, I can't help it, look at all that baby fat you had back then, I just wanna squish that face …; or, Look at Elegia, you can really mark the passing of years by comparing the length of his bangs between now and then … and so on. But the statement that actually left his mouth, ended up being a simple, declarative, "… You're not smiling in this."

(And in future recollections, Cameron would go back and forth on whether or not this simple observation constituted the act of the Second Instance—in the end deciding that his comment, being an innocuous statement that merely aligned with all the future Instances out of simple coincidence, ultimately did not qualify for such a distinction.)

"Yeah, I dunno," said Miyu. "Probably wasn't feeling great that day."

"Oh," said Cameron, who left it at that, ignoring the nagging feeling in the back of his head that surely the portrait painter would've drawn an expression that captured the essence of Miyu, sick or not (it's not like the painter captured an instantaneous moment in time—well, maybe somebody would invent something that could do that one day—saaaay, doesn't an image of the outside world appear on the inside of a dark area when light shines through a tiny hole …? That seems exploitable somehow … maybe with crystals there was some way to capture that image …), in favor of focusing on his quickening pulse, the sudden rush of blood to his face, as Miyu grabbed him by the hand and led him, quietly, to the back of the house ("Where are we going?" "You'll see …"), where she slid open the paper shouji doors that lead to the wooden engawa outside that overlooked the back courtyard. (… Which was itself another part of her father's massive garden.)

Cameron stood at the boundary just before the open door. "Miyu …?"

She smiled, gestured with her head toward the night air. Her eyes sparkling in the moonlight. "Come on."