The Open Sea III

Iron bars separated Haruki and Anemone from the rest of the ship, with more of those pancake-like short men pacing about on the other side, seemingly preoccupied with unseen tasks.

Flare Cavernheart, leader of this band of pirates, had taken both of them below deck and imprisoned them within the biggest ship’s makeshift brig. Haruki had fought the urge to resist, since he was pretty sure Flare and the rest of her merry men could probably fold his spine in half if he even tried.

The cell was cramped—only populated by two beds bolted on walls opposite to each other, a single latrine, and a tiny circular window that was only small enough to fit a housecat, if it would even open. There was no way out except the way they came in.

Anemone curled up on the bed opposite Haruki was sitting, though she didn’t appear too perturbed with the current happenings. In fact, she looked the opposite of sad. Haruki could make out a faint but genuine smile on her hips.

“You seem happy,” he said flatly.

“Well, I’m not,” Anemone said, though her expression seemed to betray her. “There’s nothing to be happy about. We’re trapped. Imprisoned. But…”

“But?”

“I prefer this.”

Haruki narrowed his eyes in disbelief. “What, you’d rather we be here than out there?”

“No, it’s not that.” She shook her head, a single tear shattering when she swayed. “It’s still better than being trapped in the castle at home.”

Haruki squinted. There was no way she thought like that. He crossed his arms and leaned forward.

“You serious?” He gestured at the dirty hardwood floor and pale yellow-stained latrine. “Look at this. It’s… jail. It sucks. You’re not even gonna get a shred of privacy when you hit the loo, Anemone. And the bread,” he said, peering beyond the iron bars. “It’s probably gonna be stale, probably gonna be moldy too. We might die here.”

“I know.” Anemone giggled. Had she lost it finally? “It’s awful. You’re right—we might even die here. But you know what? We’re here because we chose to fly. I… I was born imprisoned. Day in day out, it was only those fancy marble walls, those endless forests and fields, then the Sky Legion…”

“We’re here because we were reckless.” Haruki clicked his tongue at himself. “We let our guard down.”

“At least we were able to choose.”

“And now we can’t.”

“True, but still,” Anemone looked up to the ceiling, her eyes following the two small insects circling the overhead lamp. “I’m still glad we went. Thank you for taking me this far, Sir Haruki.”

Haruki sat further up the bed and leaned on the wall. He stared at the girl in front of him. Curious, he asked.

“What was life like in Ka’Ilyah? What was life like for you, the princess of that kingdom?”

“Ah,” Anemone blinked. “Was all my yammering not enough to give you a clue?”

“Oh, I have a clue.” Haruki shifted. “But a clue isn’t necessarily indicative of the truth. I don’t wanna assume your life from our quips and anecdotes. I wanna know more about your life. I wanna know why you hate being you so much.”

Anemone embraced her own knees in a curl. “Would it change anything if I told you?”

“Why would it?”

Her eyes affixed on his, clearly watching the skepticism etched on them. “Because you’re starting to look like you’ll take me back if my answer doesn’t satisfy you.”

Haruki looked away. He fought the thought—he did consider it, but would have never acted on it. “I’m just having a hard time imagining you’d rather be here than here.”

“When it wasn’t boring, princess work was hectic. When it wasn’t hectic, it was boring. Even if you were bored enough, they’d never let you out of the castle,” Anemone said. “Study geopolitics. Study culture. Study the economy, learn how to manage money and the kingdom coffers. Learn the world so you can learn more about how people think and feel.”

“Sounds a lot like school,” Haruki muttered, though Anemone could hear. Not like it mattered.

“Sir Haruki, I learned so much in my early years. And yet, in a fit of rebellion, I escaped the castle, ran into a village a day of horseback away from home.” Anemone looked down wistfully. “And when I went there I learned… that nothing I learned was ever useful. People were different. Life was different from what the books said. You have to chop wood, grow crops, think about what to eat tomorrow, and how you’d get it. The books never taught me that that’s how normal people think, even amongst my fellow—well, other full elves.”

Haruki nodded. “Then what? Did you find that way of life appealing?”

“Not at all,” Anemone said. “That world was a prison, too. And nothing of what I learned in those books, from all those tutors, even gave me the faintest idea of how to alleviate their suffering.”

“So you wanted to learn more about the world outside? That’s why I found you wandering the woods when I crashed into you?”

A chuckle left her chest. “Heh, well, I wasn’t planning anything in particular on that day. That day was just me having fun outside. I’d grown a habit of escaping the castle premises when I was bored.”

Haruki smiled. “Of course. Silly me.” His expression then stiffened. “Though it sounds awfully like you actually do want to help others. Why don’t you want to be sovereign, then? That’s the best way you can actually improve their lives, you know?”

“Because I don’t want to carry that yoke.”

“Then what do you wanna do?”

“I just wish to live before I die.”

A funny thing to say for an elf. Then again, she wasn’t a full one, and Haruki had no idea how long a half-elf would live before they started to truly age. “Elaborate?”

“Is there anything to elaborate? I meant exactly what I said. I don’t want to carry the people’s burdens. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life sitting on a throne, deciding things for others when I don’t even understand a shred of what they have to go through everyday.”

It sounded much like irresponsibility. Though again, Haruki wasn’t one to talk. He went to the Hanamigaoka countryside that day to escape the everyday, even for an hour. He even wished he would never return. Wish granted. Now he was in a prison of his own doing.

“I’m not taking you back,” he insisted. “I promised you I’d fly with you. And then there’s what Marina said… about taking you to the Federacy. She said there’d be a better life. I’d want that for you.”

“Hmm.” Anemone’s feet rustled the bed’s dirty white sheets. She glanced at Haruki. “What about you? What was your life back in your world?”

Struggling to find where to start, he clung to an idea she might have already known.

“I guess it’s not too different from the everyman’s struggle here,” he said. “You work, do everything you can to make sure food’s on the table tomorrow. People own businesses that have hundreds, if not thousands of workers in their employ. We all do the same thing day-in and day-out. Sometimes you go home on time—most of the time you don’t.”

“That sounds awful.”

“It is.” Haruki sighed heavily. “And you can’t just escape. Money rules the world. You can’t just go out into the woods, disappear, and hope to come back to society. When you leave, you leave. Many who do never come back, in case they didn’t die already.”

Anemone blinked, her curiosity poking at her. “Are there elves like me?”

Haruki shook his head. “None. We’re all humans there—Sapia, as your world calls us. In my world, this place could only be seen in stories, books… moving pictures. Elves like you and a freshwater sea like the one below us were mere fantasies. Fiction.”

“Fiction, huh…” Anemone looked out the window, watching the growing waves outside, then turned back to Haruki. “And how are you liking our world?”

“Hard to say. This and the Sky Legion were unpleasant surprises I would rather not have had… but everything else is pretty nice.”

“Can you tell me something you liked about your world?”

“Something I like…?”

“Yeah. Something you really do miss and wish you didn’t have to part with.”

Haruki paused and took a breath. He searched the memories floating in his head. Surely, there was something he still yearned for back home. Surely—there was something he loved about Earth.

An image of Mr. Junk working to build the Kenichi Modern flashed in his mind. Countless hours spent building it in tandem. All the pain, the sleepless nights, all the laughs and tears… he missed it.

Then another image emerged. A girl.

Her face, though faint, resembled a woman his age—three years ago. Her long hair draped over a blue office worker uniform, its details blurred by faded memory. He couldn’t remember her face anymore, but he remembered the feeling of her smile. Warmth. Tenderness. Then—hope, but extinguished just as fast.

Feeling discomfort from having to stare at the mental image of a faceless woman, his mind substituted Anemone’s face where the woman’s should have been. A perfect fit, disturbingly so. Did Anemone resemble her, or did he warp her image to fit Anemone?

“Well, there were more planes back in my world. Most of them are way cooler and way more advanced than what I brought with me,” he said, voice high with enthusiasm, but when his words ended, a sudden silence replaced them.

“There’s more, isn’t there?”

Haruki frowned, eyes darting back and forth between the floor and Anemone’s gaze. “I guess there is.”

“Tell me.”

“There was a girl. Knew her from when I was still studying. We ended up in different companies, but despite that, well… we were romancing each other. We call it ‘dating’ in my world. Yes, we were dating.”

Anemone nudged herself closer to the edge of the bed, curiosity drawing her. “Tell me more.”

Haruki bit his lip, battling the urge to stop telling the story.

“We were really close. Though due to the nature of our separate work, we rarely found time to nurture the relationship. I felt us getting more distant by the day. And then one day, she just… vanished.”

“Vanished?”

“Some said she died. Accident. Some even said she took her own life because of work, but if she did, everyone would’ve known, right?” Haruki’s voice grew grim. “Either way, she was so gone that it was so much easier to write her off as dead. Even I did. That way, everyone could properly grieve for someone who wasn’t coming back.”

Anemone’s eyes drooped. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“It's been a long time. No need to be sorry.”

“Do you miss her?”

He gazed at Anemone. “I don’t know, really.”

A third voice chimed in—a woman’s.

“Nice story.”

The words threw Haruki and Anemone back into their respective walls.

Flare was sitting on a chair, leaning forward with the backrest between her legs. There was a haughty smile almost indelibly drawn on her face. It was the face of someone who had probably heard most of what they all said.

“Y-You!” Haruki stammered out. “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough to hear most of what you two said. As to when and where exactly? I’ll leave it to your imagination.”

Anemone’s brows furrowed. “What do you want?”

Flare turned to Haruki, answering Anemone’s question.

The feet of her chair clacked rhythmically against the hardwood floor. “It’s pretty obvious your funny machine flies.”

“So you can tell.” Haruki crossed his arms. “And what of it?”

“I want your help with something,” Flare said, still smiling. “Not like you have a say about it, being my prisoner and all. But let’s just say I wanna build some rapport.”

The waves outside the ship began to churn, and old wood underneath creaked. Haruki tapped his foot to match the clacking of her chair.

“Right now? In the middle of the storm?”

“Yes. And this is the perfect time. Again, you got no choice,” Flare said. “But as a bonus, the leaf-lover princess can watch.”

Anemone hissed quietly.

Haruki tilted his head. “So what is it?”

Flare beamed at him. “What say you to a little bombing party?”