Frosted Reflection

If it had been a normal day, she would have been waking up in the morning, but she came to roughly around noon. Nerine and Seiji were already up and about their business waiting on her. She felt bad about making them wait, especially since she dragged them out in the night. Yumi thought that she had cut her sleep, but she misjudged what they considered just enough. “Sorry, you should have woke me up.”

“We tried, but you were snoring.”

“I was not,” she protested, getting a little red in the face. Yumi quickly pulled up the blanket from the wood plank floor, but paused when she could have sworn that she heard an actual laugh from Nerine of all people. ‘I’m glad Yuki wasn’t here…’

“I’m pretty sure he already knows.”

Her head snapped a quarter turn to Seiji. “I didn’t say anything!”

“You had a look.”

“I did not!”

“You did,” agreed Nerine from her corner.

Yumi roughly folded the blanket as part of her protest. “You don’t even have powers right now.” There was a bit of a pout in frustration as she finished the blanket.

“Don’t need mind reading to read that face, Yumi.”

“Ugh, you two.”

“You two are adults, it shouldn’t be that embarrassing.”

“It’s not. More frustrating that even you can read me in these moments.” It would have made sense if Nerine picked up on it, that was part of her training, but Seiji too. She wasn’t sure if that said something about herself or him at this point.

A bit of a laugh came from Seiji watching Yumi. “While that hurts a bit, you probably should be more focused on him than me. He’s not an idiot.”

“Yes, I know, he already knows I have no doubt. We’ve been through a lot of this together. Hard not to.”

“He probably knew for much longer than Yumi. Give him some credit. The way the others tell it, you weren’t exactly subtle.”

“Yes, yes remind me of my failings as a teenager in love. This is hardly the time for such a topic.” She finished her packing and walked over to steal from dried meat. “Have you heard back from your spies?”

Chapter 541 – Frosted Reflection

Nerine closed a book and placed down the brush. It was impressive that she had learned Japanese while in the world, though Yumi noticed the grammar didn’t make any sense or the structure. It was likely some code that she wrote the thing in to prevent others from reading her private ledger. “Two of them so far. They’ve confirmed the acceptance of the mission, but we won’t know more than that for a while. They were able to confirm that Komagata hasn’t made it to the outpost yet.”

“Good, so we’re still on a good schedule. Are the horses ready?”

“We didn’t push them that hard, so they’ll be fine. Though depending on today, we might need to rest longer for them.” Seiji picked up the few things of theirs that they brought in and finished the cleaning. They walked out together to the makeshift stables, which was more just a place where one of the farmers kept their only horse. It wasn’t the best accommodations for them, but it worked.

Pushing back to the road, they could follow the tracks left behind by the retreating army with ease. It would have been difficult to have such a force move in a stealthy way, though Komagata focused more on getting to safety rather than protecting his men. They were meant to keep him safe rather than the other way around.

Once they started to get closer, Seiji took the lead on the trip. His family trips gave him the knowledge of the area and better paths that they could travel that an army couldn‘t. It brought them out ahead of the marching troops, though still another half day's travel from the outpost.

They were already part of the way into the mountain with the outpost on the fringe before getting to cold climates. Their blankets were needed to stay warm through the night, even if it still hovered just above ten degrees Celsius.

The new day came and they reached the outpost a few hours before Komagata. Seiji and Yumi had to remain hidden within the outpost while Nerine skulked about the shadows. If she was spotted by anyone in the outpost they wouldn’t know her unless it was Komagata himself, while Seiji’s face would be recognized by everyone. And Yumi didn’t know the area and couldn’t risk her face potentially being seen.

Yumi rubbed her hands together, keeping warm since they couldn’t move around much. Even in the late spring the mountain wasn’t a warm place to be. “You trained up here?”

“You get used to the cold. It’s not so bad. In ways, I actually prefer it up there compared to the city. It’s quiet up here and you can get a clear perspective on what’s important.” There was a bit of a trailing tone to his voice as he finished getting a little lost in thought.

She knew the least about what happened to Seiji and the others during the decade plus that they were away. The world couldn’t have been easy for them anymore than it was for herself and the others. They had been fortunate to not be alone, but this was different than what they were used to living in. “Did something happen while you were here?”

“That’s a rather broad question, but not quite what you’re thinking.”

“Then what?”

“It’s not exactly the time to be getting into personal matters, Yumi.”

“We’re waiting for Nerine to return. Besides, consider it payback for your teasing the other day.”

“Payback is it?” A bit of a smirk came over his face that she returned.

“We’re friends,” she answered more seriously after a moment. She honestly knew very little personally about Seiji despite their time together. Yuki knew him and was more his friend than they were. But after their journey to Atlantis, even with everything that happened and the trouble she caused, she wanted to think of all of them as friends.

She wanted to know more about him, especially since he was so willing to dive into this nightmare with her, not that he knew what the ordeal would entail at the time. Though she got the feeling that even if he knew he still would have come. “If I can help.”

“Don’t really know if there is something to help. Nothing’s really happening, which I guess is part of the problem. But being stuck in here, there’s not a lot that I can really do about it, but think.”

“Something going on with your family,” she guessed.

“It’d be harder finding someone in our group that isn’t.”

Nodding in agreement, she didn’t know everyone’s story, but it seemed to be accurate that everyone had some sort of family trouble. “I guess that’s fair.”

“But you don’t know my story, do you?”

“I guess it never came up. I sort of only joined when everyone was already together and going to Atlantis. Once we were there, there wasn’t a lot of time to share stories.” It had been one fight to the next in the real world. In a way, this fake world came as a bit of a break from the depressing world that she belonged to. Thinking about what they had to return to, she didn’t look forward to it. Unlike here, the choices she made had permanent consequences and there wasn’t a right path necessarily. “But I’d like to know.”

He took a breath thinking about the tale. Honestly, the only one that she knew much about his past was Yuki and to some degree Saki. It wasn’t really a thing that he had spoken about. “Huh, even Nerine doesn’t really know.”

That surprised her a little that he kept it from Nerine. “Why haven’t you told her?” she asked as though it should have been natural for him to say these things.

“She doesn’t speak about her family either. I guess we’re both rather solitary people. Though, I think in her case it might be because she’s been separated from her family. Given how her people are treated, it might not be a pleasant thing to talk about.”

“Seiji, you're avoiding me.”

“Yeah, I guess I am a little. I don’t really talk about it, can’t blame me for dodging it. Not that it’s really that big of a deal really. I mean next to Yuki, it’s like I’m complaining about getting only water next to someone that’s dehydrated.”

Seiji leaned back against the stone of the mountain that the store room they hid in was partially formed by. The cold earth numbed his body a little, making him forget. “You know I’m part of a family that looks over a Shinto shrine, right?” She nodded as much to him, it was what most of his friends knew about him and where most of it ended. “As you already know, we all have complicated families and being here has forced me to see that again. Family is first and the most important, honor, pride, all that.”

“Very traditional values.”

“Something that my grandfather adheres to as well. Something that caused a lot of clashes. My parents aren’t even living with us anymore and so he’s ruling us with an iron fist. Shoji’s still young enough to find it all enjoyable, but for a while I blamed my grandfather for losing my parents. These days I don’t know, I know it’s more complicated than that. And they never told me the story.

“But this world just has me pondering the value of family. As an adult, I see better what my grandfather was trying to do, even though I still think he could have been more understanding. I sort of want to sit him down and just have a conversation. Not sure it’ll make anything better, but…I don’t know…maybe it’ll be something.”

Yumi watched him stare long at the small window in the wood paneling of the store house. While he did drop a few things on her, she could tell that he kept things significantly more brief than reality. More went on in his family than he explained and likely wanted to hear at the moment. Friend or no, it was a private matter and she would be butting in where she didn’t belong.

However, there still seemed to be something that bothered him from the expression he had. Something else that linked the two together, it was a strange feeling she got. It was the part that truly bothered him more than what he told her. ‘What’s eating him? I’m so used to the more carefree nature of Seiji that seeing him serious and pensive is a little off putting.’

It felt like a potential land mine and place that maybe she didn’t belong, but it deeply seemed to be troubling him. Something more than his family matters that he explained. The thought of that worried her more for what it might be. “What’s actually bothering you though?”

Breaking his thought, Seiji turned to his left to look at Yumi. The look in her eyes told him that she seemed to see through him. His brow lowered a little troubled that he let that much show to her. He stared a little longer pondering the matter.

Unlike the matter with his family, it wasn’t something that he had thought about. It kept getting kicked down the road until later. Part of that was because of the fact that he could really do nothing about it currently. So explaining it to Yumi would really not serve much purpose for him.

It was a part of him that he really didn’t like anymore and had shoved it away into a dark corner of his adolescence. Unfortunately, it wasn’t something that he could continue to ignore. Reality would catch up to him and he would have to face the matter head on.

Seiji turned back to the window, keeping to his thoughts. However, that was something for the future. “Not something that I’d want to discuss at the moment. Another time perhaps.”

“Seiji, if it’s bothering you that much.”

“No, Yumi this one I feel I need to confront on my own first before I talk to others about it. It’s a very personal matter. Please understand.”

“Fine…but I’m here for you.”

“I know. And thanks. I’ll let you know when the time is right.”