Nebula Nights: Love Among The Stars

by Melisse Aires

  Outside my apartment, we don’t say a word, but there is one more kiss to get me through the night. He reluctantly walks away, backing down the hall, not taking his eyes from me as I palm the lock. When I open the door and turn back, I only catch a glimpse of him for a second before he disappears into the shadows at top of the stairs.

  Chapter

  Twenty

  The next morning, I wake up, get dressed, grab my bag, and go to the kitchen to have breakfast. Once again, Aunt Lomo is alone at the table. Huh.

  “Where’s Aunt Kimie? Still in bed?” I ask as I load up a bowl of rice and grab some cold miso soup from the fridge. Mmmm, nothing like a good breakfast to start the day.

  “No, sweetie. Strangest thing. Kimie was up again early and left five minutes ago while you were in the bathroom.”

  I stop stock-still, chopsticks paused in mid-air.

  “She was mumbling about getting something done. You know how incoherent she can be in the mornings.”

  Yes, and for Aunt Kimie to want to wake up and leave several mornings in a row before 8:00, she must have something pressing to do, like stopping me from continuing to work with Sakai. Stopping me completely from going to Ku 6 ever again. Stopping me from seeing Jiro.

  “Uh, Aunt Lomo, I’ve gotta go.” I drop my bowl on the counter with a clang, the chopsticks bouncing off into the sink.

  “Oi! Sanaa, be careful,” Aunt Lomo’s cries are muffled as I beat a hasty retreat from the apartment, sprint down the stairs, and burst onto the streets of Ku 9. If I’m quick enough… if I run flat out, I might catch Aunt Kimie before she makes it to the dōjō. What is she going to say to Sakai? Would she expressly forbid me from ever seeing him again? I can’t let her do that. She owes me as much of an explanation about my life as Sakai does.

  The dōjō is on the other side of our neighborhood. Why does it have to be so far away? Aunt Kimie probably took a bicycle taxi. She’s way ahead of me by now.

  Too many people are on the street this morning. I sprint three blocks and turn onto the main boulevard and some crazy person is trying to hold up a produce delivery. I nearly punch him when he finally gets out of the way. He’s lucky there are too many witnesses. I have eight more blocks to go on this street before I turn the corner, and I run them as fast as I can. I’m dodging in and out of people and almost knock over a little girl who steps in front of me. Sorry!

  When I turn the corner, I finally get so impatient I shove past everyone and run up the last two blocks. The dōjōentrance is right in front of me so I sprint full out to the door and up the stairs. The sound of a heated argument inside brings me up short outside the dōjō door. Ouch! Oh my gods, my body hurts. Damn Jiro and his furious sword fighting workouts.

  I will my breath to calm and my heartbeat to slow down — which is incredibly hard to do — until I’m able to listen in. If I can’t stop Aunt Kimie right away then I’m going to eavesdrop until I can figure out what’s happening.

  “What is going on with Sanaa?” Aunt Kimie pleads. “She hasn’t been going to work. I’ve tried to surprise and meet her a dozen times in the past few months. Now I follow her around, and I see her come here in the morning… to meet you. You! Of all people, Mark Sakai. I told you to stay away. We had an agreement.”

  “Kimie, please. The colonization is beginning early, and I had to act fast…”

  “I’m so scared for her, Mark. They’ll find her. We tried to hide. We moved wards three times!”

  “There is no place you could go where they would not find you. Junko knew that. She always knew Sanaa would be pulled into this someday. She was prepared to raise her straight into it.”

  “Don’t you dare talk about my sister like you knew her. She loved Max. She chose to be with him, not you.”

  My heart quickens again.

  “What happened between me and Junko and Max is none of your business!”

  I have never heard Sakai yell like this. He’s usually so expressionless, ruling by quiet fear and judicious use of eyebrows, not by screaming.

  Silence permeates the room, and I can hear my own heartbeat and ragged breathing. Do I go in now?

  “Kimie, she preserved the line. She followed the law. She kept the line intact for Sanaa. She told me to make sure Sanaa understood her heritage and her rights. She trusted both you and me, but I should never have let her grow up anywhere but Ku 6. That was a mistake.”

  What the hell is Sakai talking about? Law? What is this?

  Aunt Kimie must be stunned into silence because Sakai continues at a lower volume. “She never married him. Just like your mother never married and her mother and her mother. Did you really think Junko did that because she didn’t want Sanaa to continue the line after she was gone? She loved Max, much to my dismay, but she loved her people more than any one man.”

  “People. Those people would hunt Sanaa down and kill her to be rid of the line once and for all.”

  “We won’t let that happen. Sakai clan has always protected the Kiku, and we will continue to do it until the end of time.”

  Again, the talk of kiku. My Japanese is good, as good as any born in Nishikyō, but maybe this is a term or thing I’m just unfamiliar with. I’m tempted to get out my tablet and conduct a search, but Aunt Kimie starts back up again.

  “She’s just a child — a smart and capable child — but still. How?” Though Aunt Kimie might be crying, I’m offended. A child? I’m twenty years old. There are other girls my age getting married and having babies. “No, no. I must move her farther away. We’ll hide out in Ku 10 if we have to…”

  Oh no, this cannot go any further. Without thinking, I burst through the doors, and both Sakai and Aunt Kimie whirl around to see me seething with anger.

  “Sanaa, you’re late… by about five minutes.” Sakai’s foot taps as he crosses his arms. I was expected.

  “We’re not going anywhere, Aunt Kimie, and I am not a child anymore.”

  “Sanaa…”

  “No! I’ve been living in the shadows of secrets and lies now for too long. I thought my life was normal. But it turns out it is very far from that, and all because both of you have been hiding information from me. I demand… no. I deserve to know what’s going on.”

  They both love me, but they each have conflicting ideas of how I should live my life. Jiro’s words echo in my head. When did it stop being my life to live?

  “This has been the most confusing year ever, and you both are not making it any easier. I essentially gave up the job I wanted to do since I was a little girl because I had no choice. I’m convinced it was the right thing to do even though Mark still refuses to tell me everything.” I turn my hardest stare on Sakai.

  “He has told you nothing? Nothing of our family?” Shock tinges the edges of Aunt Kimie’s voice.

  “No.”

  “Nothing about your parents’ deaths?”

  “No.”

  “What have you been doing all of this time?”

  “Watching the clans in Ku 6. Learning all the key players. Training.”

  Aunt Kimie narrows her eyes at me. Oops, she’s not happy about the training.

  “Iaido,” I squeak out.

  “Who?” She turns on Sakai. “Who has been teaching her sword fighting? Mark, it’s worse than I thought. You? Your brother?”

  “My youngest nephew, and he is quite capable.”

  “Jiro,” she says, nodding, and I’m shocked into silence. She knows them all. “This explains a lot.” Aunt Kimie sighs. She seems smaller all of a sudden. Beaten. “Mark, this is way out of my hands now. How could you do this without asking me?”

  “Would you have said yes?”

  Aunt Kimie shakes her head and picks up her bag. “No, but having a choice is better than no choice at all. Tell her. Tell her everything. Stop lying to her. I was wrong. She’s a woman now. She deserves the truth.” She turns and leaves the room without another word, not even looking at me.

  As soon as Aunt Kimie is gone, I burst into tears. I can
barely look at Sakai, and I’m afraid I’m going to lash out at him again if I do. But as quickly as the murderous feelings arise, they are replaced just as hastily by regrets. My actions have brought this on, and I’ve disappointed Sakai in a significant way. Before yesterday, he wasn’t prepared to tell me anything for quite some time. Now I’ve forced him to.

  He takes a big breath and sighs before enveloping me in a hug. We’ve had physical closeness on a few occasions but something about this makes me cry even harder. I love him, as much as I love Aunt Kimie or Lomo. I feel like an ass when I remember the way I goaded him in the beginning.

  “Mark, gomen nasai. I tried to keep the secret, and it must have been my own actions that gave me away.”

  “No, no. This was bound to happen.”

  His chest is shaking, and, when I pull back to look at him, he’s laughing, but his face is still clouded by sadness.

  “Kimie,” he sighs. “She does not let go of an idea once she has it in her head. Tenacious to the last.” He gives my shoulders a small squeeze. “When we first met, I was worried being only half-Japanese would make you less resilient somehow, but I was wrong. You have your father’s fire, too. He was a good man. Though I wanted your mother for myself, I was relieved she had chosen someone smart and strong.”

  He turns to grab his bag.

  “Sanaa, I have hidden you for most of your life. I have given you every ounce of protection I could, but someday, someone was going to figure out all my deceptions. I had no idea you would look so much like your mother, and it would give us away. I have many important things to show you, and there are things only Kimie can tell you. But you have studied the clans for a reason. You know the history of Old Japan?”

  “Yes, mainly Heian period to the Environmental Decline.” I twist my hands together in fear, wanting to go back in time and not know anything.

  “We can never beat the clans. They will always rise and fall. They will always fight each other for the opportunity to rule.”

  The history of Old Japan was a long and turbulent one. Though my strengths have been in numbers and math, I’m also good with dates and names. History is my second love after the sciences, and I have read numerous books on the old civilizations including a few on Japan.

  Sakai puts his hand on my back and leads me to the door. “For centuries, the clans in Japan enacted one war after another, taking hostages, doing battle on the field, killing thousands. There were the samurai, the nobles, the peasants, the outcasts, and the caste system. But that all came to an end after the Tokugawa Shōgunate, remember?”

  “Yes, they ceased fighting and united under the Emperor, and he ruled until World War Two.”

  “That’s right. Well, it’s time for unification to come again.”

  Chapter

  Twenty-One

  “Sanaa, I’m about to give you all the truth, and I hope it somehow makes up for the past few months of keeping everything from you.” Sitting down in the theater in Ku 1, Sakai recites this as if he memorized his speech months, even years, ago. “It’s safe to say only me, Koichi and Mariko, Kimie, and Coen-sama know this secret, though I suspect Minamoto is sure he has the right information, and he got it from Matsuda. It’s a long-standing secret that has been passed down through generations of our families.”

  “Mark, just tell me already, or I’m going to faint.” I am slightly light-headed. Sakai can be long-winded, and this is seriously not the time.

  He turns to the terminal, and when he has what he’s looking for, he throws the information on the big screen for me. Immediately, I recognize my own family tree. Finally.

  In a little box at the bottom is my name, all alone. The only offspring of Charlotte Griffin? Wait, who is this?

  “Mark, what is this? I really don’t understand. What is this?” I shout, hysteria making my voice rise and my vision blur.

  According to this family tree, I’m the only offspring of an aunt I didn’t know I had. Next to my father on the family tree are two sisters: Sharon and Charlotte Griffin. Neither married. Under Charlotte Griffin is my name, Sanaa Griffin.

  On the other side is Max Griffin connected to Junko Itami with only one offspring, Hanako Itami.

  “Hanako.”

  Sakai reaches over and grabs my hand, but I am so shocked, my grip is completely limp.

  “That’s your real name, Sanaa. Hanako.”

  All three boxes that contain Hanako, Junko, and Max are grayed-out indicating they are deceased.

  “Little flower,” I whisper. Hanako means little flower, and it’s what Aunt Kimie called me until I was about ten years old. “Would you hurry up, little flower? Little flower, you’ve grown so much.” I told her to stop calling me that one day, and she reluctantly agreed with tears in her eyes. I never understood. To me, it was a silly nickname.

  “Sanaa, breathe! You’re turning white.”

  I suck in an unsteady breath, and the desk in front of me tilts.

  “Mark! Mark Mark Mark.”

  Oh no, I’m going to puke right here.

  I push myself away from the desk and lean forward getting my head between my knees. Sakai’s hands rub my back up and down in steady strokes. I concentrate hard on the pressure and try to ground myself in his presence.

  “Mark,” I ask from between my legs, “if I’m Hanako, who is Sanaa Griffin? And Charlotte Griffin? Why is there an aunt I never knew I had?”

  “Sanaa, we kept all of this from you to protect you. Never forget you are Junko and Max’s child. Are you all right?”

  “I think I can bring my head up now.” I rise up slowly, the nausea abated, and stare at the tree again.

  “Three children? My father’s mother had three children?” You need a permit in Nishikyō to have more than one child. Two is a luxury. Three is insanity. “Twins. They were twins.” Charlotte and Sharon. With names like those, of course they were twins.

  “Your Aunt Sharon had a twin sister named Charlotte. A beautiful, red-headed firecracker of a woman…” Sakai’s voice trails off, and my eyes widen with shock.

  “You loved her too, didn’t you?” The laugh that escapes my mouth is incredulous. “Mark Sakai, are you serious?”

  Sakai becomes absolutely stoney with me again, and I know I’ve hurt his feelings. Well, good.

  “Don’t you become high and mighty with me, Sanaa. I lost two women I loved in one day. Not to mention my own child.” His voice rises. I’m afraid he’s going to yell at me now, and tears well up in my eyes before I can stop them. “I loved your mother, Junko, but she rejected me. I loved Charlotte, and we had a baby together, but I wouldn’t marry her. Now, I regret it. I regret it all.”

  “The real Sanaa Griffin was your daughter?”

  “She was.”

  I often thought about what a great father Sakai would be, and he was a father for a brief time.

  “Mark, I’m so, so sorry.”

  Regrets. So many regrets.

  I reach over and hold his hand steady when, in fact, I want to climb into his lap like a little kid and have him hold me, but we’re both adults.

  “Why I am switched with her, Mark? There must be some reason why you did this?”

  He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “You always know the right questions to ask. You and the real Sanaa were born less than a month apart. Your real birthday is December twenty-third, not January first. Your mother and Charlotte were pregnant at the same time, and, had you both lived, probably would have been the best of friends besides being cousins. All of us were very close, even your Aunt Sharon at the time, though I know she is quite distant now. I’m sorry.”

  I nod and try not to think about it. Her betrayal is still fresh to me.

  “It was a complete fluke that the night your parents died, you stayed home with Kimie and Lomo. You were running a fever, and they didn’t want to bring you. It was a family birthday party, but Sharon could not attend either because of work. So your mother and father, Charlotte and Sanaa, and several other fam
ily members were in the building when it exploded and killed them all.”

  “It wasn’t an accident, Mark.”

  “No,” he says sadly, his shoulders falling. “Whoever engineered the explosion, and I believe it was Matsuda, wanted to kill off your entire family. I’m not sure if he was acting alone or at the behest of someone else. The day after, I faked the records and made it look like you died and switched your identity with the cousin who did die. It was easy enough because no one ever questioned it. Only a few of us actually knew Sanaa was my child so they never suspected anything.”

  “But…” I’m so confused, by all of this. “If you were trying to pass me off as Charlotte’s, who would believe Aunt Kimie and Lomo would adopt their sister-in-law’s child when Aunt Sharon should have done it?”

  Sakai stares hard at me. “Your Aunt Sharon committed herself to Ku 2 and claimed she was unfit to take care of you. Your aunts volunteered. No one said a word.”

  “Yet Aunt Kimie and Lomo raised me as Junko and Max’s child.”

  Sakai nods. “Because you are their child, Sanaa, and that was the bargain I entered into. Kimie and Lomo would raise you as Sanaa Griffin in name only because Kimie could never pretend you weren’t Junko’s. She just couldn’t bring herself to call you Charlotte’s. So she offered to raise you only if she could tell you the truth about your parents. The only way to do that was to raise you outside of Ku 6. They couldn’t have you going around and telling people you were Junko Itami and Max Griffin’s daughter. The truth would have ruined everything.”

  He’s right. I’ve told my friends, never believing it was different. To me now, only the name is different.

  “I offered to stay away. No one outside of immediate family knew the real Sanaa, the one who died in the explosion, was my child, so I could stay away. I didn’t want to draw suspicion on you by being around you all the time, and it’s a good thing I did. You grew up to be just like your mother in almost every way. No one now will look at you and think you’re Charlotte’s child.”