Chapter 3

Remember – this is fiction. Please don't take anything form here as real medical information. And the climatology/oceanography is very fictional a) because I am not a climatologist or oceanographer, and b) this is obviously a very fictional world.

Also, this is an AU. I've changed some of the reactions and feelings from the show to Hikari's return – this is my own take on it. In this chapter, Miuna and Sayu's thoughts and feelings are going to be a bit different. The difference between a 9 year old and 14 year old is bigger than I think the show gives it credit and I don't think they'd feel/remember 5 years ago quite as intensely – and the intervening years would have a bigger impact on their reactions.

So – anyway – enough jabber. On with the story!

School was torture for Miuna today. She just couldn't focus on class. All she could think about was Hikari, wondering if he'd woken up yet, if he was okay, what they were going to do now. It didn't help that Sayu and all the rest of her classmates kept stealing glances at her all throughout the day.

She'd pleaded with her Dad and Akari to stay home today – surely Hikari returning so suddenly after a 5 year absence warranted a day off of school. But Akari had insisted she go, saying it was important to keep up their normal routines as much as possible and that Hikari would probably just sleep and like some down time today anyway. And it was Friday – she'd get to spend the weekend with them all soon enough. Miuna supposed it made sense, she'd peered into Hikari's room to see him still sleeping, looking pale, before she left. But that didn't make the day any easier to get through.

During break, Sayu and several of her classmates eagerly asked her all about last night. Was Hikari okay? Did the other sea people wake up? Would they? Did he remember anything? Did he have fins and gills now? Miuna sputtered at that one and Sayu punched the boy who'd asked that stupid question on the arm. They'd filtered away once they'd realized Miuna didn't really have much to say after all. And it was true. She really didn't know much.

Soon it was just Sayu and her, sitting quietly.

"It'll be weird, huh?" Sayu finally said.

"What do you mean?" Miuna frowned.

"I mean," Sayu paused, shuffling her feet and looking out across the town. "All of it, I guess. He's our age now – or, we're his age, or…" Sayu huffed. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I guess." They were both quiet after that. Miuna remembered what it was like, following Hikari and his friends around five years ago. She blushed remembering her slight crush. But though she remembered it, acknowledged it, it was five years ago. And it really was only a small part of her life. Before that year she didn't know Hikari at all. And now – it felt like she knew him even less, much less how to act around her 'uncle' that was now the same age as her.

The whole thing was confusing.

Part of her wanted to be happy. And she was – really! Hikari was back – he was really, truly alive. She may have been a child, but she wasn't stupid. She knew how much the uncertainty about what had happened to him and the others bothered her mom, Akari. Miuna had noticed how she'd sometimes stop, and just gaze out to the ocean. She remembered the soft cries late at night when she was supposed to be in bed. So, she was, she was happy Hikari was back.

But if she was honest, it unsettled her too. Miuna felt like things were finally okay again. Things were different, but she'd grown up with it now, gotten used to it. To her mom, her dad, her little brother, Akira. To the sea being frozen and silent. But now Hikari was here and – what did that mean? Would everything be different again?

Miuna and Sayu finished their lunches and went back inside.

After lunch was cleared away, a neighbor came to the door and Akira left to go spend the afternoon with a friend. Hikari didn't go to see the little boy off, he just stayed at the table, listening with half an ear while looking around the room, taking in all the details. The frayed, well used kitchen towel hanging by the sink. The framed photo showing Itaru, Akari, Miuna, and little Akira smiling. The discarded coloring book, the smell of the recently cooked food. This was a well lived in, well-loved home. And Hikari didn't recognize any of it. It'd all happened while he was sleeping.

Akari came softly back into the room and settled down across from Hikari.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

Hikari sighed, slumping a little. "Tired, I guess." And he was, tired. Even though he'd just woken up not so long ago – had done nothing but sleep for five years. Five years! It was frustrating.

Akari gently took his hand, and pulled his arm towards her, examining his skin, or really, his ena. Already there was a fine crackling pattern, a tenderness. He was too dry already.

"Come on, let's get you some water." She pulled him to his feet and led the way to the small bathroom. Hikari wanted to protest, he wasn't some child or invalid, but he was tired and wasn't sure he wanted to say anything at all. He just quietly sat on the closed toilet while Akari began to run the bath water.

"What," Hikari started, then looked down, and started scratching softly at his forearm. He took a breath. "What happened? I mean, after." Akari turned off the water and started to add the salt. She seemed to know exactly what he meant.

"How much do you remember?" She asked.

"I remember, I remember the Ofunehiki. And the sea – the storm. How you," he gulped, hugging his arms to himself shivering. "And Manaka went into the sea, and I tried to get her back. I jumped in and I swam, and I saw her going down, but the currents were so strong, it was spinning, and I just…" He couldn't breathe – his breath rushed in and out of his chest, but he couldn't breathe, there was no air! Tears pricked at the corner of his eyes.

"Hikari!" Akari had rushed over to him, worried eyes forcing his head up. She quickly pulled his shirt off over his head, then picked him up, not even bothering with his pants, and hurriedly set him in the tub, in the warm salt water. She splashed some water onto his chest, his arms, then turned his head to look at her, her hands on his shoulders.

Hikari's panicked eyes meet hers. "Just calm down – breathe little brother. It's okay – it's over. You're fine, I'm fine, it's okay." Hikari kept watching her, letting the litany of reassurances wash over him as the water lapped around him. And he breathed, he watched her, and breathed. And slowly, he began to calm down, and looked down into the tub, at his soaking wet pants.

"I'm sorry – I don't, I didn't…" he trailed off.

"It's fine – don't worry about it." Akari reassured, smoothing a hand down his back.

"It's just – I feel like it was just yesterday, but…"

"I know, I know." Akari said quietly and they both just sat there. Hikari slid a little further down into the warm water. Akari leaned back against the wall of the bathroom.

"You all saved me, you know?" She said. "I was pulled from the water, and I was ok. Scared, but ok. Some of the boats, they tried to look for you all, they kept trying, but the sea was so angry. They had to come back. They had to protect everyone who was still here. All night the sea was furious. Like we've never seen before."

Hikari turned to look at her. Akari had a faraway look on her face as she stared across the room at the other wall. "The next morning, the sea was still. Eerily quiet. And we went looking again. The boats went out, divers went down, but the current, it swept them away. No one could get anywhere close to Shishishio. The sonar wouldn't work, nothing worked. And we couldn't find you. Any of you. And we kept looking, for days, and days."

Finally, she trailed off and looked over at him again. Her eyes shiny, a little wet. Hikari's heart lurched. He couldn't imagine. What she must have felt, not knowing what had happened to him. He didn't know what had happened to him. "It wasn't just Shishishio. Apparently there was a terrible storm at all of the sea villages. The news said they had all disappeared. The government came out, all these scientists. The sea stayed still, it got cold, it froze, and it was the same, everywhere. No one could figure it out. No one could get to any of the sea villages, or find them with the instruments. The currents were all changed. And it's been like that ever since. Until last night. Until you showed up on the beach."

With that, they were quiet again. Hikari didn't know what to think. He didn't realize. All he had been able to think about before was how unfair it was that they'd have to hibernate. How he didn't want to leave. How stupid it was, how angry it made him. He didn't think if it was the same at the other sea villages. He didn't know the whole surface government would be involved. He didn't realize. Suddenly, it was this big thing. And he didn't know what to think.

Eventually, Akari stood up, brushing off her pants and looking over at him. She smiled.

"It's nice to have you back." She looked around at all the water they had splashed up, at him sitting there still in his soaked pants, the water starting to go cold. And she laughed.

Hikari sat up and scowled. "Hey!"

"I'm sorry," she said, still laughing. "I guess I better get you some new clothes, huh?" She shook her head and walked out. Hikari scrunched up his face and scowled. His sister was weird.

It was just so strange. In some ways, it was like nothing had changed at all. Tsumugu woke up and had breakfast with Chisaki before she left for her training at the hospital. Professor Mihashi woke up late, had some coffee, and then they both pulled out their notes and computers, started looking at the data they'd collected and went to work.

But everything had changed. Hikari was alive. He was back. The sea had done something strange and incredible last night. The data was so different and astonishing. Now that they had a chance to look, strange mass they'd noticed last night had come in with an unprecedented underwater current, different from everything they'd seen before in the past five years of observations since the Ofunehiki. It hadn't come from Shishishio, not exactly, at least, as far as they could tell.

Tsumugu had meet Professor Mihashi just one week after the Ofunehiki took place. He'd been among some of the first scientists who had come swarming to the village to study the sea and what'd happened. They'd met because he was a klutz. Tsumugu had been on the beach, watching the swarm of activity, still trying to wrap his head around everything that had happened, that was still happening. And there had been Professor Mihashi, walking along the rocks, pilled with equipment, kind of off by himself. And then he'd fallen, waving his arms, looking ridiculous, and completely out of place. Tsumugu had rushed over, helped him back up, and helped him collect his equipment again. He just – he'd needed help and suddenly, Tsumugu wasn't frozen like he'd been for the past week. It'd felt good to help.

Unlike some of the others, Professor Mihashi didn't have a huge budget or a large team. It'd been just him and two of his grad students from the University. None of them had grown up by the sea villages. But they were kind, not aloof like some of the others. And so genuinely enthused about studying the ocean, but also really sad and actually seemed to care about what the locals were going though. Knowing this was more than a science case, it had been a tragic loss for so many here in the community. Family and friends missing.

And that's why Tsumugu liked him. They got along easily. He found himself going down to help them out after school, finding them on the weekends. Asking questions. In a strange way, it helped. Rather than sitting helplessly, worrying about Kaname, Manaka, and Hikari, he felt like he was doing something. At first, Chisaki never really understood that. She'd wanted to stay as far away from the sea as she could, but eventually, he thought she understood. Understood that he just wanted to do something to help. Personally, he thought that's why she was studying to be a nurse as well. To do something, to help, to not be so helpless anymore.

After graduation, it seemed a natural and obvious choice for him to go to the University where Professor Mihashi worked, to major in oceanography. While all the other scientists had slowly faded away over the years, drawn to the larger coastal villages with bigger sea villages and resources, leaving small Oshiooshi behind, Mihashi and his group stayed focused here. Because of that, Tsumugu got to do more than most undergraduates would, he got to help out more in the lab, help here with the field work, really get to know the graduate students and be part of the research while he was learning and working on his own studies.

And now this had happened. After spending the morning going over the data, they went back out to the ice to collect more observations and data. It was strange. Everything was back to normal. The sea currents, the stillness, it was like nothing had ever happened at all. They walked back and forth, used all the equipment they could think off, but as evening began to set in, it was clear that they wouldn't be finding anything. Not today. Whatever had happened last night, it wasn't happening now and it hadn't seemed to change anything.

They packed up for the night and went back. Tsumugu cooked dinner with Chisaki. They talked about their day and ate together. It was only after dinner was cleaned up and put away, when they were all sitting together quietly with some tea that Tsumugu let himself acknowledge what he'd really been thinking about all day.

"I wonder how Hikari is?" He said quietly to the room. Both Mihashi and Chisaki nodded.

"I'm going to stop by tomorrow," Professor Mihashi said. "I know it's only been a day – but I want to check in on them. See how things are – if we can help. And we really do need to know what he knows – if anything."

"Is that – is that really wise? I mean, can't it wait?" Chisaki asked. "I mean, shouldn't we give them more time?"

"I don't want to wait too long. His impressions of what happened could start to fade, and there's no telling if there is something we should be doing now – right away. I mean, not at least until we talk to him. Until then, we just can't know." Tsumugu nodded. It made sense.

"Would either of you like to come with?"

Tsumugu startled, not expecting the question and then looked over to Chisaki. She shifted uncomfortably, looked away. "We shouldn't overwhelm him, don't you think?" she said.

Tsumugu narrowed his eyes studying her. There was more to it than that he was sure. She never could met his eyes when she was lying or trying to hide something. But then, this whole thing was so strange. He couldn't really blame her for being uncertain, instead he just nodded.

"I'll go," he said quietly. "It might help if he has someone he knows and has already seen there."

"Wonderful!" Professor Mihashi said with some forced cheeriness. "You can help me take notes as well. I'll call first thing tomorrow and ask if we should bring the doctor by again while we're at it." He stood, collecting his empty tea cup. "Well, best be off to bed then. Another long day likely tomorrow. Goodnight you two!"

Chisaki and Tsumugu both nodded and quietly said their goodnights as well. After a few more minutes of quietly drinking their tea, Chisaki stood as well.

"I'm going to go as well. Goodnight." Tsumugu nodded, not quite sure what to say or do. Other than to just give it time and wait for her to be ready to talk to him, like he had for the past five years.

"Goodnight."