fic for gomushroom (6/6)
For: gomushroom
From: 64907
Part 5
The viceroy is perhaps one of those people in the universe that Nino immediately dislikes on first meeting. He is positive that his opinion of the man won’t change, given that every word that comes out of the viceroy’s mouth is full of conceit and doubt. For an ally, the viceroy exhibits behavior that is anything but. He questions even the design of the space station, insisting that had it been Jun who had to visit Eos, his accommodations would be incomparable.
Despite Jun’s claims regarding his acting, he manages a sheepish, convincing smile every time a barely concealed insult is hurled at the Union. Nino is impressed more than ever, because Jun is one of the most honest people he knows. But Jun’s responsibilities come before anything else, something he shows with his patient and humble demeanor despite the viceroy taking jabs at Jun’s youth and assumed inexperience once in a while.
It is Sho who fumes at every slight, but he doesn’t do anything other than glare when the viceroy is preoccupied.
The viceroy continues to rattle on about the Union’s incapabilities, highlighting how important Eos is in times of war and why the Union should be more amenable to any future requests the planet might have. He tells parables from Eos to hide his utter disagreement for the Union’s views regarding preservation of life, and Nino spends a few minutes trying not to roll his eyes.
“Truth be told, Ambassador,” the viceroy says, using Jun’s title casually like it means nothing, “I’m surprised the Union still wishes for peace despite the looming threat we face. Have we not had enough conferences about the merits of refining our joined forces?”
“As much as possible, the Union would like to not resort to violence. If war can be prevented, we try our best to work towards that. You would forgive us for the idealism and wish for peace. Earth has seen too many wars even before the discovery of hyperspace. A repeat of it on the intergalactic level is one we want to avoid if we can,” Jun explains. He doesn’t smile, but he keeps his expression neutral.
“It’s quite interesting to hear that coming from you, Ambassador, given the company you keep,” the viceroy says, something that catches them off-guard.
Nino sees Sho freeze at those words. The viceroy is looking right at Sho, and Jun has to clear his throat to get the man’s attention back to him.
“I have no idea what you could mean, viceroy, given that I don’t dwell on the past,” Jun says defensively, jaw clenched.
“Oh? But it is strange to me,” the viceroy says, rising from his seat to pace around the private meeting room, “that someone who has seen so much war and injustice as a child ought to be stuck in a peace envoy.” He looks straight at Sho and addresses him this time. “You are a Sakurai, yes?”
“I am, “ Sho says. To his credit, his voice doesn’t falter, but Nino can see how he grounds himself, hands tightly fisted behind his back so the viceroy can’t see them.
“And your family has friends who turned out to be chancellors, viceroys like myself, rulers, ambassadors, even governors. Most of which, I’ve noticed, are in favor of war. And those who are not don’t exactly have clean records themselves.” The viceroy is lingering in front of a contemporary mural on the wall.
Nino doesn’t know a thing about Sho’s family because it’s a sore subject. Whenever Nino opened up about his, Sho never reciprocated, instead apologized for never being able to tell Nino a thing. Sho told him his only remaining tie to his family is his surname, nothing more. That he doesn’t consider himself one of them on most days. Nino never pried, but to see Sho so uncomfortable is making him angry.
“Viceroy, pardon my inability to comprehend the meaning of this, but I hardly think this is relevant to the topic at hand,” Jun says firmly, but the viceroy pays him no mind. Nino can see Jun wanting to do something, but he seems at a loss for what to say.
“How is it that a Sakurai like you ended up so far from Earth? Is that the Union’s way of showing forgiveness for ineptitude?” the viceroy asks, and Nino wants to hit him. He balls his hands into fists at his sides, reining in his temper so as not to embarrass Jun.
“My father’s actions are his own, just as mine remain mine,” Sho says, as calmly as he can manage. He doesn’t break his eye contact with the viceroy, who smirks at his answer.
“Yes, the spawn is never responsible for the misdeeds of the father,” the viceroy agrees, continuing with his pacing. “That’s how you escaped the blame, yes? When the Union found out who refused to lend a hand after the rather unfortunate circumstances that Nyx VII suffered, the punishment was never extended to the immediate family, only to those who were partly responsible. The Union’s form of justice seems particularly one-sided to me.”
“What,” Nino whispers, not understanding a thing.
Jun abruptly rises from his seat, slamming both palms flat on the table’s surface with force. “That is quite enough, viceroy. If you have no more pressing concerns, I call this meeting adjourned.”
“You know the old Terran saying, Ambassador. Keep your friends close and enemies closer. I think I understand more now.” The viceroy makes his way to the door, bowing so low it’s as if he never instigated anything. “Until we meet again.”
He departs the room after that, but Nino can’t focus on it. The man’s words ring in his ears, and he faces Sho slowly.
“Tell me what he was talking about,” he says carefully, slowly, his anger rising gradually.
“Nino,” Jun says as a warning, but Nino shakes his head fiercely.
“Tell me, Sho-chan. What did he mean by that?”
“Now is not the time,” Jun says, hand closing around Nino’s elbow.
Nino turns to him. “Did you know?” Then he laughs. “Of course you knew.”
Sho faces Jun and bows deeply. “Ambassador, I apologize for my selfishness, but if you could give us a moment, I would be most grateful.”
Jun searches Nino’s eyes, and Nino makes sure every bit of his suppressed rage is present on them. “There are cameras,” Jun says as reminder, his grip on Nino slacking. “None of which I have control over. As far as I am aware the cameras won’t pick up what you will speak of. I only ask that you don’t get violent.”
Sho is yet to rise from his bow. “I thank you.”
Jun leaves then, doors swooshing shut behind him, and Sho straightens.
“Explain that to me,” Nino says, crossing his arms over his chest to prevent himself from doing something he will regret. “And don’t leave anything out. What did he mean by this refusal to lend a hand to Nyx VII?”
Nino has never seen Sho look so defeated. “My father was friends with your governor, one of the people who voted for him to be the governor of Nyx VII in the first place.”
“And? How is that related to the rescue?” Nino asks, fearing the answer. He can’t look at Sho anymore, hating himself for his cowardice. “That madman of a governor we had never asked for help.”
“But someone else in the colony did,” Sho says, and this is the first time Nino has heard of this. Not even the theses nor the incident reports he read had this.
“Don’t lie to me, Sho-chan. Don’t.”
“I am not.”
Nino stares at him. “How is that possible? They confiscated all our pads and comms before he announced the list of who made the cut and who got to be acquainted with a firing squad. All means of communication were closed off even before the massacre took place.”
Nino should know. He’s been there. He lived it. He’s a survivor of the incident.
Sho shakes his head. “Someone in the colony sent radio frequencies asking for help,” he explains. “And it was decoded by a stray satellite of the Union. At that time, the leadership regarding other off-world settlements was being decided upon. The decoded message was delivered to the hands of those men making the decisions.”
“And your dad was one of those people.”
Sho nods gravely. “They paid it no mind because it was a distress signal via a radio frequency. Nobody uses radio anymore; it’s too obscure. They thought it was all a hoax, a long forgotten prank, and because my father believed in the governor, his friend, he convinced the rest of the board that it was nothing.”
Nino somehow manages a laugh, breathless and hollow. So there was someone to blame other than the governor. All these years there was someone else out there he could have focused his anger on and he never knew until now. “How did I survive?” he asks quietly, feeling so detached from his own words. “If they paid it no mind, how did I survive?”
Then he remembers the same thing he read in all the articles about Nyx VII.
“I survived,” he mutters, answering his own question, “because the families of the colonists began reporting the sudden stop in communication, so the Union decided to check up on us.” He shuts his eyes, exhales in heavy, measured breaths. “Then what? What did your father and the rest of the board do after that?”
“My father was convinced that the governor would never cease communications without reason.”
Nino’s eyes widen in understanding. Suddenly the room feels too cold. “He knew,” Nino says disbelievingly. “Your...father. He knew we were dying. That my friends were being killed. That we were next.”
Sho’s bottom lip is trembling and he won’t look up anymore. “He believed so much in his friend that he tried to cover up for it by buying the governor more time. To make things right, he thought Nyx VII only needed a bit of time.”
“That bit of time cost thousands of lives,” Nino whispers, unable to stop himself from shaking. He can hear it again. The declaration that Nyx VII was experiencing a food shortage, that crops were dying, and that who goes and who stays would be determined through application of eugenics. Survival of the fittest, the governor told them, and elimination of the unfit.
He shuts his eyes, afraid that once he opens them again he’s going to see it all again: the towering flames, the stars that are so far away, obscured by dark clouds formed by smoke, turning piles upon piles of bodies to ash.
He keeps himself upright by gripping the back of the nearest chair. His voice doesn’t sound like his own when he uses it, like he’s watching himself perform on some stage, like he’s not him at all. “Tell me what happened after.”
“You know. Everything that is in the reports, that was it,” Sho answers. He sounds so far away and Nino focuses on breathing in and out. “When the Union saved the remaining colonists, my father lobbied for lifetime imprisonment for the governor.”
“That monster is alive because another one ensured it,” Nino says, snorting in laughter. “How is your dear father now?” He blinks and faces Sho, wondering if his face is the spitting image of the man who chose to protect a person in power over the people who believed in them. “Is this why you don’t want to talk about your family with me? Because I’m bound to figure things out and you thought I couldn’t handle it?”
“I thought you wouldn’t take it well,” Sho admits, eyes on his feet.
“Because I’m not mature enough for it?” Nino spits. Sho grimaces and sets his jaw, eyebrows knit as he shakes his head in denial.
Nino exhales. “What happened to your dad? Don’t tell me he’s in the Union now, because I will find him and demand answers if he is.”
“Once they found out what he did, the Union decided to keep him in permanent isolation. To my knowledge, he remains isolated for life, if he is still alive,” Sho says. He doesn’t sound like he has any sympathy for him. He sounds as if he is talking about a total stranger.
Nino is still breathing hard, clutching at the chair for support. This wasn’t how he expected their last mission to go. He put it all behind him months ago. Why does it keep coming back? Why does it continue to haunt him no matter where he goes? Hasn’t it been enough? The faces chasing after him change but the nature doesn’t. It’s all the same, always reminding him of the nightmare that no kid should have gone through. If this is the price of survival, then was it worth it?
He grits his teeth and starts letting out air between the spaces, shushing lowly. Stop, he wants to say to the voices in his head. Stop tormenting me. Stop following me. Leave me alone.
Remember your colors, he reminds himself. Blue, green, brown. Again. Again.
He hears Sho take a step closer to him and he raises his arm to stop him, fingers outstretched.
“Don’t. Don’t come any closer,” he says, focusing on one spot on the floor.
Sho remains rooted where he is, and Nino wills himself to calm down. It’s all in the past. Jun said it, didn’t he? They don’t dwell on the past. Sho has nothing to do with it. It was his father, not him. The child can’t choose their parents, and no son has to pay for the sins of the father.
“Do you know what angers me?” Nino says, jaw trembling as he struggles to keep his emotions in line. They are all threatening to burst forth, tipping over the edge. All it would take is for him to snap.
Sho has so much regret in his eyes, his shoulders slumped, expression guilty. Nino can’t imagine how he feels because he has no more room to feel anything else. “Nino…”
“What angers me,” Nino continues, ignoring him, “is that you kept this all from me. You knew. From the moment I spoke of it after Zura, you knew I was a survivor of the horror your dad and our shitty governor created together. That’s why you looked at me like that on that day.”
He laughs, unable to believe what he remembers with clarity. “Was it a form of repentance on your part? All we did, all we had, all we shared these past months...was that you trying to make things right for someone like me?”
“No,” Sho denies quickly, shaking his head fiercely. “It has nothing to do with that.”
“Then what was it? Were you trying to save the victim from the things that sometimes kept him up at night?” Nino says. He doesn’t know how he can still smile, but it feels appropriate to do so. He might be sneering but he can’t be sure.
“No!” Sho insists, looking upset now. “I wasn’t using you. How can you think that?”
“With all the things you chose not to tell me, I’m not so certain what to believe anymore,” Nino says, stepping back, putting distance between him and Sho. “Let me help you remember. The way you looked at me when you first learned the truth about me? That was you pitying the victim. But I wasn’t a victim, Sho, I was an example. Something to remind people that monsters only take different faces. And now mine is coming back, in the form of that fucking viceroy who uses truths to taunt, truths which you would have kept for as long as you could, Jun as your loyal accomplice. That’s why he hired me, isn’t it? As a way to help you? To assist in your remorse?”
“I never knew you were a colonist until you disclosed it to me. That wasn’t a lie. The Ambassador’s reasons are his own, but if you think I’ve been lying to you all these months, that’s where you are wrong. Did any of those feel like a lie to you? Like I merely saw you as a tool?” Sho is angry now, staring disbelievingly at him. They never had a fight like this before.
“I have no idea what goes on in your head,” Nino says. “I rarely did, and now I’m sure I don’t really know you that well. Tell me honestly. Did you even have any plans of telling me?”
Sho shuts his eyes. Says his name as if he’s begging, but Nino won’t have any of it. “Answer the question, Sakurai-san,” he says, stressing Sho’s last name.
Sho’s silence lingers and it’s enough of an answer. Nino laughs, not knowing what else to do. He wants to be angry, but he doesn’t know where to direct that rage. Sho stands there, looking vulnerable, and a part of Nino itches to give him a taste of what he’s feeling, but he can remember how being with Sho felt. Real, like he was truly wanted. Like it was a place where he felt secure, where he had an equal who understood him. Was it all some wishful thinking on his part? Him seeing things that weren’t truly there?
Nino is not so sure of anything anymore.
He takes a step back and slowly makes his way to the doors.
He hears Sho call him out, repeated mentions of his name. “Nino. Nino, please. Please.” Sho sounds certain of what Nino is about to do, and Nino can’t help laughing. How is it that Sho knows what he’s going to do when he hasn’t even figured out that part himself?
“You once said you have no control over anything I choose to do and that you’re not going to ask me to stay,” Nino reminds him, looking over his shoulder. “Were you lying?”
“No,” Sho answers. He sounds cornered and exhausted, even helpless. “That was the truth. Still is.”
Nino takes a step and the doors open.
He walks out, not looking back.
--
He finds Jun on the observation deck of the space station, overseeing the repairs of the ship through tall glass panels, hands clasped behind him. He’s the exact mirror of the Sho Nino first met.
He approaches Jun without grace, footsteps loud in the room. Jun’s eyes meet his in the glass, and Nino doesn’t waste time.
“What you said when you hired me,” he says, cutting to the chase, but Jun doesn’t let him finish his question.
“That remains true to this day,” Jun tells him. “I hired you because Nyx VII was in the Delta Quadrant and a year ago I have never been here before. I hired you because when I asked Sho-kun to help me eliminate candidates, you were the most qualified among all those who met my standards.”
“Forgive me for having doubts, Ambassador,” Nino says, choosing to be formal to detach himself from it all, “but given your reputation of looking out for your crew, I may have had cause to believe otherwise due to recent revelations.”
Jun whips his head around to face him, eyes narrowed. “I won’t have you question my decisions. Not when I answered you truthfully. If you think that I employed you because of Sho-kun, then you are doubting not only me but also yourself and your capabilities. I will settle for you questioning yourself, but you will not question me. I know what I did and I know why I did it.”
Nino appreciates Jun’s brutal honesty. He prefers it over Sho’s reluctant one. He walks towards the glass windows and stands just a few paces’ distance from Jun.
“I received it,” Jun tells him when the silence has stretched long enough. “Before you found me. Do you mean it?”
Nino sent a resignation notice to Jun’s data pad before he even went looking for Jun. Whatever he thought he might find in space, it wasn’t this nonstop reminder of what he can’t escape. He’s done. He wants to walk away from all of it completely, from everyone who knows about it. Trying to prove to himself that he can keep on surviving wasn’t one of his brightest ideas. He can admit that now.
“You have my thanks for the offer,” Nino says, pertaining to the permanent position on Jun’s team. But he can’t. He can’t when he remains attached to what’s been holding him down for years. Until he has settled things with himself, there’s no place for him on the Masquerade. “But I will have to decline. And yes, I mean it. But since the mission is not over yet, I will stay until its conclusion.”
Jun sighs, breath fogging the glass for the briefest of moments. “And the return trip? Will you still join us for that?”
Everything in Nino’s quarters on the ship reminds him of Sho. He doesn’t think he can go back there even after the refit is finished and the room is cleaned. He can recall how many sleepless nights he had on that bed just thinking about being in space and in the Delta Quadrant.
“No.” He already made arrangements. “I’ve enlisted myself onto a passenger ship set for Earth. You need not worry about me.” He faces Jun and bows in combined apology and gratitude. “I’ve been in your care for more than a year and I am grateful for the opportunity, the experience. My sincerest apologies for any inconveniences this decision will cause you.”
“I’m not saying I understand,” Jun tells him, and he straightens up again. “But you have your reasons and you think this is the right thing. I may not agree, but the choice is always yours. I can respect that.” Jun inclines his head at him. “I’ve also been under your care. Thank you for your services.”
Nino spends some more minutes watching the ship’s ongoing refit, then he excuses himself and starts heading towards the exit.
“Nino,” Jun says, when he‘s almost at the door.
Nino faces him, already predicting what he has to say.
“Tell him at least,” Jun says, like he’s pleading.
Nino can only shake his head decisively. “I can’t promise that.” He doesn’t even know if he can stand being in the same room as Sho. These numbered days under Jun’s employment will take a toll on him. “I’m sorry. I can’t...I can’t be with him if I’m still like this. It won’t be fair to us both.”
He needs time to settle things with himself, to fix whatever’s broken.
He leaves after that, not waiting for Jun to say anything. His footsteps ring in his ears as he walks aimlessly. The activity around him is drowned out by his own thoughts, and for once, Nino doesn’t silence them. He listens to them and allows them to sink in, even finding that some of them have a point, worth pondering and mulling over.
As a survivor, he knows what to do. He knows how to walk away when it all becomes too much, too suffocating even. Back on the colony he lost friends, adults he believed in, protectors he thought would always be there. People who meant the world to him. He lost his faith in humanity for a moment. And yet he lived through it, all of what was left behind without them or any of those things by his side. He did just fine.
He is simply going to lose people again, not too different from before. He has done it before. He has been through it before. Circumstances keep taking people away from him, forcing him to walk the other direction and tread it alone. Very well then. It’s not up to him to question how these things go. If Jun’s belief that everyone has their own place has an ounce of truth to it, then Nino’s belongs someplace far from them. Somewhere that the ghosts can’t follow, maybe. If he has to cut ties with people who are important to him, so be it.
The subsequent days pass in a blur. The viceroy’s words don’t even register, and Nino has learned to avoid looking at Sho. Sho is a reminder of the things after him. Sho didn’t even trust that he could handle the truth. Nino should be angry at him, but finds himself unable to.
He settles for avoiding Sho completely, toughening himself up, building walls around him. Whenever someone talks to him, his responses are perfunctory, concise, devoid of any opinion. He fulfills his duties as a translator whenever an alien personnel addresses Jun. He performs adequately, treating his work life as his only life, the only thing that matters.
If Jun notices the change, he doesn’t voice it. Nino learns how to avoid looking at him as well. He begins detaching himself from everything he knows. That’s always step one. He knows how to deal with disappointments caused by being attached to things that don’t last.
They never do. All the things that made Nino happy were never meant to stay for long. He knew that, and yet a part of him still hoped. That’s what hurts him the most, he realizes, more than the thought of Sho keeping things from him. He thought that he could keep what he had with Sho, enjoy it to the fullest before he’d have to see it taken away from him.
He should have known better than to expect, than to commit. His life is one set of disappointments after another, something Nino knew from long ago. When he found something good, of course it would end in the same way. Everything did. Everything that was important to him, that he loved, he had to walk away from in order to keep going.
As he walks past halls, past people who are unaware of a thing, past those who may have cared once, he makes up his mind and wills himself to believe it. There is nothing left for him to do.
There are no goodbyes when he finally boards the ship headed for Earth, Jun’s last mission in the Delta Quadrant concluded. Nino didn’t tell anyone about his departure besides Jun because he saw no need to do so. He has an inkling Sho knows what he’s planning, but Nino has skillfully managed to avoid Sho until it’s time for him to go.
He fastens his seatbelt and doesn’t look out the window until the ship is out of the space station. There’s a terse pause before the ship jumps in hyperspace, trails of stars coloring the view outside. Nino can somehow see his own reflection against them, and he doesn’t dare close his eyes for too long. He’s going to be on Earth soon. He doesn’t know what he’ll do once he’s there, but he doesn’t belong on the Masquerade anymore.
Whatever happens now, he tells himself he’ll be just fine.
--
The moment he steps outside the spaceport, he stumbles, but he catches himself in time.
The gravity is different. Not to the point that it feels as if he is suspended in the air, but perceptible in the sense that he feels lighter on his feet, like a heavy burden has been lifted off his shoulders.
He wishes for that sensation to transpire into every cell in his body, so that there is enough for it to feel real.
The trip back to his sister’s house takes three hours via the express train, but he takes it. Earth hasn’t changed much, he finds out as the train speeds away, cities and landscapes blending together in a myriad of hues. The towering infrastructures soon change to flat expanses of plains-green and lush, brimming with life. When he looks up, the sky is blue.
Blue, green, brown.
The soil is the same color he expected. There are weeds sprouting at the foot of the gate when he pushes it open with a tiny creak from the somewhat rusty hinges. A strong gust of wind could’ve pushed it, but he hears footsteps soon enough.
She always knows when it’s him.
“Kazu,” she says, looking at him with wide eyes. They share the same face, only that hers is softer and she lacks the mole that he has on his chin. “You’re back.”
He doesn’t say a word. Just blinks at her while she does the same, and whatever reprimand she must have thought of (perhaps about him not sending word that he was to return), she seems to quell in favor of approaching him, looking up at his face.
“Tell me about it inside,” is all she says, reaching behind him to snap the gate shut.
He follows, smiling at the sandbox he walks past. The gravel seems recently disturbed. There are unfinished domes in various sizes and shapes, some half-eroded, some completely. His niece must have grown a couple inches taller compared to the last time he’s seen her-Christmas, if he recalls correctly.
“They’re not at home,” his sister says as soon as they’re inside and there’s a steaming pot of tea between them. It’s house-brewed as always, bitter and tangy but pure, and to Nino, it’s the scent of home.
“Where are they?” he asks, blowing on his tea and making tiny ripples on the surface. He would’ve wanted to see his niece.
“There’s an engineering fair outside of town where the shipyard is,” his sister explains. “An exhibition of sorts. Nothing fancy, but enough to impress the people on this part of the planet, I guess. They got tickets from old man Takahashi. You remember him?”
Nino manages a small smile. “Balding, as always.”
“He talks about you a lot. Says he’s been looking up Union news about you ever since word got out that you’re a big-time translator for one of the ambassadors. You can imagine how proud the people here are.”
In a town that mostly consists of farmers and shipyard engineers, he supposes his job was extraordinary. He may have spent his youth in the countryside, but he knew he was never going to spend the rest of his life there. It’s why he joined Nyx VII.
He puts down his cup of tea and says nothing. His sister’s expression doesn’t falter-openly curious but not prying. She knows his walls, has seen him erect them. If she’s going to try something, Nino knows she won’t try to make him open up with force.
“Have you eaten?” she asks. Nino couldn’t smell food earlier, and it’s early afternoon. If she made lunch, it would’ve been hours ago.
“I have no appetite,” he admits.
She doesn’t seem surprised, only tilts her head at him. The bun that holds most of her hair back bounces, and Nino sees a small flower adorning her hair. Surrounded by her dark locks, its off-white color draws attention. “When did you return?”
“Three, four hours ago.” He doesn’t truly remember. “Took the train the moment I got back.”
She sighs then reaches out across the table, palm open, in invitation. Nino looks at it, at the rivulets of blue underneath pale skin, climbing up the white of her wrist and intersecting like streets on a map.
He takes her hand in his, the warmth comforting and familiar. The tea’s distinct aroma floods his senses, and his grip on her tightens. He feels her thumb stroking his knuckles in a soothing gesture, and he finally lets out a breath.
“It’s with me,” he says slowly, quietly. In the lack of activity in his hometown, everything seems louder: the chirping of afternoon birds, the rustle of leaves along with the wind, the jingling of the chimes hanging in front of the door. “It’s with me everywhere I go.”
His sister says nothing, but she’s listening. Nino doesn’t have to look at her to be able to tell; they’ve been in this situation before. He hears the clink of china scraping across wood, and he sees her pouring herself more tea.
“Is that why you’re back?” she asks, lifting her own cup to her lips. She doesn’t let go and Nino doesn’t, too, not even when he imitates her and drinks what’s left of his tea.
“It doesn’t matter where I go,” he says. He feels smaller in this house. This isn’t the same house he grew up in, but one that his sister built with her husband. It’s a two-storey farmhouse made of bricks, the bright red of which have faded into light brown over time. “It’s there. It never disappears. I thought if I went back to space it would be fine because space is big enough. Ninety percent still uncharted, can you believe that? I’ve seen so many worlds, and yet there’s still ninety percent unexplored part out there.” He’s rambling now, but she doesn’t mind. “I haven’t even seen all of the ten percent, but it doesn’t matter. It makes no difference.”
“You know,” she says, hiding half of her face with the teacup, “when you left for the colony, I hated you.”
Nino stills. He’s about to pull his hand away but she resists and shakes her head once.
“Listen. I hated you because I thought you were a coward. I knew you didn’t want to be a farmer or a mechanic. I knew you’d try to get out of the countryside as soon as you saw the chance. And you did. And I hated you the moment I knew you were out there, being a farmer or a mechanic in some far-flung chunk in space. You were what, eleven? And you left because kids your age had nothing better to do than make fun of you.”
Nino doesn’t refute her nor does he defend himself. He has no energy to. “I never fit in, you knew that. I never belonged. Not here, not out there, not in the city.”
“I wouldn’t know about ‘out there’ or ‘the city’, seeing as I never left this town,” she says, setting her cup back down on the table. “I knew you had a hard time growing up.”
Nino has heard this before. He hates this, the understanding she projects over the horror of bullying. She was never in the same position; how can she tell? “‘Hard’ doesn’t cut it.”
She lets out a breath, rushed and annoyed. “I’m not pitying you. I’m not being all-knowing here. I know what you went through, but only because you told me about it.” She peers at him, eyes intense and focused. It’s like seeing an older version of himself examining the present one. “Now are you going to tell me or do you need more tea?”
Nino pushes his cup towards her in answer. She straightens, but she keeps holding on to his hand. He doesn’t pull away, selfishly wanting the comfort she can give, even if it’s small and will fade into nothing once he lets go.
She fills his cup again and slides it between them, the contents spilling a little and leaving a wet trail. She doesn’t mind and neither does he. “Kazunari,” she says, and he meets her eyes as he takes a sip, “I won’t pry. If you want to continue drinking my bitter tea all afternoon, be my guest. If you don’t want me to help, that’s okay too. But if you need me to listen, I’m sure I have the time.”
She never calls him Kazunari unless he’s being deliberately obtuse. It’s her way of slapping him on the face and telling him to quit it.
Nino deliberates on what to say. He watches bits of tea leaves swirl inside his cup as he twirls it in his hand, like the patterns they form can bring insight to his future. Tasseography wasn’t something he believed in, but he doesn’t believe in much these days.
“I got married,” is what he decides on in the end. He doesn’t miss the way her eyebrows rise minutely in surprise. She glances at his free hand and Nino waves it, suddenly self-conscious. “No ring. We didn’t get married on Earth.”
“I figured as much, I’ll have you know,” she answers. “And?”
Nino doesn’t know how a laugh manages to escape from him. “And he was the most infuriating, particular, stubborn man on that ship. At first, he never laughed or smiled. He hated me the moment we met. Thought I was there to steal bits of his job-I was, but not in the sense he was thinking. Anyway. We didn’t get along in those first months.”
“Of marriage or on the job?” she asks. There’s a hint of a smile on her lips, but it’s not teasing.
“Both,” Nino admits. “We got hitched on the first mission. Ilari, have you heard of it?”
She nods. “The shipyard has an Ilarian foreman.” Nino remembers that her husband works as a repair technician in the shipyard.
“They married us off as a guarantee of the Union’s sincerity.”
She smiles. “Not the weirdest thing that happened to you, I’d wager, but amusing nonetheless.” Her thumb is now constantly tapping against his knuckles, as if she’s encouraging him. Maybe she is. “And? You wouldn’t be back if things didn’t go well.”
Nino blinks at that. “What?”
Her expression turns softer. “When you came back from Nyx-thin and malnourished but alive, so alive-I stopped hating you. I realized there was no point, that you probably knew that for yourself. I still thought you were a coward for running away, but you weren’t the same person when you came back. You loved Nyx VII. You loved the people on it, the friends you’d made, the life you could’ve had.”
Was he so transparent? It’s why these things haunt him-everything she’s telling him is true. Nyx VII would have been the home he’d wanted had things not turned for the worst.
“And when you came back, I saw just how much. But then it was taken from you. The fulfillment, the happiness-you did send this message that bragged of your good fortune-, the peace. It wasn’t the countryside farming you’d imagined, but out there, you were making a difference, little by little.” She sighs. “But you had to walk away from that to get back on your feet again.”
The memories remain with him though. He can recall how life in Nyx VII was like. Peaceful and normal as any day he’d spent in the countryside, but so different since every plant he nurtured, every rice grain he helped mill, they contributed to a then-possible future. It didn’t lead to a stagnant way of living. It wasn’t routinary. Each action paved the way to the growth of the colony, of their population. He was making a difference. Everything he did had purpose.
Her hold on him shifts, delicate fingers now wrapped around his wrist. He imitates her, finding the steady thrum of her pulse calming.
“Kazu,” she says, and he looks at her, “you only come back when you’ve found something nice and have to walk away from it. ”
He looks away, takes a couple of deep breaths. His tea remains untouched, leaves settling at the bottom, the color of the brew similar to the faded hue of the brick walls that formed this house. The brown in his colors.
“I let it all go. I tried. And for a while it worked,” he says, eyes shut. “It even felt real. But then something happens, like the last time, and just like that, nothing’s the same anymore.” He has to swallow to get the next bits out. “He was, in a way, related to the last days of Nyx. And I got to know of it in the worst way possible.”
“Was it so bad for you that you had to drop it all and go?” she asks, and that makes Nino open his eyes. “I don’t understand, Kazu. I never will, because I wasn’t there on Nyx with you. I’m never going to know exactly how it felt. But you wouldn’t be here if it didn’t feel so real that there’s a part of you that hates how things turned out.”
“He reminded me of things,” Nino says, refusing to say the name. It would just make it more real, that he’s on Earth and the Masquerade is still on its way to the space station above Earth. “And exposed me to things I never knew. It came back all of a sudden, like I was just fresh from being rescued and still couldn’t believe I was alive, that I made it out alive.”
“Do you think you should’ve stayed? Or was your running justified?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
She smiles, small but gentle. “Liar.”
Nino straightens at that. He meets her eyes and finds no judgment there, just her calling him out on his bullshit. “It’s not fair,” he says, like he’s eleven again and he’s crying from a bad dream and she has her arms around him, shushing him and telling him it’s okay. “It’s not fair to him if...if I’m this way.” He breaks eye contact and stares at his tea instead, cold now but still emitting the distinct scent. “I don’t know if what I had with him was real, but it felt like that.”
His voice cracks. “It really felt like that.”
He feels her thumb stroking the bony part of his wrist in circles. “It’s not fair to you either.”
That makes Nino look at his sister, allowing her to see inside him without all the pretenses. His walls never worked too long on her.
“It’s not fair to you both. You’ve realized this, I’m sure. You’re smarter than me, Kazu. Braver too. It’s why you were able to leave the planet. I hated you because I was never going to be a risk-taker like you. At sixteen I interpreted that as cowardice on your part, the fact that you took a shuttle to run away from those bullying you. But as I got older, I realized I’m the one who’s afraid to leave. I hated you because you were able to do that.”
She reaches out and holds both of his hands now. Her wedding ring digs into his skin but he doesn’t take notice, only keeps his hands in hers, afraid that if he lets go, he won’t be able to feel anything anymore. “I would never have the strength to walk away,” she admits, smiling at him. “So the fact that you were able to do that because you knew you had to, you needed to, that’s something. In the end it’s not fair, but who’s to say it won’t change in time?”
Nino laughs a little; he can’t help it. “You think I’d get better? I tried. I moved to the city, and when that wasn’t enough, I ventured into outer space. I gave myself time. I allowed myself to be happy. Nothing worked.”
“I can’t fight your demons for you, Kazu,” she says, and it hits him like a splash of cold water on the face. “No one can. I can’t even tell you what to do. But I know that you know. Somewhere in you, you know. And when you get there, when you’re better, you’re going to know what to do.”
She lets go of one of his hands to reach out, wiping away a tear that streaked his cheek. He didn’t even feel it fall.
“You’ll get there,” she says, and Nino, for the first time in twenty-three years, cries.
--
He finds a teaching job somewhere close to the shipyard. The hum of engines and welding machines is a familiar noise now. Somehow, knowing that vessels that are set to venture into outer space are being made around him is soothing in its own peculiar way.
He doesn’t accept his sister’s offer of living in the spare bedroom, rather, he goes to find a place he can call his own. Smaller than his quarters in the Masquerade, but he fills it with things that help him remember who he is-holorecords of Nyx VII, theses and write-ups about the colony, accounts of survivors that he never bothered to look up before. He doesn’t have the necessary clearances to get to the truth of things since that remains classified information, but the bits he discovers, he holds on to. He’s had enough of running.
He’s trying something different now.
In the mornings, he goes to the nearby language school and teaches twenty-five students about the languages he knows. He hones his Ilarian, Zuran, and takes it upon himself to study Grenus’ native tongue. Elioni, he gives up on. He just can’t do it.
One night, he borrows his brother-in-law’s speeder and searches for a particular establishment.
He impresses the owner with card magic, and she praises him for having quick hands and skills. He comes back every week to show her a new trick, her smile bright and truly amazed every time he pulls out the correct card from the stack.
His weekly visits that made him a regular, turn twice a week in a matter of months. He gets to explore every bit of the place-from the roof, the walls, the thrusters that keep it afloat in the midst of such a busy complex, the kind smile the owner has for him every time she sees it’s him.
The years burn.
--
From up here, the world looks as he remembered the last time.
That’s the first thing he notices. Earth is one planet in the vastness of space, a habitable chunk that has a space station floating above it. The king on the chessboard, representing the home of the Union, an organization that strives for peace despite its mistakes.
There is no female officer waiting to guide him this time, but he finds his way. His feet remember where to go, his hands recall what to do. His forefinger presses the 35th floor in the elevator and he watches calmly as the numbers increase one by one, indicating that he’s merely passing by all these floors.
It might be too soon or too late when he hears the tiny ding that indicates that he has reached his destination, but he doesn’t linger on it. He steps out as soon as the doors open to reveal a room that is so vast and sparsely decorated he could probably transform it to a lounge to make use of all the space.
“Are you an applicant, sir?” he hears, and he finds a woman sitting behind a desk that he can’t remember seeing before. This, he thinks, is one of the things that have changed.
“Yes,” he says, showing the tag he printed out back at home as per instructions. “I’m applicant number forty-six.”
The woman nods, handing him a data pad. “Please sign your name for confirmation.”
He does, and he is ushered in a waiting room where six other people are seated in silence. He’s been to job interviews before, but never for this. He thinks he likes the change from last time.
He waits with the rest, keeping his hands folded on his lap as numbers get flashed on the holoscreen, applicants being asked to leave the room and enter the one adjacent to it. He listens to the slow, rhythmic beat of whatever contemporary piece the Union chooses to play on their speakers. Or maybe it’s not the Union responsible for this song. What he hears sounds like it’s right up his future employer’s alley.
Being applicant number forty-six means he is the last one to be interviewed, and he knows that his co-applicants are relieved that they are not the ones in his position. The interviewer must be tired, he hears them say on their way out. They also say that they would hate to be the last one because that means the interview is going to be rushed.
He knows who is behind that door. He doesn’t think that will happen.
When the number 46 finally appears on the holoscreen in front of him, he stands and straightens his clothes, walking towards the interview room in confident strides.
“Have a seat,” the interviewer tells him as soon as the doors slide shut. The man doesn’t look up. He appears to be finalizing applicant number 45’s information.
There is a large window behind the interviewer that is overlooking the stars, and the sight of them is soothing in an inexplicable way.
He smiles and remains standing by the doors. “I respectfully decline.”
The man seated behind the desk snaps his head up immediately, his face in absolute shock. His hands freeze in their movements, fingers hovering awkwardly over a data pad.
“Nino,” Sho breathes, like he can’t believe it.
Nino tilts his head, raising the applicant number tag that he printed out. “Applicant number forty-six,” he reads for Sho, who sits unmoving still. “Whose idea was it to ditch the names? Yours or Jun-kun’s?”
Sho has to take a few seconds to recover and to swallow a lump in his throat before he can get some words out. “The Ambassador wanted to eliminate bias and thought it would be better if we assigned numbers. To be as impersonal as possible and to give the applicants a sense of equality.”
“Eliminate bias,” Nino repeats, taking a few steps closer to the provided chair. “Spoken like a true worker for the Union, I see. But I had to put my name on the application form. Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”
“The Ambassador insisted on handling the assignment of numbers himself. He wanted to be the one to personally review the applicant’s résumés this time. I had no access to them,” Sho explains. The earlier shock has ebbed away, but Sho is still looking at him like he’s not real.
Nino supposes that this is what two years of separation and silence cause.
“So he knew I applied for it and didn’t tell you,” Nino says. “Typical Matsumoto Jun, I’d say.” He takes a seat on the provided chair then, crossing his legs at the knee. “You’re doing the preliminary interviews?”
“Yes,” Sho says and clears his throat, seeming to remember that he’s in the middle of his job.
“Then ask me things you don’t know,” Nino tells him. He hasn’t seen Sho’s face for too long. He finds that he misses it, although Sho did get a few more wrinkles on certain parts of his face. Two years made him age faster than he should have, and perhaps Nino is partly responsible for that. He did leave Sho to do all the work alone.
It takes Sho some moments to compose himself. “How have you been?” he asks in the end, like he’s afraid of overstepping boundaries or has too many questions threatening to spill out of his mouth and can’t decide which to give voice to first.
“Not as old as you,” Nino says with a smile, “but feeling twice as old. Maybe. I’ve been on Earth for a while, teaching languages to people who have the mind to listen. I think some of your applicants were my former students.”
Sho nods, seemingly satisfied with his explanation. Nino thinks he may have missed Sho and the way he looks down when he is embarrassed. His body language remains the same and Nino can read through every movement with accuracy.
“You’re wondering why I’m here,” Nino concludes. And if I want you for you.
“You can’t blame me, not after two years,” Sho retorts weakly.
“Aiba-shi never told you anything?” When he and Aiba had finally met in the Aiba family's floating restaurant, Aiba cried and nearly tackled him to the ground, calling him a ‘selfish bastard who deserves a punch’. Nino protested when Aiba’s threat proved to be empty. He believed he earned it after what he did.
It was through Aiba that Nino found out about the translator post opening.
“You’ve been meeting him?” Sho asks, stunned.
“I’ve met with his mom and dad more times than I can count ever since I went back. Of course I have been meeting him. We used to have beer Tuesdays at the Aiba family establishment. So he didn’t tell you a thing. I’m surprised. I’ll have you know I didn’t ask him to do that.”
“I wouldn’t dare to presume.”
Silence lingers once more, seconds passing by with them merely looking at each other. Sho still in varying states of disbelief and, when Nino searches for it, fear. Like he thinks Nino is simply an apparition and will disappear in moments.
“If you have any questions regarding my qualifications as an applicant,” Nino says, lips twitching to point at the data pad in front of Sho, “I have provided character references in my résumé.”
Sho’s fingers move with deftness, accessing said file, and Nino can’t help grinning when Sho sighs and shakes his head.
“It says here that your first and only character reference is Matsumoto Jun,” Sho tells him, looking close to laughing.
Nino nods. “The only one that matters given the job, I thought.”
“Seems to me you and him already have a candidate in mind.”
“Said candidate believes he is cut for the job. He also believes that this won’t end like the last time, but he understands the concern.”
Sho’s shoulder slump at that, then he looks at Nino with wondering eyes. “I can’t hide anything from you, can I?”
“Not anymore. I did my research, you know. Something I should have done the last time. But better late than never, wouldn’t you agree?” Nino stands, walking to where Sho is. “After all,” he adds, voice dropping to a whisper when he’s close enough, “I’m still married to you.”
He gestures to the data pad again, smiling as Sho powers it back on and scrolls up.
“You didn’t change your status,” Sho says. There’s this lilt of happiness in his voice. Nino assumes he is feeling intensely relieved for reasons unknown. It’s just like him not to check on Nino, perhaps thinking it would be an invasion of Nino’s privacy. Nino wasn’t the only one who kept distance.
“Unless in the past two years you have committed adultery or have become insane, then no.”
Sho looks up at him, sheer disbelief on his face. His brows are furrowed and his mouth is hanging open, and Nino only raises his eyebrow.
“Two years,” Sho whispers incredulously. “Two years and you never-?”
Nino laughs, head thrown back, shoulders shaking. He feels lighter somehow. “Two years and it was just my hand and a bunch of pornographic holofilms on mute. It was lonely.” He shakes his head, still chuckling under his breath. “Kidding aside, no. I never. Because there was no one.”
No one else he can imagine for it to work with. Of the two of them, Sho has the right to be shocked. Sho doesn’t look like he has gotten any action given the work environment that he lives in, which must have been extremely stressful after Nino’s resignation. They both had their ways of coping-Nino with leaving, Sho with working and drowning everything else out.
“On paper I’m here for the translator position,” he says seriously, holding Sho’s gaze in his own. “Other than that, I’m here to see if all of what we had shared will still turn out to be real even after I carelessly tossed it aside. If you let me, I’ll try to do better.”
“It won’t be easy,” Sho says, taking the words out of Nino’s mouth.
“It won’t,” he acknowledges. “But I want to try. I’ve been doing a lot of trying. So if you can bear with that, if you want to, I’ll be happy to try again. I’ll do my best.” He knows his words don’t mean much. Why would they? He left before. Even Nino doesn’t know if he’s not going to leave again. He can never say for sure, and Sho looks like he understands.
“If not,” Nino continues, “that’s fine with me and I completely understand.” It will hurt, but that can go unsaid. Nino purses his lips in uncertainty.
Sho studies his face, as if searching for a hint of rejection or a lie somewhere. He’s having a ‘pinch me’ moment, and if he asks, Nino will gladly oblige just to assure him that this is all happening right now, that he is here and the furthest thing from his mind is to walk away and leave everything behind.
“Just so we’re clear,” Sho says, rising from his seat and moving to stand in front of the windows showing a view of outside, “we still can’t annul it. I don’t think I am insane.”
“I would hate it if you were,” Nino says honestly, standing beside him. When Sho’s fingers brush against his knuckles, Nino threads their fingers together, finding the warmth still so familiar and comforting, like nothing has changed. In his heart, he is thankful that he still has this to go back to even after everything.
“If we’re going to try again,” Sho tells him, eyes fixed on the inky blackness outside, “I think we should open up more. That mostly goes for me, I guess. But if there’s anything you think I should know, tell me. I promise to try doing the same.”
Nino squeezes his hand. “I can work with that.”
Sho doesn’t say anything anymore, and Nino allows it all to wash over him: the feeling of Sho being so close after years apart, the acceptance settling inside him, the unspoken apologies, the overdue forgiveness felt and understood without saying.
He looks out and thinks he can understand what the stars are telling him.
Welcome home.
From: 64907
Part 5
The viceroy is perhaps one of those people in the universe that Nino immediately dislikes on first meeting. He is positive that his opinion of the man won’t change, given that every word that comes out of the viceroy’s mouth is full of conceit and doubt. For an ally, the viceroy exhibits behavior that is anything but. He questions even the design of the space station, insisting that had it been Jun who had to visit Eos, his accommodations would be incomparable.
Despite Jun’s claims regarding his acting, he manages a sheepish, convincing smile every time a barely concealed insult is hurled at the Union. Nino is impressed more than ever, because Jun is one of the most honest people he knows. But Jun’s responsibilities come before anything else, something he shows with his patient and humble demeanor despite the viceroy taking jabs at Jun’s youth and assumed inexperience once in a while.
It is Sho who fumes at every slight, but he doesn’t do anything other than glare when the viceroy is preoccupied.
The viceroy continues to rattle on about the Union’s incapabilities, highlighting how important Eos is in times of war and why the Union should be more amenable to any future requests the planet might have. He tells parables from Eos to hide his utter disagreement for the Union’s views regarding preservation of life, and Nino spends a few minutes trying not to roll his eyes.
“Truth be told, Ambassador,” the viceroy says, using Jun’s title casually like it means nothing, “I’m surprised the Union still wishes for peace despite the looming threat we face. Have we not had enough conferences about the merits of refining our joined forces?”
“As much as possible, the Union would like to not resort to violence. If war can be prevented, we try our best to work towards that. You would forgive us for the idealism and wish for peace. Earth has seen too many wars even before the discovery of hyperspace. A repeat of it on the intergalactic level is one we want to avoid if we can,” Jun explains. He doesn’t smile, but he keeps his expression neutral.
“It’s quite interesting to hear that coming from you, Ambassador, given the company you keep,” the viceroy says, something that catches them off-guard.
Nino sees Sho freeze at those words. The viceroy is looking right at Sho, and Jun has to clear his throat to get the man’s attention back to him.
“I have no idea what you could mean, viceroy, given that I don’t dwell on the past,” Jun says defensively, jaw clenched.
“Oh? But it is strange to me,” the viceroy says, rising from his seat to pace around the private meeting room, “that someone who has seen so much war and injustice as a child ought to be stuck in a peace envoy.” He looks straight at Sho and addresses him this time. “You are a Sakurai, yes?”
“I am, “ Sho says. To his credit, his voice doesn’t falter, but Nino can see how he grounds himself, hands tightly fisted behind his back so the viceroy can’t see them.
“And your family has friends who turned out to be chancellors, viceroys like myself, rulers, ambassadors, even governors. Most of which, I’ve noticed, are in favor of war. And those who are not don’t exactly have clean records themselves.” The viceroy is lingering in front of a contemporary mural on the wall.
Nino doesn’t know a thing about Sho’s family because it’s a sore subject. Whenever Nino opened up about his, Sho never reciprocated, instead apologized for never being able to tell Nino a thing. Sho told him his only remaining tie to his family is his surname, nothing more. That he doesn’t consider himself one of them on most days. Nino never pried, but to see Sho so uncomfortable is making him angry.
“Viceroy, pardon my inability to comprehend the meaning of this, but I hardly think this is relevant to the topic at hand,” Jun says firmly, but the viceroy pays him no mind. Nino can see Jun wanting to do something, but he seems at a loss for what to say.
“How is it that a Sakurai like you ended up so far from Earth? Is that the Union’s way of showing forgiveness for ineptitude?” the viceroy asks, and Nino wants to hit him. He balls his hands into fists at his sides, reining in his temper so as not to embarrass Jun.
“My father’s actions are his own, just as mine remain mine,” Sho says, as calmly as he can manage. He doesn’t break his eye contact with the viceroy, who smirks at his answer.
“Yes, the spawn is never responsible for the misdeeds of the father,” the viceroy agrees, continuing with his pacing. “That’s how you escaped the blame, yes? When the Union found out who refused to lend a hand after the rather unfortunate circumstances that Nyx VII suffered, the punishment was never extended to the immediate family, only to those who were partly responsible. The Union’s form of justice seems particularly one-sided to me.”
“What,” Nino whispers, not understanding a thing.
Jun abruptly rises from his seat, slamming both palms flat on the table’s surface with force. “That is quite enough, viceroy. If you have no more pressing concerns, I call this meeting adjourned.”
“You know the old Terran saying, Ambassador. Keep your friends close and enemies closer. I think I understand more now.” The viceroy makes his way to the door, bowing so low it’s as if he never instigated anything. “Until we meet again.”
He departs the room after that, but Nino can’t focus on it. The man’s words ring in his ears, and he faces Sho slowly.
“Tell me what he was talking about,” he says carefully, slowly, his anger rising gradually.
“Nino,” Jun says as a warning, but Nino shakes his head fiercely.
“Tell me, Sho-chan. What did he mean by that?”
“Now is not the time,” Jun says, hand closing around Nino’s elbow.
Nino turns to him. “Did you know?” Then he laughs. “Of course you knew.”
Sho faces Jun and bows deeply. “Ambassador, I apologize for my selfishness, but if you could give us a moment, I would be most grateful.”
Jun searches Nino’s eyes, and Nino makes sure every bit of his suppressed rage is present on them. “There are cameras,” Jun says as reminder, his grip on Nino slacking. “None of which I have control over. As far as I am aware the cameras won’t pick up what you will speak of. I only ask that you don’t get violent.”
Sho is yet to rise from his bow. “I thank you.”
Jun leaves then, doors swooshing shut behind him, and Sho straightens.
“Explain that to me,” Nino says, crossing his arms over his chest to prevent himself from doing something he will regret. “And don’t leave anything out. What did he mean by this refusal to lend a hand to Nyx VII?”
Nino has never seen Sho look so defeated. “My father was friends with your governor, one of the people who voted for him to be the governor of Nyx VII in the first place.”
“And? How is that related to the rescue?” Nino asks, fearing the answer. He can’t look at Sho anymore, hating himself for his cowardice. “That madman of a governor we had never asked for help.”
“But someone else in the colony did,” Sho says, and this is the first time Nino has heard of this. Not even the theses nor the incident reports he read had this.
“Don’t lie to me, Sho-chan. Don’t.”
“I am not.”
Nino stares at him. “How is that possible? They confiscated all our pads and comms before he announced the list of who made the cut and who got to be acquainted with a firing squad. All means of communication were closed off even before the massacre took place.”
Nino should know. He’s been there. He lived it. He’s a survivor of the incident.
Sho shakes his head. “Someone in the colony sent radio frequencies asking for help,” he explains. “And it was decoded by a stray satellite of the Union. At that time, the leadership regarding other off-world settlements was being decided upon. The decoded message was delivered to the hands of those men making the decisions.”
“And your dad was one of those people.”
Sho nods gravely. “They paid it no mind because it was a distress signal via a radio frequency. Nobody uses radio anymore; it’s too obscure. They thought it was all a hoax, a long forgotten prank, and because my father believed in the governor, his friend, he convinced the rest of the board that it was nothing.”
Nino somehow manages a laugh, breathless and hollow. So there was someone to blame other than the governor. All these years there was someone else out there he could have focused his anger on and he never knew until now. “How did I survive?” he asks quietly, feeling so detached from his own words. “If they paid it no mind, how did I survive?”
Then he remembers the same thing he read in all the articles about Nyx VII.
“I survived,” he mutters, answering his own question, “because the families of the colonists began reporting the sudden stop in communication, so the Union decided to check up on us.” He shuts his eyes, exhales in heavy, measured breaths. “Then what? What did your father and the rest of the board do after that?”
“My father was convinced that the governor would never cease communications without reason.”
Nino’s eyes widen in understanding. Suddenly the room feels too cold. “He knew,” Nino says disbelievingly. “Your...father. He knew we were dying. That my friends were being killed. That we were next.”
Sho’s bottom lip is trembling and he won’t look up anymore. “He believed so much in his friend that he tried to cover up for it by buying the governor more time. To make things right, he thought Nyx VII only needed a bit of time.”
“That bit of time cost thousands of lives,” Nino whispers, unable to stop himself from shaking. He can hear it again. The declaration that Nyx VII was experiencing a food shortage, that crops were dying, and that who goes and who stays would be determined through application of eugenics. Survival of the fittest, the governor told them, and elimination of the unfit.
He shuts his eyes, afraid that once he opens them again he’s going to see it all again: the towering flames, the stars that are so far away, obscured by dark clouds formed by smoke, turning piles upon piles of bodies to ash.
He keeps himself upright by gripping the back of the nearest chair. His voice doesn’t sound like his own when he uses it, like he’s watching himself perform on some stage, like he’s not him at all. “Tell me what happened after.”
“You know. Everything that is in the reports, that was it,” Sho answers. He sounds so far away and Nino focuses on breathing in and out. “When the Union saved the remaining colonists, my father lobbied for lifetime imprisonment for the governor.”
“That monster is alive because another one ensured it,” Nino says, snorting in laughter. “How is your dear father now?” He blinks and faces Sho, wondering if his face is the spitting image of the man who chose to protect a person in power over the people who believed in them. “Is this why you don’t want to talk about your family with me? Because I’m bound to figure things out and you thought I couldn’t handle it?”
“I thought you wouldn’t take it well,” Sho admits, eyes on his feet.
“Because I’m not mature enough for it?” Nino spits. Sho grimaces and sets his jaw, eyebrows knit as he shakes his head in denial.
Nino exhales. “What happened to your dad? Don’t tell me he’s in the Union now, because I will find him and demand answers if he is.”
“Once they found out what he did, the Union decided to keep him in permanent isolation. To my knowledge, he remains isolated for life, if he is still alive,” Sho says. He doesn’t sound like he has any sympathy for him. He sounds as if he is talking about a total stranger.
Nino is still breathing hard, clutching at the chair for support. This wasn’t how he expected their last mission to go. He put it all behind him months ago. Why does it keep coming back? Why does it continue to haunt him no matter where he goes? Hasn’t it been enough? The faces chasing after him change but the nature doesn’t. It’s all the same, always reminding him of the nightmare that no kid should have gone through. If this is the price of survival, then was it worth it?
He grits his teeth and starts letting out air between the spaces, shushing lowly. Stop, he wants to say to the voices in his head. Stop tormenting me. Stop following me. Leave me alone.
Remember your colors, he reminds himself. Blue, green, brown. Again. Again.
He hears Sho take a step closer to him and he raises his arm to stop him, fingers outstretched.
“Don’t. Don’t come any closer,” he says, focusing on one spot on the floor.
Sho remains rooted where he is, and Nino wills himself to calm down. It’s all in the past. Jun said it, didn’t he? They don’t dwell on the past. Sho has nothing to do with it. It was his father, not him. The child can’t choose their parents, and no son has to pay for the sins of the father.
“Do you know what angers me?” Nino says, jaw trembling as he struggles to keep his emotions in line. They are all threatening to burst forth, tipping over the edge. All it would take is for him to snap.
Sho has so much regret in his eyes, his shoulders slumped, expression guilty. Nino can’t imagine how he feels because he has no more room to feel anything else. “Nino…”
“What angers me,” Nino continues, ignoring him, “is that you kept this all from me. You knew. From the moment I spoke of it after Zura, you knew I was a survivor of the horror your dad and our shitty governor created together. That’s why you looked at me like that on that day.”
He laughs, unable to believe what he remembers with clarity. “Was it a form of repentance on your part? All we did, all we had, all we shared these past months...was that you trying to make things right for someone like me?”
“No,” Sho denies quickly, shaking his head fiercely. “It has nothing to do with that.”
“Then what was it? Were you trying to save the victim from the things that sometimes kept him up at night?” Nino says. He doesn’t know how he can still smile, but it feels appropriate to do so. He might be sneering but he can’t be sure.
“No!” Sho insists, looking upset now. “I wasn’t using you. How can you think that?”
“With all the things you chose not to tell me, I’m not so certain what to believe anymore,” Nino says, stepping back, putting distance between him and Sho. “Let me help you remember. The way you looked at me when you first learned the truth about me? That was you pitying the victim. But I wasn’t a victim, Sho, I was an example. Something to remind people that monsters only take different faces. And now mine is coming back, in the form of that fucking viceroy who uses truths to taunt, truths which you would have kept for as long as you could, Jun as your loyal accomplice. That’s why he hired me, isn’t it? As a way to help you? To assist in your remorse?”
“I never knew you were a colonist until you disclosed it to me. That wasn’t a lie. The Ambassador’s reasons are his own, but if you think I’ve been lying to you all these months, that’s where you are wrong. Did any of those feel like a lie to you? Like I merely saw you as a tool?” Sho is angry now, staring disbelievingly at him. They never had a fight like this before.
“I have no idea what goes on in your head,” Nino says. “I rarely did, and now I’m sure I don’t really know you that well. Tell me honestly. Did you even have any plans of telling me?”
Sho shuts his eyes. Says his name as if he’s begging, but Nino won’t have any of it. “Answer the question, Sakurai-san,” he says, stressing Sho’s last name.
Sho’s silence lingers and it’s enough of an answer. Nino laughs, not knowing what else to do. He wants to be angry, but he doesn’t know where to direct that rage. Sho stands there, looking vulnerable, and a part of Nino itches to give him a taste of what he’s feeling, but he can remember how being with Sho felt. Real, like he was truly wanted. Like it was a place where he felt secure, where he had an equal who understood him. Was it all some wishful thinking on his part? Him seeing things that weren’t truly there?
Nino is not so sure of anything anymore.
He takes a step back and slowly makes his way to the doors.
He hears Sho call him out, repeated mentions of his name. “Nino. Nino, please. Please.” Sho sounds certain of what Nino is about to do, and Nino can’t help laughing. How is it that Sho knows what he’s going to do when he hasn’t even figured out that part himself?
“You once said you have no control over anything I choose to do and that you’re not going to ask me to stay,” Nino reminds him, looking over his shoulder. “Were you lying?”
“No,” Sho answers. He sounds cornered and exhausted, even helpless. “That was the truth. Still is.”
Nino takes a step and the doors open.
He walks out, not looking back.
--
He finds Jun on the observation deck of the space station, overseeing the repairs of the ship through tall glass panels, hands clasped behind him. He’s the exact mirror of the Sho Nino first met.
He approaches Jun without grace, footsteps loud in the room. Jun’s eyes meet his in the glass, and Nino doesn’t waste time.
“What you said when you hired me,” he says, cutting to the chase, but Jun doesn’t let him finish his question.
“That remains true to this day,” Jun tells him. “I hired you because Nyx VII was in the Delta Quadrant and a year ago I have never been here before. I hired you because when I asked Sho-kun to help me eliminate candidates, you were the most qualified among all those who met my standards.”
“Forgive me for having doubts, Ambassador,” Nino says, choosing to be formal to detach himself from it all, “but given your reputation of looking out for your crew, I may have had cause to believe otherwise due to recent revelations.”
Jun whips his head around to face him, eyes narrowed. “I won’t have you question my decisions. Not when I answered you truthfully. If you think that I employed you because of Sho-kun, then you are doubting not only me but also yourself and your capabilities. I will settle for you questioning yourself, but you will not question me. I know what I did and I know why I did it.”
Nino appreciates Jun’s brutal honesty. He prefers it over Sho’s reluctant one. He walks towards the glass windows and stands just a few paces’ distance from Jun.
“I received it,” Jun tells him when the silence has stretched long enough. “Before you found me. Do you mean it?”
Nino sent a resignation notice to Jun’s data pad before he even went looking for Jun. Whatever he thought he might find in space, it wasn’t this nonstop reminder of what he can’t escape. He’s done. He wants to walk away from all of it completely, from everyone who knows about it. Trying to prove to himself that he can keep on surviving wasn’t one of his brightest ideas. He can admit that now.
“You have my thanks for the offer,” Nino says, pertaining to the permanent position on Jun’s team. But he can’t. He can’t when he remains attached to what’s been holding him down for years. Until he has settled things with himself, there’s no place for him on the Masquerade. “But I will have to decline. And yes, I mean it. But since the mission is not over yet, I will stay until its conclusion.”
Jun sighs, breath fogging the glass for the briefest of moments. “And the return trip? Will you still join us for that?”
Everything in Nino’s quarters on the ship reminds him of Sho. He doesn’t think he can go back there even after the refit is finished and the room is cleaned. He can recall how many sleepless nights he had on that bed just thinking about being in space and in the Delta Quadrant.
“No.” He already made arrangements. “I’ve enlisted myself onto a passenger ship set for Earth. You need not worry about me.” He faces Jun and bows in combined apology and gratitude. “I’ve been in your care for more than a year and I am grateful for the opportunity, the experience. My sincerest apologies for any inconveniences this decision will cause you.”
“I’m not saying I understand,” Jun tells him, and he straightens up again. “But you have your reasons and you think this is the right thing. I may not agree, but the choice is always yours. I can respect that.” Jun inclines his head at him. “I’ve also been under your care. Thank you for your services.”
Nino spends some more minutes watching the ship’s ongoing refit, then he excuses himself and starts heading towards the exit.
“Nino,” Jun says, when he‘s almost at the door.
Nino faces him, already predicting what he has to say.
“Tell him at least,” Jun says, like he’s pleading.
Nino can only shake his head decisively. “I can’t promise that.” He doesn’t even know if he can stand being in the same room as Sho. These numbered days under Jun’s employment will take a toll on him. “I’m sorry. I can’t...I can’t be with him if I’m still like this. It won’t be fair to us both.”
He needs time to settle things with himself, to fix whatever’s broken.
He leaves after that, not waiting for Jun to say anything. His footsteps ring in his ears as he walks aimlessly. The activity around him is drowned out by his own thoughts, and for once, Nino doesn’t silence them. He listens to them and allows them to sink in, even finding that some of them have a point, worth pondering and mulling over.
As a survivor, he knows what to do. He knows how to walk away when it all becomes too much, too suffocating even. Back on the colony he lost friends, adults he believed in, protectors he thought would always be there. People who meant the world to him. He lost his faith in humanity for a moment. And yet he lived through it, all of what was left behind without them or any of those things by his side. He did just fine.
He is simply going to lose people again, not too different from before. He has done it before. He has been through it before. Circumstances keep taking people away from him, forcing him to walk the other direction and tread it alone. Very well then. It’s not up to him to question how these things go. If Jun’s belief that everyone has their own place has an ounce of truth to it, then Nino’s belongs someplace far from them. Somewhere that the ghosts can’t follow, maybe. If he has to cut ties with people who are important to him, so be it.
The subsequent days pass in a blur. The viceroy’s words don’t even register, and Nino has learned to avoid looking at Sho. Sho is a reminder of the things after him. Sho didn’t even trust that he could handle the truth. Nino should be angry at him, but finds himself unable to.
He settles for avoiding Sho completely, toughening himself up, building walls around him. Whenever someone talks to him, his responses are perfunctory, concise, devoid of any opinion. He fulfills his duties as a translator whenever an alien personnel addresses Jun. He performs adequately, treating his work life as his only life, the only thing that matters.
If Jun notices the change, he doesn’t voice it. Nino learns how to avoid looking at him as well. He begins detaching himself from everything he knows. That’s always step one. He knows how to deal with disappointments caused by being attached to things that don’t last.
They never do. All the things that made Nino happy were never meant to stay for long. He knew that, and yet a part of him still hoped. That’s what hurts him the most, he realizes, more than the thought of Sho keeping things from him. He thought that he could keep what he had with Sho, enjoy it to the fullest before he’d have to see it taken away from him.
He should have known better than to expect, than to commit. His life is one set of disappointments after another, something Nino knew from long ago. When he found something good, of course it would end in the same way. Everything did. Everything that was important to him, that he loved, he had to walk away from in order to keep going.
As he walks past halls, past people who are unaware of a thing, past those who may have cared once, he makes up his mind and wills himself to believe it. There is nothing left for him to do.
There are no goodbyes when he finally boards the ship headed for Earth, Jun’s last mission in the Delta Quadrant concluded. Nino didn’t tell anyone about his departure besides Jun because he saw no need to do so. He has an inkling Sho knows what he’s planning, but Nino has skillfully managed to avoid Sho until it’s time for him to go.
He fastens his seatbelt and doesn’t look out the window until the ship is out of the space station. There’s a terse pause before the ship jumps in hyperspace, trails of stars coloring the view outside. Nino can somehow see his own reflection against them, and he doesn’t dare close his eyes for too long. He’s going to be on Earth soon. He doesn’t know what he’ll do once he’s there, but he doesn’t belong on the Masquerade anymore.
Whatever happens now, he tells himself he’ll be just fine.
--
The moment he steps outside the spaceport, he stumbles, but he catches himself in time.
The gravity is different. Not to the point that it feels as if he is suspended in the air, but perceptible in the sense that he feels lighter on his feet, like a heavy burden has been lifted off his shoulders.
He wishes for that sensation to transpire into every cell in his body, so that there is enough for it to feel real.
The trip back to his sister’s house takes three hours via the express train, but he takes it. Earth hasn’t changed much, he finds out as the train speeds away, cities and landscapes blending together in a myriad of hues. The towering infrastructures soon change to flat expanses of plains-green and lush, brimming with life. When he looks up, the sky is blue.
Blue, green, brown.
The soil is the same color he expected. There are weeds sprouting at the foot of the gate when he pushes it open with a tiny creak from the somewhat rusty hinges. A strong gust of wind could’ve pushed it, but he hears footsteps soon enough.
She always knows when it’s him.
“Kazu,” she says, looking at him with wide eyes. They share the same face, only that hers is softer and she lacks the mole that he has on his chin. “You’re back.”
He doesn’t say a word. Just blinks at her while she does the same, and whatever reprimand she must have thought of (perhaps about him not sending word that he was to return), she seems to quell in favor of approaching him, looking up at his face.
“Tell me about it inside,” is all she says, reaching behind him to snap the gate shut.
He follows, smiling at the sandbox he walks past. The gravel seems recently disturbed. There are unfinished domes in various sizes and shapes, some half-eroded, some completely. His niece must have grown a couple inches taller compared to the last time he’s seen her-Christmas, if he recalls correctly.
“They’re not at home,” his sister says as soon as they’re inside and there’s a steaming pot of tea between them. It’s house-brewed as always, bitter and tangy but pure, and to Nino, it’s the scent of home.
“Where are they?” he asks, blowing on his tea and making tiny ripples on the surface. He would’ve wanted to see his niece.
“There’s an engineering fair outside of town where the shipyard is,” his sister explains. “An exhibition of sorts. Nothing fancy, but enough to impress the people on this part of the planet, I guess. They got tickets from old man Takahashi. You remember him?”
Nino manages a small smile. “Balding, as always.”
“He talks about you a lot. Says he’s been looking up Union news about you ever since word got out that you’re a big-time translator for one of the ambassadors. You can imagine how proud the people here are.”
In a town that mostly consists of farmers and shipyard engineers, he supposes his job was extraordinary. He may have spent his youth in the countryside, but he knew he was never going to spend the rest of his life there. It’s why he joined Nyx VII.
He puts down his cup of tea and says nothing. His sister’s expression doesn’t falter-openly curious but not prying. She knows his walls, has seen him erect them. If she’s going to try something, Nino knows she won’t try to make him open up with force.
“Have you eaten?” she asks. Nino couldn’t smell food earlier, and it’s early afternoon. If she made lunch, it would’ve been hours ago.
“I have no appetite,” he admits.
She doesn’t seem surprised, only tilts her head at him. The bun that holds most of her hair back bounces, and Nino sees a small flower adorning her hair. Surrounded by her dark locks, its off-white color draws attention. “When did you return?”
“Three, four hours ago.” He doesn’t truly remember. “Took the train the moment I got back.”
She sighs then reaches out across the table, palm open, in invitation. Nino looks at it, at the rivulets of blue underneath pale skin, climbing up the white of her wrist and intersecting like streets on a map.
He takes her hand in his, the warmth comforting and familiar. The tea’s distinct aroma floods his senses, and his grip on her tightens. He feels her thumb stroking his knuckles in a soothing gesture, and he finally lets out a breath.
“It’s with me,” he says slowly, quietly. In the lack of activity in his hometown, everything seems louder: the chirping of afternoon birds, the rustle of leaves along with the wind, the jingling of the chimes hanging in front of the door. “It’s with me everywhere I go.”
His sister says nothing, but she’s listening. Nino doesn’t have to look at her to be able to tell; they’ve been in this situation before. He hears the clink of china scraping across wood, and he sees her pouring herself more tea.
“Is that why you’re back?” she asks, lifting her own cup to her lips. She doesn’t let go and Nino doesn’t, too, not even when he imitates her and drinks what’s left of his tea.
“It doesn’t matter where I go,” he says. He feels smaller in this house. This isn’t the same house he grew up in, but one that his sister built with her husband. It’s a two-storey farmhouse made of bricks, the bright red of which have faded into light brown over time. “It’s there. It never disappears. I thought if I went back to space it would be fine because space is big enough. Ninety percent still uncharted, can you believe that? I’ve seen so many worlds, and yet there’s still ninety percent unexplored part out there.” He’s rambling now, but she doesn’t mind. “I haven’t even seen all of the ten percent, but it doesn’t matter. It makes no difference.”
“You know,” she says, hiding half of her face with the teacup, “when you left for the colony, I hated you.”
Nino stills. He’s about to pull his hand away but she resists and shakes her head once.
“Listen. I hated you because I thought you were a coward. I knew you didn’t want to be a farmer or a mechanic. I knew you’d try to get out of the countryside as soon as you saw the chance. And you did. And I hated you the moment I knew you were out there, being a farmer or a mechanic in some far-flung chunk in space. You were what, eleven? And you left because kids your age had nothing better to do than make fun of you.”
Nino doesn’t refute her nor does he defend himself. He has no energy to. “I never fit in, you knew that. I never belonged. Not here, not out there, not in the city.”
“I wouldn’t know about ‘out there’ or ‘the city’, seeing as I never left this town,” she says, setting her cup back down on the table. “I knew you had a hard time growing up.”
Nino has heard this before. He hates this, the understanding she projects over the horror of bullying. She was never in the same position; how can she tell? “‘Hard’ doesn’t cut it.”
She lets out a breath, rushed and annoyed. “I’m not pitying you. I’m not being all-knowing here. I know what you went through, but only because you told me about it.” She peers at him, eyes intense and focused. It’s like seeing an older version of himself examining the present one. “Now are you going to tell me or do you need more tea?”
Nino pushes his cup towards her in answer. She straightens, but she keeps holding on to his hand. He doesn’t pull away, selfishly wanting the comfort she can give, even if it’s small and will fade into nothing once he lets go.
She fills his cup again and slides it between them, the contents spilling a little and leaving a wet trail. She doesn’t mind and neither does he. “Kazunari,” she says, and he meets her eyes as he takes a sip, “I won’t pry. If you want to continue drinking my bitter tea all afternoon, be my guest. If you don’t want me to help, that’s okay too. But if you need me to listen, I’m sure I have the time.”
She never calls him Kazunari unless he’s being deliberately obtuse. It’s her way of slapping him on the face and telling him to quit it.
Nino deliberates on what to say. He watches bits of tea leaves swirl inside his cup as he twirls it in his hand, like the patterns they form can bring insight to his future. Tasseography wasn’t something he believed in, but he doesn’t believe in much these days.
“I got married,” is what he decides on in the end. He doesn’t miss the way her eyebrows rise minutely in surprise. She glances at his free hand and Nino waves it, suddenly self-conscious. “No ring. We didn’t get married on Earth.”
“I figured as much, I’ll have you know,” she answers. “And?”
Nino doesn’t know how a laugh manages to escape from him. “And he was the most infuriating, particular, stubborn man on that ship. At first, he never laughed or smiled. He hated me the moment we met. Thought I was there to steal bits of his job-I was, but not in the sense he was thinking. Anyway. We didn’t get along in those first months.”
“Of marriage or on the job?” she asks. There’s a hint of a smile on her lips, but it’s not teasing.
“Both,” Nino admits. “We got hitched on the first mission. Ilari, have you heard of it?”
She nods. “The shipyard has an Ilarian foreman.” Nino remembers that her husband works as a repair technician in the shipyard.
“They married us off as a guarantee of the Union’s sincerity.”
She smiles. “Not the weirdest thing that happened to you, I’d wager, but amusing nonetheless.” Her thumb is now constantly tapping against his knuckles, as if she’s encouraging him. Maybe she is. “And? You wouldn’t be back if things didn’t go well.”
Nino blinks at that. “What?”
Her expression turns softer. “When you came back from Nyx-thin and malnourished but alive, so alive-I stopped hating you. I realized there was no point, that you probably knew that for yourself. I still thought you were a coward for running away, but you weren’t the same person when you came back. You loved Nyx VII. You loved the people on it, the friends you’d made, the life you could’ve had.”
Was he so transparent? It’s why these things haunt him-everything she’s telling him is true. Nyx VII would have been the home he’d wanted had things not turned for the worst.
“And when you came back, I saw just how much. But then it was taken from you. The fulfillment, the happiness-you did send this message that bragged of your good fortune-, the peace. It wasn’t the countryside farming you’d imagined, but out there, you were making a difference, little by little.” She sighs. “But you had to walk away from that to get back on your feet again.”
The memories remain with him though. He can recall how life in Nyx VII was like. Peaceful and normal as any day he’d spent in the countryside, but so different since every plant he nurtured, every rice grain he helped mill, they contributed to a then-possible future. It didn’t lead to a stagnant way of living. It wasn’t routinary. Each action paved the way to the growth of the colony, of their population. He was making a difference. Everything he did had purpose.
Her hold on him shifts, delicate fingers now wrapped around his wrist. He imitates her, finding the steady thrum of her pulse calming.
“Kazu,” she says, and he looks at her, “you only come back when you’ve found something nice and have to walk away from it. ”
He looks away, takes a couple of deep breaths. His tea remains untouched, leaves settling at the bottom, the color of the brew similar to the faded hue of the brick walls that formed this house. The brown in his colors.
“I let it all go. I tried. And for a while it worked,” he says, eyes shut. “It even felt real. But then something happens, like the last time, and just like that, nothing’s the same anymore.” He has to swallow to get the next bits out. “He was, in a way, related to the last days of Nyx. And I got to know of it in the worst way possible.”
“Was it so bad for you that you had to drop it all and go?” she asks, and that makes Nino open his eyes. “I don’t understand, Kazu. I never will, because I wasn’t there on Nyx with you. I’m never going to know exactly how it felt. But you wouldn’t be here if it didn’t feel so real that there’s a part of you that hates how things turned out.”
“He reminded me of things,” Nino says, refusing to say the name. It would just make it more real, that he’s on Earth and the Masquerade is still on its way to the space station above Earth. “And exposed me to things I never knew. It came back all of a sudden, like I was just fresh from being rescued and still couldn’t believe I was alive, that I made it out alive.”
“Do you think you should’ve stayed? Or was your running justified?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
She smiles, small but gentle. “Liar.”
Nino straightens at that. He meets her eyes and finds no judgment there, just her calling him out on his bullshit. “It’s not fair,” he says, like he’s eleven again and he’s crying from a bad dream and she has her arms around him, shushing him and telling him it’s okay. “It’s not fair to him if...if I’m this way.” He breaks eye contact and stares at his tea instead, cold now but still emitting the distinct scent. “I don’t know if what I had with him was real, but it felt like that.”
His voice cracks. “It really felt like that.”
He feels her thumb stroking the bony part of his wrist in circles. “It’s not fair to you either.”
That makes Nino look at his sister, allowing her to see inside him without all the pretenses. His walls never worked too long on her.
“It’s not fair to you both. You’ve realized this, I’m sure. You’re smarter than me, Kazu. Braver too. It’s why you were able to leave the planet. I hated you because I was never going to be a risk-taker like you. At sixteen I interpreted that as cowardice on your part, the fact that you took a shuttle to run away from those bullying you. But as I got older, I realized I’m the one who’s afraid to leave. I hated you because you were able to do that.”
She reaches out and holds both of his hands now. Her wedding ring digs into his skin but he doesn’t take notice, only keeps his hands in hers, afraid that if he lets go, he won’t be able to feel anything anymore. “I would never have the strength to walk away,” she admits, smiling at him. “So the fact that you were able to do that because you knew you had to, you needed to, that’s something. In the end it’s not fair, but who’s to say it won’t change in time?”
Nino laughs a little; he can’t help it. “You think I’d get better? I tried. I moved to the city, and when that wasn’t enough, I ventured into outer space. I gave myself time. I allowed myself to be happy. Nothing worked.”
“I can’t fight your demons for you, Kazu,” she says, and it hits him like a splash of cold water on the face. “No one can. I can’t even tell you what to do. But I know that you know. Somewhere in you, you know. And when you get there, when you’re better, you’re going to know what to do.”
She lets go of one of his hands to reach out, wiping away a tear that streaked his cheek. He didn’t even feel it fall.
“You’ll get there,” she says, and Nino, for the first time in twenty-three years, cries.
--
He finds a teaching job somewhere close to the shipyard. The hum of engines and welding machines is a familiar noise now. Somehow, knowing that vessels that are set to venture into outer space are being made around him is soothing in its own peculiar way.
He doesn’t accept his sister’s offer of living in the spare bedroom, rather, he goes to find a place he can call his own. Smaller than his quarters in the Masquerade, but he fills it with things that help him remember who he is-holorecords of Nyx VII, theses and write-ups about the colony, accounts of survivors that he never bothered to look up before. He doesn’t have the necessary clearances to get to the truth of things since that remains classified information, but the bits he discovers, he holds on to. He’s had enough of running.
He’s trying something different now.
In the mornings, he goes to the nearby language school and teaches twenty-five students about the languages he knows. He hones his Ilarian, Zuran, and takes it upon himself to study Grenus’ native tongue. Elioni, he gives up on. He just can’t do it.
One night, he borrows his brother-in-law’s speeder and searches for a particular establishment.
He impresses the owner with card magic, and she praises him for having quick hands and skills. He comes back every week to show her a new trick, her smile bright and truly amazed every time he pulls out the correct card from the stack.
His weekly visits that made him a regular, turn twice a week in a matter of months. He gets to explore every bit of the place-from the roof, the walls, the thrusters that keep it afloat in the midst of such a busy complex, the kind smile the owner has for him every time she sees it’s him.
The years burn.
--
From up here, the world looks as he remembered the last time.
That’s the first thing he notices. Earth is one planet in the vastness of space, a habitable chunk that has a space station floating above it. The king on the chessboard, representing the home of the Union, an organization that strives for peace despite its mistakes.
There is no female officer waiting to guide him this time, but he finds his way. His feet remember where to go, his hands recall what to do. His forefinger presses the 35th floor in the elevator and he watches calmly as the numbers increase one by one, indicating that he’s merely passing by all these floors.
It might be too soon or too late when he hears the tiny ding that indicates that he has reached his destination, but he doesn’t linger on it. He steps out as soon as the doors open to reveal a room that is so vast and sparsely decorated he could probably transform it to a lounge to make use of all the space.
“Are you an applicant, sir?” he hears, and he finds a woman sitting behind a desk that he can’t remember seeing before. This, he thinks, is one of the things that have changed.
“Yes,” he says, showing the tag he printed out back at home as per instructions. “I’m applicant number forty-six.”
The woman nods, handing him a data pad. “Please sign your name for confirmation.”
He does, and he is ushered in a waiting room where six other people are seated in silence. He’s been to job interviews before, but never for this. He thinks he likes the change from last time.
He waits with the rest, keeping his hands folded on his lap as numbers get flashed on the holoscreen, applicants being asked to leave the room and enter the one adjacent to it. He listens to the slow, rhythmic beat of whatever contemporary piece the Union chooses to play on their speakers. Or maybe it’s not the Union responsible for this song. What he hears sounds like it’s right up his future employer’s alley.
Being applicant number forty-six means he is the last one to be interviewed, and he knows that his co-applicants are relieved that they are not the ones in his position. The interviewer must be tired, he hears them say on their way out. They also say that they would hate to be the last one because that means the interview is going to be rushed.
He knows who is behind that door. He doesn’t think that will happen.
When the number 46 finally appears on the holoscreen in front of him, he stands and straightens his clothes, walking towards the interview room in confident strides.
“Have a seat,” the interviewer tells him as soon as the doors slide shut. The man doesn’t look up. He appears to be finalizing applicant number 45’s information.
There is a large window behind the interviewer that is overlooking the stars, and the sight of them is soothing in an inexplicable way.
He smiles and remains standing by the doors. “I respectfully decline.”
The man seated behind the desk snaps his head up immediately, his face in absolute shock. His hands freeze in their movements, fingers hovering awkwardly over a data pad.
“Nino,” Sho breathes, like he can’t believe it.
Nino tilts his head, raising the applicant number tag that he printed out. “Applicant number forty-six,” he reads for Sho, who sits unmoving still. “Whose idea was it to ditch the names? Yours or Jun-kun’s?”
Sho has to take a few seconds to recover and to swallow a lump in his throat before he can get some words out. “The Ambassador wanted to eliminate bias and thought it would be better if we assigned numbers. To be as impersonal as possible and to give the applicants a sense of equality.”
“Eliminate bias,” Nino repeats, taking a few steps closer to the provided chair. “Spoken like a true worker for the Union, I see. But I had to put my name on the application form. Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”
“The Ambassador insisted on handling the assignment of numbers himself. He wanted to be the one to personally review the applicant’s résumés this time. I had no access to them,” Sho explains. The earlier shock has ebbed away, but Sho is still looking at him like he’s not real.
Nino supposes that this is what two years of separation and silence cause.
“So he knew I applied for it and didn’t tell you,” Nino says. “Typical Matsumoto Jun, I’d say.” He takes a seat on the provided chair then, crossing his legs at the knee. “You’re doing the preliminary interviews?”
“Yes,” Sho says and clears his throat, seeming to remember that he’s in the middle of his job.
“Then ask me things you don’t know,” Nino tells him. He hasn’t seen Sho’s face for too long. He finds that he misses it, although Sho did get a few more wrinkles on certain parts of his face. Two years made him age faster than he should have, and perhaps Nino is partly responsible for that. He did leave Sho to do all the work alone.
It takes Sho some moments to compose himself. “How have you been?” he asks in the end, like he’s afraid of overstepping boundaries or has too many questions threatening to spill out of his mouth and can’t decide which to give voice to first.
“Not as old as you,” Nino says with a smile, “but feeling twice as old. Maybe. I’ve been on Earth for a while, teaching languages to people who have the mind to listen. I think some of your applicants were my former students.”
Sho nods, seemingly satisfied with his explanation. Nino thinks he may have missed Sho and the way he looks down when he is embarrassed. His body language remains the same and Nino can read through every movement with accuracy.
“You’re wondering why I’m here,” Nino concludes. And if I want you for you.
“You can’t blame me, not after two years,” Sho retorts weakly.
“Aiba-shi never told you anything?” When he and Aiba had finally met in the Aiba family's floating restaurant, Aiba cried and nearly tackled him to the ground, calling him a ‘selfish bastard who deserves a punch’. Nino protested when Aiba’s threat proved to be empty. He believed he earned it after what he did.
It was through Aiba that Nino found out about the translator post opening.
“You’ve been meeting him?” Sho asks, stunned.
“I’ve met with his mom and dad more times than I can count ever since I went back. Of course I have been meeting him. We used to have beer Tuesdays at the Aiba family establishment. So he didn’t tell you a thing. I’m surprised. I’ll have you know I didn’t ask him to do that.”
“I wouldn’t dare to presume.”
Silence lingers once more, seconds passing by with them merely looking at each other. Sho still in varying states of disbelief and, when Nino searches for it, fear. Like he thinks Nino is simply an apparition and will disappear in moments.
“If you have any questions regarding my qualifications as an applicant,” Nino says, lips twitching to point at the data pad in front of Sho, “I have provided character references in my résumé.”
Sho’s fingers move with deftness, accessing said file, and Nino can’t help grinning when Sho sighs and shakes his head.
“It says here that your first and only character reference is Matsumoto Jun,” Sho tells him, looking close to laughing.
Nino nods. “The only one that matters given the job, I thought.”
“Seems to me you and him already have a candidate in mind.”
“Said candidate believes he is cut for the job. He also believes that this won’t end like the last time, but he understands the concern.”
Sho’s shoulder slump at that, then he looks at Nino with wondering eyes. “I can’t hide anything from you, can I?”
“Not anymore. I did my research, you know. Something I should have done the last time. But better late than never, wouldn’t you agree?” Nino stands, walking to where Sho is. “After all,” he adds, voice dropping to a whisper when he’s close enough, “I’m still married to you.”
He gestures to the data pad again, smiling as Sho powers it back on and scrolls up.
“You didn’t change your status,” Sho says. There’s this lilt of happiness in his voice. Nino assumes he is feeling intensely relieved for reasons unknown. It’s just like him not to check on Nino, perhaps thinking it would be an invasion of Nino’s privacy. Nino wasn’t the only one who kept distance.
“Unless in the past two years you have committed adultery or have become insane, then no.”
Sho looks up at him, sheer disbelief on his face. His brows are furrowed and his mouth is hanging open, and Nino only raises his eyebrow.
“Two years,” Sho whispers incredulously. “Two years and you never-?”
Nino laughs, head thrown back, shoulders shaking. He feels lighter somehow. “Two years and it was just my hand and a bunch of pornographic holofilms on mute. It was lonely.” He shakes his head, still chuckling under his breath. “Kidding aside, no. I never. Because there was no one.”
No one else he can imagine for it to work with. Of the two of them, Sho has the right to be shocked. Sho doesn’t look like he has gotten any action given the work environment that he lives in, which must have been extremely stressful after Nino’s resignation. They both had their ways of coping-Nino with leaving, Sho with working and drowning everything else out.
“On paper I’m here for the translator position,” he says seriously, holding Sho’s gaze in his own. “Other than that, I’m here to see if all of what we had shared will still turn out to be real even after I carelessly tossed it aside. If you let me, I’ll try to do better.”
“It won’t be easy,” Sho says, taking the words out of Nino’s mouth.
“It won’t,” he acknowledges. “But I want to try. I’ve been doing a lot of trying. So if you can bear with that, if you want to, I’ll be happy to try again. I’ll do my best.” He knows his words don’t mean much. Why would they? He left before. Even Nino doesn’t know if he’s not going to leave again. He can never say for sure, and Sho looks like he understands.
“If not,” Nino continues, “that’s fine with me and I completely understand.” It will hurt, but that can go unsaid. Nino purses his lips in uncertainty.
Sho studies his face, as if searching for a hint of rejection or a lie somewhere. He’s having a ‘pinch me’ moment, and if he asks, Nino will gladly oblige just to assure him that this is all happening right now, that he is here and the furthest thing from his mind is to walk away and leave everything behind.
“Just so we’re clear,” Sho says, rising from his seat and moving to stand in front of the windows showing a view of outside, “we still can’t annul it. I don’t think I am insane.”
“I would hate it if you were,” Nino says honestly, standing beside him. When Sho’s fingers brush against his knuckles, Nino threads their fingers together, finding the warmth still so familiar and comforting, like nothing has changed. In his heart, he is thankful that he still has this to go back to even after everything.
“If we’re going to try again,” Sho tells him, eyes fixed on the inky blackness outside, “I think we should open up more. That mostly goes for me, I guess. But if there’s anything you think I should know, tell me. I promise to try doing the same.”
Nino squeezes his hand. “I can work with that.”
Sho doesn’t say anything anymore, and Nino allows it all to wash over him: the feeling of Sho being so close after years apart, the acceptance settling inside him, the unspoken apologies, the overdue forgiveness felt and understood without saying.
He looks out and thinks he can understand what the stars are telling him.
Welcome home.