The next morning saw Alec out of bed when a sleeping Daz kicked him in the stomach. Still rubbing the grit from his eyes, he stumbled his way through the paper corridors until he found the dining room.
Pausing in the doorway, Alec watched as a man dressed in a business suit paraded what looked to be an endless stream of documents in front of his grandfather. Despite their late night, the old man was impeccably dressed and alert. With one hand he used sticks to gather fish and vegetables to eat as, with the other, he signed some of the papers and waved others away. Very little was said between the pair; a word here, a grunt there.
The unknown man was the first to spot Alec. He gave a short, stiff nod and Alec thought that he was about the same age as his father's secretary, Bernice. The way that this man acted seemed to indicate the same sort of relationship, though Bernice would have never stood over his father at breakfast. Alec snickered as he imagined his mothers reaction if the woman ever tried.
It was his laughter which caused Ojiisan's head to rise. The man stared at him a moment, then barked in sparrow-tongue at the kitchen door. A second later, Sorachan came fussing through with a tray of something steaming and set it at the other end of the table. "Good morning, Aleckun," she said through a gritted smile and indicated a chair with a sweep of her hand. "I did not expect you awake so early."
Alec edged toward the table, staring at the items she carefully put before him on the table. As he sat, she laid a curiously large-cupped spoon and a pair of chopsticks before him, then backed away. "I will be in the kitchen if you need me."
"Um, thanks," Alec replied after a second; she was already gone.
There were two bowls and two plates set before him, alongside a glass of milk. One bowl was filled to the brim with a pasty white substance which Alec thought resembled rice, were rice mashed and slimy. The other held a semi-translucent yellow soup with chunks of white and bits of a green, leaf-like substance floating in it. Of the plates, one held some familiar looking items—bits of fish, pickles, two tiny tomatoes, and more of the curious green leaves—along with a strange, tan pasty-substance he could only relate to re-fried beans. The other was the only item which seemed at all appetizing: a plain omelette.
Alec looked up at the two men to find that the secretary was watching him, a smile upon his face. "What?" he asked. Ojiisan, immersed in some document, didn't even look up.
"My apologies," the man bowed again, though it was a mere sketch of the sort he'd seen others give his grandfather, "you seemed confused. Are you familiar with these items?"
"No," Alec shook his head. "We eat mostly cereal at home."
"Ah, yes." The secretary glanced at Ojiisan, who didn't look up or comment, before he moved to Alec's end of the table. "Let's see... This is okayu. It is a pudding made of rice."
"Oh," Alec frowned. Now that it had been pointed out it seemed obvious.
"These," the man said as he pointed to the plate of mixed items, "you can put in the pudding, or eat separately. It is fish, and vegetables, seaweed, and natto."
"Natto?"
"Ah... soy bean," the man replied after a moment's thought. Moving on, he pointed to the omelette, "Tamagoyaki, though you may say 'omelette,' I believe. It is eaten with soy sauce." He reached over to tap a small container that had also been on the table the night before.
"And the soup is called 'miso.' It has tofu and seaweed and onion in it," he finished with a kind smile.
"Thank you," Alec replied, though his stomach turned in some despair. He wondered if he'd ever see real food again. The secretary sketched another bow, almost a nod, and returned to Ojiisan's side just as the older man put aside the paper he'd been reading. As they conversed over it, Alec's gaze returned to the strange meal.
Masking a sigh with a yawn, he reached for the omelette first.
He discovered with no small amount of surprise that as much as he hated octopus for dinner, he liked Japanese breakfasts. Though there was still something odd about so much rice in everything, it seemed to go over well in the morning. By the time that he'd worked his way through the whole of his meal, Ojiisan and the secretary had left and Sorachan and Daz had taken their place. He listened as she gave Daz a lesson in vocabulary with his food, and couldn't help but take a small pleasure at the way the toddler fussed at the lack of Kellog's Frosties.
The rest of the day was spent dodging Sorachan's attempts to teach him Japanese, slumming around the gardens with his mother's strict instruction in mind, and running interference between Daz's occasional tantrum and whatever breakable object was in near proximity. He didn't save an expensive looking vase, but the butler swept aside the pieces without comment.
His name, Alec discovered, was Takihara, and he did not speak any English at all. Neither did the cook, an older woman called Mikasan, but she was plump and cheerful and quite happy to provide the boys with a plain lunch of sandwiches, which they took on the porch outside the kitchen.
Time passed at the lazy pace of summer, and soon, Alec found, they'd fallen into a routine.
By day, Daz was as well behaved as his brother ever knew him to be. After breakfast, he would play games with Sorachan and then watch cartoons he couldn't understand. Alec supervised this, though he thought some of the shows on Japanese TV were a little scary in their craziness, but Daz didn't seem to mind. He laughed and cheered to see men run through the streets in diapers, screaming at pedestrians; Alec watched on with apprehension.
At night, Daz seemed to remember that their mother was gone. After dinner, Alec would shove Sorachan aside and take his brother to bed himself. Every night, after Daz had finally cried himself to sleep, Alec reminded himself that the boy didn't know any better; he had no clue why Rei had left them there, or even why she'd done so alone. It was better that way, too.
That knowledge didn't stop his resentment, but it did curb it enough for him to deal.
Alec ate breakfast with Ojiisan every morning. The secretary's name, he learned, was Onohara. He was the most recent in a long line of "personal assistants" to Ojiisan, all of whom had gone on to be politicians themselves. Unlike Ojiisan, Onohara's English was flawless; "I attended university in Britain," Onohara confided one day, "I was a classmate of your mother's."
Despite this connection to Rei and his homeland, Alec wasn't sure what to make of the man. Onohara seemed nice enough--in the same overly formal way that everyone in the household was "nice."
Then, one morning, Ojiisan and his shadow weren't at breakfast. Alec ate alone, knowledgeable enough by now to request extra natto and no pickles, then left before Daz had even gotten up. A check of the garage found the Rolls Royce parked and the driver no where to be found. Curious, Alec went back inside and began a check of the house.
The dining room was avoided when he heard Daz's familiar morning recitation of Japanese foods, utensils, and whatever else it was that he now boasted vocabulary for. Alec rolled his eyes and slipped past the door when Sorachan was too busy to notice him.
He went past the empty study, and sitting room, and found himself in the garden. Everything was still and quiet in the morning light, but one room on the far side of the enclosure had its wall cracked open. Alec slipped, barefoot and silent, through the grass and back onto the porch. Crouching, he peeked through the crack in the door and his eyes widened at the flash of steel from inside.
Clothed in the same dark-blue robes Alec had seen him wear that first night in the garden, Ojiisan moved around the empty room with a grace that belied his ogre-like build and age. In his hands, a long curved sword flashed in the light as it arched through the air, sliced, stabbed, and cut invisible opponents. Not a sound was made, beyond the rustle of fabric and the gentle thump of his grandfather's footfalls.
Alec had never seen a real swordsman; he hadn't thought they'd still existed.
The frame of the door shifted gradually under his hand. Caught up in the dance, Alec didn't notice until it gave away and sent him sprawling onto the bamboo-wood floor. A second later he scrambled to his feet, red in the face, just in time to watch his grandfather slide the sword into the scabbard attached with a cloth to his waist.
"Um," Alec said as he tugged at the ends of his shirt, "Good morning, Ojiisan."
Ojiisan bowed slightly and said in his flat, hollow accent, "Good morning."
Alec glanced at the door, still standing open to the morning air, and then back at Ojiisan, who hadn't moved. He fought to keep his hands straight at his side. "What were you doing?"
It seemed for a moment that Ojiisan wouldn't answer. He looked down at the sword stashed in his sash and lifted one hand to caress the wrapped hilt. Then, he took the whole thing—scabbard and all—from the sash and held it in front of him for Alec to see.
The wrapping at the hilt was black silk. Alec knew the fabric from some of his mother's dresses, and, after a second's hesitation, he dared to reach out and touch it. It was still warm from his grandfather's hand, but the metal that stopped it at the scabbard was cold.
When Alec had taken his hand away, Ojiisan slid the sword free a few inches from it's scabbard so that he could see the mirror-fine polish on the blade.
"Katana," said Ojiisan. "Very sharp. Very ord. Take life many man."
Alec wet his lips and frowned as he gave the blade another look over. Ojiisan slid the blade home and put it back into his sash. How that held the blade, Alec didn't know, but he couldn't deny that it worked. "Katana," he repeated, "Like... so you're a ninja?"
The old man winced and waved one hand as though brushing off a fly. "Ninja desu ka? Iie," the man growled at himself and shook his head. Looking back to Alec, his expression softened just a little, and he gestured to the door. His other hand went to the boy's shoulder, pressing just enough to indicate that Alec should follow him.
They left the room together and ventured around the garden, keeping to the porch. Alec noticed that Ojiisan was barefoot—everyone was, when they were in the house, though it continued to surprise him. When they reached the wall-door for the sitting room, his grandfather opened it and lead him inside.
The back of the room was one of the few solid walls in the compound; Alec had noticed before that there seemed to be cabinets built into it, but he hadn't spent enough time in the room to investigate.
As Ojiisan guided him to a halt in front of it, Alec managed to get a good look at it. Tall dark wood panels stretching from ceiling to floor. the base was like a pyramid, with shallow steps up to the trunk of the cabinets—from here, Alec could see that it was not actually a part of the wall, but a hutch build against it.
Ojiisan reached for a sliding bolt placed in the middle of the cabinets and in a practiced movement had the case unlocked. the panels of the front swung open as one, folding back on one another to reveal a vast, single chamber filled with pictures and paintings, carvings and candles, and small wooden items the purpose of which he couldn't imagine.
He'd seen this setup before, he realized, though the faces in the pictures were different. All but one...
"Obachan," Alec said and began to reach for the simple wooden frame. He stopped, almost to touching it, as he realized what he was doing. A gesture from Ojiisan spurred him on, and he picked the picture off the shelf.
Alec had thought he'd seen all the pictures that existed of his grandmother, but this one was new. She was wearing a red-silk robe, similar to the blue one that Ojiisan wore, but much more complex; it boasted golden and white flowers, beautiful and budding, down it's sleeves and toward her feet, and was tied with a black and gold sash. Her hair, loose and as long as his mother's, blew lightly in the wind beneath a fully-blossomed cherry tree.
She was smiling, young and happy; laughing at the person behind the camera.
"Ee. Ayame," Ojiisan whispered. Alec looked up to find the man staring at the picture in he was holding.
After a moment, the man shook his head and gestured back to the cabinet. "Hotokesama. Ancestor..." Ojiisan flapped his fingers at the cabinet to indicate it. "Where from is we being come."
Alec nodded and replaced the picture of his grandmother on the shelf. "Yeah, Sofu has one at home. It's a lot smaller, though." That was an understatement, he thought, imagining the tiny cabinet that sat in the corner of his great-grandfather's sitting room.
"Sofu ka?" Ojiisan frowned at him.
"Um. My..." Alec's eyebrows scrunched together as he tried to remember what Rei had said in the car. "Sooo... sou... Obachan's father."
Ojiisan grunted and looked back at the pictures. For a long moment the man was silent and Alec fidgeted under the thought that he'd offended him. Then Ojiisan sighed and scrubbed a hand over his balding head.
Casting another long look at his grandson, the man touched the hilt of his katana once again and with his other hand gestured to one of the older paintings. "Katana be giving to every first son, first son. Is come from time when ancestor is being powerful samurai. Warrior."
"I thought ninjas were warriors," Alec mused.
Ojiisan shook his head. "Ninja no warrior. Ninja is... is... bah!" Throwing his hands up, Ojiisan stomped one foot uselessly against the floor and scowled at the altar. Alec backed off a step, fingers twisted into the tail of his shirt. His movement got a look from Ojiisan, who seemed to wilt a little. "Word is not have," the man said after a time, and then took himself from the room with a weary sigh.
Left behind, Alec stared at the picture of his grandmother. He couldn't help but wonder that she looked so happy there, when, in every other photo he'd seen, she'd always seemed sad.
He didn't see his grandfather again that morning, and by the afternoon the Rolls Royce was gone. At lunch, Sorachan corralled him into the kitchen with Daz, where Mikasan fried corn-dogs for them. As surprised as he was, and very aware of Mikasan's apparent distaste for the food, Alec ate hungrily. He didn't even care that it was an American foodstuff—it was still closer to home than this place.
After Daz had been cleaned up, Sorachan announced that they were going to take a walk in the park. Excited by the prospect of getting out of the compound, Alec helped to get his brother's shoes on and ignored the vocabulary lesson it came with.
With Daz between them, holding on to one of their hands each, the trio exited the gate by way of the buzzer and walked down the walled-in street. It was a warm, early summer day, and the blue sky above was broken only by the piercing towers of Tokyo proper. Days had passed since they'd last laid eyes on the streets, but Alec remembered that they'd only been a few blocks away from the park, across a great boulevard.
A handful of triangular stop signs later and he was proven right. The boulevard was swollen with traffic, but Sorachan lead them to a lighted crosswalk where they waited their turn. Stopped there in a crowd of dark-haired strangers, Alec couldn't help but notice the crowd putting space between themselves and the trio. Men in business suits and women with cell phones cut quick glances at Daz, their faces betraying disapproval.
Alec's hand tightened around his brother's enough that the boy complained; he apologized quickly and let go.
The light turned on the other side of the walk, and Sorachan lead them across it. Alec lagged behind a little now, and when they reached the other side he kept a few paces behind the pair. Daz was oblivious to people around him, chattering a pigeon-hole smashup of English and Japanese. Sorachan nodded as if she understood, but Alec expected that, like all adults, she wasn't really listening.
Even while walking, the other pedestrians seemed to go out of their way to put distance between themselves and Daz, yet they had little problem bumping into Alec on their way past. A few murmured what sounded like sparrow-talk apologies at him, but none seemed to care that he was there. Alec couldn't understand why until a little girl about Daz's age passed them at the gates to the park.
When she saw him, her eyes went wide as saucers, and she stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk. "Kawaii de," the girl cooed, one hand reaching for Daz's shoulder. He saw her, then, and forced Sorachan to stop as he eyed the girl petting his curls.
"Mikachan," the girl's mother scolded. She rattled off something too quick for Alec to hope of deciphering, and the girl's hand dropped to her side. Daz seemed to recover from his shock and, to everyone's horror and amusement, grabbed the girls hand and kissed it as he bowed. Alec could only assume it was behavior learned from one too many King Arthur movies.
"Daz desu. Haggy-me-mushy-tea!"
The girl squealed and hid her face in in her mother's skirt, giggling, "Dame! Dame!"
Despite this, Daz seemed pleased with himself. Alec's lips twitched a little as he looked at some of the passersbys who had stopped to stare; a few were hiding smiles of their own, and the space around them had seemed to shrink somewhat.
The girl's mother, laughing a little, urged her daughter away from her skirt with sparrow twitters. Gradually, Mikachan turned and gave a slight bow to Daz. "Mika desu," she whispered and then ran and hid behind her mother, though she peeked around to look at Daz.
Sorachan's grip stopped him from going after her. The two women exchanged some words, both fighting laughter, and then the woman lead Mikachan away. "So-rah-ja!" Daz shouted behind them, waving madly. Little Mikachan turned, slightly, to wave as well, a blush and smile painted across her face.
Alec watched this all from the sidelines, feeling as much a stranger as he looked. At Sorachan's glance he approached the pair so that they could move further into the park, all the while wishing that he'd stayed at the compound.
Daz reached for his hand, and he took it. Sorachan smiled at him, leading the pair through the tree-lined path toward a fountain square. "Do you know what 'hajimemashite' means, Aleckun?"
"Alec," he replied, frowning, "Why can't you pronounce that right?"
"kun," Sorachan explained without skipping a beat, "Is noun suffix. It is polite to add such things to people's names. I would be honoured to drop it, if you wish."
"Honoured?" Alec snickered faintly.
"Yes. Here, we only drop the noun suffix if we are very close to someone. To do so with a stranger is rude."
They passed the fountain as Alec considered this. It was a good thing that they both had a hand on Daz, because one sight of the water jets had the boy wanting to go splash in them. Sorachan promised to take them swimming later that week, and that got them away from the water and toward the playground.
"Keep the 'kun'," Alec said as they reached the first of the rainbow coloured plastic jungle gyms. They each let go of Daz, and the toddler flew toward the monkey bars. In a matter of moments, he was playing amongst other bright-eyed kids as though he were back in London.
"As you wish," Sorachan replied. Looking up, Alec noticed the tightness of her mouth, and he gave a mental sigh. "Don't you want to play, Aleckun?"
There weren't any kids his age on the playground, and he didn't want to go play with the toddlers. He kicked lightly at the grass with one sneaker. "Nah."
"Mm." She touched his shoulder and then gestured to a nearby bench. "Come sit with me, if you want."
He didn't, but he followed her anyway and sat on the other end of the bench. They watched Daz play for a while—Alec didn't know how long it was, but it felt like forever. When he began to shift in his seat, he looked back at Sorachan, who seemed content to sit. "Why do you speak English so well?"
The woman jumped a little at the sound of his voice, and Alec smirked. She glanced at him, then. "Why or how?"
Rocking from side to side, Alec shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Both?"
"I'm a linguist and translator," Sorachan replied after a moment. "I speak four languages fluently, including my native Japanese."
"Yeah, but... why?"
"I like languages. They are my talent... It's like art to me, I suppose." Sorachan smiled at him. "That is not what you're asking, though, is it?"
Alec pursed his lips as he thought about that. On the playground, Daz was letting a group of girls giggle over his blond curls, and thoroughly enjoying the attention. In return, they let him play with their sand pails. It really was just like in London; Daz had always gotten along better with the little girls than boys.
Content that Daz was safe on the playground; Alec leaned back on the bench and looked up into the trees above them. There were birds up in the branches, twittering away between the leaves. He envied them their wings. "You're not a nanny," he stated, finally, "You're a... what did you call it? Linguist. That means you work with languages."
"You're a very smart boy."
Alec shrugged. "Mr. Frankfort says so."
"Mr. Frankfort?"
"My tutor." Alec flopped his head to one side to look at her and found her already watching him. "You act a lot like him, with Daz."
"You are privately taught," Sorachan mused as she turned her attention back to the playground.
"Dad says until secondary."
Sorachan's hands folded in her lap as she fell silent. For a long moment he continued to look her over, wondering what it was she thought. An unnerving tingle ran down his spine as he realized how similar her expressions were to Rei's. They weren't that different in mannerisms; the thought made his stomach turn.
"You disapprove of his learning," Sorachan finally stated.
"If Mum wanted us to learn Japanese, she would've taught us herself."
"I'm sorry that you feel that way," she replied softly. Alec snorted derisively and got up. She didn't call him back when he walked away, and he didn't stop at the playground.
An hour later, Alec was still walking. The park was huge and filled with kids; most of them, he was surprised to note, didn't seem to have a parent with them. Five-year-olds in bright yellow hats ran in packs without supervision; the boys wild and unreserved, and the girls giggling over dolls. It was like a kid's paradise, a real life Neverland. The thought made him laugh in spite of himself, and he stopped when he came to a clear space of grass where some boys were kicking around a football.
They seemed to be around his age, and none of them were wearing a uniform. He fidgeted on the sidelines, watching as one tried to bounce the ball off his knee a few times before giving up and kicking it across the field. Another boy in a red shirt, better than the rest, met the ball with the flat of his head, sending it careening toward an impromptu goal marked by red tape around two trees. Another kid in grass-stained shorts tried to stop it, but it slipped through his upraised fingers.
Several of the boys began to whoop as the goalie went into the trees to retrieve the ball.
Alec watched them for a few minutes; the Red Shirt's team sorely outmatched the other, he thought, and Red Shirt was obviously aware of that. Whenever he scored, he pranced around the field with a cocky grin on his face, punching the arms of his teammates and sneering playfully at the opposing faction.
One of the boys on the losing team was growing more agitated by the minute. Though Alec couldn't understand the words he exchanged with Red Shirt, they sounded less and less friendly. Finally, Angry Boy snapped and threw the ball at Red Shirt, who caught it. He went storming off to cat calls, pushing past Alec with enough force to send Alec stumbling aside.
Alec stared at the boy's back a moment, then turned to find the other boys watching him. Red Shirt, still grinning, came forward. "Asobou!" he called, bouncing the ball in his hands and jerked his chin at Alec. "Asobou."
"I, uh..." He glanced about at their expectant faces, and then took a few steps forward, lifting his hands helplessly. "I'm not sure what you're saying."
As a unit, the boys stared at him. Then, one began to snicker. They ribbed one another and shoved to the front a kid in a green jersey. "Pray," he said and extended one hand, before gesturing it back toward the group. "Sokkah. Withu usu pray."
At that, Red Shirt tossed the ball at Alec.
A smirk drew itself across Alec's lips and he bounced the ball off his forehead, onto one knee, and then to the ground, where he caught it with a sneaker. He didn't have boots... but did it matter? The boys returned his grin, and he kicked open the new game.
They had to stop when the sun went down. The lamps in the park weren't strong enough to illuminate the field, and the group of boys began to break up. Red Shirt and Green Jersey were headed in the same direction as Alec, and the three fell into step together.
Red Shirt and Green Jersey chattered at each other with him in the middle, and for once Alec didn't mind the sparrow talk. Without his relatives around, it was actually kind of fun to be clueless. Returned was that feeling of adventure at being stuck in a faraway place. They walked unmolested through the dark, and soon came up to the gate he remembered from that morning. Beyond it was the familiar, tree-lined boulevard and, Alec knew, the residential compounds behind it.
Red Shirt stopped him when they reached the side walk, and chittered something at Green Jersey. Green Jersey gave a nod, then turned his attention to Alec. "Yu tomorowo comu pray?"
Alec nodded when he had deciphered the question and brushed a curl from his vision. After a second's thought, he dared to add "Hai. Asobou."
The boys snickered at him and nodded. Red Shirt slapped Green Jersey's arm, and then waved to him, shouting "soreja" as they headed off down the street in the opposite direction he needed to go. Left alone, Alec turned to look at the corner block he'd crossed earlier that day with Sorachan.
The street still had people on it, though fewer than there had been earlier, and none of them seemed to pay him any mind. Alec stuffed his hands in his jean pockets and shuffled down the street.
In the crowd at the crosswalk, Alec was not stared at or treated with distaste. His fellow pedestrians had little qualms including him in the press. When the light changed, the bodies around him urged him forward across the street.
He managed to disengage himself from the crowd in order to turn down the right street. The stream of people headed off down the main boulevard as Alec ducked, alone, onto the street that would take him home. His footsteps echoed a little on the dark, empty street the further he got from the main boulevard.
Ignoring the prickle of doubt at the back of his mind, he retraced his steps back to his grandfather's compound with little hesitation. When he saw the now-familiar gate, he breathed out a slight sigh of relief and jogged up to it. The gate didn't budge when he touched it, so he pressed the intercom. After a moment, someone barked at him in Japanese.
"Um.. It's Alec," he replied after a hesitation.
"Alec?" The voice asked. There was a pause and then the buzzer sounded. "Welcome home," said the intercom as one side of the gate swung open. Alec slipped through it and paused to watch it shut itself. When he turned back to the house, he saw Sorachan standing on the porch.
Ducking his head a little, Alec took his time crossing the tiny bridge over the stream and mounting the steps to the front door.
"Hi," he mumbled as he came to a halt in front of her.
"Good evening," she replied. For a moment he thought that would be the end of it, then she clasped her hands behind her. "I was about to go look for you. I was very worried, Aleckun."
"It was just a park," Alec grumbled as he scuffed his shoe against the porch.
"Yes. And I have no problem with your playing there by yourself. But please, understand that I am responsible for you."
Alec looked up at the woman and bit his bottom lip. "I don't need a nanny," he protested.
Sorachan sunk into a crouch and put her elbows on her knees. "No," she replied after a moment, "I don't think you do. Perhaps, though, you and I could be friends."
He stuffed his hands into his back pockets and shrugged. Head dipping a bit, his curls spilled forward to obscure most of his vision. "What does 'asobou' mean, exactly?"
If she was surprised, Sorachan didn't show it. "It is... it depends on how it's used. Mostly it means 'let's play' or 'i will play.'"
Alec nodded a little. He grabbed the doorknob and twisted it, ducking inside before she could pry. In the foyer he left his shoes beside Daz's, then headed inside. A quick search of the house found his grandfather in the study, and Alec knocked against the paper-wall's frame before he took a careful step inside.
Ojiisan and Onohara lifted their heads as one from the papers they'd been going over. Alec swallowed thickly, once again playing with the tail of his shirt as he wet his lips. Eventually, Ojiisan's thick eyebrows rose slightly toward his non-existent hairline. "Nan desu ka?"
Onohara smiled slightly at Alec and, hidden from Ojiisan by the desk between them, made a 'come on' gesture with one hand. Taking a little heart from that, Alec managed to tumble out, "There's some kids in the park... uh.. they... they want—can I go back and play with them tomorrow? Without Sorachan."
His grandfather stared at him, face blank until Onohara leaned in and murmured something to him in their sparrow language. Ojiisan jerked his head in a short nod and waved one hand and Alec. With his attention returned to the paper in front of him, he replied, "Hai! ii yo!"
Onohara turned back to look at Alec, a smile drawn across his bird-like face. He nodded, and gave Alec a wink as he mouthed "that's fine."
Alec remained in the doorway another moment as the two men returned to work, completely heedless of the boy in the room. He grabbed his shirt tail, twisting it into his fingers a little. "Thank you," he muttered, finally, and trotted out the door.
The next morning, Alec donned the worst set of shirt and pants his mother had let him pack, grabbed a tie for his hair, and ate breakfast in a rush. As usual, Onohara and Ojiisan were working at the other end, as though they hadn't even slept that night, but before Alec could run from the room when he was finished, Ojiisan stopped him with a word.
Stalling in his work for one moment, Ojiisan turned and drew a wallet from his coat pocket. Alec shifted from foot to foot in front of him as the man counted out a few multi-coloured notes. He handed them over to Alec, who took them and stared for a second. "Er.. um... thank you, Ojiisan."
Ojiisan bowed slightly and smiled slightly before he turned back to his work. "Be have fun."
After finding a secure pocket for the money, Alec got his shoes from the foyer and headed out to the park.
He'd thought he'd have to wait around awhile for the others to show up, but to his surprise he found a few of them already waiting. They kicked the ball around in a rough, un-regulated game as the others straggled in. Though Alec couldn't speak their language, the boys knew enough English between the lot of them that they could garble out whatever body language couldn't relay.
At lunch, he went with them to get a 'lunch' from a corner store where Green Jersey, who introduced himself as Tanaka, helped him to pay to the right amount for a little box of pre-made sushi and rice. They laughed at him when he couldn't use chopsticks, but he didn't care and ate with his hands, anyway.
Red Shirt was called Saito, and it became obvious over the day that the whole group looked to him as a sort of 'leader.' He was the loudest of the lot, and seemed to be the one who had the final say in anything. Alec wasn't sure of why; Saito was a bit of a twig compared to some of the others, and he didn't seem to be the oldest of them, either. Nevertheless, the impression was a strong one and Alec found himself drawn into the dynamic without much fuss.
By the time that the sun set that evening, Alec was beginning to feel more at home. Tanaka and Saito walked with him again as they headed back that evening. At the gate, Tanaka stopped him with a friendly punch to his shoulder. "Tomorowo, gogo goji. Yeah?"
Alec recited the words to himself a few times before he nodded, "Yeah, hai." Saito hit his shoulder as well, with a grin, and the two boys left, presumably to return home. Rubbing his arm, Alec shook his head and turned for home.
He found Sorachan helping Daz with a picture book in the den, and waited at the door for her attention. Daz was looking happy as ever, Alec noted, squealing over the finger puppets in thick-paged book. Little kittens, he thought, vaguely remembering something similar from when he was younger. The phone rang before Sorachan finished. She apologized to Daz as she leaned over to take the reciever off the cradle.
A short conversation later, she pressed a button on the call and gestured for Alec. "It's for you."
Alec's stomach turned a little as he took the phone, found the 'hold' button and pressed it. "Alec speaking."
"Hello," Rei replied through the speaker. Alec smiled to himself and took the cordless receiver across the room to sit in an a pillow near the sliding door. "How are you and Daz doing there?"
"We're..." Alec looked up at his brother, who was still being read to with notable delight. He seemed oblivious to the call his brother was on. "We're fine. How's Aunt Minako?"
"She's well. She sends her love." Rei hesitated on the other end, before asking, "You're getting along with your grandfather?"
Making a face at that, Alec shrugged before he realized she couldn't see it. "Yeah."
"You're sure about that?"
As he shifted, the loose money in his pocket crinkled and Alec winced a little. He bit his bottom lip and nodded, "Yeah. He's busy, but he's nice. Mr. Warren came over with his wife, and he showed me his sword."
"Mr. Warren..." Rei mused.
"The ambassador? He's friends with... with dad."
"Ah." Alec frowned at his mother's tone—it was just a single note, but it made his stomach churn. "I didn't realize Mr. Warren collected weaponry."
"No, I mean Ojiisan's sword. There's this old family katana, like a sami... samu... ninja has."
"Samurai," Rei corrected, "You didn't call him a ninja, did you, Alec?"
"Well... yeah, sorta. He seemed kinda... What's so funny?"
"Nothing." Still fighting laughter, Rei cleared her throat in an attempt to calm herself. "Nothing at all, Alec. You just... you just keep on calling him that."
"He didn't seem to like it."
"Oh, that's just an act. There's nothing wrong with being a ninja, and don't let him tell you otherwise."
Alec frowned a little. "M—" He paused, glancing at his brother, then edited out her title, "Um... Ojiisan is... there's this..."
"Yes?"
"Why didn't you teach us Japanese?"
The question must have been a surprise, because the other end of the line went silent so long that he thought she'd hung up. Before he could ask, she responded slowly, "Is that something you'd want to learn?"
"I... maybe? I guess. It'd be good to know." He drew his knees up to his chest, well aware that Sorachan was watching him, now.
"Your grandfather wants you to learn, doesn't he?"
"No," Alec lied.
"Alec."
"He got this teacher..." Alec began. On the other end of the line, Rei let out a string of Japanese—he didn't need to know the language to understand her tone. One hand curled a fist into the pillow he was sitting on as he glowered at his knees.
"Stop it," Alec cut her off before she could switch languages. "Just stop!"
"Wha—"
"I'm sick of it! You always do that. If you want to say something, say it! Stop trying to hide everything."
"Alec, you have no idea—"
"That you and dad fight?" Alec broke in again. Silence rang on the other end of the line as loudly as a siren. When she didn't seem inclined to answer, Alec continued on. "Just because I don't know the words, that doesn't mean I don't know what's going on. You're treating me like a kid."
"What do you think is going on, Alec?"
Alec stared down at his knees. He sniffed miserably and wrapped an arm around his knees. "When are you coming back?"
After a long moment, Rei answered, "Not for awhile. I'll be on a plane to London tomorrow... your father and I need to talk, okay? But we're not going to do anything without talking to you. I promise."
"Okay."
"Where's Daz?"
Alec looked up to find himself in an empty room. The book Sorachan had been reading was on the coffee table, and the door had been closed. "In bed, I think. The nanny was reading him a book."
"Oh," Rei sighed. "I'll call again when I land. And we'll discuss this soon, okay?"
"'kay," he muttered. After exchanging "good night"s, Alec hung the receiver back on its hook and scrubbed his wrist against his cheek. He grabbed the book on his way out the door and back to the bedroom.
As he'd guessed, Sorachan was putting Daz down. From his brothers unperturbed, sleepy expression, Alec judged that she'd fled with the toddler before he'd heard too much. He watched, silent, as Sorachan pulled the covers up to Daz's shoulders and gave his hair a fond pat. When she moved to the door, he stepped aside and waited until she'd shut the door behind her.
"What does 'gogo goji' mean?" Alec asked, then had to clear his throat.
Sorachan offered a tiny smile. "Five in the afternoon. Your friends want you to meet them?" When Alec nodded, she smiled a little more. "Alright. We'll plan on that."
"Thanks," Alec replied. They stared at one another for a moment, before Alec backed away and then turned to head for the bath.
