After he had gone, she leaned against the fence and looked up at the sky. Now it was night, and she was alone again. And, alone, she was free to wonder and think. She was finding it hard to believe what she had just seen, who she had just met. After all, how many young men went around with a steel cherry blossom embedded into the palm of their hand? She slid down the fence until she was sat on the ground, and rested her hands on her knees. Unbidden, one of her hands turned itself over. She looked at her own palm, almost as pale as his had been, and wondered what had happened to him to have that flower planted into his hand. Where had he come from, she wondered as she stared at her own palm as uncomprehendingly as he had stared at her. That boy had no memory of his name, and he didn’t appear to know where he came from or why he was walking down the road, and for some reason Yolei felt incredibly sorry for him. She wondered if he had a family, people who would miss him when they realised that he was gone from wherever he had come from in the first place. Or, and here her imagination took a fanciful turn, was he some kind of secret experiment, escaped from a lab where he was cruelly treated, to be free and lost in the world? She decided that she would never know and sighed, shutting her eyes a moment. Then, feeling still a little sad, she stood and walked home, back to her own waiting family.
They were eating dinner in front of the television when the news came on. No one in Yolei’s
family was normally too interested in the news; so they sat talking until Yolei happened to glance
at the screen. Taken aback, she cried out in shock, making her sister stare at her and ask her what
was wrong. Unable to remove her eyes from the screen, she just pointed to the article on. Her
mother turned the volume up, and Yolei listened in stunned surprise to the droning voice of the
reader. Her sister glanced sidelong at her. “Why are you so interested in this?” Yolei just
shushed her, listening.
“And now back to the main article in tonight’s programme. Several police cars were
mysteriously destroyed in a freak accident today as they rushed to the scene of an explosion in the
warehouse area of Kineyo. Several witnesses have reported seeing a strange young man in the
area, and some have even reported that this unknown youth might have been the actual cause of
the incidents.” The scene cut to an interview with a distraught-looking young woman. She spoke
fast, evidently shaken. “Then this boy just looked round at me, and he had the strangest
eyes...” she broke off a moment, taking a deep breath. “He looked so lost, so I asked him
if he was okay, just he just stared at me as if he didn’t understand a thing I was saying,
then walked away.” The scene changed again to another interview with an older man with a
moustache and greying hair. “These cars came speeding round the corner towards the explosion,
and that boy just seemed to freeze. He looked at them and I could see he looked so
scared... He held out his hand, and I swear there seemed to be something in it... Like a
cherry blossom or something... But he held out his hand and screamed, I mean screamed
something like ‘Stay away!’ then the cars all exploded. It was terrifying...” The man
broke off, shaking a little.
Yolei stared, transfixed, at the screen as an artists impression of the boy was posted up. “It
couldn’t be...” She murmured, her eyes wide.
Later that night, she went to bed with no intention of staying there. As soon as she was sure that her parents were asleep and unlikely to notice if she vanished from the house, she gently pulled open her window, sat on the sill and swung her legs over, dropping the small distance to the grass of the garden. Unnerved as she was, she felt some kind of pull that was irresistible to her. She just had to find out who that mysterious boy was, and what he was doing here, for the more she thought of him, the surer she became that he was not intended for this place. She ran slightly across the lawn and into the street, her sneakered feet making no sound as she sped silently down the road. The warehouse area of her home town was not far from the place she now lived. Common sense told her that the boy would not have stayed there, seemingly the source of his pain, yet something deeper told her that he would too scared to leave. That which does not kill us will only make us stronger, the saying went, but she wasn’t sure that he could survive much longer.
The warehouses were brightly illuminated, but the shadows were darker than the ones that
surrounded her home at midnight, she contemplated as she now walked down the narrow lanes
between the tall buildings. The further she walked, the more crowded the shadows seemed to
become, and the closer she knew she was getting to the scared boy she had met earlier. Somehow,
although the prospect of meeting him again made her feel apprehensive, she didn’t feel scared.
Although she was fully aware of the possibility he could hurt her, she thought that in some way,
he was as scared of himself as others were. He wouldn’t hurt her.
Wrapped in her thoughts as she was, she almost didn’t hear the snuffling noise coming from
behind the boxes to her right. Her first thought was one of fear: that it might be some kind of
rodent. She had a deep, ingrained fear of animals such as mice and rats, and backed away from
the heavy wooden crates nervously. Then she stopped. That was no animal sound, she realised,
and walked towards the cases again. Peering behind them, she gasped in surprise as she saw the
boy, huddled up with his arms wrapped around his legs and his cheek resting against his knees.
Those impossibly red eyes were fixed upon a point Yolei didn’t think she would be able to see
even if she tried; he was muttering something that sounded like “hi...tori...kiri...” over and and
over again. Pity filled her heart and before she was able to stop herself she moved behind the
boxes and sat down beside him, putting her arms around his thin shoulders and hugging him
tightly, stroking his hair and murmuring words of comfort to him. “You’re not alone now...” she
whispered to him, smiling slightly. He looked at her, tears standing out in those entrancing eyes,
looking as lost and alone as when she had first seen him. He stared at her with an expression of
pain, the beauty of his face both marred and enhanced by his extraordinary eyes. She couldn’t
look away from them, again reliving the feelings that had traced themselves across her soul as she
had seen him first. His fist was clenched round the blossom in his hand - he looked as though he
would prefer never to open his hand again. Yolei glanced from his face to his hand, then back to
his face, and blinked in surprise as he looked away from her, sadness - or shame - written across
his face.
He remained like that for what seemed an eternity, while Yolei watched him. At length, she
plucked up the courage to ask the question that had been on her mind since she had first laid her
own green eyes on him. “Where are you from?” she asked hesitantly.
He wouldn’t look at her, staring at a spot on the floor just past his bare feet, his knuckles turning
white as he clenched his fist more tightly. Finally, barely a whisper, she heard him say “kiseki no
umi...” Refusing to look at her, he gazed more intently on the patch of ground that seemed to hold
so much fascination for him. She gently closed her eyes a moment and sighed. “That is no more
than a myth?” She had intended for it to be a statement, but found it hard to believe that this lost
boy would lie to her. Again, not even attempting to look at her, he shook his head.
Without thinking, she removed her arms from him, looking at him with incredulous eyes. “You
lie...”
Looking more miserable than before, he again shook his head. “Iie.” His soft hair, golden and
white now, despite it’s earlier colouring, fell into his eyes, masking his feelings from her as he
held out his hand in front of himself, uncurling the fingers so the steel sakura was visible, shining
in his palm. Closing his eyes, he started to sing. The same chant as she had heard as he walked
towards her all those hours ago filled the air. The air seemed to thicken around him as she felt all
those strong presences from the shadows cluster round him. Suddenly claustophobic, she backed
away again, until she was pressed against the farthest crate from him. As she watched, the cherry
blossom set into his hand started to shine more brightly, either reflecting light from some other
non-visible source or, somehow, generating it for itself. As the light grew more bright, she was
able to make out the occasional figure in the swirling mist. She bit back a scream.
The glow became more intense as his voice lifted, powerfully carried on the light breeze. The
tune changed, his voice sounded sweet and light, the concealed pain carried in a song that sounded
ancient and beautiful and full of a hidden foreboding all at once. Yolei found that she wasn’t able
to see the sakura for the light now: the aurora almost blinding her. He raised his head, the tears
overspilling and running down his cheeks, shining in the light, and sang as if his heart would
break. Behind him formed another glow - as he sang to the sakura, to his memory, a pair of steel
wings formed on his back growing and spreading as the light shone from the blossom and
illuminated the small area of warehouse wall. Yolei stared at them - the bloom far too bright for
her to even consider glancing at it now - awestruck by the perfection of the metal and light. Each
feather was delicately made, shining with its own fire, connected to a framework of steel and
silver that joined his back in a flower of light.
Although the terror at the forefront of her mind made it hard to think consciously, she knew that
somehow this was right, correct. These wings of flawlessness, the faultless sakura, the innocent
beauty of the boy. He was truly from the Sea of Miracles, and in Yolei’s heard she knew he
should be there now, in a place he could understand and be understood. The Japanese that he
spoke that she understood was his only way of communication to this closed off world. His
emotions were incomprehensible, his heart a mystery. Without thinking why, she too joined in the
song, holding out her own right hand palm upwards, an exact copy of his gesture. He opened his
eyes and looked at her wide-eyed, never missing a word, seemingly never having to breathe.
Yolei smiled at him, and as she did so, a shape began to form in her hand. She already knew what
this was - knew that all was right. This that she had feared before was actually the most natural
thing she had ever done. Denying heritage and power, living as ‘normal’.
They both stood, singing as one, hearts in unison. Despite feeling a sharp burn on her back,
Yolei smiled to him. Her wings. Those also of steel, also of perfection and grace, and hers alone.
He stepped forward to her, and she to him, and they both linked hands, facing one another,
looking into one anothers eyes. His eyes of pure burning red, fire and change, hers of taming
green, peace and tranquility. Their hands joined as one, both sharing a blossom, both
destined.
Peace. The kiseki no umi reclaimed them, taking its children back. Again to be forever together.
Devastated, her parents frantically begged for manhunts, DNA testing, thorough searches of the countryside. Their daughter was never returned them. Speculation was rife about what kind of monster would kidnap an innocent girl and dispose of her body in such a way as to never be found. The disappearance of the boy merited a fourth page column.
