A Glimpse of Pale Blue

[AKA: Araya Spies on Shiomi Yoru]
This might be sliiiightly OOC on Shiomi's part but like. Let her be nice to her granddaughter for 5 minutes idk.
Thank you to my friend Hydrolics for beta-reading and giving me the idea of what Shiomi Yoru's room might've looked like!

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"I thought I passed by this hallway before..."

Light footsteps tiptoe on wooden floors as a young girl makes her way through the seemingly unending corridor. Every creak in the weathered floorboard sends a shiver through the girl's body, worried that she would alarm someone of her presence. The girl’s long, blue-and-black locks sway each time she swivels her head back and forth, trying to gain any vague sense of her surroundings that she could.

Araya's small hands cling to the wall beside her, the only pillar she has to keep herself tethered to the physical realm. She was fearful that if she let go, she would fall into the murky darkness encompassing her, never to see light again.

•••

She hadn't meant to sneak off. Not really.

"Come straight home after school."
Those were her mother's orders, which she rarely ever doled out. She was always adamant about giving Araya the space and freedom she wanted.

It wasn't as if Araya wanted more 'space', anyway. Every waking and slumbering moment, she willingly spent it with her mother. The child was practically attached to Ryoshu's hip. Araya always wished they could be intertwined even more.

Araya hadn't snuck off to be mischievous. A special occasion, school had ended a few hours early, so the girl had wanted to take the scenic route home. After lingering near the gardens surrounding the Spider’s House, Araya had entered the usual side door Ryoshu had always left open for her.

She simply... made a wrong turn somewhere.

Despite her mother's warnings, it was when she got lost today that Araya finally accepted the winding labyrinth that was the House of Spiders. Although she now knew its design, she could not fathom its purpose.

Was it meant to keep inquisitive masses away? Was it meant to keep them trapped inside?
If so, what were they protecting? Was it Ryoshu herself? Or, something else?

•••

At that moment, Araya wished she had a thread, tied to her mother's wrist as a lifeline. Bread crumbs to follow to find her way back home. Just like in one of the storybooks her grandfather Rien would read to Araya, on the rare occasions Ryoshu allowed him.

"I wonder if Mommy is looking for me", Araya says to herself in a small voice. "I hope... she isn't too mad at me."

Still clinging to the wall, Araya shuffles through the dark corridor. She had lost count of how long she had been walking for. With no window in sight to view the outside world, a sense of ‘time’ was not a concept here. Was it just a few minutes, or had several hours already gone by?

As Araya pondered this, she suddenly came to a halt, nearly tripping over her yukata in the process.

Just a couple of feet in front of her was a light. Pale blue and soft.

Blinking a few times to confirm she was not viewing an illusion conjured from stress, Araya's eyes followed the soft light to see it leaking out from a half-opened sliding door.

It was when she recognized the intricate pattern on it did she realize whose room it was.

Blood running cold, the young girl quivers at the thought of running into the Pinky Nursefather.

Her mother was always less than eager to let her daughter near the Nursefathers, always
scurrying Araya along every time one of them would visit her room for some reason or other, even if it was just a brief correspondence.

It was the same whenever Uncle Lei Heng came to visit. Araya would barely start a conversation before Ryoshu would send her off to play. Watching her pout, Uncle Lei Heng would always try to offer small comforts, telling her with a casual drawl that "watchin’ someone else train is borin’, anyway". It never did much to console Araya, who was always left dejected at being forced apart from her mother.

Even with that, the Dihui Star was the one that Ryoshu shielded Araya from the most.
Any courage Araya built up to ask why would always dissolve each time she gazed into Ryoshu's strained expression. In her cloudy scarlet eyes, Araya could see years of unspoken history between them she was not privy to.

For this reason, Araya had only ever seen her grandmother in rare glimpses of white and pale blue.
The two were never in the same area together long enough for Araya to even attempt to peer behind her veil, hoping that if she stared hard enough, she would be able to make out a face. Or anything at all.

The curiosity ate away at her. But even if it ended up consuming her completely, she had decided it was a line not to be crossed. Both Araya and Ryoshu were content in keeping it that way.

But the soft, blue light emanating from the room had been the first scene besides total darkness that Araya had beheld in what felt like eternity. Moth to Flame, the young girl was entranced by it, unwilling to turn away or keep walking by.

She had no other choice, did she not? The Pinky Nursefather was the only one she could ask for directions.

If she would even answer her, that is.

Araya ran through a dozen scenarios in her head. In her childlike naïveté, she had decided that the worst that could happen is getting the door slammed in her face.

After rationalizing the decision in her mind, Araya makes tiny footsteps towards the blue light. Gingerly placing her hands on the sliding door to steady herself, she peeks from behind to gaze into the Pinky Nursefather's room.

The expectation was a grandiose, lavish chamber decorated with fancy memorabilia. A closet full of opulent clothes tailored from gorgeous silks, and accessories crafted from rare jewels. An arsenal of antique weapons smithed from the finest ores and polished to perfection.

What Araya beheld was everything but.

While her vision of the Dihui Star’s room was the fantasy of an innocent girl who only had a child’s understanding of luxury, Araya was taken aback by the disparity.

The room was indeed spacious, but all it did was accentuate the clutter. There were no fancy memorabilia, opulent clothes, or antique weapons. Any sparse decorations, most of which were scattered on the floor, were layered in dust. Her closet only had duplicates of the same white kimonos that Araya had always seen her dressed in, functioning as a uniform.

Instead of an entire armory, there was only one weapon: The azure-blue katana that always accompanied the Dihui Star. While the Nursefather normally cradled it at her side, it was currently resting on its mount, the bead on the tassel glinting in the room’s light. The blade matched the various scratches engraved in the wall and floors. Were they caused by training, Araya wonders? There were too many marks, though. Too haphazard and deeply cut.

The chamber did not feel like a ‘bedroom’, but more of a ransacked cell. If it weren’t for the figure sitting in the middle of the room, Araya wouldn’t have believed anyone lived in here.

Finished with her scrutinizing, Araya laid eyes upon Shiomi Yoru, sitting neatly on the tatami-matted floor. Her pretty white-and-blue kimono was bunched up around her and slightly loose.

In her hand was an ornate hairbrush, which she methodically ran through blue and black strands. The motion is repeated over and over, almost as if she was on autopilot.

While the Nursefather’s strange behavior, combined with the disordered state of her chambers should have raised cause for concern, it all goes unnoticed by Araya, as the young child was distracted by her new discovery.

"She has... she has the same hair as me!", Araya thought with budding excitement, bouncing on her heels with stars in her eyes. While the young girl was well aware that the Dihui Star was her relative, she did not know the extent of their physical similarities until now.

Now uncaring of being caught for eavesdropping, Araya peers further into the Dihui Star's room. Her eyes catch a table-sized mirror placed in front of the Nursefather. She cranes her neck to look into it, hoping to finally, finally get a glimpse of her grandmother’s face.

After months of imagining, Araya is finally rewarded for her prying, her charcoal-black eyes gazing upon Shiomi Yoru's scarlet-red.

"Her eyes are the same as Mommy's..."

Shiomi Yoru's face was decorated with small wrinkles. Long hair, the same shade as Araya's, delicately frames it, as her blunt bangs partially obscure her enchanting red eyes. Apart from the eye color, the physical resemblance between them was too uncanny.

Araya wondered why she hid herself behind a veil. She was beautiful.

Is this what she would grow up to look like? The thought gives birth to a small buzz in Araya's chest.

“...”

“Hm?”

Araya's gleeful snooping was short-lived, for at that moment she heard a strange sound coming from the older woman.

It was so quiet, Araya thought she had simply misheard. A few seconds pass, only for her to hear the noise again.

She recognized that sound. The memory of scraping her knee while playing and running to Ryoshu in tears rises to the surface of her mind, like the rubber duck she has in the bath.

Shiomi Yoru was crying.

Ceasing her robotic brushing, the older woman drops the ornate hairbrush on the floor without a care. She stares into the mirror for a moment, deciding to violently sweep it off the table with her arm as it joins the hairbrush and other various ornaments on the tatami floor.

Araya jumps at the movement, grateful that the mirror didn't shatter into pieces. The joy she felt from her prying started to fade away.

She was clearly witnessing something she shouldn't. Something Araya somehow knew even her own mother had never seen.

Araya takes a half-step away from the sliding door, worried that Shiomi Yoru would start throwing more items around. Thankfully, she does not.

In quiet sobs, Shiomi Yoru wraps her arms around herself in a kind of self-hug.

Araya feels butterflies in her stomach. A burning part of her wished she was brave enough to cross the threshold into the room, and take the older woman into her embrace.

Nevertheless, she didn't dare move from her hiding spot. She wasn't worried about what Shiomi Yoru would do if she caught her. Araya felt nauseated at her own voyeurism.

Despite her self-disgust, Araya was still a child. And any child would not want to be alone in the dark again. So, instead of walking away, she turns away from Shiomi Yoru and sits behind the door with her knees pulled up to her chest.

The young girl wanted to at least give the Nursefather the dignity of not watching her cry.

Araya has no idea how much time has passed. Eventually, Shiomi Yoru's sobbing starts to wane before ending completely. Feeling guilty for staying, but still not having the courage to venture back into the dark, Araya stands up to peek back into the room to check on her.

Shiomi Yoru collects herself as she dries her face on her sleeve, rising from her spot on the floor.
She lifts her veil back to its proper place, obscuring her scarlet eyes once again. Araya feels a pang of sorrow.

Then, Shiomi Yoru turns her concealed face to the very same doors Araya was hiding behind.

Frozen in fear, Araya still cannot bring herself to run away. In the blink of an eye, she finds herself staring up at the Pinky Nursefather. The strain in her neck felt like punishment.

"You are...", she starts, before Araya cuts her off in a stammer, nervous habit of referring to herself in the third-person arising again.

"A-Araya d-didn't mean to spy. She r-really didn't!"

Shiomi Yoru stares down at her wordlessly, causing Araya to shrink further away. With her face once again obscured, Araya could not discern what expression she was making.

"Why are you here?", Shiomi Yoru finally asks.

The question felt more weighted than Araya could comprehend. And she did not want to stand there doing so.

"Araya was j-just looking for a way back to Mommy's room. She w-wanted to ask you for directions."

A couple of seconds pass. To Araya, it felt like a thousand years. The Nursefather was definitely pissed. Why wouldn’t she be?

Shiomi Yoru eventually raises her arm, her sleeve falling down to expose her gloved hand. Araya flinches and closes her eyes, afraid that she would be struck.

She never had before.

Even back at the lab where she was born, none of the scientists had ever laid a hand on her.
Even when she refused to eat her food sometimes. And refused to do tests. And pestered them with endless questions about who her Mommy was, what she was like, when she would come for Araya.
They never got ‘angry’. Because they never expressed any emotion to Araya at all.

Bracing herself for a slap that never comes, Araya opens her eyes to see Shiomi Yoru's finger pointing down the endless hallway.

"H-huh?", Araya stutters.

"That is the way back to her room", she answers. "If you head further down, the lanterns on that side should be lit."

“She’s not mad?”, Araya ponders.

A million questions buzzed around in her head, but Araya knew better than to pester the Nursefather any longer. Especially after being caught red-handed. Better to graciously take the way out.

Practicing the etiquette she was taught, Araya respectfully bows in front of the older woman.

"T-Thank you so much. I'm grateful..."

"I can see that", is the only reply.

Rising back up, Araya turns on her heel to follow the new route given to her. Innocent, she makes an attempt at an apology, looking into the Dihui Star’s veil.

"I'm sorry for looking into your room. I really am."

Shiomi Yoru continues to stare down at the young girl, her arms crossed in what she could only assume to be contemplation.

"You really know nothing about who we are, do you?"

Another loaded question. It felt like whenever Shiomi Yoru spoke, her words were hidden behind several layers of untouchable ice.

"What?"

"Did you think I was not aware of your presence?"

Processing her words, Araya's cheeks glow a bright red.

"Y-you were? I-"

The Nursefather cuts her off.

"Just get going", she says flatly.

Araya acquiesces, not wanting to test her patience any further.

"O-okay", Araya mumbles. “…Thank you.”

Placing her hand back on the wall, Araya begins her journey into the endless hallway once again.

After a handful of steps, she hears a murmur. Once again so quiet that she questioned if she really heard it at all.

"You foolish girl…"

Ears perking up, Araya turns back around one last time, assuming the older woman’s remark was directed at the child.

Shiomi Yoru was still standing there, but she wasn't looking back at Araya. She was staring down at her pinky.

To Araya, it almost seemed like there was something invisible on her finger. But the young girl could not parse what it was, and no longer had any more time to spend. She wanted to finally return to her mother’s side.

Not wanting to linger, Araya turns away from the soft blue light, and ventures back into the dark.

✦✦✦

This is technically my first published fic? Crazy.

I have a lot of thoughts about these three women, so I have to write about it or choose self-explosion. Shiomi Yoru especially is so miserable to me, but I love her. Imagine telling your daughter to not turn out like you, and then she goes ahead and blatantly breaks that promise, and the root cause is sitting there watching you cry about your fate.
I don't think Shiomi Yoru would be a 'good' grandmother per say, but she is still willing to hold a conversation with Araya and treat her as a person, if that makes sense. Idk.

Anyways, I hope that I managed to convey my thoughts properly. I definitely plan to write more about them in the future.