Chapter 20: Concrete Constellations
The linoleum was a prison of garish light. Hana stumbled through the back door, her sandals slapping against the worn wooden step, and burst into the cool, damp embrace of the night. The grass was dew-soaked, each blade beaded and glistening under the security light’s sickly yellow halo. She staggered forward, her fingers clawing at the familiar torii gate’s peeling red paint, the wood grain rough and real under her fingertips. This was home. This smell of wet earth and moss. This crumbling stone lantern.
A shadow fell over her, broader and taller than her father’s.
Kage materialized beside her, his presence immediate and solid. He stood utterly still, his black silk hakama and fine warrior’s jacket stark against the neighbor’s cheap plastic lawn chairs stacked by the fence. His head was tilted back, his nostrils flaring as he drew in a sharp breath. The serene focus of the hunter was gone, replaced by pure, undiluted alarm. His eyes scanned the unfamiliar rooftops, the tangled telephone wires, the blinding streetlamp at the end of the path. He inhaled again, deeper, and a look of profound disgust twisted his features. “What is that stench?” he growled. “Burning poison and… metal.”
Jiwoo emerged next, her bare feet touching the concrete path and recoiling instantly as if from hot coals. She looked down, her warrior’s composure fraying at the edges. “The ground… it is unnaturally smooth. And hard.” She crouched, running a hand over the surface. “No imperfections. It is wrong.”
Hana opened her mouth to explain asphalt, but a sudden, sharp yelp sliced through the hum of distant traffic.
Kitsune.
The small orange fox burst from a cluster of overgrown ferns near the stone basin, his fur bristling, his ears flat against his skull. He didn’t run to her. He stood frozen, fixated on the sky, a low, continuous whine building in his throat. Hana’s heart, which had been hammering against her ribs, gave a painful squeeze of relief. He was here. He’d made it back, somehow. He must have been out hunting in the woods when the light swallowed them.
She followed his terrified gaze upward, past the security light’s glare.
A string of moving lights cut a silent, deliberate path across the deep blue black. Red and white, blinking with mechanical regularity. A jetliner, its contrail a faint, ghostly scar through the constellations. The same stars Kage had once pointed out to her from his castle’s highest balcony, naming them in a language that tasted of old myths.
Kage moved faster than thought. One moment he was staring, confused; the next, his short sword was in his hand, the polished steel catching the yellow light as he dropped into a ready stance, his eyes locked on the celestial intruder. “Beacon fire,” he hissed. “A moving spirit. Take cover!”
“No!” Hana lunged, her hand closing around his forearm. The muscle beneath the silk was corded steel, vibrating with coiled violence. “Kage, stop! It’s not an enemy! It’s… it’s a machine. A vehicle. For people. It flies.” The words sounded ludicrous even to her. “It’s called an airplane. It’s normal here.”
He didn’t lower the sword, but his gaze tore from the sky to her face, searching for deception or madness. The blinking lights reflected in his wide, dark eyes. “People… inside that? Flying?”
“Yes. Like a… a metal bird.” She kept her grip on his arm, feeling the frantic pace of his pulse against her palm. “It’s safe. Well, mostly. Please.”
The back door slammed open again.
“Hana! What in god’s name—!”
Kenji stumbled out, having swapped his tabi for a pair of scuffed sneakers. He gaped at the scene: his daughter clinging to a centuries-old Japanese lord holding a katana at a 737, a royal guard examining concrete as if it were alien artifact, and a fox having a panic attack at the sky. “What did you do?” His voice was a strangled mix of awe and parental fury.
The sound of her father’s modern voice, laced with that familiar frustrated concern, snapped the last thread of Hana’s composure. The guilt, the disorientation, the residual heat from Kage’s touch in another world—it curdled into a hot, childish anger.
“What did I do?” she spat, releasing Kage’s arm. “You wanted home! You got it! Enjoy it!” She shoved past Kenji, her shoulder knocking against his.
“Hana, where are you going? Come back here this instant!”
She didn’t look back. She stormed past the stone lanterns, past the overgrown medicinal herb garden her mother had planted, and into the shrine’s main building. You’re acting like a child, a cold voice hissed in her mind. Twenty-three years old and you’re stomping off to your room. How mature. The self-scolding made it worse. It was true. She was being a brat. A powerful, world-walking brat, but a brat nonetheless. The shame fueled her steps, making them harder, angrier.
She slammed the door to her small bedroom shut and locked it. The familiar chaos of her modern life assaulted her: band posters, a desk cluttered with old textbooks and half-empty water glasses, her work bag slumped against the leg of her chair. The bag. She stared at it. With a trembling hand, she crouched and pulled it onto her lap. The zipper was loud in the silence. She rummaged past a fleece and her wallet.
Her phone.
The sleek, glass-and-metal rectangle felt alien, a artifact from a dead civilization. She pressed the button. The screen lit up, blindingly bright.
The date and time glared back at her.
8:14 PM.
The same evening.
She’d left for work that morning. It had been… what? An hour? Maybe two, in this world’s time.
Months. She had lived months in that other air, under those other stars. She had fought yokai, walked through enchanted forests, learned a dead language. She had felt a demon lord’s hands on her skin. And here, her biggest concern had been a scheduling conflict at the coffee shop.
Her thumb swiped, opening her messages. A string of notifications bloomed.
Hey, you still on for trivia Thursday?
Did you finish the cover sheet for the Henderson report?
Call me! We need to talk about Matt. Ugh.
Three friends. Three threads of a life suspended. She hadn’t thought of them, not once, in all those weeks. A pang of guilt, sharp and sour, lanced through her. They’d been living their lives, and she had… what? Vanished? To them, she’d just not replied for a few hours.
She put the phone down, her chest tight. The guilt was chased by a wave of dizzying, illicit relief. It wasn’t a dream. The feel of the silk, the smell of sandalwood and river water, the pain in her father’s eyes when he’d yelled—it was all real. Which meant Kage was real. And he was here. In her world. Among the plastic lawn chairs and the scent of gasoline.
A soft knock on the door. “Hana?” Kenji’s voice was subdued now, the anger drained away, leaving only a weary concern. “Can I come in?”
She didn’t answer. After a moment, the lock turned—he had a key, of course he did—and the door opened. He stood there, still in his anachronistic hakama, his modern sneakers looking absurd. He looked old. The harsh overhead light carved lines in his face she hadn’t noticed before, or perhaps had refused to see.
He closed the door softly and leaned against it. The silence stretched, filled only by the faint hum of the refrigerator down the hall.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally, the words rough. “What I said… about your mother. That was cruel. And untrue.”
She hugged her knees to her chest, not looking at him. “You meant it.”
“I meant that I was scared,” he corrected. He moved into the room, sitting carefully on the edge of her cluttered desk. “I am scared. You have this… this power. It’s immense. And I don’t understand it. I can’t protect you from it. All I know how to do is research, dig, find the pattern. And when you wouldn’t even look at the scrolls… I felt useless. I took it out on you.” He rubbed his face. “And Jiwoo… she knows things. She’s from that world. She’s a piece of the puzzle. I wasn’t replacing your mom. Or you.”
Tears, hot and sudden, welled in Hana’s eyes. She fought them, biting her lip. “I know,” she whispered. “I’m sorry too. For shutting you out. For being a dick. I was… I am… angry. At everything. That I look like her. That I have this… thing in me. That I don’t know what I’m doing.” She took a shuddering breath. “And I didn’t want to go. You’re right. Part of me didn’t want to come back.”
He was quiet for a long moment. “Why, Daisy?.”
It wasn’t a question she could answer.
She stayed quiet, tears threatening to spill over.
Kenji slid off the desk and knelt on the floor in front of her. He took her face in his rough, calloused hands, his thumbs wiping her tears away. “Oh, Daisy,” he murmured, using her other name, the softer one. “My complicated girl.”
She fell into him then, her face buried in the rough linen of his jacket. He held her tightly, the way he had when she was small and the world was too big. She cried for the mother she never knew, for the father she’d pushed away, for the ancient lord now lost in a world of jet fumes, for the self she no longer was and the one she had yet to become.
They stayed like that for a long time, until her breathing evened out and the tight knot in her chest began to loosen.
A sudden, colossal BANG from the kitchen shattered the quiet. It was followed by a metallic screech, a yelp of pain that was distinctly Jiwoo’s, and Kage’s sharp, commanding shout, “Stand clear!”
Hana and Kenji jumped apart, their shared moment evaporating.
“What now?” Kenji sighed, the exasperation fond and tired.
Another bang, this one accompanied by the sound of shattering glass and a guttural, snarling curse from Kage that was definitely not modern Japanese.
Hana wiped her eyes, a hysterical laugh bubbling in her throat. “I think,” she said, getting to her feet, “they’re battling the refrigerator.”
The scene in the kitchen was one of surreal domestic warfare. The refrigerator door hung open, a victim of apparent excessive force. Inside, the small interior light was smashed. Jiwoo was backed against the counter, her wakizashi drawn and pointed at the humming appliance, a trickle of blood from a cut on her knuckles dripping onto the linoleum. Kage stood in a wide stance directly in front of the fridge, his own sword held in a two-handed grip, aimed at the ice maker. A plastic pitcher lay shattered on the floor, and the fridge was ominously silent for a beat before its compressor kicked back in with a loud CLUNK-hummmm.
Kage tensed, his eyes narrowing at the machine. “It breathes again. It is a stubborn spirit.”
“It made a noise!” Jiwoo snapped, her eyes wild. “A grinding growl, then it tried to… to bite me!” She gestured to her bleeding hand, likely cut on the broken light cover.
“It’s the ice dispenser,” Hana said, her voice flat with exhausted disbelief. “You probably pushed the lever. And the light… you broke the light.”
Kage slowly straightened, but he didn’t lower his sword. He eyed the fridge with deep, abiding suspicion. “It is a… cold box,” he stated, repeating the term she’d used earlier with clear doubt.
“Yes. For food. It’s not alive. It’s just a machine.” She walked over, reached past his poised blade—he flinched but held steady—and closed the refrigerator door gently. “See? No more noise.”
The four of them stood in the wrecked kitchen, surrounded by spilled leftovers and shattered plastic, the only sound the steady hum of the very appliance they’d just attacked. Kitsune poked his head in from the garden, sniffed the air of spilled yogurt and defeat, and vanished back into the bushes.
Kenji sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Okay,” he said to the room. “First, we clean this up. Then… we need to figure out what the hell we do next.” He looked at Kage, then at Jiwoo, then at his daughter, who held a power that could bend time and space but apparently not reason. “And we all need to change our clothes.”
The clean-up was a silent, absurd ballet. Hana found a dustpan for the glass while Kenji mopped up the spilled yogurt with paper towels, muttering about bacteria. Jiwoo, her warrior’s pride visibly wounded, accepted a band-aid—which she examined with profound suspicion—for her knuckle. Kage finally sheathed his sword, but his posture remained coiled, his eyes tracking every electronic blink and hum in the room as if waiting for another appliance to revolt.
“Right,” Hana said, tossing the last shard into the trash. “Clothes. Follow me.”
Her bedroom felt suddenly like a museum of her previous life, every band tee and pair of ripped jeans an artifact of a stranger. She scoured her closet, pushing past fabrics that felt frivolous. She finally pulled out a pair of simple, dark gray leggings and a loose, long-sleeved black linen tunic. It was the most modest, modern thing she owned. “Here,” she said, handing them to Jiwoo, who stood rigidly in the doorway. “These should… work.”
Jiwoo took the garments as if they were made of live spiders. She held the leggings up, stretching the elastic waistband with a bewildered frown. “These are… tight.”
“They stretch. They’re comfortable, I swear.” Hana then pointed to the door across the hall. “Bathroom. I’ll show you how the shower works.”
The shower demonstration was a short, fraught drama. Jiwoo stared at the gleaming chrome fixtures like they were torture devices. When Hana turned the knob and a violent, roaring spray erupted from the overhead head, Jiwoo leapt back, her hand flying to where her sword hilt should be. “A contained waterfall!” she shouted over the noise. “A yokai of pressurized water!”
“It’s not a yokai!” Hana yelled back, turning it off. The sudden silence was deafening. “See? You control it. Hot, cold.” She demonstrated the knobs again, slower. “It’s for washing. Much better than a bucket.”
Jiwoo’s eyes narrowed, assessing the tiled stall. “It is… efficient,” she conceded, her tone suggesting it was also deeply untrustworthy. She accepted the strange clothes with a stiff nod, her reluctance etched in every line of her body.
Down the hall, a different sartorial crisis was unfolding. Kenji had unearthed an old pair of sweatpants and a university sweatshirt from the depths of his closet. On Kage, the sweatpants strained across his thighs and stopped several inches above his ankles. The sweatshirt, stretched taut across his shoulders and chest, revealed every defined ridge of muscle, the sleeves ending far short of his wrists. He looked like a particularly dangerous cartoon character, his powerful frame rendered almost comical by the cheap cotton.
“It’s… what I have,” Kenji said, a faint, apologetic smile touching his lips.
Kage looked down at himself, plucking at the fabric with a look of detached horror. “It constricts.”
“You get used to it,” Kenji said, but he was already turning away, grabbing a bucket of feed. “I’m going to see to the chickens. They’ll be confused by the noise earlier.”
Hana took that as her cue. “Tour time,” she announced, her voice falsely bright.
She led them through the compact rooms, her narration flat. “Three bedrooms. One bathroom. Kitchen, which you’ve met.” She gestured to the small table wedged in the corner. “Dining room, kind of.” The living room was dominated by a sagging sofa and overstuffed bookshelves crammed with texts on folklore alongside cheap paperbacks. “Living room. Not much.”
Kage’s gaze was not on the rooms but on the objects within them: the flat, glowing screen of the silent television, the plastic light switches, the cords snaking behind furniture. Each one received a flick of his dark, analytical eyes, a silent cataloging of threats.
“Out back,” Hana said, sliding the glass door open.
The garden, once her mother’s sanctuary, was a tangle of late-summer growth. Herbs gone to seed, climbing wisteria swallowing one side of the tool shed, the stone lanterns now hosts to thick moss. Hana pointed to the large, windowless shed. “Training shed. Dad’s thing.” She slid the bolt and pushed the door open.
Inside, the scent of oiled metal and old wood hung in the air. Modern practice swords—synthetic, padded—hung on racks beside polished katanas. A freestanding heavy bag, a speed bag, and a variety of unfamiliar blunt weapons Kenji had collected lined the walls. It was a dojo grafted onto a garden shed.
Jiwoo stepped inside, her eyes sharp, professionally assessing the equipment. She ran a finger along the edge of a padded tanto. “This is for practice?”
“Yeah. Safer.”
A soft sound made Hana turn. Kage had not followed them into the shed. He stood a few feet away, his borrowed clothes absurd, his attention wholly absorbed by a rampant patch of lavender bordering the overgrown path. It had purple-grey blooms, buzzing with drowsy bees. His face, usually so closed and controlled, had gone still. A profound, unguarded sadness softened the harsh lines around his eyes and mouth. It was the look of a man confronting a ghost.
Her mother had planted that lavender. Hana remembered her on her knees in the dirt, the sun on her back, humming. The memory was sharp, happy. Seeing it reflected now in Kage’s aching stare sent a pang through her heart so violent it stole her breath. Does he still love her? The thought was a shard of ice. Was every touch, every heated look in his bedchamber, just a reflection cast by this long-dead woman in the dirt?
A sudden, deafening blare of a car horn from the road made both Kage and Jiwoo startle violently, their hands instinctively dropping to missing sword hilts. A motorcycle ripped past, its engine snarling. Kage’s head snapped toward the noise, the momentary sadness replaced by feral alertness. Jiwoo was out of the shed in a flash, positioning herself between the noise and Kenji, who was now scattering grain for the unbothered chickens.
“Just cars,” Hana said, her voice thin. “They’re everywhere. You’ll… get used to it.”
Back inside, the atmosphere was strained. Hana had changed into her own comfort clothes: faded bootie shorts and an oversized hoodie from a concert years ago. The fabric was soft, familiar. It felt like armor against the strangeness of having these two warriors from another time in her home.
Kage’s eyes tracked her as she moved to the kitchen. His gaze was not one of appreciation, but a slow, simmering scrutiny that traveled from the bare skin of her thighs up to the loose neckline of her hoodie. It wasn’t desire she saw there now, but a hard, disapproving fury, tightly leashed. He watched her every step, his jaw a firm, taut line.
Out the window, she saw a flash of orange. Kitsune was a blur pacing at the very edge of the tree line, his tail low, his ears twitching at every distant roar of an engine or shriek of a far-off siren. He wouldn’t come closer. The scent and sound of this era were too much. The guilt, fresh and sharp, joined the other aches in her chest.
Dinner was a quiet affair of reheated curry and rice. Hana moved automatically, the motions of cooking a grounding ritual. Kenji, trying to lighten the mood, turned to Jiwoo as she cautiously tasted the spicy dish. “Hana’s a really good cook,” he said, a thread of paternal pride in his voice. “Learned from her mom’s old books.”
Jiwoo gave a curt, appreciative nod, her focus on not burning her tongue.
Hana felt Kage’s attention shift to her. It was a palpable weight. He was listening, his dark eyes on her hands as she served the rice. The mundane compliment, under his focused gaze, made her skin feel suddenly too warm, a tingly, vulnerable heat spreading from her core. He was interested. In this. In her.
After they ate, Hana went to the overstuffed bookshelf in the living room. She pushed aside a stack of journals and pulled out a worn deck of cards. “We could… play a game?” she suggested, feeling foolish.
To her surprise, Kage gave a single, slow nod. Jiwoo shrugged, her expression saying she would endure this odd ritual.
They sat on the floor around the low kotatsu table. Hana explained Go Fish, the rules simple enough to translate. The first few rounds were stiff, Jiwoo holding her cards like a fan of throwing stars, Kage contemplating each move as if it were a battlefield gambit.
Then Kenji won a round with a lucky guess, letting out a genuine, surprised laugh. The sound broke the tension. A faint, reluctant smile touched Jiwoo’s lips when she caught Hana with a pair of sevens. Hana felt her own shoulders loosen. She got up. “Hang on,” she said. “Tradition.”
She went to the kitchen and returned with a dusty, half-full bottle of sake and two small ceramic cups. “For me and Dad,” she explained, pouring. “You guys can have water.”
They played again. The sake warmed her stomach. Kage, watching Kenji dramatically mourn a lost queen, let out a low, rough sound that was almost a chuckle. The game became faster, sillier. For a fleeting hour, the ancient lord, the imperial guard, the scholar, and the confused girl with world-bending powers were just four people sitting on a floor, slapping cards down and trying to win.
Then Kenji collected the plates. Jiwoo, following some ingrained protocol of guesthood, stood and began to help. “I will clean,” she stated.
“I’ll show you how the sink works,” Kenji said, leading her into the kitchen. “No swords required, I promise.”
Their voices, friendly and low, faded into the clatter of ceramic.
The living room felt suddenly vast and quiet. The laughter was gone, leaving only the low buzz of the refrigerator. Hana started gathering the scattered cards, her fingers clumsy.
She felt his gaze before his touch. Kage was looking at her, the earlier softness gone, replaced by a smoldering intensity. He reached across the space between them. His hand, warm and sure, settled high on her thigh, just below the frayed edge of her shorts. His thumb stroked the sensitive skin of her inner leg, once, a possessive, intimate caress that sent a bolt of pure lightning up her spine.
His voice was a low, displeased rumble. “I do not like how you show off your body to everyone.”
The words, so bald and controlling, doused the flash of heat with cold indignation. She looked at his hand on her leg, then up at his face, at the hard line of his mouth. He wasn’t teasing. He was furious.
She huffed, a sharp, angry sound, and slapped his hand away. “It’s just shorts,” she spat, scrambling to her feet. The cards she’d collected scattered across the floor again. “And it’s none of your business.”
She turned and walked quickly out of the room, away from his controlling gaze and the confusing mess of her own feelings, leaving him sitting alone in the electric silence she left behind.