Dream: 3rd Book of Gravity

Prologue: What Freedom is to me

Prologue: What Freedom is to me

Yume

The sea touched and soaked my feet in the sand. I watch as the waves lap at my feet and recede as if being summoned back by the god of the sea. I remember contemplating being here, but now that I am I am glad that I’m here.

I heard the distant people finally trickling into the beach. My coworkers still haven’t called for me, so I didn’t hurry in walking back to the rental hut. There were a lot of white torsos as the people from Tokyo were coming down for the winter.

Okinawa is a hotspot for lovers and tourists just wanting a break from the constant cold that Tokyo brings during winter. Many of them barely looked at me as they were too busy soaking up the sun. I have done the same during my stay here.

Even though I’m in hiding, it has been five years since I stayed here. I feel comfortable enough to truly live in the country. My parents would have an inkling that I’m here as I am Japanese, but perhaps, it would have been too obvious to choose running away here.

I watched the crowd go by as I made my way to the rental house where Mitsumi was lazily smiling and waving at me, she wore thick makeup, and her hair still smelled of dye. Just like usual Japanese women, her eyes were lined with dark eyeliner that made it look like a cat’s eye. She wears colored contacts with hearts in them, and false lashes that could generate its own wind.

She grinned at me, and I couldn’t help but give her a polite smile and nod.

“How was your walk?” She asks in Japanese.

“It was okay” I answer back.

I know she thinks I like her, but I don’t really. It’s just that the first time I ever saw her she surprised me as she had this gaudy color of green just fanned out in a bun. Her tan was in the extremes too as I learned her style is called Gyaru.

Before she could even be comfortable and ask me more, there were customers lining up the front.

“Excuse me, can I rent the glass kayak?” A Japanese man asks.

Mitsumi looked torn between answering him or looking at me, but finally, she chose her job as I went to the back to dewax the boards for surfing. I continue my work and try to avoid Mitsumi’s advances.

There were a few odd looks my way, as I’m by far the tallest thing to ever walk on this beach, or rather for someone who looked Japanese. I don’t know what’s in our food in Finland, but I grew to six foot two. I was only by Dad’s shoulder when I left when I was fifteen or sixteen. Now, I’m nearing his height already.

Even though I chose this life, of leaving my werewolf family and living a normal human life, I miss them. The first few months of leaving, I ached with missing them, but the freedom I experienced for the first time was too good to let go.

This freedom. with my kind

I smiled as I dewaxed the boards. I run my hands through my hair from time to time. I’m sure there are pieces of wax in my hair now too, but I’ll dunk in the beach water later. I worked for three boards worth before heading back in to help Mitsumi. She wasn’t in the hut anymore, which probably meant someone was borrowing a large gear.

“Oh, hello, can you help us?” A tourist says in slow English. The accent is definitely American.

“Sure, I can help you.” I smile as I wipe my hands on a clean rug on the side of the counter. “What you do need?”

“Oh, you can speak English” He sighs in relief. “Well, I want to rent a few stuff for me and my friends, but is there like a large umbrella for the shade or something?”

“We do have those, and we rent them out for six hundred yen an hour, but those are the larger ones.”

Work went on till four in the afternoon. Shifts here were pretty lax, and I just went to grab a fried squid from the beach restaurant and sat on the sand for a while. The lack of the monotony of work made my guts twist in homesickness. But it wasn’t as bad as the first time. I think it would never be as bad as the first time.

I eat my squid slowly. Even though I hadn’t eaten the whole day, I felt full as I gnawed on the squid. The heat of the sun and the smell of the ocean relax me, it burned to be in the middle day sun, but my god, it felt new still.

I grew up in Finland. We never had a sun this hot or warm. And it always felt so stifling. I was the adopted son of an Alpha in Finland, and because of that people treated me differently. They didn’t bully or harm me, but they avoided me altogether. They didn’t know how to handle a human, and I don’t know how to make friends with wolves either.

Their past times are usually shifting and running around the forest or roughhousing and training to the point of breaking bones since breaking one would heal in three days compared to my two weeks. The dynamic was just different.

“So, nice place”

The familiar voice made my hair stand on end. I couldn’t help but look up as the horrible churn in my stomach made my blood run cold.

My uncle, who stands almost seven feet, with blonde hair and blue eyes was standing out among the crowd. Even among the foreign tourists. He looks at the ocean with wide eyes in appreciation as he puts his hands on his waist and a thoughtful look on his face.

“U-Uncle Sven?” I stutter.

He finally looks down to meet my eyes. “You grew, dear boy.”

My mouth pops open.

“Oh, come on, didn’t you miss me?”

I frantically look around.

“Ah, don’t worry. I’m here on my own.” He plopped down beside me in jeans and a tight shirt, he looked incredibly out of place. “But I have a feeling your mom would have wanted to see this place too. It’s a great-looking beach.”

I frown. “are you here to take me back?”

“No, well, yes. It’s a bit complicated.”

“What do you mean?” I sputter, standing as he sits beside me, and my mind races for places to go after this. where now?

“Someone died Yume”

I pause. My feet teetering from side to side, suddenly unsure now. “W-What? Who?”

Sven looks up at me with the seriousness that I know only he has, he was the second most serious one in his family. My grandparents were kooky, and Uncle Tapio is just plain crazy. “Someone we all love.”

The look in his eyes tells me everything. This wasn’t a ploy or a trick. Uncle Sven would never go to that length.

“You need to come home before we bury him.” He tries to smile, but it breaks. “He would want that.”

This is… the only time I ever considered truly going back.