3. Rise and Shine (Reluctantly)

Rise and Shine (Reluctantly)

Hiro

---

Once in the hopeful safety of mine and Ayame’s Jack and Jill bathroom, I step into the hot spray of the relatively new shower. But not before checking every surface to make sure I don’t land in the punchline or blast zone of the well-meaning bear.

Making sure that whatever scheme Tien is cooking up in that mischievous brain, I’m not the butt of. From stink bombs to chickens in the shared bathroom, Tien’s had us all quaking in our boots at one stage or another.

Being part of the herd he adores, I’m constantly targeted for his experiments. Honey in textbooks. Berry juice in the tap. Something worse on your eyes when you sleep. The list is endless. Nothing he does is ever harmful—just humiliating—and always somehow revolves around food.

Which makes sense. If the bear demon isn’t eating, he’s scheming. Or building one of a thousand gadgets he uses to torment us with the same dedication he torments our classmates and siblings. The very definition of the Mainland’s phrase, ‘it’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for.’

Soaking in the blissfully prank-free steam, I breathe in the quiet. Let the calming oils that always linger, whether Ayame’s been here or not. Then again, she did live in this thing for an entire pass when we finally got all the parts to have it installed.

Being a ‘guest’, Ayame never really asked for much. Doesn’t even ask for new clothes and is always content to half drown in my old hand-me-downs. So when something is that important… not like we could say no. I also can’t deny, as loathed as I am to change, she’s onto something with this.

The old farmhouse that I swear has been here since the Isle’s founding was long overdue for an upgrade, even before I was a spark in the Well. Getting to ‘shower’ rather than hand pumping lukewarm water in a freezing cast iron tub was well worth the wait and the headache.

Now that I’m really getting to enjoy it, I can see why it takes her a full pulse every morning and afternoon. It’s like the heat, the steam, the haze creates a veil between the world and overstimulation. Letting every muscle and scent breathe with her particular botanical blend.

Lilac, lavender, or some other herb that’s as sweet as it is wild. I never really could define it, any more than I could the girl that somehow translated the world for me.

Maybe I’ll start showering early, instead of waiting to the very last blink. No, I won’t wake up pulses before the suns, like Aya. I know she’s already as at school preparing for the test, that will change our lives. Still, maybe I won’t wait to use it until I’m half dead.

We live on a thousand acres that don’t take care of themselves, anymore than the animals that provide meat and animal byproducts for the village. Between two pulses of chores in the morning, a ten-pulse school day, not counting the time it takes to walk to and from Deji; Aya and I have an additional list of things to add to our rise routine.

It’s not like I didn’t memorize the information annuals back, and sleep is the only break my brain gets. Well, that and being drunk. Or maybe this and surging. Sages that would feel amazing right now… Adjusting in the spray with every muscle relaxed and every cell on edge as the hot water bathes over the areas I’ve been neglecting...........

A crash comes from my room sharpening and dampening the moment simultaneously.

You’d think that now the Oni and Yon have caught up, they’d be a little more sympathetic to the needs we all have. Nope. Business as usual with Haru bouncing off my walls, literally, and Tien raiding mom’s new cabinets.

The idea of him in her kitchen as well as the looming exam, destroying my sudden urge to ‘handle’ it at the start rather than end of the turn. I don’t have the time it takes anyway. Oh, the joys of being ’old school or hardcore ‘traditionalists’.

The jolt I get, with Haru’s whine, and likely attempt to fix whatever he’s broken is hard enough, severe enough that I find myself evaluating it. Back to Zen regardless of the emanating buzz in my senses. The need to evaluate, break things down to a molecular level wins.

Especially with the snap of my teeth being hard enough to crack one. For what? The mediocre relief I’ll get from cumming? Getting off is required maintenance once we hit Consent. One most guys discover in Growth and are all but obsessed with by the time we’re considered mature enough to have ‘relations’.

Why is Mainland garble in my head at the moment?

It’s not like I can’t translate it easily enough. Maybe it’s me being resigned to going to the Falls over the break we get for Celebrations. A Seated Village even more ‘upgraded’ than the rest with ‘Earth’s’ technological age taking over any resemblance of the peace I once had.

Aya caught onto the terms the fastest.

Translating their years to our annuals, months to courses and weeks to passes. It’s gotten to the point that it almost seems like we’re translating their terms more than half the time, rather than using our own.

It’s no secret to any Islander that our world came from theirs. The story of creation, or the first divide is something we’re taught as Bonding children. Still, the additions that hit in our Growing Stages, reminded me of how awed Ayame was when they told the story in class.

Acted like it was the most interesting story ever told rather than one repeated so often it echoed in our heads. The first war. The Devils. How Champions became the gods we worship. Unlike humans of the Mainland ours walk with us. Never allow us to forget.

Theirs?

Don’t even get me started.

We’re an entirely different species in a completely separate world. One where no living thing can enter or leave. It doesn’t stop them from forcing their views. Their religions and all the strings that go with those alien beliefs. Human as Fey, even some Demons look, we’re not them.

Divided. Apart. The time our kinds walked with theirs, before written history or even the first civilization was documented. I’ll get on board with people interchanging words for time, seasons, even curses. Our breaths, their seconds. Our blinks their minutes. Pulses being hours.

Just don’t expect me to ‘hop on board’ with the humans dating customs. To accept concepts like slut shaming and homosexuality. If sex really were as big a sin as their sacred text make it out to be, how would they even exist?

I’m a guy sure. A late teenager reaching my sexual peak by comparison. Regardless, my head never lived between my legs, and I was taught about masturbation long before the sprig sprouted into a proverbial tree.

Surging is normal in Growth. At times happening without knowledge or permission when we hit puberty. I can only guess Consent is the human version of eighteen, if only.

I didn’t even enter my first classroom until I was thirty. Humans were over and done with the high-school experience before I was untethered from my mother’s skirts in Bonding.

Each stage Islanders get for adolescence is twenty to twenty-five stages a piece. We’re not considered their version of twenty or twenty-one until we reach a full age. One hundred arduous annuals of making that shift. Only to be told when we get there that it’s a dirty sin to share a mutually beneficial and natural course of development.

As much as I enjoy the ‘shower’ and appreciate the texts on Science, Agriculture, Astronomy, and other advancements, they can keep their ‘dating’ habits and Sages save me; their fashion trends.

Another mix between a thud and a rustle resets the mental spiral. Regardless of that urge being stronger than it’s been in a while. Haru being Haru isn’t something that the miraculous steam can mask.

I grumble against the feeling I hate more than most. Being rushed. It sucks.

---

4: Hiro - Demons and Shin