23 Solitude of Two

"Alright, girl?"

"Uh-huh."

Jake and Mio sit within the shelter, swaying back and forth.

Jake keeps checking on Mio, concerned she's too young for this.

"Hey, Jake."

"What?"

"Where's dad?"

A sudden, direct question.

Jake hesitates.

"Why suddenly...?"

"May-nee-chan asked me earlier. Where's dad or mom?"

Jake doesn't know who Mio means by "May-nee-chan."

Still, from things he's heard from Jin, he guesses it must have been during a time she got lost.

"I thought about asking Jin, but I felt like some things... shouldn't be asked..."

"Huh."

He wonders what Jin would have said, if asked that question.

Jake can't easily guess.

"Jake isn't your father... is he?"

"Yeah. That's right."

Mio tilts her head, asking as if to confirm.

Then she adds,

"Jin isn't either."

Hugging her knees.

Burying her face into them.

From Jake's position, Mio's expression is hidden.

"Jake's story. Everyone has a father and mother... but I don't."

Inside, Jake shouts Jin's name.

Why aren't you here now?

Where are you, when she's this lonely?

He cannot fill that loneliness himself.

That much he understands.

"Mio's alone here too."

Jake, flustered, is drawn to Mio's casual remark.

"…Here too?"

He hears it.

Mio has no memory of before meeting him.

She didn’t even know her own name.

The phrase “even here” could only emerge from someone who didn’t know anywhere else.

It caught her attention.

But could one pursue such a half-finished remark before a child who was already downcast?

At least Jake couldn’t.

“Jin’s here, isn’t he?”

That was the most he could manage—this clumsy attempt at comfort.

“…Jin, sometimes he looks elsewhere.”

“Elsewhere?”

“He looks at Mio, but doesn’t see her. Sometimes he makes a pained face inside the house. Always, not toward where Mio is, but glancing once toward the opposite side.”

That was something Jin had thought no one else noticed.

Whenever he looked at Mio, he followed the traces of Rei.

Living with Mio, he sometimes imagined a life that might have been with Rei.

Whenever he heard Mio’s voice, his eyes inevitably drifted toward where Rei had always been.

Each detail was minor.

Jin’s wound—something a child might not notice.

But Mio did.

That Jin was looking through her at someone else.

"Jin doesn’t need me, not really."

Jake’s gaze turned agonized.

At both Mio and Jin.

For Mio, it was painful that Jin did not look at her directly.

For a child, how cruel that was.

As a friend, Jake should have been angry with Jin.

But he couldn’t.

Even after two years, Jin still clung to one person so fiercely.

Or perhaps—because it had been two years.

Perhaps only because Mio had appeared, so like the one Jin sought.

The moment Mio seemed to mirror the shadow of Rei.

To lose someone is terrifying.

But worse—fearing to forget.

It felt as though Jin’s voice was reaching her.

How much loss he carries within him.

Jake, who has only glimpsed its essence, cannot admonish Jin.

The emotions expelled by Mio.

Those words could only have been spoken to Jake.

If Jin were to affirm these words directed at him.

Mio cannot say it to Jin, afraid of what it might become.

Jake had noticed one more thing.

Mio awaits the ASID assault—her reason for longing for the flash of light.

She had said she liked being carried.

But that is not all, surely.

Just for that moment.

Jin stares directly at Mio.

Worrying over Mio, who is no one in particular.

Mio desires that brief span of time because she understands it fully.

Their relationship appears deceptively simple, yet is profoundly distorted.

Precisely to the point where no one else dares interfere.

Yet, there was one thing Jake could assert with certainty.

"You don’t have to be a young lady to be there, that’s not something I’d say."

Mio lifted her face at those words.

Unexpectedly, there were no tears in her expression, contrary to Jake’s expectation.

"At least, no one else could stand there."

That was true.

Though he spoke with a tone of complaint, many had tried to comfort Jin after losing his fiancée.

Among them were those who sought to exploit his grief, and others who meddled out of concern.

Jin had rejected them all.

Along with some human connections.

—It was, in a sense, natural for the lieutenant to worry about Jin’s future after witnessing such a stance.

"Still, letting someone stand behind the young lady… I’ll let it slide. Jin’s probably uncertain too."

If Jin saw Mio merely as a replacement for Rei—

Jake would have struck him, if necessary.

The phrase "occasionally" reveals Jin's uncertainty.

Memory or present?

The memories of the era fade day by day.

The estimate was overly optimistic.

Jin had not expected he himself would be unable to put away memories.

But Jin chose Mio as his maid. That much I can guarantee.

...Why?

It's because Mio is Mio's girl.

Mio tilted her head, curious at the words.

Jin mocked himself for embedding the character for "order" within his name.

Jake's opinion, however, is the opposite.

If you're truly still burdened by Rei's matter.

If it was considered only as a substitute, then its name would surely have carried the sound of Rei.

Eventually, Jin will speak to the young lady himself. Until then, wait for him.

Mm...

And then... he said there was no father. But the biological parent is not on Mio's side. That is a fact.

Jake forms the words, aware that it is none of his business.

I said it, though I might be reprimanded by Jin later.

But there's also the term 'adoptive parent,' you know. Even if things are different now, there might be someone who could become Mio's father.

Is that so?

Ah.

So that's how it is...

Speaking thus, Mio pressed her cheek against her knees.

Murmurs, just slightly pleased.

I wish it were Jin...

Ah, really—Jake directs frustration toward Jin.

If he were here now.

The hesitation she felt—surely it had vanished in an instant.

As he thought this, a sudden, violent tremor surged up from beneath Jake and the others.

"Whoa!"

"Earthquake."

Mio’s eyes open, revealing surprise.

? No, this is probably not...

Another tremor.

The chaos intensifies—shouts from people, the clatter of falling cargo.

" possessed... "

Jake curses, voice tight. Why, of all ships, this one—Ship 5?

Typically, ASID targets the largest etheric reaction—by common belief, Ship 1, the flagship.

Yet each shelter transforms directly into an escape vessel.

Even if the colony ship were to sink, escape remains possible.

Though how long such vessels might survive under those conditions remained unknown.

Again and again.

Violent, jarring shudders strike Mio and the others.

Minutes pass—each one a weight without breath.

Abruptly, the shaking ceases.

The others exhale relief. Jake stiffens instead, muscles taut with tension.

The intensity of the vibration suggested it had breached the outer hull.

That it had stopped meant—

there was no longer any need to vibrate.

In other words—someone had already breached the ship.

Assault Frame units were unaccustomed to urban combat.

This situation, at this point, was already a dead end.

At Jake’s side, his face turning pale in realization, Mio tilted her head with quiet curiosity.

“Something’s noisy.”

She murmured, looking upward.

At that moment, the shelter was struck by intermittent vibrations.