16. Ai Shiteru
Part Two: Sumire
The Education of Sumire Min is a previously unpublished novel by S. Jae-Jones. Chapters will be emailed to paying subscribers every Friday at 5PM EST. If you are not yet a subscriber and would like to read the rest of the book, as well as receive all sorts of behind-the-scenes access—including a Discord server—why not give it a try?
When Sumire next saw Corliss, it was nearly an accident, one small respite from the smothering hand of politics. Shortly after the winter solstice, the Britons asked for a cessation of negotiations for Christmas, which was a national holiday back in Ængland. Sumire was aware of the holiday, both from her memories of the Giraffes and from the handful of Nipponese Christians she had encountered, but hadn’t realised just how pervasive the religion was in the West. It surprised her to think of Corliss in the same terms as those strange little cultists congregated in their pews every seventh day, but she wondered if he considered her a “godless heathen”, as Campbell et al was fond of calling her when he forgot she could hear.
As it was a day of prayer and gift-giving for the Duke of York and the Britons, Sumire was excused from her companion duties. Taking advantage of the unexpected day off, she wandered through the streets of Heian, breathing and experiencing its sights anew. Since the Britons arrived, the city which gave birth to her Nipponese self was co-opted by their foreignness, and she found herself experiencing it all through their eyes. Now again she could claim Heian for her own, to welcome familiarity and the comfort it brought back into her life, to understand the city and how it shaped her, how it molded her from the girl Soon-Yee to the woman Sumire.
Snow had fallen over the city, a light dusting that crunched underfoot. She was dressed in a Western dress made of light wool, and a cape made of a heavier weight. She found these clothes to be a little warmer than her own kimono, but perhaps she was wearing them out of a strange desire to be closer to Corliss in the one way she could, by wearing the apparel of his country. It was growing increasingly common to see the daughters of high ranking officials dressed in Western attire, especially amongst the student set, so she walked through the streets without notice.
That she and Corliss, equally inconspicuous in a long brown coat, were able to find each other seemed like serendipity. Or fate. Whichever it was, Sumire chose not to question it.
“I am beginning to understand the value of prayer.”
It was the Ænglish that first caught her ear, but she would know that voice, with its ever-so-slight Welsh lilt that she was now beginning to recognize, wherever she heard it. A slow burn began to warm her from inside out.
“Which gods reply?” she asked.
“Does it matter as long as they answer?” He smiled. “I wished to find you and here you are.”