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Passing

As soon as you die, your perception of time becomes obsolete.
Awareness of the living becomes an unconscious construct. Like breathing.

The Masaki household is quiet as the sun rises - the familiar song of the cicadas comforts Tenchi as he sweeps the steps of the shrine.
It's something you take for granted until you spend some time in the city. It's one of those things you don't even realize you miss until you return to it.

Tenchi feels a sense of discipline every time he drags the broom bristles across the stone steps. It's an energy he tries to harness, to hold onto.

Ever since his grandfather died these morning chores have become less troublesome than they once were. What once felt like the very bane of his existence quickly became a reason to get up and feel good in the morning.
Doing his chores and training exercises felt like spending time with his grandfather.
Yosho. Dead. Age, indeterminate. You could say he spent the most rewarding portion of his life on the very planet that killed him.
But Yosho saw something in the energy of this planet - something Tenchi had always hoped to see for himself one day. He never would, not really, but there was always an earnest complacency in the way he lived his life. He was content, though would never grow to appreciate nature in the same way as his grandfather.

His dead grandfather.
Perhaps not even this planet was the object of his passion, but this small patch of land out here in the middle of nowhere. The quiet ambiance of the forest. Birds. Cicadas. The silent singing of the trees as the wind passes through their branches and leaves. Swaying - a subtle dance.
Yosho never went to the city. He'd always send Tenchi or Noboyuki out for that if he couldn't construct something he needed himself. It was a noise he was not accustomed to.

Tenchi found himself just as complacent there as he did here.
The Masaki shrine. Tokyo.
It all felt the same.
Sakuya. Ryoko. Ayeka. Washu. Mihoshi. Sasami.
It all blurred together.
Long dead was Tenchi's desire to find something that completed him, made him whole. Just like his mother.
Sometimes he'd wondered if she survived if things would have different. If he would have been different.
If he would have been different.

His brain isn't wired to fully appreciate the complexities of that concept. Or acknowledge the meager attempt to further understand himself, for that matter.

Autumn.
Decay falls from the top of the forest to the ground all around him.
The scraping continues - one step at a time.

Tenchi likes mindless tasks.
Tenchi enjoys losing time.
Tenchi appreciates empty thought.

The wind carries a blizzard of cherry blossom petals across the landscape like a freshly hatched egg sac of spiders, sailing off to their spend their lives trapping and killing insects in the most obscure corner they can find.
Draining them. Sucking them dry.

The scraping continues. One step at a time.

Beads of sweat forming and swelling on the arch of his wrinkled brow. A defiant breeze drags chills down his spine.
Perhaps he is sick, he wonders to himself. He dismisses this. Yosho never missed a day. Powering through your body's failure is an act of discipline.

The crunching of shriveled, dead leaves echoing off the naked trees in the distance. Gravity took them to the earth, and the earth shall claim its dead.
Footsteps approaching. It stops abruptly. Tenchi doesn't seem to notice.

Tenchi had never found his niche in life, nor would he. The whole of his life largely resembled that of a wounded animal's - dragging itself along the surface of the earth. A futile attempt to find some sort of respite or refuge until the grim reality sets in and it just sort of collapses and waits to die.

A pair of eyes focuses on him and the work he is doing. Where he's been and where he will be. A pair of eyes that he's not aware of.
His heart races and he doesn't know why.

Sasami's humming is accompanied by the rhythmic chopping blade slicing through the width of a carrot and stopping at the board beneath it.
It's quick, deliberate and precise. But not too quickly. Skilled enough to work at a faster pace but mindful enough to avoid the slightest hint of sloppiness.

Cooking was enjoyable to her on multiple levels. From the time of learning, the process quickly became ritual - a ritual she very much enjoyed. An art that led the vessel of her body to the creation of something special.
Losing herself in the rhythms of her process. The sounds of food sizzling on the skillet and water boiling in the pot on the stove like a song her body dances to on its own.

But this isn't the only reason she does it. There's a reward to her artistry.
The nourishment of the people she loves the most, and in some cases, mildly cares about, is perhaps the most rewarding sense of the whole ordeal.
The pride and sense of accomplishment in feeding those around her is fulfilling beyond words. It's what makes Sasami truly happy.
If she were to provide full disclosure on the matter, she would tell you that meant the most to her, and if they complimented her on her cooking, she would consider that just the icing on the cake, if you'd forgive her culinary expression. Then she'd laugh softly and shortly through a tight-lipped smile and closed eyes, not really caring if you would.
It's no coincidence that she's also really good at it, and always gets complimented at it anyway. She practices four times a day and sees every effort as an opportunity to improve her skills as a chef.

She picks off the large end slice of the carrot and tosses it to Ryo-Ohki, who mewls in thanks. She scrapes the slices with the flat end of the knife off the tilted chop block into the boiling pot.

Tenchi wakes up earlier than everybody else in the house these days. Taking Yosho's place as the early bird she lied to when she said she woke up this early to cook for everybody, and whipping up something quick for them before they went off to start their day's work was no extra trouble.
The difference between Yosho and Tenchi was that Sasami knew Yosho never bought it. There was just a reciprocated kindness there.
Tenchi shared the same gratefulness as his kind grandfather, but when she told him this his blank stare and series of blinking said everything to her.

"Wow," he had said, looking at her and then his food and back at her again. "I've been eating leftovers all these years? Sasami, you're amazing. How do you do that?"

His simple earnestness is very charming. It always has been.

Sasami had always liked to play up her magic tricks just as a magician would.

"Secrets of the cook," she laughed through a smile, "if I told you, I'd have to kill you."

Tenchi had laughed as awkwardly as ever at that joke, and said something like "please don't!"

The things Tenchi says are as forgettable as the things that he does.
But he's handsome, and there's a simplicity in his existence you could apply to just about anything in need or general desire of an extension.

She had promised she would and she meant it.

Lost in the happy memories that shape her, she starts wrapping things up at her cooking station. Just about the time she's finished, she hears those familiar footsteps down the stairs at the Masaki house.

There's a sudden shudder sent down Sakuya's spine that tears her from her dreams and into her waking life.
She gasps breathlessly, hyperventilating until she manages to control her breathing sensibly. A long sigh escapes her.

A familiar ceiling.
A lonely bed.

Dragging her palm and fingers firmly across her face she blinks a few times, trying to wake up. She yawns into the open air.
She looks at the clock on her nightstand. She didn't usually wake up this early. The pressure on her bladder doesn't care, she supposes.

As she sits on the toilet, for the first time in years, she thinks of Tenchi.

"Huh-hey, Sasami," Tenchi says, entering the kitchen and sitting down at the table. "Cooking for the family this early again?" He says and asks this every morning.
Honestly, if you pointed that out to him he wouldn't know what else to say, or even how to say it.

"Mhm," she says, clearing her throat lightly as she serves him a portion of his meal. "As always."

"You remind me of grandfather Yosho," he says, a very slight quiver in his voice. This isn't the first time he's said that, either. "Always on time, always ready for everything."

"Your grandfather Yosho was a good man," she says. "I am honored by the comparison."

"Eheheh, you should be," Tenchi says, salivating. Almost desperate to dig into the food about to be served to him.
As is custom, one does not dig into their meal until their full meal has been served.

The lights flicker throughout the house and Tenchi and Sasami blink.

"What do you suppose happened?" Tenchi asks out loud.

"I dunno, it must have been a power surge," Sasami says, taking a logical guess. Refocusing on what she's doing, she sets the plate down in front of him and he hungrily digs in.

"Thank you, Sasami!" he tells her with a full mouth as she fixes her own plate with a stack of blueberry pancakes before she brings it over to the table and sets it down across from him. "It's delicious as always!"

"Thank you, Tenchi!" she says, digging into her pancakes.

Tenchi pauses from vacuuming up his food in a cartoon like manner to notice what she's served herself. "Sasami, how do you eat that trash? You know, you really need someone like you cooking for you."

"I already have someone like me cooking for me," she laughs before taking another bite. "Besides, I don't eat this every day. I'm just treating myself."

"Eheheheheheh," Tenchi laughs awkwardly. "As long as you're just treating yourself, Sasami. You don't need to eat that trash every day! Eheheheheh!"

"You're right!" Sasami says, Ryoh-Ohki throwing in a "MEEEYOW!" as it hops up on the table.

"Ryoh-Ohki," Sasami says, chastising the poor creature as she picks it up and sets it down on the floor. "I've told you a dozen times to stay off the table!"

"Meow! Meow meow meow!" it says before hopping off into the distance.

"Silly Ryoh-Ohki," Sasami says to its diminishing presence.

Tenchi just smiles.

Together, they eat their food in silence for awhile.

Mihoshi dreams she is a watermelon being cut up and served.
It doesn't hurt like it would were she human, it is simply the natural order of things. A tingle and a separation of self from self.
The moist warmth of her juices exploding in the mouths of the Masaki household is akin to turning several shop lights in a barren underground basement.
Or being a match struck alight.

At a picnic table on a warm summer day the seeds of Mihoshi are spit off into the distance.

Lost amongst the tall blades of grass. Doomed to bear no fruit.

But it is okay, Mihoshi the watermelon understands. That is the nature of things.

Two things are happening simultaneously;
Sasami is cooking for the rest of the Masaki household and Tenchi is sweeping the steps of the Masaki shrine.
It is important that both of these happen at the same time, because both of these things are interconnected in such a capacity that I am unable to reveal. But know that they are.

The sound of footsteps approaching at an increasing pace registers in Tenchi's ears before it's too late - however, he's too slow both mentally and physically to do anything about it at this point. He doesn't even fully turn his head before the blunt object connects fiercely with his skull, as savagely as a dragon would a pile of treasure.

On the other hand, when the CRT television in the den kicks on, Sasami is immediately alerted.
She freezes.
Her blood is cold when it curdles.
The rest of the world sees and registers the sight and sound of static on the television. This isn't what captures Sasami from her special place.

Force from the blunt object sends a pounding reverberation from the angled top of his skull down to the nails on his toes as a warmth spreads from the dent pooling with blood just as far and just as wide but nowhere nearly as quickly.
His equilibrium thrown off, he stumbles sideways into a tumble. Gravity claiming him just as it does the leaves around him.
Tenchi begins to scream.

Dropping her activities as if severed from her very understanding of them, she gravitates towards what she subconsciously wishes was simply illusion.
As soon as Sasami steps foot in the den, the screams echoing deep in her ears register in her brain with a sinister familiarity as her own, in a sense.
In the depths of her mind, she recognizes Tsunami. In the shadowy recesses of her eyes, she witnesses her grim reality.

Simultaneously, their souls leave their bodies and jet outwards into the universe.
Like sperm swimming desperately towards a womb they don't understand.