Aftermath
Part 1: Kintsugi
By Tomi

Three years after leaving for a company training assignment, Haruto Akiyama comes home carrying wounds no one can fully see. Back at his old office, he struggles to fit into a life that continued without him while learning to accept a body that no longer feels entirely familiar.

Supported by his family, reunited with lifelong friends, and quietly welcomed back by a gentle coworker named Rina, Haruto begins discovering that healing is found not in extraordinary moments, but in ordinary days shared with people who never stopped believing in him.

On Monday, August 14, I tried to summon Aries and bring myself to the world of the Sea Men again, but as Jody this time. It didn’t quite work, though. I arrived in the world, but I was sleeping alone on the beach and the doll was just a doll, in my house. I decided that this answered one of my questions about the power in one of the ways I thought might be true. I could not summon Aries today because I was trying to summon her into a world where she already exists, even though that was some distance from here.

Melody, Bikini Time

There were lots of relatives I never saw or have met before. I was amazed we even had this many people related to us somehow. Since Mom had the bigger family, more of them had showed up for the family reunion. Her family mostly lived in the area while Dad’s were spread out across the country. For some reason Mom’s sisters and brothers seemed to have more female children, most of them about my age.