The week or so after I found Torrent was a rather confusing one for a number of people. It was even a bit confusing for me, and I knew a lot more about what was going on than everyone else did. 

What confused me- no, wait. Chronologically... 

Right, well, the first thing that happened was basically, nothing. That is, there was no uproar, no search parties sent out to try and recover my body, and certainly no one coming to our home to inform Mother of the woeful news. And no one seemed surprised or puzzled at seeing me when I went into various public places in town. I wasn't surprised at that; I hadn't really expected the brat-pack to confess their scheme and its supposed results right away. 

Right away is the key phrase there: eventually, someone must have told somebody something and started rumors started flying, because the next thing that happened was that I did start getting some odd looks and startled reactions when I went into public places and shops. For example, when I went to buy my school supplies, two days after the armor found me, the cashier and several other customers reacted with surprise. None of them offered to repeat the gossip, and in fact said nothing out of the ordinary- beyond asking after my health with unusual interest- but I knew what was behind it. It happened again the next morning at the post office, and later that same evening at the grocery. Clearly the rumor-generator was spinning at optimum speed, but since I didn't know who'd started it, nor what they'd said, I kept my mouth shut.

The third thing was that the brat-pack did eventually pluck up their nerves and come to our house to inform Mother. A week late, but better than not at all, I guess. Perhaps someone 'urged' them to do so, I don't know; but how they could have missed the fact that I was still walking around was the really baffling part. Especially since I had seen and been seen by several of them on the beach three and four days after the incident. I suppose there's some truth in Rowen's theory: he suggests that they thought they'd seen my ghost, and being, as it were, haunted by my spirit encouraged them to finally come forward and admit their actions to my mother. 

Whatever their reasons, I had stopped expecting an open confession of any kind from that lot, so I got a bit of a surprise myself on the evening of the sixth day. I had gone to the beach for a late swim when Mother called me in and asked me to get some spices she needed for supper. I didn't bother to change into ordinary clothes for such a quick errand, figuring to get back into the water as soon as I was done- that was a common enough practice for the kids in town anyway. As coincidence would have it, that bunch chose that particular moment to approach the house and anxiously request to speak with Mother.

Of all the times to give someone news like that- at the dinner hour! Their intelligence is matched only by their courtesy, I suppose!

As I said, it was a surprise for me to return to the house and find the living-room full of recognizibly unwelcome visitors. But it was a much bigger shock to them to glance at the new arrival and see me, in my swimsuit, my hair still wet, gripping a small object (the can of spice) in my hand. I've never made such a powerful impression, before or since.

They were seated in a half-circle, so some of them saw me before others did. The result was a sort of disorganized chain reaction consisting of horrified look, shocked yell, leap up from floor where they sat, and then random scurrying around the room. Some of them headed for the door, only to discover that I was right in the way and retreat; others retreated first, knocking each other over. Some took refuge in the corners, others behind whatever was handy- including each other, which wasn't at all popular with the ones being hid behind.

I took my cue from Mother and didn't do anything beyond standing there and blinking a bit at all the uproar. In my own defense, there was not much point in trying to calm anyone down or say anything. There was simply too much racket to be heard, and any movement I made probably would have been interpreted as threatening. But I couldn't help feeling quite smug. Clearly my lesson had been an effective one, and I really felt they deserved the scare in return for the one they'd given me. In that respect, they were getting off quite a bit lighter than I had!

Well, yes, all right: I enjoyed it. Quite a lot, in fact.

It took the fearless daredevils some time to calm down, and I really wouldn't want to swear that they actually listened to what Mother had to say to them- despite all the swift agreement and vigorous nodding that went on. Their attention was on me; every one of them kept throwing me nervous, wary glances, obviously still more than half-convinced that I was a ghost. I suppose the fact that I didn't say anything had something to do with that. Mother didn't give any explanation, either- just thanked them for their concern, assured them the family was fine, and 'suggested' that they take up a less potentially-fatal hobby to avoid more scenes like this in the future- and none of them seemed to have the nerve to ask what had happened to me. 

It might just have occurred to me what the inevitable result of that would be, but I was too busy being amused when Mother finished talking and I stepped away from the door. It became clear that the main objective of every visitor there was to get out of the house as fast as possible, and there was more or less a stampede of boys as soon as I no longer blocking the way. I shook my head as I went over and gave Mother the spice-can, and she laughed a little, looking down at me. "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself," was all she said, and then she told me to go and finish my swim, since it would be a while yet before dinner was ready.

The 'inevitable result', of course, was that in the absence of a believable explanation- in fact, of any explanation at all- numerous unbelievable ones were spawned. But I didn't know that until almost two weeks later, after school had started up again. Far too late to dam the floodgates. 

The one thing that everyone did eventually agree on was that I was probably not a ghost. Ghosts don't study, they can't hold pens or carry books. They don't eat lunch or pick up runaway tennis balls. Or swing raquets, for that matter. So, most likely, I wasn't a ghost. What I was, then, was a mystery, and everyone seemed to have a theory they favored. The one I liked the best was the theory that I was friends with either some dolphins or some local gray sharks; they had rescued me from the ship and carried me back to shore, out of sight of the trouble-seekers. I had never seen a gray shark, but I had gotten on familiar terms with one of the local dolphin pods, even before I got the armor, and afterwards I swam with them regularly if not nearly as gracefully. I think they considered me somewhere between a youngling and a sort of mascot, an entertaining novelty- if a rather slow and fragile one. And by slow I mean not so much physically as mentally; I had a real job of it to learn even a bit of their language. It's surprisingly complicated, not to mention very difficult for a human to duplicate. They-

Ah, sorry, getting off track there. 

Another theory was that I was a were-mer and could turn myself into a dolphin, or perhaps a shark, or some sort of fish, or a jellyfish, or a triton. A mer-man, that is; like a mermaid, but a man. A slightly wilder theory was that I could do all of the above. A third was that I couldn't actually change myself into something else, but that I had, or could give myself, gills. A derivative of that said no, no gills, I could just hold my breath for ten minutes, or an hour, or a week- depending who you asked. In another direction entirely, I could swim seventy or a hundred or two-thousand knots in an hour, or minute, or second, and had simply super-swum myself back to the beach, faster than the speed of light.

There were other theories, I believe, but those are the ones I remember offhand.

I didn't try to correct anyone, partly because the theories were really quite amusing, and partly because I didn't have any better, more believable explanation for them. Explaining that I'd found a magic orb that gave me armor that was supposed to be used to turn me into a hero to fight a demon seemed at least as wild as swimming a thousand knots a second. Even if I left out the hero and demon part, it still sounded implausible. And anyway, Torrent wasn't something I wanted to share the knowledge of. Not, at any rate, until I had gotten used to it and was sure it wouldn't find someone else more...acceptable.

The part that wasn't so amusing was that I had gone and upset the status quo in spite of myself. It took almost no time at all for the school's perception of me to shift from 'shy but nice and polite' to 'weird and quiet', and the 'quiet' was just as important as the 'weird'. To my great disgust, one of the brat-pack declared that, 'It's always the quiet ones you have to be wary of', but to my dismay, most of the student body appeared to agree whole-heartedly. The result was not precisely shunning, but I got more than my fair share of stares, and it was hard not to notice the heads-together whisperings and furtive glances. It seemed as though everyone was waiting, with a mix of anticipation and disapproval, for me to do something else weird. Something they all could observe, so there wouldn't be any wondering about it. 

The disapproval was particularly hard to tolerate. I hadn't started the rumors, and I hadn't indulged in the kind of recklessness that the trouble-seekers did, but their pranks was more acceptable than what was being murmured about me. I understood the reasoning- they were predictable, having made almost a custom of behaving like morons. I had suddenly revealed an entirely new and unexpected facet/trait/ability, one that was anything but normal or customary, and no one knew what to expect from me next- but it still infuriated me. It wasn't right that mere unusualness should be frowned on while potentially homicidal stupidity went overlooked!

I suppose my lack of visibly weird behavior helped things settle down, and the school did stop talking about it after the first semester break, but it had its effect on the remainder of my fifth-grade year. Some of my semi-friends and acquaintences grew cooler and more formal, some spent less time in my company, and several drifted away entirely. I couldn't help feeling unhappy about that- it was plain that any chance I had of forging deeper friendships had evaporated quite thoroughly. I tried to ease my mind with the thought that if they abandoned me just because of a bunch of weird rumors, they wouldn't have made very good friends anyway, but it didn't help much. 

That year was not a very good one at school, to put it lightly. And the winter was a brutal one, colder and stormier than usual, which meant I was not able to spend as much time by the sea as I wanted- almost needed- to. I waited very impatiently for spring to arrive and thaw things out, but we didn't get much in the way of spring that year. We had it cold, sodden and dreary until the end of May, and then as June arrived, it brought summer's heat with it. It was a relief for a day or two, but before the first week was out, most of the town was wishing for the winter back again. Summer by the ocean can be unbearably humid, and it seemed it was going to be one of those summers. We had thunderstorms almost every day, some quite severe- and of course that played havok with the power and drove the fishermen in early and made swimming impossible.

I totally expected to see the trouble-seekers decide that riding out a storm on the water was their next test of bravery, but I suppose their parents refused to permit them to risk the boats that way. 

...That was rather spiteful, wasn't it?

What really had me out of sorts was that even if it had been safer to swim, I wouldn't have been able to be in the water much. Our year-end exams were in July, of course, so June was taken up with studying, reviewing, and tons of homework. It didn't help, either, that my classmates were gathering in groups to study together. I wasn't so outcast that they excluded me completely, but it was made clear, subtly, that I wasn't particularly welcome. Things were usually awkward, I was often ignored or overlooked, and all manner of excuses were presented for the group to break up early. So I stopped joining in, but it certainly didn't- well, in its way, it did add to my mood, just not in a good way. 

So between feeling the heat, studying hard, longing for the peace of the ocean, and fighting back an increasingly resentful loneliness, I was think I was not very good company that summer. I drifted between depressed and angry, rarely spoke, and had little appetite. Mother and Sayoko grew concerned about me and made efforts to cheer me up, but though I tried to respond, I couldn't find any enthusiasm. 

"You mustn't think it's just you. Everyone is lonely," Sayoko told me one hot evening when I was especially low. Mother had already gone to bed, fatigued by the heat, and my sister had apparently decided to try a new tactic to ease my mood. "None of those children dare to say to each other how they really feel or think- they simply follow the crowd, because they know what would happen if they didn't."

"What would happen?" I asked listlessly, turning from my scattered school-books to look at her. 

"What has happened to you," my sister replied gently. "The nail, you know. At least they aren't pounding you down very hard. I know it's not much comfort, but it could be much worse."

"I guess," I sighed. "But they disapprove of me, for something that's not even my doing!"

"Well, but they must recognize that you're not to blame, or they'd be much harsher. I suspect many of them secretly admire you and don't really want to hurt your feelings, but they don't know how to express it. So they go along with the popular opinion, but half-heartedly."

"I don't know..." I played with my pen, turning it over in my hand. 

"Yes, it's hard to tell something like that when everyone works so hard to deceive themselves and each other," Sayoko agreed. "But that's what we all learn best in school, isn't it? Follow the crowd, do what everyone else does, and don't question it. Pretend we don't have any but the most acceptable feelings. And then we wonder why we feel so empty inside..."

I sighed. "I guess so. And- I guess at least this way, I know I'm being honest, not pretending to be something I'm not just so people will pay attention to me...or be nicer."

Sayoko frowned for a moment, then nodded. "Making yourself fit in brings one kind of aloneness; being who you honestly are brings another. I prefer honesty myself. There are fewer lies to remember, and fewer masks to put on. And there's always the hope of finding another like yourself. When you pretend, you don't have that option. If you don't lower your mask, you can't inspire someone else to lower theirs."

I sighed again, and for a while neither of us spoke. It was very warm in the house despite the open windows that permitted the sea breeze and the sound of the waves to drift in. I was sitting at the counter, half-turned in my chair to look behind me at my sister; Sayoko sat at the dining-room table, our store's accounting sheets spread out around her. The rythmic rush of the waves seemed to be calling me; I wanted to slip out and take my orb and plunge deep into the water, let the undersea world spread out around me and the pulse of the tide soothe me...

"Did I hear you talking with Mother about where you're going to apply for high school?" my sister asked suddenly. "So soon?"

"Yes," I answered, and shrugged. "That's what half of sixth grade is about, right? And the other half's about studying hard enough to pass the application exams. So if I know where I want to go, I can just think about my grades and not have to worry about choosing and deciding and making up my mind."

"Well, that's true," Sayoko agreed, but she sounded a little sad. "You're very organized, Shin-chan."

"Someone here taught me to be organized," I said, smiling a little. "It's like with cooking: first you get your ingredients, then you start mixing them."

My sister laughed softly. "So what 'ingredients' are you using for this 'dish'?" she asked playfully. 

"No fish," I replied, half-serious, and pushed papers around until I found my list. Sayoko's expression changed from amused to serious as I read my four choices, and I knew why. Only one of the schools was in Yamaguchi prefecture; the rest were in other cities, and one was on a different island entirely: Toyama, in Honshu.

"So far," she murmured, looking at me with a troubled frown. "Why so far, Shin-niichan?"

"Fitting in," I replied sourly. "I'll never fit in around here, not after this year. I want to go somewhere where people don't know me and don't know what kind of crazy-weird stories went around about me. And I have to get pretty far away to do that." 

"I...suppose that's true...but- Mother-"

"Mother always wanted me to make more friends," I reminded her. "She won't worry as much if she knows I'm happy. Even if I am in a different city."

"You seem very sure that you'll be happy, but you've never lived in a large city, Shin- you've never even left Hagi. It's going to be a long trip and a strange destination, and a huge change wherever you go."

"They're all coastal cities," I pointed out, trying not to shiver, because quite truthfully I was a little nervous about the thought. Even if it was more than a year in the future, it was a big thing to think about. "I'll be near the ocean, so it won't be so bad as going inland...not so different."

"Have you considered where you'd be living?" my sister persisted. 

"In a dorm, I guess; or the one in Toyama has a program to help new students find rental housing. They put groups together-"

"Roommates," Sayoko inserted with a dour nod. "You'll either live in a strange house with three or four unknown students and an adult or two, or you'll live in the school and sleep in a dormitory with ten or twenty other boys. There's not much privacy in a dormitory, Shin- and if you don't like one of your classmates, it can get very difficult. There's more privacy in a rental house, but you still have to hope you all get along, and that everyone shares the chores and expenses equally. Sometimes some take advantage of others."

"It'll be even worse, though, if I go to a school with my classmates and they start spreading those stories about me all around our new school," I returned stubbornly, folding my arms. "I'd rather be far away from them; and anyway, in a dorm or a house, everyone's going to be new, and sort of nervous, and want to get along. And it'll be easier to talk to them. Introducing ourselves and talking about where we all came from and finding out who can cook well and- and things like that."

"Well..." My sister sighed and looked down at the papers in front of her, pushing her thick, black hair back behind her ear. She had cut it because of the heat, but now that it was short, it got in her eyes all the time. "Well, you have thought a lot about it, haven't you?"

"Mother and I have thought about it. ...Well, I thought about it first, and Mother thinks it's all right. I was worried about the cost, but she said there's scholarships and things, if I need one, and there's a loan thing, too, maybe." I didn't tell her that Mother had looked at the list and tapped the word Toyama, or how she'd reminded me that that was where the great demon had entered our world, long ago. I didn't know how much Mother had told Sayoko about suiko and my destiny, and I did NOT want my sister to look at me as though I was insane and maybe start avoiding me when I told her the truth. The wild stories at school were more than enough of a warning for me: Torrent was my secret, and if I wasn't being totally honest with my sister about it, I wasn't lying, either. Sometimes the truth is no one else's business.

"Ah. If Mother agrees, then-" Sayoko shrugged and gave me a tired smile. I fidgeted with the pen for a few more seconds, then put it down and tried to get interested in my History homework. 

"I'm- kind of nervous, thinking about it," I heard myself admit suddenly. "But it's not for another year, so I guess I'll get used to it." Sayoko looked up, her dark eyes soft, then held out her hand. I slid out of my chair and went to stand beside her, sighing as she put her arm around my lower back. 

"You can always change your mind," she assured me gently. "Whatever you decide, Mother and I will support you."

"Even if you think it's not a very good idea?" I asked wryly.

"Like Mother, I want you to be happy. You're mature for your age, and you have good study habits, so I know you'll do well academically. But you're shy, 'niichan, and I think it will be hard for you to get used to being by yourself, in a new place, interacting with strangers. I don't like to think of my brother feeling overwhelmed or homesick." Sayoko paused. "But I suppose," she concluded, "the way to get used to things like that is to do them, not to avoid doing them. So it probably is a good idea, after all."

"Thanks," I murmured, hugging her- we didn't hug all that often anymore, and I suddenly missed it. "I wish I could go swimming," I added wistfully after a moment, changing the subject. "It's still so warm."

"You're not quite finished, are you?" Sayoko looked pointedly at my books and I made a face.

"Almost..."

"Go ahead and finish," my sister directed, "and then we'll go have a night-swim together, ne?"

That was incentive enough for me. Sayoko didn't swim as much as she used to; she didn't have the time. When she wasn't helping Mother with the store, she was studying for her accounting degree, and when she wasn't doing that, she was being courted by a fellow I wasn't sure I liked very much. He was younger than her, and not very responsible, and made too many dumb jokes. And it was plain that he listened to gossip, for the last few times we'd encountered each other, he'd called me 'the dolphin in disguise'. On the other hand, he didn't seem to take it at all seriously, and certainly wasn't nervous around me, so that was something. 

I suppose what I really objected to, unconsciously, was the thought of him perhaps joining our family and turning everything upside-down and inside-out with his presence. I've always been a little slow to accept changes, and I liked my life the way it was. I wasn't prepared to welcome a relative stranger. (Pardon the pun.) But it wasn't a big concern, since Sayoko didn't show any sign of being particularly attached to him. In the meantime, I had more pressing things to think about, the present one being the rapid completion of my homework. The sea was calling.