Shine Around Me (Like A Million Suns) 2/3
SHINE AROUND ME (LIKE A MILLION SUNS) 2/3
The Shirase, despite its small crew, was a ship full of secrets. Aiba was pretty damn cunning for a robot, keeping his mouth shut about Becky-san, about Jun, and about the current Caretaker himself.
Sho got the idea that there had been...something between Becky and the android, as odd as it was to imagine. But then again, Becky had been woken at age 20 and Joshima-san had died three years after, leaving her and Aiba the only two on the ship for the next seven decades. Sho didn't really want to ask Aiba if he was capable of anything physical, but with the way Aiba said Becky's name, something had to have happened. Well, Sho figured, he had the rest of his life to get Aiba to tell him.
As for Jun, Aiba claimed to not know much about him other than his personal records, the file that the computer had scanned through and used to pick him as the next Caretaker of the ship. When Sho asked Aiba why Jun was so angry, the android would just shrug his shoulders and say "he's angry for the same reasons you are," as if that answered anything. Of course anyone in their situation would be angry and resentful, taken away from their loved ones. But Jun's anger was more than that, or it felt that way to Sho. Jun was always respectful with the Caretaker, teasing with Aiba. Sho was the only one who earned outright hostility.
And if that wasn't enough, Aiba was keeping quiet about the man Jun would be replacing.
Aiba had referred to all of the Caretakers by name, from Sakamoto-san to Becky, but when Sho had asked him about the current man in charge, Aiba clammed up. Sure, he told Sho stories about the two of them narrowly getting the ship out of the way of a comet's trajectory forty years earlier, about the songs the Caretaker had loved on Earth and had taught Aiba to sing. He knew all of the Caretaker's favorite foods. But when Sho asked for the Caretaker's name, Aiba wouldn't tell him.
"He told me to forget what his name was," Aiba explained while Sho was eating one day. "He had it erased from the computer banks."
"Why the hell would he do that?"
Aiba shrugged as he always did when a difficult question arose. "I don't know, every Caretaker's different. Maybe he wanted a fresh start in this new life."
"But you still remember his name, Aiba. Your brain's a computer."
Aiba dared to smirk at him. "Well, of course I remember it. But I won't disobey him."
Sho sighed, setting down his chopsticks. His food for eternity was preserved instant rice and freeze-dried toppings to put on said rice. Freeze-dried protein, freeze-dried vegetables, freeze-dried everything along with regular vitamin supplements to keep them healthy. The men and women who had launched the Shirase hadn't thought about the need for comfort food. Sho wished that he'd thought to pack some snacks or at least some soy sauce in his trunk, but he hadn't expected to wake up halfway to his destination.
Maybe the more logical tack was to ask the Caretaker himself. Of course, the man was elderly, and as the days went on, Sho realized that he was unwell. He spent most of the day in bed now after his long years of service. He was in pain, Sho eventually understood, seeing Aiba vanish into the small medical lab with the Caretaker once or twice a day. Maybe he was dying, and things between Jun and Sho would fully erupt into chaos. Only Jun's respect for the Caretaker seemed to be keeping things from exploding.
When he wasn't asleep, the old man liked to sit on the bridge and look at the stars. Sho found himself trying to stay on the bridge with him in hopes that the Caretaker would open up. What was the point in hiding who he was?
While Aiba monitored the controls, Sho sat under the stars with the old man, watching his eyes drift along, how peaceful they were. He'd been Sho's age when he'd been woken. What had he looked like then? Where had he lived on Earth? What family did he have on the ship? What friends? Sho decided that the only way to get the Caretaker talking was to talk himself.
"I was down on the freezer level yesterday," Sho said quietly, seeing the old man's wrinkled, swollen hands resting peacefully in his lap. "I brought my recording tablet down, shot some video of my family's tanks. So they can wake up and see how I saw them."
"Sounds a little morbid," the Caretaker said with a grin.
"Oh, I don't doubt that," Sho replied. "But I don't know, it might be good for them to see, to know what they missed out on. I've been recording messages like crazy."
It was true. Aiba had suggested that Sho leave videos and recordings for anyone he could think of, not just his family. He promised that when they arrived on their new world that he would distribute them to anyone, no matter how many people it was, no matter what ship they'd been on, no matter how long it took. So Sho could be remembered by hundreds of people rather than just a handful.
"Tell me who you've recorded them for," the old man requested.
"One for Gabriella," Sho said wistfully. "Hell, I don't even know if she was on any of the ships. You know how many were leaving from all over Earth then. But she was an exchange student from Hungary when I was in junior high. She didn't know much Japanese, and I don't know any Hungarian, so I was kind of stuck. I liked her, well, I thought I liked her. I don't know, she just popped into my mind, this girl I knew for a few months. So I made her a video."
"That's good," the Caretaker said. "I'm sure she'll appreciate it."
Sho told the old man about a few dozen videos he'd made. He'd made several for his family. One for Koyama-kun, who'd been in the same department at work. One for Keiko-chan, his next door neighbor in his apartment complex. Another for Tsubasa, his high school friend. His boss, his cousins, his university professors, no matter how simple the connection, Sho wanted to reach out.
"I even made one for Ohno-san," Sho said, chuckling at the thought of it.
The Caretaker looked at him strangely. "Ohno-san?"
Sho smiled. "Ohno Satoshi-san. He worked at the convenience store I visited after work every day. I mean, it feels like only a short time ago that he and I met up, but I guess he's been gone for years now."
"Gone?" the Caretaker asked.
"When my family and I decided to leave in the seventh wave, I told Ohno-san to come with us. He was a simple guy, you know, quiet and straightforward. He told me, 'Sho-kun, I can't go into space. It's cold there.' As if it being cold was the biggest thing to worry about. Not the Earth becoming uninhabitable or the ships not reaching Epsilon Eridani. No, he was just worried that it was going to be cold."
The Caretaker nodded. "Well, maybe he didn't know the ships have climate control. Or that he'd sleep through it anyhow."
Sho smiled, fondly remembering the little shop down the street, the calm 'Welcome' Ohno would always greet him with. Whenever Sho had endured a stressful day at work, he could always count on the man to be there without fail. He'd been small with spiky hair and was very slow when it came to counting out change.
"So I made it my mission to get him to sign up with the seventh wave. Every day after work I'd find an excuse to buy something, and I'd show him the pamphlets and all that. I'd record the news programs about the launches, the medical stuff about suspended animation. Hell, I ordered copies of the star charts from JAXA to give to him."
"Why?"
Sho was increasingly lost in his memories, in the little things he'd never get back. "I honestly don't know. My uncle and aunt and their kids weren't coming with us. If there was anyone I should have been preaching to it was them, not some convenience store clerk who was too busy living at his own pace to want to bother with interstellar travel. I just...I don't know, I wanted to get to the new planet and still have the convenience store down the street, something familiar. I know how irrational it sounds, but I just wanted to hear Ohno-san's voice the same as my father's, my boss, my friends..." He chuckled, shaking his head. "And the truth is, I brought him all that stuff and I have no idea if he ever bothered to sign up or not. For all I know I recorded a video for someone who's been dead for over 200 years."
The Caretaker took his hand, and only then did Sho realize he'd started to cry. "It's good that you make those videos, Sho-kun," the old man assured him. "The videos aren't just about the people you make them for. They're for you. So what if it's for a shop clerk or a girl you barely knew. It's a way for you to cherish all the people you met."
Sho wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, feeling embarrassed. He'd wanted to learn more about the Caretaker and had just rambled about himself. "What about you?" he asked. "Do you make videos for people like that?"
"Of course. Jun-kun does too."
Sho couldn't imagine Jun taking the time to record a sentimental video. He was more robot than Aiba was, whether he was on the bridge perfectly calibrating the ship's shields or down on the freezer level checking and re-checking tanks. When did he even have time to do that?
Apparently the Caretaker could tell what Sho was thinking, squeezing his hand tightly. "He's suffered loss, Jun-kun has. He will take a long time to heal, but he will heal."
"But for now he enjoys using me as a personal punching bag," Sho muttered, "that is to say, whenever he isn't walking out of the room like the sight of me makes him want to puke."
The Caretaker was quiet then, and Sho heard movement. He looked up just in time to see Aiba turning back around quickly to look at the control panel. Very subtle, android.
"Alright, come on, both of you," Sho said in frustration, getting to his feet. "Jun hates me. He really hates me, and the degree of that is not normal. And you know that. Can't you at least tell me why? If the future of the ship is at stake and he and I have to work together, we're screwed. Please."
He heard Aiba's voice then. "That's for Jun-chan to tell you."
"And when will that be, Aiba-san?" Sho spat back at him. "Ten years from now? Twenty? When we're older than the Caretaker here and Jun's so old that he forgets to hate me?"
The Caretaker nodded, getting to his feet. Sho regretted his outburst, feeling awful for yelling at the old man who had done nothing wrong and who had been Sho's champion and his friend ever since he had been unfrozen. "Aiba-chan, it's time."
Aiba's shoulders slumped, the red light on his neck pulsing with the closest thing the android had to disappointment. "Yes, sir. I'll watch the bridge. He's still asleep in his quarters."
"Walk with me, Sho-kun."
And back they went to the freezer level, the Caretaker moving along with his slow, pained steps. Sho followed at his heels, wondering just what he was about to be told. It took a while, wandering down a very long row of tanks. They were almost to the end when the old man stopped. Sho held his breath when he saw that the name "Matsumoto Jun" was on the nameplate above the tank.
"Nine months ago I discovered that I have cancer," the Caretaker said, and Sho felt a wave of sympathy flow through him. He'd been selfish, trying to uncover the man's secrets and Jun's as well. Like it was all a way to pass the time. "I had put off choosing a successor for years. The more time I could stay alive, I thought, the better for everyone. The longer the Caretakers live each generation, the fewer there need to be at all. But we don't have any sort of treatment on board for cancer. Pain medication, sure, but not much else."
"I'm sorry..."
"So Aiba and I went through the computer, narrowed down some candidates. And Jun-kun looked so perfect. He'd been a schoolteacher, back on Earth. What better person to shepherd the Shirase further along on its journey, we thought. So we woke him, revealed the truth to him, the same painful truth that Becky-san told me when I woke."
Sho immediately recalled being unfrozen, the pain, the uncertainty. And then the horrible realization that the life he'd known was over, and he would never get it back. Jun had endured that pain, too. And Jun had been woken on purpose - his life interrupted intentionally to serve the greater needs of the people on board.
"He was angry, as you were," the old man said, looking forlorn. "Your files only tell us so much. You remember, Sho-kun, before you were frozen. The profiles you filled out, the psychological and physical evaluations. In the computer, Jun looked perfect. But the computer can't tell us everything. The computer can't tell us about our hearts."
The old man stepped over, voice catching in his throat as he ran his fingers over the nameplate on the tank beside Jun's. Sho only then realized that it was empty, the same as Jun's was. "Ninomiya...Kazunari," Sho read aloud, hand brushing the empty tank.
"It was all Jun said in the first few days awake. Nino's name. 'Where is Nino?' he said again and again," the Caretaker explained. "He wanted Nino. He couldn't abandon him, someone he loved so much. Jun's family had gone ahead in the fourth wave, but Jun waited for Nino to be ready. I think Nino was a bit like your friend Ohno-san. He didn't want to go. But Jun-kun convinced him, told him they'd wake up together in the new star system."
"And with Jun as Caretaker..." Sho mumbled.
"Nino would wake up alone."
Sho mostly understood how Jun had felt, losing his family and friends in one fell swoop. But he hadn't lost a lover, a partner. But Nino's tank was empty now, the same as Jun's...
"He waited until Aiba-chan couldn't leave the bridge. We'd told him so many times that it was forbidden, that there could only be one Caretaker," the old man said, bowing his head low. "We'd only just shown him how to monitor the tanks the week before. He was all out of sorts, and I should have seen it coming. We couldn't get here fast enough..."
"Jun tried..." Sho muttered in horror, "he tried to revive Nino?"
There was nothing else to be said, Sho realized when the Caretaker looked away. Jun had tried...and failed to bring Nino back. Sho remembered his unfreezing, the pain and the cold of it. Had this Nino endured the same pain? Sho shut his eyes tightly at the thought of it, fingers moving unconsciously to his throat, to the memories of being unable to breathe.
It made sense now, why Jun hated the sight of him. Sho's tank had malfunctioned, and there'd been enough time to get him out, to save him. I get to spend the rest of my life looking at your face, Jun had told him in a burst of anger and only now Sho understood what he'd really meant.
Jun had inadvertently killed the one he loved the most. Jun had probably watched Nino die right in front of him...cold and confused and in the worst pain of his life. All the anger and resentment Sho felt toward Jun slipped away.
The Caretaker nodded. "So please, Sho-kun. Help Jun, but please let him grieve. He'll still need plenty of time to get over what has happened. He has so much love in his heart, and he's turned it to the people on this ship. He loves them, fiercely wants to protect them. His duty to them as Caretaker is all he has left."
Sho couldn't bear to look at the two empty tanks side by side a moment longer.
"I understand," he said quietly.
--
As the weeks went on, the Caretaker started to slip away. Jun had insisted that the old man be confined to the medical lab so that he could receive a steady stream of pain medication. With Aiba needed to check in on him more often, ensure that he wasn't suffering, it fell to Jun to take on more responsibility on the ship. It also meant that the training that Aiba had been in charge of also fell to Jun.
If Jun knew that the Caretaker had shared his story with Sho, he never said anything about it. But with the reality of the Caretaker's inevitable departure weighing on him, Jun's anger seemed to dissipate. He was strict and firm when teaching Sho how to monitor the tanks on the freezer level, but he wasn't cruel. And Sho no longer allowed Jun's attitude to rub him the wrong way. He didn't talk back, didn't give Jun reasons to like him any less.
He was down on the freezer level with Jun that day, and they were reviewing the readouts on the control panels under each name plate. Jun pointed to the top of the panel.
"First readout."
"The first readout gives the tank's current condition. This light will be green , and it should always read 'operational,' and if it doesn't the light will blink red and emit a noise. The readout will say 'recalibration necessary.'"
"And the time frame before the tank goes into full shutdown mode?"
"Twenty-four hours," Sho replied, wondering how long his tank had said 'recalibration necessary' before they'd discovered him. He wondered what it had been like when Jun had tried to unfreeze Nino, if he'd intentionally let the light blink for a full day with the thought that Nino could then easily be revived or if he'd tampered with the system entirely to speed up the process.
"Excellent," Jun said, and Sho was startled out of his dark thoughts by the sudden praise. "Next readout."
"Passenger vitals. This light will also be green, and it should always read 'cryo 100%'. If the tank goes into shutdown mode, the light will turn red and the percentage will decrease until..." He turned to look at Jun, seeing his face, almost ghoulish from the glow of the lights on the panel and the subtle light that came from each tank. Sho looked back at the panel. "The percentage will decrease until death."
Jun turned, his slippers shuffling along the floor as they moved on. Sho had made a peace offering of sneakers a week earlier. Jun had accepted them with a polite 'thank you very much,' but he hadn't taken to wearing them yet. He was very by the book when it came to the clothing that was issued to the ship's Caretakers. Sho had retreated to the comfort of his t-shirts, his jeans, even his pajama bottoms. They'd probably wear out over time, but it felt more right to wear his own clothes than anything wrapped in plastic.
"Alright," Jun said when they reached the end of the row. "So basically what is the procedure during a shift down here?"
"Walk the aisles methodically, ensuring that each tank has two green lights. One with red will stand out anyhow."
"And how many tanks are you checking every time you're down here?"
"Every 12 hours, we examine half of the tanks so no 24 hour lapses are possible," Sho replied. "Roughly 3700 tanks every 12 hours."
Jun shook his head. "Don't give me roughly. Give me a number."
Sho nodded. Jun was exacting in all things. It made him a good instructor, Sho had to admit, and made him an even better Caretaker. Sho wondered if he'd ever be as diligent. "Three thousand, seven hundred twenty-two on this shift."
"For now, I'll do the first check of the day," Jun said. "You'll do second check, but Aiba has to be with you. Or myself, I suppose. Whichever you prefer."
Wow, Sho thought, concealing a grin. Was Jun actually offering to spend time with him? How far they'd come.
"So...I'll complete this check by myself. In case you have better things to do."
Sho itched to say something back, to snap at Jun and say of course he didn't have better things to do. He was stuck here forever. But he knew when he was being dismissed, and for the sake of the next fifty, sixty years of dealing with Jun, he nodded.
"I'll go check on the Caretaker."
He left Jun to his work, riding the lift up and walking to the medical lab. Aiba was gone, monitoring the ship from the bridge, while the old man lay in bed with a steady drip of meds keeping him from suffering. He was Caretaker in name only now, Sho thought as he sat down in the chair beside the bed, watching the rise and fall of the old man's chest. He'd done his duty, and Sho wondered if it would be the same for him, half a century on.
He and Jun would get to a point where a successor was necessary. Of course, Jun would be the one responsible for choosing. Sho wasn't the Caretaker, just a fortunate bonus so Jun's burden would be lighter over time. It would be Sho in this bed someday, or would it be Jun first? The thought chilled him. He obviously didn't want to imagine his own death, and after only a few months unfrozen he knew that he didn't want to imagine Jun's death either. They weren't exactly at peace, not yet, but he didn't wish the man ill. Jun was responsible for the safety of Sho's own family and friends on board, and he was glad with how seriously Jun took his mission.
"Sho-kun," the Caretaker mumbled in his sleep, and Sho grinned.
"I'm here," he replied quietly, not caring if the old man heard him or not. He only hoped the man's pain would end soon, even if it left them alone.
--
He was sitting on his bed lacing up his sneakers when the door to his room slid open.
Jun stood there, frowning at him. "You know, I can teach you how to program this to lock," he said, rolling his eyes and gesturing to the control panel next to the door.
Sho shrugged, getting to his feet. "What's the point? It's not like any of you are coming in to rob me."
"I guess not."
Sho looked down, seeing that Jun had put on the sneakers Sho had given him. He was still in his white t-shirt and white slacks, but the sneakers were quite a big sign of improvement.
Jun cleared his throat. "You're going to the cargo hold, right? To run?"
Sho nodded.
"I haven't in a while. I've been busy so..."
"You don't have to ask," Sho told him, feeling almost overwhelmed at the thought of Jun wanting to hang out with him outside of their duties. He pointed to his own t-shirt and shorts. "Are you going to be okay in those clothes? I've got stuff you can borrow."
Jun waved him off. "I have my own clothes. Let's go already."
And then Jun was gone, Sho's door sliding closed, and Sho hurried to catch up with him, following him to the lift with his water bottle. This was weird, Sho decided as he and Jun entered the lift together. This was really weird.
The lights in the cargo hold flickered on, triggered by their arrival. "I usually run with Aiba-kun," Sho said, making some awkward small talk as they both stretched. "I hope you don't run as fast as he does."
"Seeing as how I'm a human and not a robot, no, I don't," Jun replied, bending forward to touch his toes.
Jun was a little larger than Sho was, with broader shoulders but a narrower waist. Sho had never really paid attention to Jun in a physical way, seeing as how Jun had spent most of the past few months avoiding him. But one thing was for certain. The guy Sho was spending eternity with was really attractive. Now Sho found that he couldn't look away from Jun's long, muscled arms, his neck, the collarbones visible under the low neckline of the standard issue shirt.
"Flexible," Sho murmured in awe when Jun bent completely in half with little trouble, not realizing he'd said so aloud.
Jun eyed him strangely when he got back up, making Sho look away. He knew his face was bright red in embarrassment. Great. Good job, Sakurai. Sho had made things an all new kind of awkward now. Before Jun had just hated his existence. Now there'd be this. Whatever this was, Sho thought, admonishing his brain for doing a complete 180 on his feelings for Jun just because the guy was good looking and he'd never bothered to notice before.
Unlike Aiba, who didn't tire at all and could spend a 10k run talking animatedly to Sho about the previous Caretakers and life on the ship, Jun was a flawed human. He appreciated that Jun was quick to run at Sho's own pace, not speeding up or slowing down to take the lead. They didn't talk, and Sho just listened to the sound of their sneakers on the little path, the sound of his breathing and Jun's mingling in the massive open space of the cargo hold.
They seemed to tire at the same time, slowing down to rest. It was obvious to Sho that Jun hadn't run in a while. He looked exhausted, uncomfortable in the white pants that had to be itching him. Sho took pity on him, handing Jun his water bottle.
"Go ahead," he said with a chuckle. "You need this more than I do."
"Shut up," Jun grumbled, taking the water anyway.
"I told you not to run in those pants."
Jun looked embarrassed, pouring some of the water over his head, mumbling to himself.
"What was that?" Sho prodded, sitting down on one of the cargo bins. "I couldn't hear you. Were you admitting out loud that Sakurai Sho of all people might be right about something?"
Jun twisted the cap back on the water bottle and flung it at him, but not out of anger. He actually smiled, genuinely smiled, and Sho knew he was screwed now. Like he needed the added complication of being attracted to the only human he'd ever know for the rest of his life.
"Don't get cocky," Jun said. "I don't think you'll impress me until you can recalibrate a tank with one hand tied behind your back."
They both laughed, together, and it felt like the wall of ice that had stood between them from day one, colder than the tank Sho had spent three centuries in, was starting to melt.
--
It was the end, Aiba said to him when Sho sat down to breakfast a month later. The Caretaker was refusing the pain meds, refusing to be cooped up in the medical lab any longer.
"He wants to see the stars," Aiba said, looking forlorn, every part of him in seeming grief. Even the light on his neck appeared dimmer, dulled with whatever type of pain had been programmed into his circuits.
They'd spend the day on the bridge, all four of them, with breaks so that Jun or Aiba could go down to the freezer level and monitor the tanks. While Aiba piloted the ship with his steady hands, Sho sat at the old man's side as he watched the clusters of light all around the Shirase. Jun had been down on the freezer level for an hour.
He was mostly out of it, ready to go at any moment, and Sho found it difficult to find words. There was really nothing to say. The old man had encouraged Sho from the very first to the very last. It would be hard to live without him, but that was simply the way of things. Soon the old man would be free of all his pain, and that would be a blessing, surely.
"Video," the old man said, eyes opening and closing with agonizing slowness. He weakly set his hand down on Sho's leg. "Video?"
Sho looked up at Aiba's back. "Aiba-kun, what does he mean? What video?"
Aiba stiffened at the console. "It's an order for me."
Sho turned, looked at the old man's face. The rounded cheeks, the friendly smile. He was almost gone, almost at peace. "What sort of order?"
"It's something I have to show you. Now," Aiba said, getting to his feet, pressing buttons on the panel to ensure that the Shirase would maintain its present course. "Sho-chan, now."
"We just...we can't just leave him in here by himself..."
But Aiba's insistent hand was on Sho's arm, tugging him to his feet. If androids could cry, Aiba would have been, but Sho didn't feel ashamed to cry for both of them.
Aiba brought Sho to what had been the Caretaker's room. Sho hadn't been inside before. He gasped, seeing that the white walls in here had been adorned with layer after layer of color. One wall was nothing but a frenzied cluster of reds and yellows. One giant sunrise. "Caretaker-san loves to paint. Well, he did," Aiba explained, "before his arthritis set in."
Sho felt an odd twist in his stomach as Aiba went to the old man's bedside table, picked up his tablet. "This is for you to watch," Aiba said quietly, queuing up one of the videos. "I'm going to sit with him."
Aiba left him alone, and Sho's hands shook as he pressed play on the video. It was the Caretaker on the screen, old and calm as the day Sho had been unfrozen. In fact, it was the day he'd been unfrozen by the look of it. He was sitting at Sho's bedside in the medical lab, panning the video over to show just how Sho had looked then, completely out of it.
"Ah, Sho-kun," the old man said, the video returning to show his own face. "Do you know that I've watched over you for over fifty years? Not just you, of course, but everyone. It's not a job I ever thought I'd come to enjoy. But it's an odd twist of fate, not just having you on the ship and watching you, but of all the tanks to malfunction it had to be yours. I guess it makes all these years as a Caretaker worth it, that I was the one here to save you."
Sho's confusion grew. The Caretaker was speaking as if he knew him, had known him. Before.
"I just want to thank you, Sho-kun," the old man said. "I didn't quite get the adventure you told me to sign on for, but I suppose this wasn't so bad, really. Thank you. Thank you for everything. I'm really sorry for what happened. If anyone deserved to make it to a new world, it was you. Look at me, how chatty I've gotten in my old age. Aiba-chan says I've really changed." The Caretaker laughed. "Actually, I made a video for you, way back when. Back when I was still angry about what happened, but Aiba-chan, he told me to make one for everyone I knew, even the people I didn't know so well. That it would comfort me. And I'm glad I did. Well, goodbye, Sho-kun."
The video ended abruptly, the old man's face disappearing only for another video to queue up. It was shot on the freezer level, the light dim, and Sho had to squint to try and see what was going on.
"Who's down this aisle?" came a voice, a voice Sho hadn't heard in months, a voice Sho was convinced he'd never hear again. "Look at this sexy tank."
The video zoomed in on the nameplate over tank 4237, two green lights indicating the tank was functioning normally.
"It's Sakurai Sho-san~!" the voice crowed cheerfully, and the person crouched down, trying to awkwardly zoom in to show the tank's contents. Sho saw a splotch of black, probably his hair floating around inside. "Luckily it's your head at this end, or this would be some really odd fetish porn."
Sho nearly choked, caught somewhere between laughing and sobbing when the video cut again to show inside the Caretaker's room. The sunrise on the wall hadn't been painted yet. The tablet was set down by steady, firm hands that had always had trouble counting out change. There was a peace sign flashed at the camera before the person moved away to sit on the bed and address him.
"It's Ohno-san~!" came the man's voice as he waved at the camera. There he was, with his spiky hair and his round face, his tired eyes and easy smile. Just as he'd been the last day Sho had seen him on Earth, in Tokyo, in the neighborhood he loved. "Sho-kun, hello, it's Ohno-san~!"
Sho wanted to drop the tablet on the ground, race to the bridge, but the old man had wanted him to watch the whole thing.
"Sho-kun, you are the...fourteenth video I've made. I'm still not very good at it, I'm sorry. Anyhow, I'm the Caretaker here. I'd explain what that means, but I'd rather show you what you're missing out on." Sho watched Ohno get up off of the bed and head back to the tablet. "Here we go!"
The video cut out. Next Sho saw the stars. They were different stars, not that Sho could really tell. He just knew. They were the stars the Shirase had passed nearly sixty years ago. "Look at that, Sho-kun. Look what you're missing. It's beautiful out here. But when you get there, at least Aiba-chan will send you this video so you can see what space was like, and the scenery I got to see."
The video cut again. He could hear laughter, Aiba's laughter, and the picture zoomed out to show Aiba in the cargo room standing on top of a stack of bins. "Say hello to Sho-kun!" Ohno ordered, and Sho saw Aiba wave, looking exactly the same as he did now.
"Hello!" Aiba called, his voice echoing noisily.
The tablet turned around, so close to Ohno's face that the image was blurry. "Aiba-chan is an android. Isn't that weird? If you'd told me at the store that there were going to be androids, maybe I would have stayed home."
"Oi!" Aiba shouted.
He heard Ohno laugh noisily before the picture cut out again. And again the video showed tank 4237. Ohno was alone, sitting cross-legged on the floor and holding the tablet out so he could show both Sho's tank and himself.
"Well, I don't know what else to put in this video. I guess I don't know you that well, not really. But that's okay." He saw a weak smile tugging at the corner of Ohno's mouth. He looked lonelier, far more unhappy than he had in the other bits of the video. "It's my job to keep you safe now, so I'll do my best, alright?"
The screen went black, and when there was nothing else to watch Sho was moving, moving faster than he ever had in his life. When he got to the bridge, Jun was back and sitting in the chair at the console, his knees pulled up onto the seat and his face buried there, crying.
Aiba was seated with the Caretaker.
No, Sho knew. Aiba was seated with Ohno Satoshi, Sho's friend.
He knelt down in front of the old man, the man who'd been just about Sho's age when he was frozen. Aiba had his arm around him, holding onto him even though he was already gone. "Why?" Sho asked, barely able to see as tears swam in his eyes. All this time the Caretaker hadn't just been some unfortunate soul chosen for this job. He'd been Ohno, someone Sho had known. Someone Sho had begged to come along. "Why didn't he tell me who he was? Why did he erase his name?"
Aiba rubbed Ohno's arm, as though he was still with them. "He told me that he couldn't be Ohno Satoshi anymore. He finished making those videos, and he decided he would just be the Caretaker from then on. He never really explained why. It's not my job to question the Caretaker."
Ohno had lived a long life, Sho knew. And maybe it hadn't been entirely awful. But it hadn't been the life he'd deserved. He looked at the man's round cheeks, wondering how he'd gone these few months and hadn't thought, hadn't even suspected...
"Ohno-san, I'm sorry," Sho said, taking the man's hands in his own. They were still warm. "I'm sorry."
He heard movement behind him, felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Jun's. Jun was the leader of the ship now. The three of them were alone.
"We have to take care of him," Jun whispered. "Because he took care of us."
--
Sho hadn't felt quite this broken since he'd first been unfrozen. Knowing now that Ohno-san, the simple, kind man from the convenience store had been watching over him for so long, Sho couldn't stop thinking over every interaction they'd had. Every cheap takeaway meal he'd bought, every time Ohno had told Sho what he was painting. How had Sho forgotten that the guy liked to paint?
There was an airlock at the opposite end of the command deck, and as he had done since Sakamoto-san had passed away, Aiba prepared everything. Sho wondered if Aiba had it the worst, never changing even as he watched all of his companions grow old and leave him behind again and again. Aiba clearly understood loss. But what exactly did he feel?
Aiba had wrapped Ohno's small body in bedsheets, and he'd placed him in one of the empty bins from the cargo hold. It had been painted black and dotted with silver and gold stars. Ohno had painted it himself years earlier, intending it to be his own coffin someday. Together, Jun and Sho lifted the bin into the airlock, setting it down near the doors. Soon, Ohno would be among the stars himself, joining all the Caretakers who had come before him. Joining Nino, Sho realized. They'd had to do this for Nino, too.
Sho moved away and into the corridor first, allowing Jun to have a final few moments with the person he was succeeding. Aiba stood quietly beside the control panel, eyes solemn and face sad. Sho found himself lacing his own fingers with Aiba's, feeling the inhuman chill of them. Aiba was as warm as the sun, but he was stuck in a cold, robotic form.
"It'll be okay," Aiba tried to assure him. Or maybe he was trying to assure himself. Did an android need reassurance?
They waited several minutes for Jun, and Sho couldn't help but watch the other man saying his goodbyes. He kept his hand firmly on top of the bin, and he wasn't crying. Not like he had earlier. Jun had to be strong now. Jun had to lead. Sho had learned enough about Jun these few months, had learned that Jun was probably promising Ohno that he would be a good Caretaker, that he'd protect the Shirase with everything he had.
But Ohno had never needed convincing. He'd known from the start that Jun would be perfect.
Jun got to his feet, moving away and out of the airlock so Aiba could bring the blast doors down and keep them safe. They stood together, the three of them. How long would they be together? How long would it be before Jun chose a successor, and there would be four again?
Aiba had his hand over the eject button, and the sadness from before had vanished. He was smiling now, with affection and with what could only be love. The light on his neck was burning so brightly Sho thought the thing would pop.
"Goodbye, Caretaker-san," Aiba said, respecting Ohno's wishes to the very last. "And thank you for so many years of service."
Sho choked up when the button was pressed, and the alert siren sounded. A countdown began as the blast doors slowly started to open, letting out all of the air. The doors revealed the vastness of space and the starlight that had spent millions of years traveling to be here in this moment as Ohno joined them.
The bin lifted from the airlock floor, getting sucked out with a quick whoosh, and with that he was gone. The doors closed once more, shutting out the stars.
part three
The Shirase, despite its small crew, was a ship full of secrets. Aiba was pretty damn cunning for a robot, keeping his mouth shut about Becky-san, about Jun, and about the current Caretaker himself.
Sho got the idea that there had been...something between Becky and the android, as odd as it was to imagine. But then again, Becky had been woken at age 20 and Joshima-san had died three years after, leaving her and Aiba the only two on the ship for the next seven decades. Sho didn't really want to ask Aiba if he was capable of anything physical, but with the way Aiba said Becky's name, something had to have happened. Well, Sho figured, he had the rest of his life to get Aiba to tell him.
As for Jun, Aiba claimed to not know much about him other than his personal records, the file that the computer had scanned through and used to pick him as the next Caretaker of the ship. When Sho asked Aiba why Jun was so angry, the android would just shrug his shoulders and say "he's angry for the same reasons you are," as if that answered anything. Of course anyone in their situation would be angry and resentful, taken away from their loved ones. But Jun's anger was more than that, or it felt that way to Sho. Jun was always respectful with the Caretaker, teasing with Aiba. Sho was the only one who earned outright hostility.
And if that wasn't enough, Aiba was keeping quiet about the man Jun would be replacing.
Aiba had referred to all of the Caretakers by name, from Sakamoto-san to Becky, but when Sho had asked him about the current man in charge, Aiba clammed up. Sure, he told Sho stories about the two of them narrowly getting the ship out of the way of a comet's trajectory forty years earlier, about the songs the Caretaker had loved on Earth and had taught Aiba to sing. He knew all of the Caretaker's favorite foods. But when Sho asked for the Caretaker's name, Aiba wouldn't tell him.
"He told me to forget what his name was," Aiba explained while Sho was eating one day. "He had it erased from the computer banks."
"Why the hell would he do that?"
Aiba shrugged as he always did when a difficult question arose. "I don't know, every Caretaker's different. Maybe he wanted a fresh start in this new life."
"But you still remember his name, Aiba. Your brain's a computer."
Aiba dared to smirk at him. "Well, of course I remember it. But I won't disobey him."
Sho sighed, setting down his chopsticks. His food for eternity was preserved instant rice and freeze-dried toppings to put on said rice. Freeze-dried protein, freeze-dried vegetables, freeze-dried everything along with regular vitamin supplements to keep them healthy. The men and women who had launched the Shirase hadn't thought about the need for comfort food. Sho wished that he'd thought to pack some snacks or at least some soy sauce in his trunk, but he hadn't expected to wake up halfway to his destination.
Maybe the more logical tack was to ask the Caretaker himself. Of course, the man was elderly, and as the days went on, Sho realized that he was unwell. He spent most of the day in bed now after his long years of service. He was in pain, Sho eventually understood, seeing Aiba vanish into the small medical lab with the Caretaker once or twice a day. Maybe he was dying, and things between Jun and Sho would fully erupt into chaos. Only Jun's respect for the Caretaker seemed to be keeping things from exploding.
When he wasn't asleep, the old man liked to sit on the bridge and look at the stars. Sho found himself trying to stay on the bridge with him in hopes that the Caretaker would open up. What was the point in hiding who he was?
While Aiba monitored the controls, Sho sat under the stars with the old man, watching his eyes drift along, how peaceful they were. He'd been Sho's age when he'd been woken. What had he looked like then? Where had he lived on Earth? What family did he have on the ship? What friends? Sho decided that the only way to get the Caretaker talking was to talk himself.
"I was down on the freezer level yesterday," Sho said quietly, seeing the old man's wrinkled, swollen hands resting peacefully in his lap. "I brought my recording tablet down, shot some video of my family's tanks. So they can wake up and see how I saw them."
"Sounds a little morbid," the Caretaker said with a grin.
"Oh, I don't doubt that," Sho replied. "But I don't know, it might be good for them to see, to know what they missed out on. I've been recording messages like crazy."
It was true. Aiba had suggested that Sho leave videos and recordings for anyone he could think of, not just his family. He promised that when they arrived on their new world that he would distribute them to anyone, no matter how many people it was, no matter what ship they'd been on, no matter how long it took. So Sho could be remembered by hundreds of people rather than just a handful.
"Tell me who you've recorded them for," the old man requested.
"One for Gabriella," Sho said wistfully. "Hell, I don't even know if she was on any of the ships. You know how many were leaving from all over Earth then. But she was an exchange student from Hungary when I was in junior high. She didn't know much Japanese, and I don't know any Hungarian, so I was kind of stuck. I liked her, well, I thought I liked her. I don't know, she just popped into my mind, this girl I knew for a few months. So I made her a video."
"That's good," the Caretaker said. "I'm sure she'll appreciate it."
Sho told the old man about a few dozen videos he'd made. He'd made several for his family. One for Koyama-kun, who'd been in the same department at work. One for Keiko-chan, his next door neighbor in his apartment complex. Another for Tsubasa, his high school friend. His boss, his cousins, his university professors, no matter how simple the connection, Sho wanted to reach out.
"I even made one for Ohno-san," Sho said, chuckling at the thought of it.
The Caretaker looked at him strangely. "Ohno-san?"
Sho smiled. "Ohno Satoshi-san. He worked at the convenience store I visited after work every day. I mean, it feels like only a short time ago that he and I met up, but I guess he's been gone for years now."
"Gone?" the Caretaker asked.
"When my family and I decided to leave in the seventh wave, I told Ohno-san to come with us. He was a simple guy, you know, quiet and straightforward. He told me, 'Sho-kun, I can't go into space. It's cold there.' As if it being cold was the biggest thing to worry about. Not the Earth becoming uninhabitable or the ships not reaching Epsilon Eridani. No, he was just worried that it was going to be cold."
The Caretaker nodded. "Well, maybe he didn't know the ships have climate control. Or that he'd sleep through it anyhow."
Sho smiled, fondly remembering the little shop down the street, the calm 'Welcome' Ohno would always greet him with. Whenever Sho had endured a stressful day at work, he could always count on the man to be there without fail. He'd been small with spiky hair and was very slow when it came to counting out change.
"So I made it my mission to get him to sign up with the seventh wave. Every day after work I'd find an excuse to buy something, and I'd show him the pamphlets and all that. I'd record the news programs about the launches, the medical stuff about suspended animation. Hell, I ordered copies of the star charts from JAXA to give to him."
"Why?"
Sho was increasingly lost in his memories, in the little things he'd never get back. "I honestly don't know. My uncle and aunt and their kids weren't coming with us. If there was anyone I should have been preaching to it was them, not some convenience store clerk who was too busy living at his own pace to want to bother with interstellar travel. I just...I don't know, I wanted to get to the new planet and still have the convenience store down the street, something familiar. I know how irrational it sounds, but I just wanted to hear Ohno-san's voice the same as my father's, my boss, my friends..." He chuckled, shaking his head. "And the truth is, I brought him all that stuff and I have no idea if he ever bothered to sign up or not. For all I know I recorded a video for someone who's been dead for over 200 years."
The Caretaker took his hand, and only then did Sho realize he'd started to cry. "It's good that you make those videos, Sho-kun," the old man assured him. "The videos aren't just about the people you make them for. They're for you. So what if it's for a shop clerk or a girl you barely knew. It's a way for you to cherish all the people you met."
Sho wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, feeling embarrassed. He'd wanted to learn more about the Caretaker and had just rambled about himself. "What about you?" he asked. "Do you make videos for people like that?"
"Of course. Jun-kun does too."
Sho couldn't imagine Jun taking the time to record a sentimental video. He was more robot than Aiba was, whether he was on the bridge perfectly calibrating the ship's shields or down on the freezer level checking and re-checking tanks. When did he even have time to do that?
Apparently the Caretaker could tell what Sho was thinking, squeezing his hand tightly. "He's suffered loss, Jun-kun has. He will take a long time to heal, but he will heal."
"But for now he enjoys using me as a personal punching bag," Sho muttered, "that is to say, whenever he isn't walking out of the room like the sight of me makes him want to puke."
The Caretaker was quiet then, and Sho heard movement. He looked up just in time to see Aiba turning back around quickly to look at the control panel. Very subtle, android.
"Alright, come on, both of you," Sho said in frustration, getting to his feet. "Jun hates me. He really hates me, and the degree of that is not normal. And you know that. Can't you at least tell me why? If the future of the ship is at stake and he and I have to work together, we're screwed. Please."
He heard Aiba's voice then. "That's for Jun-chan to tell you."
"And when will that be, Aiba-san?" Sho spat back at him. "Ten years from now? Twenty? When we're older than the Caretaker here and Jun's so old that he forgets to hate me?"
The Caretaker nodded, getting to his feet. Sho regretted his outburst, feeling awful for yelling at the old man who had done nothing wrong and who had been Sho's champion and his friend ever since he had been unfrozen. "Aiba-chan, it's time."
Aiba's shoulders slumped, the red light on his neck pulsing with the closest thing the android had to disappointment. "Yes, sir. I'll watch the bridge. He's still asleep in his quarters."
"Walk with me, Sho-kun."
And back they went to the freezer level, the Caretaker moving along with his slow, pained steps. Sho followed at his heels, wondering just what he was about to be told. It took a while, wandering down a very long row of tanks. They were almost to the end when the old man stopped. Sho held his breath when he saw that the name "Matsumoto Jun" was on the nameplate above the tank.
"Nine months ago I discovered that I have cancer," the Caretaker said, and Sho felt a wave of sympathy flow through him. He'd been selfish, trying to uncover the man's secrets and Jun's as well. Like it was all a way to pass the time. "I had put off choosing a successor for years. The more time I could stay alive, I thought, the better for everyone. The longer the Caretakers live each generation, the fewer there need to be at all. But we don't have any sort of treatment on board for cancer. Pain medication, sure, but not much else."
"I'm sorry..."
"So Aiba and I went through the computer, narrowed down some candidates. And Jun-kun looked so perfect. He'd been a schoolteacher, back on Earth. What better person to shepherd the Shirase further along on its journey, we thought. So we woke him, revealed the truth to him, the same painful truth that Becky-san told me when I woke."
Sho immediately recalled being unfrozen, the pain, the uncertainty. And then the horrible realization that the life he'd known was over, and he would never get it back. Jun had endured that pain, too. And Jun had been woken on purpose - his life interrupted intentionally to serve the greater needs of the people on board.
"He was angry, as you were," the old man said, looking forlorn. "Your files only tell us so much. You remember, Sho-kun, before you were frozen. The profiles you filled out, the psychological and physical evaluations. In the computer, Jun looked perfect. But the computer can't tell us everything. The computer can't tell us about our hearts."
The old man stepped over, voice catching in his throat as he ran his fingers over the nameplate on the tank beside Jun's. Sho only then realized that it was empty, the same as Jun's was. "Ninomiya...Kazunari," Sho read aloud, hand brushing the empty tank.
"It was all Jun said in the first few days awake. Nino's name. 'Where is Nino?' he said again and again," the Caretaker explained. "He wanted Nino. He couldn't abandon him, someone he loved so much. Jun's family had gone ahead in the fourth wave, but Jun waited for Nino to be ready. I think Nino was a bit like your friend Ohno-san. He didn't want to go. But Jun-kun convinced him, told him they'd wake up together in the new star system."
"And with Jun as Caretaker..." Sho mumbled.
"Nino would wake up alone."
Sho mostly understood how Jun had felt, losing his family and friends in one fell swoop. But he hadn't lost a lover, a partner. But Nino's tank was empty now, the same as Jun's...
"He waited until Aiba-chan couldn't leave the bridge. We'd told him so many times that it was forbidden, that there could only be one Caretaker," the old man said, bowing his head low. "We'd only just shown him how to monitor the tanks the week before. He was all out of sorts, and I should have seen it coming. We couldn't get here fast enough..."
"Jun tried..." Sho muttered in horror, "he tried to revive Nino?"
There was nothing else to be said, Sho realized when the Caretaker looked away. Jun had tried...and failed to bring Nino back. Sho remembered his unfreezing, the pain and the cold of it. Had this Nino endured the same pain? Sho shut his eyes tightly at the thought of it, fingers moving unconsciously to his throat, to the memories of being unable to breathe.
It made sense now, why Jun hated the sight of him. Sho's tank had malfunctioned, and there'd been enough time to get him out, to save him. I get to spend the rest of my life looking at your face, Jun had told him in a burst of anger and only now Sho understood what he'd really meant.
Jun had inadvertently killed the one he loved the most. Jun had probably watched Nino die right in front of him...cold and confused and in the worst pain of his life. All the anger and resentment Sho felt toward Jun slipped away.
The Caretaker nodded. "So please, Sho-kun. Help Jun, but please let him grieve. He'll still need plenty of time to get over what has happened. He has so much love in his heart, and he's turned it to the people on this ship. He loves them, fiercely wants to protect them. His duty to them as Caretaker is all he has left."
Sho couldn't bear to look at the two empty tanks side by side a moment longer.
"I understand," he said quietly.
--
As the weeks went on, the Caretaker started to slip away. Jun had insisted that the old man be confined to the medical lab so that he could receive a steady stream of pain medication. With Aiba needed to check in on him more often, ensure that he wasn't suffering, it fell to Jun to take on more responsibility on the ship. It also meant that the training that Aiba had been in charge of also fell to Jun.
If Jun knew that the Caretaker had shared his story with Sho, he never said anything about it. But with the reality of the Caretaker's inevitable departure weighing on him, Jun's anger seemed to dissipate. He was strict and firm when teaching Sho how to monitor the tanks on the freezer level, but he wasn't cruel. And Sho no longer allowed Jun's attitude to rub him the wrong way. He didn't talk back, didn't give Jun reasons to like him any less.
He was down on the freezer level with Jun that day, and they were reviewing the readouts on the control panels under each name plate. Jun pointed to the top of the panel.
"First readout."
"The first readout gives the tank's current condition. This light will be green , and it should always read 'operational,' and if it doesn't the light will blink red and emit a noise. The readout will say 'recalibration necessary.'"
"And the time frame before the tank goes into full shutdown mode?"
"Twenty-four hours," Sho replied, wondering how long his tank had said 'recalibration necessary' before they'd discovered him. He wondered what it had been like when Jun had tried to unfreeze Nino, if he'd intentionally let the light blink for a full day with the thought that Nino could then easily be revived or if he'd tampered with the system entirely to speed up the process.
"Excellent," Jun said, and Sho was startled out of his dark thoughts by the sudden praise. "Next readout."
"Passenger vitals. This light will also be green, and it should always read 'cryo 100%'. If the tank goes into shutdown mode, the light will turn red and the percentage will decrease until..." He turned to look at Jun, seeing his face, almost ghoulish from the glow of the lights on the panel and the subtle light that came from each tank. Sho looked back at the panel. "The percentage will decrease until death."
Jun turned, his slippers shuffling along the floor as they moved on. Sho had made a peace offering of sneakers a week earlier. Jun had accepted them with a polite 'thank you very much,' but he hadn't taken to wearing them yet. He was very by the book when it came to the clothing that was issued to the ship's Caretakers. Sho had retreated to the comfort of his t-shirts, his jeans, even his pajama bottoms. They'd probably wear out over time, but it felt more right to wear his own clothes than anything wrapped in plastic.
"Alright," Jun said when they reached the end of the row. "So basically what is the procedure during a shift down here?"
"Walk the aisles methodically, ensuring that each tank has two green lights. One with red will stand out anyhow."
"And how many tanks are you checking every time you're down here?"
"Every 12 hours, we examine half of the tanks so no 24 hour lapses are possible," Sho replied. "Roughly 3700 tanks every 12 hours."
Jun shook his head. "Don't give me roughly. Give me a number."
Sho nodded. Jun was exacting in all things. It made him a good instructor, Sho had to admit, and made him an even better Caretaker. Sho wondered if he'd ever be as diligent. "Three thousand, seven hundred twenty-two on this shift."
"For now, I'll do the first check of the day," Jun said. "You'll do second check, but Aiba has to be with you. Or myself, I suppose. Whichever you prefer."
Wow, Sho thought, concealing a grin. Was Jun actually offering to spend time with him? How far they'd come.
"So...I'll complete this check by myself. In case you have better things to do."
Sho itched to say something back, to snap at Jun and say of course he didn't have better things to do. He was stuck here forever. But he knew when he was being dismissed, and for the sake of the next fifty, sixty years of dealing with Jun, he nodded.
"I'll go check on the Caretaker."
He left Jun to his work, riding the lift up and walking to the medical lab. Aiba was gone, monitoring the ship from the bridge, while the old man lay in bed with a steady drip of meds keeping him from suffering. He was Caretaker in name only now, Sho thought as he sat down in the chair beside the bed, watching the rise and fall of the old man's chest. He'd done his duty, and Sho wondered if it would be the same for him, half a century on.
He and Jun would get to a point where a successor was necessary. Of course, Jun would be the one responsible for choosing. Sho wasn't the Caretaker, just a fortunate bonus so Jun's burden would be lighter over time. It would be Sho in this bed someday, or would it be Jun first? The thought chilled him. He obviously didn't want to imagine his own death, and after only a few months unfrozen he knew that he didn't want to imagine Jun's death either. They weren't exactly at peace, not yet, but he didn't wish the man ill. Jun was responsible for the safety of Sho's own family and friends on board, and he was glad with how seriously Jun took his mission.
"Sho-kun," the Caretaker mumbled in his sleep, and Sho grinned.
"I'm here," he replied quietly, not caring if the old man heard him or not. He only hoped the man's pain would end soon, even if it left them alone.
--
He was sitting on his bed lacing up his sneakers when the door to his room slid open.
Jun stood there, frowning at him. "You know, I can teach you how to program this to lock," he said, rolling his eyes and gesturing to the control panel next to the door.
Sho shrugged, getting to his feet. "What's the point? It's not like any of you are coming in to rob me."
"I guess not."
Sho looked down, seeing that Jun had put on the sneakers Sho had given him. He was still in his white t-shirt and white slacks, but the sneakers were quite a big sign of improvement.
Jun cleared his throat. "You're going to the cargo hold, right? To run?"
Sho nodded.
"I haven't in a while. I've been busy so..."
"You don't have to ask," Sho told him, feeling almost overwhelmed at the thought of Jun wanting to hang out with him outside of their duties. He pointed to his own t-shirt and shorts. "Are you going to be okay in those clothes? I've got stuff you can borrow."
Jun waved him off. "I have my own clothes. Let's go already."
And then Jun was gone, Sho's door sliding closed, and Sho hurried to catch up with him, following him to the lift with his water bottle. This was weird, Sho decided as he and Jun entered the lift together. This was really weird.
The lights in the cargo hold flickered on, triggered by their arrival. "I usually run with Aiba-kun," Sho said, making some awkward small talk as they both stretched. "I hope you don't run as fast as he does."
"Seeing as how I'm a human and not a robot, no, I don't," Jun replied, bending forward to touch his toes.
Jun was a little larger than Sho was, with broader shoulders but a narrower waist. Sho had never really paid attention to Jun in a physical way, seeing as how Jun had spent most of the past few months avoiding him. But one thing was for certain. The guy Sho was spending eternity with was really attractive. Now Sho found that he couldn't look away from Jun's long, muscled arms, his neck, the collarbones visible under the low neckline of the standard issue shirt.
"Flexible," Sho murmured in awe when Jun bent completely in half with little trouble, not realizing he'd said so aloud.
Jun eyed him strangely when he got back up, making Sho look away. He knew his face was bright red in embarrassment. Great. Good job, Sakurai. Sho had made things an all new kind of awkward now. Before Jun had just hated his existence. Now there'd be this. Whatever this was, Sho thought, admonishing his brain for doing a complete 180 on his feelings for Jun just because the guy was good looking and he'd never bothered to notice before.
Unlike Aiba, who didn't tire at all and could spend a 10k run talking animatedly to Sho about the previous Caretakers and life on the ship, Jun was a flawed human. He appreciated that Jun was quick to run at Sho's own pace, not speeding up or slowing down to take the lead. They didn't talk, and Sho just listened to the sound of their sneakers on the little path, the sound of his breathing and Jun's mingling in the massive open space of the cargo hold.
They seemed to tire at the same time, slowing down to rest. It was obvious to Sho that Jun hadn't run in a while. He looked exhausted, uncomfortable in the white pants that had to be itching him. Sho took pity on him, handing Jun his water bottle.
"Go ahead," he said with a chuckle. "You need this more than I do."
"Shut up," Jun grumbled, taking the water anyway.
"I told you not to run in those pants."
Jun looked embarrassed, pouring some of the water over his head, mumbling to himself.
"What was that?" Sho prodded, sitting down on one of the cargo bins. "I couldn't hear you. Were you admitting out loud that Sakurai Sho of all people might be right about something?"
Jun twisted the cap back on the water bottle and flung it at him, but not out of anger. He actually smiled, genuinely smiled, and Sho knew he was screwed now. Like he needed the added complication of being attracted to the only human he'd ever know for the rest of his life.
"Don't get cocky," Jun said. "I don't think you'll impress me until you can recalibrate a tank with one hand tied behind your back."
They both laughed, together, and it felt like the wall of ice that had stood between them from day one, colder than the tank Sho had spent three centuries in, was starting to melt.
--
It was the end, Aiba said to him when Sho sat down to breakfast a month later. The Caretaker was refusing the pain meds, refusing to be cooped up in the medical lab any longer.
"He wants to see the stars," Aiba said, looking forlorn, every part of him in seeming grief. Even the light on his neck appeared dimmer, dulled with whatever type of pain had been programmed into his circuits.
They'd spend the day on the bridge, all four of them, with breaks so that Jun or Aiba could go down to the freezer level and monitor the tanks. While Aiba piloted the ship with his steady hands, Sho sat at the old man's side as he watched the clusters of light all around the Shirase. Jun had been down on the freezer level for an hour.
He was mostly out of it, ready to go at any moment, and Sho found it difficult to find words. There was really nothing to say. The old man had encouraged Sho from the very first to the very last. It would be hard to live without him, but that was simply the way of things. Soon the old man would be free of all his pain, and that would be a blessing, surely.
"Video," the old man said, eyes opening and closing with agonizing slowness. He weakly set his hand down on Sho's leg. "Video?"
Sho looked up at Aiba's back. "Aiba-kun, what does he mean? What video?"
Aiba stiffened at the console. "It's an order for me."
Sho turned, looked at the old man's face. The rounded cheeks, the friendly smile. He was almost gone, almost at peace. "What sort of order?"
"It's something I have to show you. Now," Aiba said, getting to his feet, pressing buttons on the panel to ensure that the Shirase would maintain its present course. "Sho-chan, now."
"We just...we can't just leave him in here by himself..."
But Aiba's insistent hand was on Sho's arm, tugging him to his feet. If androids could cry, Aiba would have been, but Sho didn't feel ashamed to cry for both of them.
Aiba brought Sho to what had been the Caretaker's room. Sho hadn't been inside before. He gasped, seeing that the white walls in here had been adorned with layer after layer of color. One wall was nothing but a frenzied cluster of reds and yellows. One giant sunrise. "Caretaker-san loves to paint. Well, he did," Aiba explained, "before his arthritis set in."
Sho felt an odd twist in his stomach as Aiba went to the old man's bedside table, picked up his tablet. "This is for you to watch," Aiba said quietly, queuing up one of the videos. "I'm going to sit with him."
Aiba left him alone, and Sho's hands shook as he pressed play on the video. It was the Caretaker on the screen, old and calm as the day Sho had been unfrozen. In fact, it was the day he'd been unfrozen by the look of it. He was sitting at Sho's bedside in the medical lab, panning the video over to show just how Sho had looked then, completely out of it.
"Ah, Sho-kun," the old man said, the video returning to show his own face. "Do you know that I've watched over you for over fifty years? Not just you, of course, but everyone. It's not a job I ever thought I'd come to enjoy. But it's an odd twist of fate, not just having you on the ship and watching you, but of all the tanks to malfunction it had to be yours. I guess it makes all these years as a Caretaker worth it, that I was the one here to save you."
Sho's confusion grew. The Caretaker was speaking as if he knew him, had known him. Before.
"I just want to thank you, Sho-kun," the old man said. "I didn't quite get the adventure you told me to sign on for, but I suppose this wasn't so bad, really. Thank you. Thank you for everything. I'm really sorry for what happened. If anyone deserved to make it to a new world, it was you. Look at me, how chatty I've gotten in my old age. Aiba-chan says I've really changed." The Caretaker laughed. "Actually, I made a video for you, way back when. Back when I was still angry about what happened, but Aiba-chan, he told me to make one for everyone I knew, even the people I didn't know so well. That it would comfort me. And I'm glad I did. Well, goodbye, Sho-kun."
The video ended abruptly, the old man's face disappearing only for another video to queue up. It was shot on the freezer level, the light dim, and Sho had to squint to try and see what was going on.
"Who's down this aisle?" came a voice, a voice Sho hadn't heard in months, a voice Sho was convinced he'd never hear again. "Look at this sexy tank."
The video zoomed in on the nameplate over tank 4237, two green lights indicating the tank was functioning normally.
"It's Sakurai Sho-san~!" the voice crowed cheerfully, and the person crouched down, trying to awkwardly zoom in to show the tank's contents. Sho saw a splotch of black, probably his hair floating around inside. "Luckily it's your head at this end, or this would be some really odd fetish porn."
Sho nearly choked, caught somewhere between laughing and sobbing when the video cut again to show inside the Caretaker's room. The sunrise on the wall hadn't been painted yet. The tablet was set down by steady, firm hands that had always had trouble counting out change. There was a peace sign flashed at the camera before the person moved away to sit on the bed and address him.
"It's Ohno-san~!" came the man's voice as he waved at the camera. There he was, with his spiky hair and his round face, his tired eyes and easy smile. Just as he'd been the last day Sho had seen him on Earth, in Tokyo, in the neighborhood he loved. "Sho-kun, hello, it's Ohno-san~!"
Sho wanted to drop the tablet on the ground, race to the bridge, but the old man had wanted him to watch the whole thing.
"Sho-kun, you are the...fourteenth video I've made. I'm still not very good at it, I'm sorry. Anyhow, I'm the Caretaker here. I'd explain what that means, but I'd rather show you what you're missing out on." Sho watched Ohno get up off of the bed and head back to the tablet. "Here we go!"
The video cut out. Next Sho saw the stars. They were different stars, not that Sho could really tell. He just knew. They were the stars the Shirase had passed nearly sixty years ago. "Look at that, Sho-kun. Look what you're missing. It's beautiful out here. But when you get there, at least Aiba-chan will send you this video so you can see what space was like, and the scenery I got to see."
The video cut again. He could hear laughter, Aiba's laughter, and the picture zoomed out to show Aiba in the cargo room standing on top of a stack of bins. "Say hello to Sho-kun!" Ohno ordered, and Sho saw Aiba wave, looking exactly the same as he did now.
"Hello!" Aiba called, his voice echoing noisily.
The tablet turned around, so close to Ohno's face that the image was blurry. "Aiba-chan is an android. Isn't that weird? If you'd told me at the store that there were going to be androids, maybe I would have stayed home."
"Oi!" Aiba shouted.
He heard Ohno laugh noisily before the picture cut out again. And again the video showed tank 4237. Ohno was alone, sitting cross-legged on the floor and holding the tablet out so he could show both Sho's tank and himself.
"Well, I don't know what else to put in this video. I guess I don't know you that well, not really. But that's okay." He saw a weak smile tugging at the corner of Ohno's mouth. He looked lonelier, far more unhappy than he had in the other bits of the video. "It's my job to keep you safe now, so I'll do my best, alright?"
The screen went black, and when there was nothing else to watch Sho was moving, moving faster than he ever had in his life. When he got to the bridge, Jun was back and sitting in the chair at the console, his knees pulled up onto the seat and his face buried there, crying.
Aiba was seated with the Caretaker.
No, Sho knew. Aiba was seated with Ohno Satoshi, Sho's friend.
He knelt down in front of the old man, the man who'd been just about Sho's age when he was frozen. Aiba had his arm around him, holding onto him even though he was already gone. "Why?" Sho asked, barely able to see as tears swam in his eyes. All this time the Caretaker hadn't just been some unfortunate soul chosen for this job. He'd been Ohno, someone Sho had known. Someone Sho had begged to come along. "Why didn't he tell me who he was? Why did he erase his name?"
Aiba rubbed Ohno's arm, as though he was still with them. "He told me that he couldn't be Ohno Satoshi anymore. He finished making those videos, and he decided he would just be the Caretaker from then on. He never really explained why. It's not my job to question the Caretaker."
Ohno had lived a long life, Sho knew. And maybe it hadn't been entirely awful. But it hadn't been the life he'd deserved. He looked at the man's round cheeks, wondering how he'd gone these few months and hadn't thought, hadn't even suspected...
"Ohno-san, I'm sorry," Sho said, taking the man's hands in his own. They were still warm. "I'm sorry."
He heard movement behind him, felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Jun's. Jun was the leader of the ship now. The three of them were alone.
"We have to take care of him," Jun whispered. "Because he took care of us."
--
Sho hadn't felt quite this broken since he'd first been unfrozen. Knowing now that Ohno-san, the simple, kind man from the convenience store had been watching over him for so long, Sho couldn't stop thinking over every interaction they'd had. Every cheap takeaway meal he'd bought, every time Ohno had told Sho what he was painting. How had Sho forgotten that the guy liked to paint?
There was an airlock at the opposite end of the command deck, and as he had done since Sakamoto-san had passed away, Aiba prepared everything. Sho wondered if Aiba had it the worst, never changing even as he watched all of his companions grow old and leave him behind again and again. Aiba clearly understood loss. But what exactly did he feel?
Aiba had wrapped Ohno's small body in bedsheets, and he'd placed him in one of the empty bins from the cargo hold. It had been painted black and dotted with silver and gold stars. Ohno had painted it himself years earlier, intending it to be his own coffin someday. Together, Jun and Sho lifted the bin into the airlock, setting it down near the doors. Soon, Ohno would be among the stars himself, joining all the Caretakers who had come before him. Joining Nino, Sho realized. They'd had to do this for Nino, too.
Sho moved away and into the corridor first, allowing Jun to have a final few moments with the person he was succeeding. Aiba stood quietly beside the control panel, eyes solemn and face sad. Sho found himself lacing his own fingers with Aiba's, feeling the inhuman chill of them. Aiba was as warm as the sun, but he was stuck in a cold, robotic form.
"It'll be okay," Aiba tried to assure him. Or maybe he was trying to assure himself. Did an android need reassurance?
They waited several minutes for Jun, and Sho couldn't help but watch the other man saying his goodbyes. He kept his hand firmly on top of the bin, and he wasn't crying. Not like he had earlier. Jun had to be strong now. Jun had to lead. Sho had learned enough about Jun these few months, had learned that Jun was probably promising Ohno that he would be a good Caretaker, that he'd protect the Shirase with everything he had.
But Ohno had never needed convincing. He'd known from the start that Jun would be perfect.
Jun got to his feet, moving away and out of the airlock so Aiba could bring the blast doors down and keep them safe. They stood together, the three of them. How long would they be together? How long would it be before Jun chose a successor, and there would be four again?
Aiba had his hand over the eject button, and the sadness from before had vanished. He was smiling now, with affection and with what could only be love. The light on his neck was burning so brightly Sho thought the thing would pop.
"Goodbye, Caretaker-san," Aiba said, respecting Ohno's wishes to the very last. "And thank you for so many years of service."
Sho choked up when the button was pressed, and the alert siren sounded. A countdown began as the blast doors slowly started to open, letting out all of the air. The doors revealed the vastness of space and the starlight that had spent millions of years traveling to be here in this moment as Ohno joined them.
The bin lifted from the airlock floor, getting sucked out with a quick whoosh, and with that he was gone. The doors closed once more, shutting out the stars.
part three