Family

Rei Kunieda, a cheerful girl who seemed like a blockhead to the outside world. Yet, she was easily seen through by the captain in front of her.

It was late at night and Rei couldn't fall asleep no matter how hard she tried. They had found a small abandoned room to stay for the night and the hard wooden board did not help at all.

So Rei decided to take a walk and was met with surprise when she saw her captain staring out into the open sea with her legs dangling off the edge of the broken balcony.

"Captain?" Rei called out. "What are you doing up this late?"

Imai glanced behind her with a smile, "I could be asking the same thing. I guess both of us couldn't fall asleep, eh?"

Rei couldn't help but suck in a breath, her captain looked exceptionally beautiful tonight. The moonlight illuminated her dark blue hair as it fluttered in the soft wind and her red eyes seemed to glisten in the night.

"Come." Imai said, patting the vacant spot next to her. "Take a seat. Right now, the night is endless, we have all the time in the world."

Rei obliged and sat down next to Imai. She couldn't help but admire the sea that had the moon's reflection on the surface.

"Is something troubling your mind, Rei?" Imai asked.

Rei's eyes widened in surprise at the sudden question and glanced down bitterly.

"Yes, something has been on my mind recently. I want to get it off my chest, but I'm scared." Rei said.

"Why don't you talk it out with me? You can take your time and leave out the details you don't want to talk about. So right now I'm not your captain, but your friend." Imai said.

Rei's eyes widened as she stared at Imai. The word friend and the meaning behind it meant so much more to Rei than to most people.

She sighed, "I just wonder if this is really what I should be doing, being a pirate that is."

"And why is that?" Imai asked.

"My parents, the place I'm from, hated pirates. They would always slander them whenever they were mentioned. That wasn't just it though. The ones I called friends turned their backs on me - bullying me and teasing me when I told them my dream was to become a pirate and sail through the sea. They laughed at me and my parents had this disgusted look on their face when I told them. I wonder if I were to meet them now, would they resent me and show me the same face that day?"

Imai smiled softly as she listened to Rei's story. It was always the cheerful ones - the happiest people often contained a sad past that they were forced to smile through.

"Dreaming to be a pirate or anything at all isn't wrong. It's what makes a person ambitious and motivated to become a better person than your current self."

Imai glanced over at Rei who was listening to her attentively.

She continued, "As for your parents, I'm sure they would accept you no matter what. At the end of the day, a parent only wants what's best for their child. They could never go against their child."

"But how would you know?" Rei asked, tears slowly dripping from the edge of her eyes.

"That's the thing, I don't know." Imai replied.

"What do you mean?"

"You see, I don't have parents. I never met them. I was raised by elite warriors, the best of the best, and that was where I learned all of my techniques."

"To think my story was sad…" Rei muttered.

"Haha, don't worry. I've long accepted it." Imai said. "And that's what I meant to believe, it was similar to the term of dreaming. What was wrong about it? Who could control what I wanted to do? Exactly, nobody, but yourself."

Imai moved herself closer to Rei and poked where her heart was.

"Always follow your heart. The brain will torture you with illusions, but the heart will always know what is real, and good for you." Imai said.

Rei glanced up at the sky, the tears were slowly stopping, and she felt a heavy weight being lifted off of her heart. Somehow, the night sky was even more beautiful.

"Thank you." Rei said, wiping away her tears.

"Of course, anything for someone who views me as their idol. Don't think I haven't forgotten about what you did." Imai said.

"Eh? What did I do?" Rei asked, showing genuine confusion.

"It was late at night, I had woken up from a strange noise coming from the neck. Out of curiosity, I peered through the window to see you holding two swords, and pretending to be me."

"One True Cleaving!" Imai imitated.

She glanced over at Rei who's cheeks were as red as a tomato and they were puffed up in embarrassment too. Imai giggled at the cute sight and poked her cheek causing Rei to snap out of her trance.

"Y-you saw that?! Forget about it! That never happened!" Rei exclaimed, jumping on Imai playfully.

"Too bad." Imai teased as she blocked Rei's hands. "It will be implanted in my memory forever and I'm going to tease you about it in the future."

"You can't do that! You don't have my permission!"

Imai laughed and smiled as the cheerful Rei came back. Just a few minutes ago, Rei had been crying. When Imai made eye contact with Rei, she noticed her eyes were even brighter than before.

Rei finally stopped playing and went to bed when the sun was starting to come up.

Imai smiled softly at the two who were sharing one blanket. If it weren't for their appearances, Imai would've thought that they were sisters.

She glanced at the vacant seat on the bench when Yamato's figure appeared. She was smiling and cheerfully talking to Imai, but she couldn't hear a word Yamato was saying.

"Maybe it's time I go to sleep, I'm starting to hallucinate."