Chapter 4 - Homecoming

After a long sub-orbital flight through which she hadn't slept a wink, Kat had been planning what to say. More importantly she had been thinking about how to say it. She'd only been away from home, away from Japan for three years, her parents visiting her during her studies. Kat taking any and all part-time work she could meant she simply hadn't had time to visit her hometown of Oarai in Ibaraki Prefecture.

She'd need to be clever about how she approached this. She knew what to do, she'd talk with her great grandmother.

Kat arrived into Tokyo-Narita Space Port, ordering an electric rikshaw on her e-screen and letting the little vehcicle which food and drinks she wanted to be provided for her 2 hour journey home. Rickshaws had almost entirely died out only a few decades before, being reserved only for tourist locations and romantic trips around popular parks, but some marketing genius had sold the Japanese population on a particular brand of two seat driverless taxis with holographic rickshaw puller out the front. Times had been tough economically, and the government seized on the chance to promote a "uniquely Japanese" brand of the driverless cars. It also provided a huge boost to the food and drinks industry as these quaint little technological miracles, of course, came with a complimentary and necessary meal and drink selection. From an approved and suitably japano-nostalgic menu of course.

2 hours and a light meal of grilled eel later, Kat arrived at her home. The home her brother, parents, grandparents, great grandmother shared. To western eyes it would have appeared more like a compound, with its multiple buildings, courtyard and traditional grey walls made from local "oya ishi" stone blocks. She still remembered visiting the old mine as a teenager, now lit up in greens and reds and a tourist attraction in its own right. She'd always found it haunting, like some great underground city left by a long gone civilisation.

Kat stepped out of the rickshaw. The holographic runner seeming to lift her baggage out of the trunk (an actual servo arm doing the lifting but the hologram did his best to obscure it), then he bowed, grinned, waved and trotted off. Kat was glad you could personalise the friendliness of the runners, she enjoyed the making machines cheerful in a country where so many humans were required to maintain a serious facade.

"I'm home!" she called as she crossed the threshold of the homely collection of old buildings.

"Haaaaaai! Okay okay desu!" came the reply from a few locations, as a couple of family members nearest the door came to see who had arrived unexpected on a Thursday afternoon.

The door rolled open, "Hai, sumimasen... Kat! Wow! Come in, come in!" her mother, Anna, at first surprised and then seemed to take it all in her stride, and shouted the rest of the family down as Kat took off her outdoor shoes. Placing them aside, she stepped into the slippers provided.

"Hey, Kat you're back!" from her brother, Samu, shouted practically falling down the stairs on his way to the front doorway.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"I'll put the kettle on, dad's out at the moment, but I'll make enough for everyone anyway." Samu said.

"Thanks Samu-kun" their mother added, as she grabbed one of Kat's bags and carried it into the livingroom.

"Thanks, it was a pretty sudden decision come and see you, I know I've been away a long time..." Kat started, lifting the other bag and following her mum into the main room of the house.

"No problem dear, we are glad you came," Anna lilted in her still obviously Scottish accent, "I can only imagine that you've either run out of money or you have some big news for us. Good new, I hope!" Anna laughed and smiled, her dark brown hair obviously not the dark Japanese black of Kat or Samu.

Kat sighed "I haven't run out of money mum, don't worry."

"Well you only have to ask, since the space port was built things have been good here, plenty of work, plenty of customers."

"Oh, that's good, I know you and dad were hoping mechanical repairs would be popular now that we have so much high technology here."

"Yes, classic cars and yachts have become quite the status symbol amongst these new technology workers, seems odd seeing as they mostly work with computers though"

"Not at all," said Samu from the open kitchen, "they are all embarrassed to call themselved engineers if they don't even own an actual engine! Coders and Project Managers is what they really are!" Samu was in high school but intended to follow his parents into the mechanical-electrical trade. There was something "real" about it, he liked to say.

"Anyway," Kat continued "Thank you and I miss you all but I do have a job and money is not a problem, but thank's for worrying about me, it is very kind of you, really."

"Well, your dad will be pleased to see you when he gets back from delivering a new outboard motor to the Takahashi place; Mr. Takahashi was a bit too enthusiastic last week during the fishing boat race and managed to break his engine."

"Tea's ready!" Samu chimed in as he brought over a pot of English Breakfast, milk and little beanpaste wafers.

Two cyberdyne mobility system enframed figures arrived down the stairs, Grandma and Grandpa Suzuki, or Baachan and Jiichan as Kat and Samu (and half the kids in the small town) called them.

Wide grins met Kat as she looked up at them from her tea and wafer.

"Kat-chan!" "O-kaerinasai!" (Welcome home!), exclaimed her grandparents smiling all the while. Kat stood and at first bowed and then hugged them both. Baachan and Jiichan moved around the table sat down at the table on a nice traditional zabuton cushion, with a confidence and smoothness Kat hadn't seen in years.

"Samu, have you modified their frames again?"

Samu blushed a little and said "Yes, I took some spare parts from you room but you weren't using them."

Kat remembered years of fighting with her brother over who took whose toys or parts or components form whose room. Strangely, she found herself enjoying the memories and thinking warmly of this family she had left to pursue her studies.

"I came back to talk to Great Grandma."

Kat's grandparents, still mobile and spritely for their young 80 years of age, said nothing and continued enjoying the sight of their grand daughter. Samu looked mildly concerned. Anna knew, as a mother knows, that Kat was plotting something. Something that required some kind of permission or approval from the family. Something difficult that, if the Grand Matriarch ordered it so, they would all, naturally support. No matter what.

The English tea and Japanese anko wafers were lovely. But Kat was looking out of the window at the sea view, lost in thought, and didn't seem taste them at all.