Seiji had never really liked autumn.  He had never liked how 
everything shut down in preparation for the frozen cold.  He far preferred 
summer or, better yet, spring, the season of triumph against the cold and 
the continued virtues of light and warmth against the darkness.  That was 
why he had spent the afternoon as he did, kneeling in leaves, surrounded by
 green.  It was autumn now, and he mourned the dying of the light in the 
only way he knew how.  Eyes closed, lips pursed, he listened to nothing but
 the rustle of the trees who hadn't realized yet that they were doomed to 
die for yet another winter.  
	He'd missed the summer this year.  It stunned him to think it, as 
it had the first time he had heard what date it was, and how June and July 
had sped by while he was strung senseless and confused underground.  How 
August was halfway over and entirely gone before they had returned to their
 Nippon home.  He wasn't certain he ever wanted to return to America, 
little that he remembered of it, but nor was he of a mind that he wanted to
 be in Japan.  
	They had all seemed so happy, so carefree, save for Ryou who 
harbored a deep grief that he refused to speak of to Seiji, and one that 
the others had refused to comment on as well.  Touma, though, who had been 
silently relieved and who had often grinned at nothing for hours on end, 
was happy.  Shuu had ragged him for doing something increadably stupid in 
America, something involving a knife and the moon, but it was one of those 
things that no one would explain to him.  Touma had retaliated with stories
 of Shuu's lecherous uncle and retorted that he really had no room to talk,
 seeing as being perverted ran in the family.  What began as a playful 
exchange of insults turned serious over something that he couldn't remember, 
and then the snapped barbs became deadly.  Shuu and Touma hadn't spoken for
 several hours after that, but the general good mood of the group had been 
enough to sway the two back from being at odds.  
	He'd left as soon as the money his mother sent for the train ticket
 arrived.
	Not that home was much better.  Home had too many questions to be
 asked, too many thoughts that swirled in his mind that he had no way of 
explaining, too many days spend wandering over the property lost in the 
sheer joy and certainty that he was there, aware and awake, and finally in 
control again.  Too many nights spent awake and terrified of the notion 
that he wasn't really there, that this was merely pleasant deliria, and 
that he would once again find himself lost in sakura and darkness.
	It was too hard to explain to his parents and his grandfather how 
the sword convention went when he hadn't been there to speak and learn what
 he should have, too hard to explain to his America-crazy younger sister 
what America had been like when he actually hadn't seen any of it, not 
outside of New York International and the hotel in San Francsico that the 
Troopers had driven all night to, once they had freed him and they left the
 nightmare behind them.   He didn't even really recall the plane trip home,
 though he did remember Shuu laughing uproariously as he regailed them with
 tales of Shin being airsick on the ride there, and Shin's subtle revenge 
as he refused to cook any of the new American style cuisine that he'd 
learned from Shuu's uncle for an entire week after they arrived at Nasuti's
 house.
	But it hurt to think of the others.  He tried not to do it,