I was shaken. He scared me. I knew it was only a dream, but that terrifying rage, that strength . . . My only consolation was that it was a dream, and would remain so. My hands were too unsteady to grasp the pen with which I had been logging my dreams. I gripped the edges of the clipboard until I was calm and could write without trembling.

Monster, I wrote. Tried something new. Tried to kick him instead of offering help. I took a deep breath, then, He threw me.

He scares me.

I don't want to help him.

I noticed him on my way out of painting class. Eileen was right. He was hanging around the edges of where I was. I smiled and nodded at him. Keisuke seemed to go a little pale when I made eye contact with him, but at least he didn't run away. Encouraged, I approached him.

"Hey Keisuke."

"Maeve-san."

We looked at each other for a moment.

"You are just coming out of class?" he finally asked.

"What does it look like to you?"

He blushed, muttered an apology. I caught him before he could turn away. "Look, Keisuke, either stop following me or ask me out. Pick one."

I couldn't resist - I added, "Baka."

His eyes widened at that. He laughed. I really liked when he laughed.

"I will stop following you," he said, and turned and left.

Wait a minute . . . I don't think it was supposed to go that way.

I chased after him and cut him off. "Fine, then, I'll ask you out."

He looked at me, really looked at me. "What if I were to say no?"

I sighed. What if? "Look, Keisuke, I'm not asking you to marry me. I'm just asking you out for lunch or dinner or drinks. It doesn't matter. I like your company. I feel like you're avoiding me. If you are, just tell me, okay?"

We stood in the corridor, still as an outcropping of rock around which a river flows 'round. I looked away from Keisuke for a moment, saw Eileen in her usual crowd of admirers. Our eyes met, and she glanced from me to Keisuke and smiled. Then one of her beaux claimed her attention, and I looked back at Keisuke.

He was smiling at me sweetly, almost sorrowfully. "I am avoiding you, Maeve-san," he admitted. "It is better this way. Please excuse me."

I watched him thread his way through the crowd, quickly getting lost amidst the taller students. I don't know how long I stood there, but suddenly Eileen was there, taking my arm, saying something to me that didn't register. She led me away from there, and I let her.

"What happened?" she asked over lunch.

I stirred listlessly. "Maeve?"

"He told me he was avoiding me."

She watched me as I looked at the food she ordered for me without seeing it. I really didn't feel like eating it.

"Maeve? Maeve, did he say why?"

Slowly I raised my eyes to her. "He said it was for the best."

"Oh."

I swallowed, and took a sip of my drink. I wished it was beer, or whiskey, but I didn't care for either of those forms of alcohol. Anyway, the student union didn't serve alcoholic beverages. "I have no luck with men," I muttered. I was starting to get angry with myself.

Eileen chuckled softly, asked, "So, I take it that dream guy didn't come back?"

I felt the blush stain my cheeks. Actually, it felt like my whole face. And in the cold, bright light of the student union, my reddening complexion was quite plain to see. The effect this had on Eileen was astonishing. She stopped eating, and I think her jaw dropped. I was too busy looking at my plate in mortification to know for sure.

"Maeve!" she whispered gleefully. "You're blushing!"

I picked up my drink and held it in front of my face, hiding my appearance from the rest of the world. "He's not a real guy, Eileen," I mumbled.

"So?" She reached out, touched my hands, and gently pushed my drink back onto its place on the table. "My god, Maeve, you're really blushing. You're still blushing. Are you going to pass out from blood loss?" When I didn't answer her, she leaned closer. "What happened?"

"It was just a dream, Eileen."

"Not when it makes you blush like that!" she crowed. "Did you get his name?"

I looked down at my food. "No," I lied. I prayed that she would be paying so much attention to my blushing that she wouldn't guess I was lying to her. "He isn't real, Eileen," I mumbled again. "It was just a dream."

She leaned back, and her grin was positively vulpine. "With dreams like that, Maeve, my dear, who needs men?"

"I have to go," I announced, picking up my backpack. "Thanks for lunch, Eileen."

"Maeve-"

"Bye."

I fled.

I dreamed again.

I looked at the child in front of me. She looked angry. No, actually, she looked disappointed. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"Are you going to help him?" she asked plaintively.

"Who?"

She vanished.

I awoke.

I was sitting on the railing of my patio, sketchpad in my lap and a portable reading lamp clamped over my head. The cool morning air stirred softly. I looked up at the sound of footsteps, and saw Keisuke approaching. Our eyes met, and I looked back to the sketchbook, twiddling with the pencil in my hand.

"Oi, Maeve."

I looked back at him. "Hey Keisuke."

I was in a ground floor apartment, so our heads were nearly level. I put my pencil down and waited.

He looked at me. I looked at him. He took a deep breath, and asked, "Maeve, are you busy this weekend?"

I raised an eyebrow. He continued. "I wanted to know if you would like to go out to lunch, or perhaps dinner. Or maybe just drinks." He looked at me, a little wryly, and continued. "Look Maeve, I'm not asking you to marry me."

"That's probably good," I replied. "I'm told I snore."

He burst out laughing. "Would you like some coffee, Keisuke?"

"Arigatou gozaimasu," he replied. "I would like that very much."

I gave him a hand up and we went into my apartment. Setting the sketchbook down on the table, I went into the kitchen.

"Is this your sister?"

"Huh? Who?"

"This little girl in your sketchbook."

"Oh - uh, no, hold on a second."

I finished pouring water into the coffee maker and turned it on. I found him sitting at the table looking at the picture I had been working on. "Actually, that's a little girl I dream about sometimes."

He looked up at me. "You pay very close attention to your dreams, don't you?"

I scooted a chair next to him and sat. I'd been working on her eyes, trying to achieve the same expressive quality that she had. "Sometimes I do," I replied. Especially lately. But I didn't think he needed to know that.

"There is something very familiar about her," he said. Then he shrugged, and flipped backwards through the sketchbook. I smiled, left him to his leisure, and went to fetch the coffee.

"Very sweet, right?" I asked him as I handed him his mug.

He smiled at me as I sat down. "You remembered."

I shrugged. "Is Saturday good for you?"

"Saturday? Yes, Saturday would be very good."

"What made you change your mind?"

He blinked a little at my rapid-fire changes of subject. He looked back at my sketchbook, but it seemed he was seeing something else. "I have also been paying attention to my dreams. I dreamed of Miaka."

"Miaka?" I took a sip of coffee and waited for him to continue.

"My sister." Ah, I was right. I nodded for him to continue, and he did so. "I . . . we lost my sister two years ago." Now he stared into space and I sat very still for fear of interrupting. His eyes were haunted by shadows from this past, and I wondered what he was seeing. Did he see the accident that took his sister's life? Or was it that she killed herself and he found the body? It was some horrible sight that caused his eyebrows to draw together and his lips to compress.

When at last he spoke, he did not mention the manner of her passing, only said, "I dreamed of her, and she looked a little sad. She spoke to me a little. She told me that I could not - no, that I should not - live my life alone. That I should not retreat from the world." He dropped his gaze to the tabletop, murmured, "She always has been stubborn."

"I understand, Keisuke." He looked at me, and smiled sadly. "And, to be honest, I'm glad that - that you're, um, asking me out." It all came out in a rush.

His smile became bright, lighting up his face. We both looked away simultaneously, and he asked, "What would you like to do, this Saturday?"

"I have to work Saturday morning, so how about a late lunch?" I waved my hand at our coffee. "We've already been having drinks together, so how about a step up?"

"That sounds wonderful, Maeve-san," he responded. "Now we must decide what time and where, and it shall all be set."

After some discussion, we settled on three p.m. and I told Keisuke to surprise me. "What if you don't like it?" he asked, a slight frown marring his features.

Smiling, I said, "I guess I'll just have to live with it, won't I?"

"But I don't want you to go somewhere and not like it," he protested.

"Keisuke," I said, "it's the company that matters, not the place. Really." I'd learned that a long time ago. "And I already told you that I like your company. I'm sure whatever you pick will be fine." He opened his mouth again, and then shut it. A smile teased his lips. "Very well, I shall surprise you."

I was grinning by the time I went to get more coffee. Eileen was right. I stirred sugar and creamer into coffee thoughtfully. I felt pretty elated.

Miaka had come to him in a dream the night before.

She had looked at him with those dark eyes that were too-wise for her young face. Then her face broke out in her usual gamine-like grin and she laughed.

"Onii-chan!" she cried happily. Then she frowned at him. "You have been unhappy, Nii-chan."

"Miaka," he had murmured. Then: "I must be dreaming."

"Of course you're dreaming, Keisuke!" She then bounced over to him, threw herself at him, and embraced him. Keisuke's arms had enclosed her reflexively. This feels so real, he thought bemusedly.

"Of course it feels real, Keisuke. It feels real because I want it to feel real." She sat up at that point, had looked at him seriously. "I know what you're thinking, Keisuke," she had said sternly. "But I'm here to tell you that you can't do what you're doing."

"But I'm doing it for you, Miaka," he had started to say, but she interrupted him.

"I'm referring to your decision to close people out of your life, Onii-chan," she had announced. "I will not permit it."

A picture of Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho flashed in his mind, and he'd said to her, "No, I cannot risk it, Miaka. That book will claim no more victims."

"Nii-chan," she had said gently, putting her hand on his shoulder, "I will guarantee your happiness with this. Trust me. Mm?"

She had smiled winsomely then, eyes twinkling with delight.

"Miaka -" he'd begun, and she dove onto him again, clinging to him like a lost child.

"Please, Keisuke. Do this for me."

She had been so sad, despite the cheerful face she put on. "A-all right, Miaka. I promise."

With that, he had wrapped his arms around her once more, and it seemed as if she were right there, warm and safe. Then she had stepped away, smiling, and as she started to fade away, Keisuke called to her.

"Miaka? Miaka, are you happy?"

"No . . ." her voice had echoed from the empty darkness. "I won't ever be happy until all the people I love are happy . . ."

Keisuke, remembering the dream, stared at the sketchbook he held in his hands before him. The page was almost entirely covered in pencil, in shades of grey. He could see the varied softnesses of the different pencils that had gone into the making of the image.

Eyes.

The bridge of a nose.

The symbol, half-obscured, as if the artist wasn't quite sure what it entirely looked like. But Keisuke knew. He'd seen it before. It haunted his dreams after - Miaka.

He looked up as Maeve exited the kitchen, the corners of her lips turned up slightly. Keisuke couldn't help but to smile back at her. She passed him his coffee, which he'd developed a taste for shortly after his arrival in the States.

As she sat down, she caught a glimpse of the drawing he'd been looking at, and a frown shadowed her face. "That's also from one of my dreams," she told him, unasked. Taking the sketchbook from him, she stared at the image that she had created with her own hands, frowning. Then she closed the sketchbook, dismissing the image and everything she was associating with it, and smiled at Keisuke.

I will guarantee your happiness with this.

"Saturday," he said softly, "Three o'clock."

"Looking forward to it," Maeve responded, smiling.

Trust me.