Flight School: Prey

Intentions

"闇の光" is the chapter I have been waiting to write ever since I started this book. The end had materialized, oddly, before anything else did; and what stood out most was someone emerging out of the darkness to take the form of a light. It was a short distance back home on the train and the moon was full when the idea first came to me—the idea of someone being the moon. It didn't necessarily have to be a girl, per se. Because for some reason all moons are portrayed to be women (here is where I laugh). I then thought of a small, curious boy whose existence was far too tiny and negligent in the wide world to make a difference.

The idea was pleasing and it was exhilarating to think that someone would shine only in the darkness; but in the day go unnoticed. Very much like...a sparrow. :)

On "闇の光"

I will start by explaining the title of this special chapter, "闇の光", that I chose to write in Japanese, and the reason why I cannot put it in English. Like every other title chapter, this too, is an oxymoron. An oxymoron is a phrase with at least two words that suggests an idea that is in conflict with each other. For example, it is impossible for there to be 'Caged Freedom' (one of the title chapters in Flight School), since freedom is, implicitly, uncaged and void of burden. "闇", read as yami, meaning darkness, and "の", read as no, is a particle that implies possession—more commonly known as of, and "光", read as hikari, meaning light. Now in Japanese, the structure of this phrase is not appropriately represented by the direct translation. Instead of it being "darkness of light", it is actually "light of dark". Unlike English, Japanese and Chinese often put the possessive noun before the object; therefore in this case, darkness is the one possessing and light is its possession.

Honestly, "Light of Dark" sounds...pretty meh as a title XD hahahaha! Cuppie is sucker for good language and implications. Light of Dark sounds grammatically wrong and it doesn't say as much compared to the title in Japanese. In the latter, there is an implication that there is light IN darkness, which is less obvious in the English translation. And of course, since this book is just full of light and dark imagery, Cuppie couldn't resist the temptation to put this in :')

I guess it is clear for you, now, then—why Io could only gain access to a predator's Link during the night. After all, the moon only rises when it is dark and this is where Io goes from, for all intents and purposes, nothing to everything.

It is also why I make Io and Luka meet only at night because it is the only time they can meet as equals—of course, this, they hadn't known, but merely established first on the basis of being human. They were friends as humans; and that was all. This is also why Luka always sees a strange light in Io's eyes but doesn't know just where it's from because most of the times they are together in the treehouse, the moon is not in the sky but in Io. Luka sees the moon in Io's eyes, and not in the sky.

And this is also why Luka, who could, initially, only see the night is now able to see the moon and the stars ever since someone had, so coincidentally, come into his life. Even the first time when Io asked Luka whether he found the moon beautiful (through the note he had left in the treehouse), there was, precisely, no moon in the sky because Io was the moon. And all Luka did was answer, blindly, that yes it was even though there was no moon; he just wanted to reply something, anything because that would keep the conversation going.