The soba was delicious. I've been eating it all my life, and frankly there wasn't one thing I especially liked about it, but tonight it seemed as if a spell was cast on me to actually enjoy these time-tested, old-fashioned noodles.

I noticed that the flavor was more enhanced as I started chewing through my meal -- just enough spice to tickle your palate, and the vegetables seemed to have been picked fresh from the garden (as if we had one).

As Keiko was cooking it earlier, the aroma was so scrumptious that it can be detected for about a mile away. Either that, or the "smell" just willfully found and wafted right through my nostrils. Mmmm-mm. Or was it the noodles, really?

My Keiko's always been a great cook, and her cooking was no exception tonight, but I couldn't help thinking there was another factor that charged up -- okay, more than charged up -- my taste buds. Could it be the dawn of the approaching year (God, another year has passed already? Man, am I getting old...)? The fuss and all the hype that people had busied themselves with? Or was it the atmosphere in the dining room?

Yeah, now that I think about it -- the ambience was just right; snug, comfortable, secure. Actually happy. I've never been like this with my mother, growing up alone with her, so I've never really experienced having five people whom you hold closest to your heart eating traditional Japanese dinner together. It felt... wonderful. Just wonderful. I glanced at each of the faces around me. They looked as if they were immensely enjoying their dinner too.

My family. My flesh and blood. My very own. ~*~ If my wife were a crown on my head (hey, I am king of one-third of Makai, after all), my children were the precious stones adorning it.

Sitting across me was Sakura, now ten. She was eating her noodles quietly and ever so primly; she was growing up to be a fine young lady, even if her father says so himself. Well, she was looking more like a cross between her mother and me each day, but I was more than glad to see that she's becoming more and more like Keiko, minus (I think) the killer slap.

Usually gentle (except when she's had a bad day and you'd better get out of her way), she has inherited her mother's love (love?) for doing household chores. Hey, no one else in this family's complaining. It's just that sometimes -- and because she's such a great student too, especially in Math -- she forgets to have fun, as in go out in the sun and play with her friends.

Sakura's ten, for heaven's sake! At one time I, the fun-loving father, had to wrestle her away for a few hours from whatever serious thing she's doing and shove her out the front door when her best pal Sai was at the front door. (Well, it was a Saturday, and weekends for me are no-school days. Always have been.) But more than that, Sakura as our first-born was extremely special to both Keiko and me. She was even more endeared to us five years ago, as she became the glue that held my and Keiko's marriage together when it was on the verge of falling apart.

Five years ago, when we were thinking of a divorce -- if we hadn't come to our senses, if we hadn't thought of our child and our love for each other, then everything in front of me now would have been just a fantasy. All "would-have-beens" and "what ifs".

"Aki-chan, Aya-chan, please stop sticking your chopsticks in your ears and finish your dinner," Keiko, to my right, lightly admonished the twins (yes, twins!) sitting across from her.

A giggle escaped their lips, but did not dare disobey. They resumed eating, their chubby arms quickly making contact with the bowl and stuffing the food into their tiny mouths. All done almost in perfect sync.

Did they know that despite being of opposite sexes, Aya and Aki were exactly alike? That their actions -- their habits, their mannerisms, their way of talking -- were as identical as their faces, given the similarities as the difference in gender would allow? It always amazed me how each would know what the other seemed to be thinking, what the other would say next. They just knew each other so well, even at five years old.

Everytime Aki, my first boy and older by three minutes, would insult his sister, Aya would retaliate by slapping his rear. And to infuriate her, he would tickle her earlobe. Equally conniving, equally sly, equally manipulative at times: they reminded me so much of my raucous boyhood.

Then again, you could blame it on their youth; maybe they were just "doing their thing" -- being young and in such a highly energetic stage. But they were the epitome of sibling love, always looking out for each other as people had expected from twins. I had always thought that I was blessed doubly with them. (Especially when their faces had remarkable semblances on mine. Hell, it was an easy enough reminder.)

"Aki! Cut that out!"

Aya was practically squirming away from her brother, who found now to be the perfect time to play with her ticklish earlobe. Aki just laughed delightedly. Sakura fixed them something close to I'm-your-older-sister-so-you'd-better-stop-that-or-else glare. Aki settled back down almost immediately. I smiled widely.

"Thank you, Sakura-chan." She smiled back.

The one head missing in the table was our youngest son Fuuma, born a year and a half ago. Actually, he was with us in the dining room -- Keiko insisted that the baby "eat" with us -- but he was in this bassinet(?) beside Keiko, hidden from view, happily sucking on his milk.

Every so often his Sakura-neechan would peep on him and make baby sounds or funny faces. Fuuma would gurgle in delight. Actually, of all the times I've been in the delivery room, I've never been more spooked than when baby Fuuma was brought out into the world. Not because I had feared for Keiko's health -- she was perfectly healthy, perfectly normal, according to the doctor -- but more because of... of the baby himself.

There was something about him, something that really scared me; and after all what Urameshi Yusuke had witnessed, you'd think nothing could scare me more. But there was -- and ironically, it's in my son. It's because there was something about my baby boy that was... strikingly Raizen. Try as I may to put my finger on it, I can't; and he was still so young as to show any signs of inheriting my "bad blood", as Keiko put it.

No tatoos, none of the silver hair or any of the flesh-eating instincts... yet. I didn't tell Keiko of my fears, but seeing how normal my child was, well, I just went along with the logic that he was still an infant and was incapable of causing any major trouble. But when he grows older, would he...? Nah, I've had other days in the year to worry and be scared of everything else. Not during the holidays, as Christian tradition would dictate. And especially NOT on New Year's Eve. ~*~

So that was the roll call. A beautiful wife, two girls, and two boys. Wait a sec. Two girls and two boys. Two boys and two girls. That sounded quite familiar... Yeah, as a matter of fact, I had heard it somewhere before. It was something that someone said to me over a decade ago...

"I don't want to see you in heaven until you guys have kids, OK? Two boys and two girls... got it?"

I had a wistful smile on my face as Keiko brought out desert -- a box of those Hershey's chocolates, everyone's favorite, though it wasn't Valentines day, and a huge bunch of grapes.

Well, they always said eating grapes on New Year's Eve was good luck. The kids (OK, just the twins) each lunged quickly and aggressively at the chocolates and got a handful. Sakura settled for grapes. I plucked out one berry myself.

It was nearing twenty years, wasn't it? Sixteen years ago, to be exact. Sixteen years ago when I first got in touch with the spiritual realm. Sixteen years ago, I had met new friends and squashed old foes, basically getting into the prime of my teenage years... no matter how strange was the life I led.

I was fourteen then, a victim of a car accident, a spirit wandering around doing good deeds so I could go back into the world I left. It was then that I met her... Sayaka-chan. She might have been a spirit, but who cared? She gave me a reason to keep on living, to keep on loving. She was the little sister I never had, constantly following me around and poking into the life I had before I died... almost as nosily as Botan did.

I owed Sayaka more than the companionship and the help she offered me the time when we were, er, floating around Ningenkai, and basically being invisible. I owed her for making me aware (somewhat) of how much Keiko meant to me, because I had been a great big oaf to know that she's more to me than a friend. "

Ne, Sayaka-chan, if you could only see us now! Not that I'm ready to join you again in Reikai anytime soon. I just wish you'd know that I did something right this time, that I got around to meeting your condition, even if it were done unknowingly so.

"Sakura-neechan, can I have some of your chocolates?" Aya-chan pleaded sweetly, her smile complete with dimples. No sister could resist that.

"NO." Sakura obviously resisted, her imouto's charm obviously failed.

"Neechan!" Aya-chan whined.

"You've had enough sweets already. You ate through half the box!"

"But I want more --" "Have some grapes instead."

My charmingly cynical Sakura. You've gotta be proud of her. But seeing my children this way -- having fun, being the kids that they were... They prodded me to recall the one thing that pained me most, at one time or another: the realization that Sayaka-chan had spent such a short time on earth. I mean, she had been so young!

Where was she when the kids went trick-or-treating in halloween, or went crazy over the latetst Barbie doll? Where was she when her family hid gifts under the sofa and her siblings persevered to find them before Christmas arrived? Where was she when most kids got their first pet, or when they were playing tag or hide and seek, or simply catching the eye of the boy they liked?

She... she had been with me, as a ghost. Well, not as if she chose to, but -- heck, she had missed out on so much because she died so early. It wasn't fair. I was given another chance at life,but for her... She had to remain there in Reikai.

One way of looking at my children was that they were my source of joy. And the source of noise around the house -- what with two hyperactive five-year-olds leading the way? But the other side of the coin was that they could also be reminders of the passing pain that grips my chest everytime I think of the little girl-spirit who was my unfailing companion, even for just a short while.

"Right, Toosan?" Aki asked me. I snapped back to attention.

"Toosan... yoo-hoo!" Aya waved her chopsticks in front of my face, trying to see if I were back on earth.

"Er, yeah, right." I grinned lopsidedly at my son, who didn't mind much. He just continued to munch noisily on the grapes.

"You alright, Yusuke?" Keiko asked me. "You've been uncharacteristically quiet."

"Gee, thanks, Keiko," I replied wryly. "Nah -- I was just... thinking."

For some reason, I felt that I owe part of this happiness to Sayaka-chan. Somehow, I feel that if I do this one thing right -- being a loving husband, a good father, a dependable family man (which is a pretty tough job, as you're talking about ME) -- I'd be doing it for the unexpected little babysitting charge I had sixteen years ago... who ended up saving my life in more ways that she ever could imagine.

"What about, Toosan?" Sakura was curious. I set my bowl down, and motioned to raise my cup.

"I'd like to propose a toast." The children stopped chewing loudly and listened. "I toast to my wonderful family -- the root and the cause of my true happiness. May the new year bring us closer together, and that we may never run out of love for each other."

I looked at each of them fondly, my eyes resting longest on Keiko. Did I see a glistening of tears in her eyes? She was always like that, I guess. Crying over serious little things. And that's why I love her.

"Cheers," she said softly, raising her cup as well.

"Cheers!" the children echoed more enthusiastically, lifting their glasses high into the air. Then we clinked glasses, clumsily at that, and laughed heartily afterwards. ~*~ I told Keiko that the soba was delicious. She just smirked her thanks and cleared the dishes, with Sakura-chan helping.

Midnight struck. Bells were going to ring any second now from certain temples, for 108 times to purge us people from the desires that would plague and ruin the purity of our being, of our souls. Another year has passed. I remembered the toast earlier.

"Cheers," we said. Cheers -- that was for you, too, Sayaka-chan. For making a poor fourteen-year-old's soul feel better about his second life on earth. And for making a thirty-year-old man feel great about his family, his real blessings. Wherever you are, I hope you're happy. And they'd better be treating you damn well, too.

Notes: The names sound familiar, don't they? ^-^ I borrowed Sakura, as well as Yusuke and Keiko's divorce proposal, from Manille's fic, "Falling in Love All Over Again," my favorite of hers. The names Aki and Aya were taken from "Ayashi no Ceresu," another great anime from Watase Yuu that I'm hooked on these days. The name Fuuma is from "X 1999". The relationships of the children in this fic, however, are my own ideas. And soba, according to what I've read, was the term Japanese noodles. That's what they eat on New Year's, according to the article. The bell-ringing thing was true, too. Heck, that's what the piece said.

Owari