Back to Her

June 30, 2219 
3 weeks after J-Day

Kou’s pupils reluctantly adjust themselves as the ceiling he is staring at is invaded with a dim blue glow, coming from his cell on the bedside table. Next, the vibrations scratch away at the aged silence of yet another early morning. Sitting up with a snap, he has once again beaten his alarm to the punchline. Though, at least he doesn’t have to answer to that pretentious melody that announces each new day so insincerely.

The weather is miserable, but it’s not to blame for Kou’s despondence. Up until a few weeks ago, he’d hardly had anything in his twenty-one years of life worth losing. Now, he is rooted in time by a deep longing for something that he tries desperately to convince himself was never his to lose in the first place. A girl. It’d been three weeks since he’d seen her. Three gruelling weeks, cooped up in a small and vacant room. Today, he has resolved to go and visit her.

Though, lethargic as he is, the disciplines of everyday routines are deeply engrained into his brain. The bed is made, the teeth are brushed and the hair shampoo’d. A slurp of coffee, a crunch of toast, a jingle of keys, a thud of the heel, and out the door he hobbles. “I’ll be going now.” he says to himself with a defeated flick of the chin. Behind him, his flat lies nestled between Cafe Modoshi - his place of employment - and a line of identical units, each occupied by his co-workers. Ahead of him was a twenty two minute walk through a familiar town that he would barely recognize. 

It had endured sixty years since he last walked through it.

“She never was very shy with that money. Heh. Figures she’d be up here.”
Kou now stood at the foot of a marble grave stone. The foamy cloud cover of an overcast sky drew and erased the shadows around him. The cemetery itself went a half-dozen stories underground, but the ground level was reserved for those with deep pockets, or great influence. She was one of those things to society, and the other to Kou. 

‘Yuko Kirigaya, 2134 – 2212’  is written at the top of the ascending slabs in modest rose-gold calligraphy.

“A life of 78. I wonder what you did with all of those years?”

Time can be so cruel, Kou thought to himself. The thought aggravated him to no end as he sat staring at what remained of a past he was forbidden to participate in. For hours he stared, and even though there was no one familiar enough to sit there with him, it still felt as though it was against all odds that he sat alone.

“Uhm... Excuse me, sir?” 
The timid voice of a girl eased in from a few steps behind him.
“Uhm... Are you... I think... I think I’m supposed to give this to you.”

With both hands, she held out a tea-stained envelope. It was crumpled, differently on either end. The flip was doggy-eared and withered. She held her gaze to the floor before his feet, her eyes naturally drifting upwards, curiously, but resetting each time they reached his shoes. Straight black hair in a ponytail, hanging like a drape over the side of her face. Eyes at a lowered angle, but unmistakably deep, dark blue. A small girl with a pouty face, but not a child.

Kou walks up to her, cautiously so, trying not to make any sudden movements. Eyes fixed to the envelope, he pinches it between his thumb and index finger, then, sharply looks up at her. She meets his gaze with equal resolute as she lets go. 

“Uhm... Well, I don’t know if this is actually for you or not. Did you, uh, know my grandmother somehow?” 

Kou smirks with suppressed bewilderment. Act natural, he thinks to himself. 

She continues: “But, why are you visiting her now?” She averts her eyes.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude. It’s just that she’s been dead for over seven years. So why now?” 

Kou is at a loss as he looks at the girl. He smiles toward her as if to confirm that he understands the question, but hinting at his inability to respond. 

The envelope. It’s a way out of the question, but more than that, it’s definitely from Yuko. Kou tosses it around in his hands, checking both sides for any markings. It’s a plain old envelope. 

Carefully, he peels it open. Immediately recognizing that inside is a photograph. He starts sliding it out when his eyes are once again drawn to the girl – who has now crept up to him, wide-eyed, fixed on the package in his hand. She blushes lightly as her embarrassment is constrained by overwhelming curiosity. 

Unveiled, the photograph is not surprising to Kou. What is surprising, is the frailty of it. He still finds it very difficult to imagine that this photograph is over sixty years old.

The girl lets out a gasp. “Oh! Is that my grandmother when she was younger? And is that your relative with her?” 
He once again thinks to himself, how on earth am I supposed to answer this? 

The girl looks up at Kou, a little more excited, a little less shy. “Yup. That is definitely a relative of yours. I mean, you two actually look identical.” 

Kou returns the photograph to its packaging and, realising in a mild panic that he hasn’t spoken a single word to the girl, addresses her eagerly, 
“Fuji-“ He pauses, remembering that the family name had since changed.
“Kirigaya?” 

She is a little taken back by the formality of it. “Was that a question? Kirigaya is my mother’s family name. Aki Nakama." 
"I am the granddaughter.” She asserts. 
“Of my grandmother.” She backs down again. 

“Obviously.”  

Chivalrously, Kou matches her demeanour with a chirp,
“Hagita, Kou. Uh... friend. Of your grandmother. Who is friend of me.” 

So lame.

He and the man in the photograph are indeed identical. Kou had posed for this photograph a couple of weeks ago.

After a brief silence, Aki’s nosiness gets the better of her.
“My grandmother gave us the oddly specific instructions to come here every day after June 8, 2219, until a young man of your description showed up, and deliver the envelope to him. On a whim, we asked the groundskeeper to contact us if he saw you. Who exactly are you?” 

She isn’t looking for a half-hearted response as she adds,
“That picture is of my grandmother, right? And, you said you were friends with her. But I find it hard to believe that you were close with her at all.” 

Kou turns away from Aki, toward the gravestone. She pouts in determination as she continues: “I would have definitely known about you if that were the case.”

Kou doesn’t have it in him to face her. He looks up toward the treeline in the horizon, desperately clinging onto a forced smile.
Yuko really is gone, the thought once again consumers him, her whole life - spent.
Aki’s brooding silence adds to the weight. She probably doesn’t believe whole-heartedly in what she just said, but she eagerly awaits an explanation as she stares at his shoes. All the while, a single, heavy tear had been accumulating in Kou’s inner eye, and after a reluctant blink, it falls. 

The droplet lands a few centimetres in front of his feet, and with that, Aki refutes her need for an explanation.

“Nevermind that!” Aki says in a shaky laugh.
“I guess it’s none of my business.” 

Kou now lets his head fall in front of him. He is not the type of person to get so emotional, and doing so in front of a stranger is particularly humiliating. 

“Sorry.” He says, conquered by his longing once again. Another brief silence blankets them. Kou begins talking again.
“Do you want the... whole explanation that might take all night to go over?”
An off-handed prefacing that might soften the blow of the second option.
“Or the very short, crazy-person answer?” 

Aki takes a moment to truly consider the options before settling with a cheeky “Sorry but I don’t have all night.”

It takes little while for Kou to work up the courage to say it. After all, he is not actually at liberty to say it. But the possibility of lightening the heaviness of his burden, even just a little, gets the better of him. 

“I spent two and a half years travelling the world with Yuko on a secret mission.”

Not even Kou can keep a straight face after hearing himself say that. He bursts into laughter. A teary laughter broken by the occasional cough. However, Aki isn’t laughing. Maybe it’s the quivering in his breathing, or the expensive clothing, or his own proportionate reaction – but, she doesn’t have it in her to dismiss what he just said. He really doesn’t seem all that much like a crazy person. 

She sees the envelope in his folded hand once again, and with a bit of a jolt, she resolves to console him.
“Well, yeah, that is a very short, crazy-person answer if I’ve ever heard one.”
She sighs in acknowledgment of how poor her attempt was.
“I... don’t know what to make of this, I’m sorry.”
Growing frustrated at her lack of tact, she decides to go ahead and pick option two.
“Ugh, screw it. Why don’t you just give me the long answer?” 

Kou looks back at her very suddenly, with a raised eyebrow, as if she were the one talking like a crazy person. 

She goes on, “Don’t look at me like that, nut-case. Anyway, My family home is close by, and we’ll be having lunch soon. You can join us, if you’d like.” 

Kou goes into autopilot and starts to politely decline when he’s interrupted by an unwavering Aki.

“I can tell you about her.”