Volume 3 – Chapter 32: Like Sand

Date: 2 September 

Last 28 Days. 

By the time he reached the doorway, he wondered whether he could have changed anything at all. It was a kind of dignity to which Kaito paid the utmost respect. He believed that she had found and was now following her own way. There was no longer any time to indulge in hurt feelings or wish for lives along roads neither had taken. Kanna stood before him, poised but unyielding.

"I thought I might find you here," she greeted, voice steady, with an hint of indecision cloaked beneath. "I wanted to talk. About what's coming."

Rika moved in swiftly, eyes soft with kindness. "We all have been thinking about it. It's not easy, Kanna. But we will face it together. Whatever happens, we will stand by each other."

Kanna peered downward for a moment, gathering her thoughts. "I find myself contemplating that concept you posed the other day... living for now, making it count. But what happens if... the counting does not matter in the end? What if all we ultimately accomplish is to delay the inevitable?"

Kaito glared straight into Kanna's eyes, his expression grave. "Maybe that is what we are doing," he said in a low voice. "But that does not mean that we stop trying. If we are going to stare death in the face, we do it on our own terms. We do not allow death to take anything away that we have fought for."

For a very long time, Kanna did not reply, her eyes roaming on the ground as if what she was searching for might be lying in the cracks. Finally, she raised her eyes, and there was clarity in her eyes.

"Fine," she said, her voice gaining strength. "Let's make this one count. Together."

Kaito and Rika would exchange sidelong glances, both aware at this moment that no return was possible. But here they had a sense that the only way forward could be as one.

The three of them stood in the twilight of the dilapidating city, from which the storm clouds were gathering above, and in which they could see the real world slipping away from their grasp. Still, in all those suffering inconveniences, at least they had each other. And that, for now, would suffice.