Prologue

The wind blows mercilessly into Asuka’s pale face, making her auburn hair flail as she peers into the dark ocean. Far below the bridge, it makes the winter air especially frigid, and she cannot tell if it’s the cold or the strength of her grip that is causing her reddened fingers to feel so numb. She wills herself not to care, as none of it will matter soon. After some deep breaths, forcing herself to swing her legs over the metal guardrail that protects her from her doom and plants her feet on the precarious amount of space that sticks out past the bars.

“Come on…” she wrings the words out of her throat as she strangles the rail with all her strength The black sea screams at her from below, mocking her, sending her visions of her fate if she goes through with her plan. Her way of atonement. She grits her teeth and squeezes her eyes shut…but her arms do not slacken. She tries and tries to let go, but she just can’t. Finally, she admits defeat and looks away from the swirling abyss and moves to pull her body back over the guardrail. When she lifts her leg to swing herself back, a particularly strong gust is thrown at her, causing her boot to slip on the snowy metal. Panic stabs her heart, but she manages to cling onto the rail and scrambles back over to safety, landing on the hard ground and getting the wind knocked out of her.

Gasping and coughing to regain her senses, airflow returns to her lungs as the adrenaline ebbs out of her pores. Asuka feels herself shaking, but manages to sit up, her hands still stuck on the frozen rail. Taking shallow breaths, she hangs her head and stares down at her gray pants, stained with frozen water, and a scream tears at her throat. Her cries are suffocated by the wind and sea but that does not stop the tears from cascading down her cheeks. She stays there like that, hunched over and hugging herself, until she hears a car coming from the end of the bridge. Face still scrunched; Asuka uses the rail as leverage to carry herself upwards.

Whoever is driving the car slows down momentarily as it passes by her, but they ultimately decide to carry on without stopping. Asuka is relieved, she doesn’t want to see anyone or answer any questions. On the slow walk back, she begins to calm down. Her crying turns to sniffling and her shoulders are stiff but no longer shaking. She stuffed her hands in her jacket pockets and didn’t bother to wipe her face. The bitter cold makes it feel like icicles are stabbing the trails on her cheeks.

She doesn’t pay attention to the horizon as the deep blue sky begins to shine while the sun lifts from the east. It at least becomes easier to see the familiar path Asuka has walked down hundreds of times growing up in Shikoku. The town doesn’t come alive until well past dawn, then the shops open and residents will go about their usual business. The secondary school in the center of the neighborhood guarantees crowds of children will be present in the mornings and Asuka always makes sure to avoid the rush.

When Asuka makes it back, she sees a paper bag in front of the door. It rustles slightly as the wind blows. She bends down to pick it up and reaches in to find something wrapped in a red cloth. She already knows who it's from. Yamada-san was a neighbor that her brother had befriended almost as soon as she moved in a few years ago. Lately, she has been bringing food to Asuka's house, claiming that she "made too much food". Asuka sighs and returns the dish of food back into its packaging. 

Opening the door to her home feels almost shameful. She didn’t expect to be back, so it wasn’t locked. The light from outside still hadn’t reached the windows and left inside was covered in shadow. After closing the door, she leans against it without moving, breathing in the familiar air. She instinctively takes off her shoes at the entrance and trudges past the kitchen where she absently places the food from her neighbor. When she reaches the living room she throws herself onto the sofa in a heap. Exhausted from her excursion she lays there silently; the numbness of the cold being taken over by the numbness in her heart once again. As more light begins to stream in through the windows, it becomes easier to see everything she was trying to leave behind.

A stray sunbeam catches her eye as it lands on something. She glances up to see the photo she had left up of her brother. Though it’s turned around she vaguely remembers the scene of the two of them smiling at the camera outside of the zoo he took her to when she was a child. They went on their own, so they had to get a stranger to take the picture for them. They didn’t have much money for souvenirs, but she remembers how enjoyable the trip was, and despite the thunder and lightning appearing with the sudden rain shower, it was all worth it. She allows herself to linger in the memory before it becomes too painful, and she shuts her eyes again. Everything in the house just feels like a reminder, but she can’t bring herself to do anything about it, can’t bring herself to truly forget, so she just waits for it to turn dark to see again.