Volume 4 – Chapter 19: No Regrets

Date: September 25 

Last 6 Days.

The morning sun was wane and caged beneath layers of thin, ghostly clouds.

It felt, for the entire world, as if it were holding its breath — waiting for something that no one would usually stop.

Inside the house, it hung balmy, strangely beautiful.

Kaito sat alone at the table, looking intensely into the worn notebook before him.

Sketched, noted, planned — all the fragments of life which they had desperately tried to build in a world going up in flames.

Kaito got up and went over to Rika, who placed a cup of coffee right next to him with that small-and-warm smile.

"You think too much," she said a bit gently.

A faint laugh escaped Kaito's lips.

"Six days left. Hard not to."

He shut the notebook and turned to her, searching for fear in her face.

No fear lurked within Rika's bright, determined eyes.

"We did everything we could," she said. "Regrets not a one, remember?"

Kanna was nearby on the floor playing with an old battered radio and made a scoff sound.

"If you still have that little belief in happy endings, it is easy to say."

Rika glanced back at her, then at Kaito.

"It's not the end," she said, "it's our story-the story we wrote together."

Kanna didn't say anything in reply. She was only turning the radio dial trying to catch some station - any station - that was still broadcasting. All she got was static.

And so, later in the afternoon, the three of them went into the nearest town where quiet this time had never been heard. It was a deserted shop littered with cracked streets and leaves.

Here and there life hung at the edges-a cat crossing the road-an old man watering a wilting plant-children drawing on the pavements with broken chalk.

They all looked at things in silence.

"This world..." Rika whispered, her voice shivering again. "It deserved better."

Kaito took her hand, squeezed it softly. "It had beautiful moments. And it still does."

They got what little they could find in stores-the cans of goods, batteries, candles. Survival wasn't the point anymore, but trying still made them feel alive.

On their way back after sunset, Kanna suddenly stopped in the middle of the street. She looked up at the darkening sky and said, almost to herself: "If you knew everything was ending... would you really change anything?"

Kaito and Rika exchanged a glance, then turned back to her. "No," Kaito said firmly. "I would love harder. Laugh louder. And hold on until the very last second."

Her face lit up - it was a rare smile, and for once she didn't bother arguing.

They walked home together, under skies ready to fall apart at the slightest gust of wind.

But for now, they still had six days.

And not a one was going to be wasted.