Up til Now

Asuka and Hotaru have spent three months traveling since they hopped on the train after running from the Nishimura household. It hadn’t taken them very far, but it took them far enough to kickstart their bike ride towards the north. They don’t have a particular final destination in mind, they just have to make sure they’re in position to complete the final item on Kyo’s bucket list in case they are for some reason rendered unable to travel long distances by the time January rolls around. And as promised, they went around trying to find ways to cross items off Hotaru’s own list along the way.

Despite how well-off Hotaru’s family had seemed, it turns out she’d never gotten a chance to do simple things like visiting an aquarium or going to an arcade. “Like I said they were too busy dragging me around to win competitions and increase my academic standing,” she once told Asuka. The more stories Hotaru shared with her about her family life growing up, the more Asuka understood why she wanted to leave so badly. Her parents had kept her so busy with academic work that she had never had a chance to be a real kid or meet other kids that weren’t always in opposition with her. Asuka wonders if that’s why she’d never seen her with anyone when they attended the same school.

She and Kyo never had much money for taking far off trips or buying expensive items, but she feels like he did a lot to make her life fun. After their parents had abandoned them to travel the world, Kyo had to take up the mantle of parent at just 15 years old. She was 7 at a time and could not comprehend why her parents had not come back for them. She recalls Kyo telling her she would cry for days waiting for them to return. Their house was generationally owned, so they didn’t have to pay off any mortgage. But fixed asset taxes, utilities, and food bills still required him to get a part-time job while finishing high school.

Unlike with Kyo’s list, the desires Hotaru had written down were a bit more whimsical and idyllic. There’s no way they would be able to make it some place abroad like Brazil at this point, but they try to compensate within their limitations by substituting certain locations with temples they came across or cities that started with the same letter. And instead of going to an aquarium, they would bike along rivers they came across and throw in food for the koi.

It is now October, and things have really gotten bad. Most of the cities they encounter have turned into mosh pits of gang wars as they fight over territory and remaining resources. It seems as if the government has completely abandoned everyone to let this happen. The two of them keep to the outskirts of cities to avoid detection, sneaking in only to gather supplies and food from empty stores.

Hotaru revealed herself to be very good at this kind of thing. She shares vital knowledge about on tips to survive outside and sneak around without getting caught. “Where did you learn this stuff?” Asuka asks after she was done explaining to her how to make a portable phone charger out of wire and a lithium battery.

Hotaru smiles wryly, “as a kid I used to fantasize about that some kind of apocalypse happening and everyone in the world dying except for me, so I’d have to live off the grid.” She kicks dirt onto the remains of the campfire they made from the night before, “I ended up reading a bunch of books on it since I have nothing better to do it with my free time and,” she spreads her hands, “here we are.” Asuka makes a face at this but doesn’t say anything more.

When they’re in secluded spaces, Asuka uses the radio attached to the cassette tape player whenever she can to see if anyone is still using it to communicate or give out information. As the structure of society deteriorates, there are less places to get access to Wi-Fi or with stable electricity. Many of the gangs that roam the country seem to be death cults that want to take out as many people with them as possible before the meteor does it for them. Hotaru suspects they just get off on killing people and try to frame it through some religious narrative. Asuka thinks back to the fire and explosions that made her have to evacuate the hospital a few months ago.

Despite the constant danger they’re in, Asuka feels like she’s been having a fun time traveling with Hotaru. She remembers the days she’d spent traveling before now, the void of loneliness never truly leaving her heart no matter what she did or how she tried to convince herself it would all come to an end anyway. But now she feels like something is slowly filling it in.

The girls now drift along the countryside of Sendai. One evening while cycling to find a place to sleep after escaping from another ruined city, they get caught in a rainstorm. It takes them a while to find shelter under a bus stop on the empty country road and the clothes are soaked through. For times like these, they made sure to keep any electronics in the middle of their bags, while the top was stuffed with clothing.

“What if the rain doesn’t stop until morning?” Asuka says she squeezes water out of her hair. Hotaru shrugs, looking up into the darkened sky, “we might as well camp here for the night. The clouds that were rolling in before they burst looked huge. The storm will take a while to go away.” Sure enough, the two wait for multiple hours, sitting on the cold wooden bench under the leaky tin roof. Even though the weather has stayed warm through October, the night becomes chilly, and they wait a little too long before deciding to change into different clothes.

The storm ebbed away as dawn approached, and they set off once again once daytime has reached its peak.