4968

"Oh. It's you again."

Ringo's black and white feathered face was the only thing that looked normal anymore. Even Kuroko's face at the station had been consumed by darkness, face dissolved into that void-black emptiness that tried and failed to form words.

Tomoyo's stomach lurched at the memory. Kuroko had been standing there at the platform, offering her that grape High-Chew, and where her smile should have been there was only-

No. Stop.

She pressed her palms against her forehead, forcing the image away. 

"Well?" Ringo tilted his head. "You gonna stand there zoning out, or are you gonna ask your stupid question? 'Oh Ringo, where's Raika? I'm so worried about her!'"

Tomoyo's throat closed. An apology tried to surface, but she swallowed it down.

Kuroko told me to save my apologies for Raika.

"Tomoyo."

The voice suddenly came from behind Tomoyo, familiar in a way that made Tomoyo's chest ache.

She turned. Raika stood there in her black varsity jacket with white sleeves, hands shoved in pockets. Her light brown hair falled messily past her shoulders, bangs pushed a side in the way Tomoyo had memorized years ago. Those yellow eyes fixed on her with an expression Tomoyo couldn't quite read this time.

The eel's cord pulled on her spine, trying to drag her away, but she refused to let it.

"Raika, I-"

"There she is!" Ringo launched himself from the water, spraying them across the glass. "The dead girlfriend herself! How's the whole 'pretending to be human' thing working out for-"

Before Ringo could finish, Raika closed her hand around Tomoyo's wrist - warm and more importantly, real. She didn't let go until they reached the moon jellyfish tank, where blue light washed across Raika's face as she let go, turning to look at the drifting creatures behind the glass.

"You remember, don't you?"

After a moment, Tomoyo nodded. Her fingers found her skirt, twisting it.

"I'm sorry I didn't remember earlier. It must've been scary, looping by yourself."

Raika turned from the tank, yellow eyes boring into her. "Why would you be concerned about me? You know right? What I am."

"Don't." The word came out harsher than Tomoyo intended. "Don't talk like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're-" 

Not her. She couldn't say it because if she did, then it would all be real, and the Raika standing in front of her would dissolve into something else entirely. "Just don't."

Raika's expression didn't change. That was the worst part - the way her face stayed perfectly neutral ever since the hospital, like she was observing Tomoyo from behind glass.

"There has to be another way. To break the loop without you leaving too."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want you to go."

"Even though you know what I am."

"I don't care." The words feel hollow even as Tomoyo said them.

"Liar."

Tomoyo flinched.

"That human. She told me something, before she passed. She said once I figured out what happiness meant, I should tell you. That sometimes, you forget to be happy for yourself."

"That's not-"

"It is. I watched you five thousand times. I may not have learned what happiness is, but I did learn about you, Tomoyo. I know you'd rather destroy yourself than let her go. You'd rather stay trapped here forever than face May 13th without her."

"Because I need you."

"No. You need the Raika who smiled at you in that hospital room. The one who called you family." She paused. "And I'm not her."

Tomoyo tried to shake those words from her head, but they refused to leave.

"That human loved you, you know. Loved you enough to give herself up to something that didn't understand what happiness was. Don't you think she wanted you to be happy?"

Tomoyo's vision finally began to blur. She pressed her palms against her eyes but it didn't stop the tears from coming.

"I don't know how to be happy without her!"

"You were happy before you met her."

"I wasn't! I felt like I was barely existing, waiting for someone to tell me I mattered."

"And she did. So stop wasting what she gave you."

The bluntness of it made Tomoyo's hands drop. She stared at Raika through tear-filled vision.

All those loops, all that time spent clinging to someone who'd stopped existing years ago - what had any of it accomplished? The real Raika had died wanting her to be happy, and Tomoyo had responded by trapping everyone in a never ending nightmare.

What would Raika think of me now?

She'd probably laugh. Call Tomoyo an idiot for wasting so much time on someone who was already gone.

Tomoyo's hands dropped to her sides. The eel's cord pulled at her spine but she barely felt it anymore.

I can't let everything she gave me end like this.

Tomoyo wiped her face with her sleeve. Her hands still trembled but she forced them still anyway. 

"I'll end it." 

Raika's expression didn't change, but the anglerfish pulsed brighter.

"And..." Tomoyo's throat closed again, but she forced them out anyway. "Thank you. For staying with me all this time"

Finally, something shifted in those yellow eyes. Something that might've been happiness.

Tomoyo turned away from the anglerfish and looked up at the eel. Its massive body coiled above her head, cord trailing down to where it connected to her spine. The bioluminescent patterns along its sides pulsing slower than usual.

"I want to break the contract."

The eel went rigid. For a moment nothing happened. Then the cord yanked tight against her spine, sharp enough to make her gasp. The whole world tilted, and the last thing Tomoyo saw was the blue light from the jellyfish tank turning black.

***

Tomoyo woke on her bedroom floor.

Morning light streamed through the window, warm against her face. She pushed herself up on shaking arms, expecting the familiar pull of the cord against her spine, but her back felt light this time. She twisted around but only saw the rumpled blanket that had fallen with her from the bed.

Her phone sat on the nightstand. She grabbed it with trembling fingers and checked the lock screen. 

The date stared back at her: May 13th.