Families

➼ ➼ ➼

Delilah approached me with a tissue wiping her eyes.
"We're halfway through the videos, Matcha-kun."

"Perfect timin'," I said. "Here, make sure we [She] watches this too. By the way, how's we [She] doin'."

Delilah pointed at me and beamed.
"We're at that part! I'm still confused on what that 'We' thing means. I asked her and she said I wouldn't understand."

Music to my ears. I chuckled, because our joke had kept its purpose.

"Matcha-kun, do you like Yasumi-chan?"

"I do."

She squeezed herself between me and her mom.
"If she doesn't get her memories back, would you fall in love with me? I mean, I'm basically like her anyways."

I knew what she was doing, and decided to play along.
"I'll take you into consideration if you aged several years, became an orphan, and got diagnosed with depression. Bonus points if you love apples."

She turned to her mom, to which the doctor said, "Forget about it."

Delilah turned back and groaned.
"Darn my perfectly good life!"

"Your what life?" I asked.

She immediately separated from me and started running back into the hospital, giggling mischievously.

Dr. Takashi said, "I apologize for her choice of words."

"Eh that's okay, she's right. Havin' a perfectly good life is great, but I found solace in my not-so-great one. I was able to fall in love – twice – with the only person who can truly understand me, and I truly understood her. I hope she'll remember that."

Instead of returning to her hospital room, I returned to the orphanage. I didn't see her after they finished the videos because I felt like she needed some alone time to gather her thoughts. She sent no texts or made any calls. I didn't know if she had remembered or not, but I would find out the next day.

School ended and I was walking to the orphanage. The music I listened to was the same as always. Sapporo never failed to deliver with their grey clouds, but I didn't mind them anymore. They represented the city I lived in, the city where my life felt complete.

Approaching the orphanage, I saw her standing there. A lost angel in alabaster clothing, she stood at the entrance as I came to a halt. I called out her name.

Not her family name, her given name.

"Yoru-chan?"

She turned around, her hair unconfined in the wind. We connected the apples of our eyes, and she took off running towards me. As she sprinted, my memories swapped between the present and back in Aomori. Both times I stood there, and both times she dove into my chest.

I had remembered everything, and she had remembered everything. It was like those accidents never had an effect on our memories, but we were glad they did, since it brought us together like this. Only we could truly understand our uniquely similar experiences.

Despite her resistance, I managed to pull her away from my chest. I used a finger to gently lift her chin until we locked eyes again; she batted her lashes, I gave her a wink.

No words were needed, we had heard everything that needed to be heard. We had seen everything that needed to be seen. We had smelled everything that needed to be smelled. We had tasted everything that needed to be tasted. However, we hadn't touched everything that needed to be touched.

She put both hands on my chest and rose to tiptoes to reach closer to my face. My arms descended to her lower back to embrace her closer to me. Our eyes shut, but we still saw each other with the connection of our lips.

Cherries? No. Roses? No. Strawberries? No. Her lips tasted like the sweet, aromatic, tasty flavor of an apple that was perfectly ripened. We separated our lips to inhale, only to press them together again. Seven times, we repeated the process.

She pulled away for the final time, and lightly patted her hands on my chest like I was a drum.
"I know what apples symbolize to me now: Love and rebirth."

Knowledge and wisdom. Love and rebirth.

We walked to the orphanage doors.

"I was right," she said, "you aren't the light of my life, but the apple to my eye. The apple that, along with the videos, brought back my memories."

"Y'know, you're the apple of my eye too. For the same reasons.

She giggled, putting her right hand over her left shoulder. I extended my left arm behind her next and placed it on her left shoulder. My fingers interlocked with hers, and I held her hand that way as we entered the doors.

Cheers of children welcoming Ringomori back resonated in the building. She individually thanked each kid that greeted her, and then a caregiver approached her.

"Welcome back, Ringomori-san. You are needed at the office."

We were both confused, and she held my hand and took me with her. At the office, the receptionist told her something she'd never expected to hear.

"An official application has just been approved for you. You've been adopted."

Like an apple ready to harvest, her jaw had dropped to the floor. She looked at me and I mirrored her expression; I didn't know it'd be right away.

"Who adopted me?" she asked and bounced like a rabbit.

The receptionist looked past the two of us and we turned around with interest.

There they stood. The three of them.

"Yasumi-nee-chan!" shouted Delilah.

Ringomori took one step towards them, cupping her mouth with her hands. She took another step, the streams flowing over the edge to form a waterfall down her face. She took another step, and another, and another, until the four of them shared a familial hug.

Shizuko Ringomori "Yasumi" Yoru.

➼ ➼ ➼

The cherry blossoms of spring arrived in Sapporo just in time for high school graduation in mid-March.

I had full combo'd the highest difficult song on D4Dream during the ceremony. Once it finished, Daishi was waiting for me at the school gates in tears.

"I'm go'n t'miss call'n you 'Chaimaru-senpai'! Goodbye forever, friend!"
He gave me a hug that could very easily crush every bone in my body.

"You do know we'll still be seein' each other, right? I'm literally movin' into your house for university until I can find my own place. Plus, we're workin at CLARIS too. Speakin' of that, we need to head over there now."

On the trip to the pie shop, I thought, It's been a month since Yoru and I started datin'. Well, the truth is that we started a long time ago.

We arrived. Ringomori, her family, and Ms. Ashikaga were gathered at the tables. The place was empty.

I approached Dr. Shizuko and said, "Thanks again for rentin' the whole shop for us."

"It's my pleasure, Chamaru-kun. It would be quite the disturbance if people outside our lives heard the news you're about to receive."

I raised an eyebrow and titled my head. Before I could ask for clarification, I felt a tap on my shoulder. The place fell silent as I turned around.

All eyes were on me as Ms. Ashikaga and her son stood before me. They presented me with a piece of paper and I read it internally.

Ms. Ashikaga said, "I learned that you got Ringomori-san adopted into a caring and close family, and I believe you deserve a family too."

Adoption Confirmation Document.

The paper had stains of salt water originating from my eyes. I looked at her with blurred vision, and quietly muttered,
"Y-You're m-my…mom?"

Daishi slapped a hand to my shoulder.
"Welcome t'the family, brother."
He pulled me in and I extended my arms to embrace him and Ms. Ashikaga as my own waterfalls streamed.

The entire place cheered and we celebrated with pies, cake, lattes, and tea.

Ringomori and I sat at a table of our own and watched as our new families bonded together: Daishi and Delilah played around, and our new parents talked to one another.

She and I held hands as we sipped our matcha tea, and fed each other apple cake.

"Are you ready for university?" I asked.

"Now that we'll be going to the same school, of course I am."

During the spring break, Ringomori and I moved out of the orphanage and said goodbye to all the bawling kids that would miss our presence. I assumed I'd never care for any of these kids, or leave a mark on their lives, but I did. If I was able to find my current path, I knew these kids had a brighter future ahead of them.

"Best of luck," I said. "Don't join the parents."

I moved into Daishi's house, and Ringomori moved into the Shizuko household. We would meet up at CLARIS and venture together to Sapporo University; she studied biology, I did psychology. That routine lasted until November.