I felt a pain in the back of my sockets when I closed my eyes; a result of all the built-up fatigue, presumably. Too bad, I couldn’t rest yet. There were still things I needed to do. First and foremost, I had to get in touch with Akari. She was probably still asleep, so I decided that maybe shooting her a text would be the better play. I opened my phone’s messaging app and scrolled down to her name, then froze. I couldn’t bring myself to type anything out. I had no clue how to best convey to her that I’d changed my mind and gone to save Akito’s life after all, so my fingers sort of hovered in a useless limbo over the keyboard for a while. When I did manage to write something down, I deleted it, started over, then repeated the same process, again and again. I spent about two hours in all sitting there in the lobby and drafting up different ways of saying the same thing, but in the end, I settled on a simple “hey, we need to talk. lemme know when you’re awake” and sent it off before I had a chance to second-guess myself again. Something told me this was one conversation we shouldn’t have over text.
I ended up napping in the hospital waiting room until about 6 a.m. The staff weren’t going to let me hitch a ride back to the island on the ambulance or the emergency boat, so I had to walk to a nearby convenience store ATM and use my cell phone to withdraw some money, then head back to the port via taxi. It was kind of a pricey cab ride for an unemployed student like me, but it would have taken over an hour to get there on foot. That wasn’t happening, considering how little energy I had left. When we got down to the port, I paid my fare and left the car.
Thankfully, I arrived right as the Sodeshima ferry was pulling into the docks. I stood at the end of the dock and waited patiently as all of the inbound passengers from the island disembarked, when I noticed that Akari’s mother was among them. She’d probably gotten a call from the hospital and was on her way there. She didn’t seem to notice me, since she rushed past to the nearest taxi that was stopped on the shoulder of the road and got in. I only saw her from afar, but she looked flustered. I had no way of knowing how she might feel about Akito’s recent personality changes, but at the end of the day, he was her son. What mother could keep stoic after hearing their child was in the hospital? Her taxi sped off around the corner as I turned and made my way over to the ticket booth.
Shortly after I boarded the ferry, it departed back toward Sodeshima. I took a seat in the main passenger area and checked my phone. It was half past six, and still no reply from Akari. She was either still asleep or deliberately not replying… Either way, it would probably be fastest to head straight over to her place as soon as I arrived in Sodeshima. I didn’t know how to go about breaking the news, but I had to own up to breaking my promise with her one way or another. I mentally steeled myself for that as the ferryboat pulled into the harbor.
I disembarked, then aimed for Akari’s apartment complex at a brisk pace through the cool early morning air. About ten minutes later, I was standing at her doorstep, looking up at the HOSHINA nameplate on the door, trying to muster up the courage to ring the doorbell. When I finally did, there was at least a solid minute’s worth of silence, after which I finally heard footsteps within. Slowly, the door to the apartment opened, and Akari peeked out from the crack. Her hair was disheveled, and her bangs were all clumped together. There was no light in her eyes. It felt like looking at someone who’d lived for years as a total recluse, despite the fact that I saw her last night. This only exacerbated the guilt already gnawing away at me. I could tell that I was likely to blame for how she looked.
“Akari, listen… I…”
“You went and rescued him, right?” she said casually, as though it was merely an offhand remark. “My mom told me she got a call from the hospital. Figured it had to be your doing.”
“…Yeah, it was. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s fine. No need to apologize. I mean, it’s not like you did anything wrong, right?”
“No, but I still broke my promise to you.”
“Oh, is that what you’re worried about? Don’t be. I’m the one who wasn’t thinking straight,” she said, chuckling derisively at herself. “I mean, asking you to be complicit in my own brother’s death? What am I, psycho? I can hardly believe I said that. I must be more of a coldhearted bitch than I thought…”
Her amused smirk didn’t waver, but then, out of nowhere, fat teardrops began to spill out from the corners of her eyes.
“Akari…!” I cried, reaching out to her in desperation—but she slammed the door in my face. A moment later, I heard the clank of her locking the deadbolt.
“…Sorry, I just…want to be alone right now…” I heard her whimper from inside the apartment. I pressed one ear up to the door and tried to reason with her.
“No, listen to me, Akari! I know you might not believe this right now, but in the future, it was you who told me to—”
I stopped short. Say she did believe me; knowing she would eventually regret her actions in the timeline where Akito had died was cold comfort. Besides, even that regret was a mere assumption on my part. I stood there, unable to even string together a sentence’s worth of reassurance, while Akari wept softly on the other side of the door.
“Please… Just go home, Kanae-kun…” she begged.
I bit down hard on my lower lip. A single door stood between us, and yet it may as well have been an impenetrable concrete wall.
“…All right, I’ll go. You better believe I’ll be coming back, though. I’m gonna make this up to you one way or another, I swear. I’ll never break another promise to you again.”
I waited. No reply came.
“…Okay then. I’ll talk to you later,” I said.
For now, I had no choice but to head home.
I took a hot shower as soon as I got back to my grandmother’s house. The searing heat permeated my entire body, all the way to my frostbitten fingertips. I washed my hair and everything else, then stood under the hot water for a while until I was sufficiently warmed to my core. Only then did I step out of the bathroom, put on some fresh clothes, and head down into the living room. I found Eri there in her pajamas, watching TV on a floor cushion while munching on a piece of toast. I guessed she woke up while I was showering.
“Morning, Eri,” I said as I walked in the room.
“…Mm,” she mumbled despondently, not even looking in my direction.
Taking a moment to think about where I was chronologically, it’d be fair for Eri to feel on edge from our fight the day before. It seemed that way when I rolled back to April 2nd the last time, at least. Maybe now that I had changed the future, though, she would be in a different frame of mind. Last time, she approached me first, but I decided to break the ice myself now.
“Hey, sorry about yesterday,” I apologized. “I definitely said some things I really shouldn’t have. It was pretty immature of me.”
Eri took a big bite of her toast, chewed it well, then swallowed before answering me. Her eyes never once left the TV, mind you.
“Nah, it’s okay,” she said. “I kinda crossed the line too.”
“All right. So are we cool, then?”
“Guess so.”
Hardly the most emotional heart-to-heart of all time, but we’d buried the hatchet. I sat on one of the other floor cushions, rested my elbow on the low dining table, and casually changed the subject.
“So hey, what would you say if I told you I was gonna drop out of school and move back here to Sodeshima?” I asked.
Eri dropped her piece of toast on her plate—buttered side up, thankfully—then turned to face me. Her eyes were wide with surprise.
“W-wait, you’re dropping out?”
“I’m, like, eighty percent sure, yeah.”
“…It’s not because of all that mean stuff I said yesterday, is it?”
Her expression turned so grave that I almost chuckled.
“No, it’s got nothing to do with you. Don’t worry.”
My reasons were a lot more self-centered than that; this was the only way I could think of to make it up to Akari. If Akito went back to his old ways after he got out of the hospital, which he very well might, I couldn’t risk leaving her alone with him again. I was the one who broke my promise and saved his life, after all, and though I didn’t regret my choice, I did still need to take accountability for it. So I would drop out of my high school in Tokyo and stay here with her in Sodeshima instead. Having to sacrifice a portion of my educational career was a small price to pay to see her smile again.
“If you say so…” Eri said, obviously still a little concerned. “Well, to answer your question, I think it’s safe to say our deadbeat dad will be pissed…but I bet Grandma’d love to have you back here with us.”
“What about you?”
“I…I dunno. But…having someone else around to clean out the tub so it doesn’t have to be me every day might be kinda nice, I guess.”
“That’s all I am to you, huh? A glorified janitor?” I teased.
“Hey, it was your job up until two years ago.”
Right, I guess it was. She’d always get on my case whenever there was so much as a stray hair left in there when she wanted to take a bath.