The next day, she was surprised when she woke to find her room flooded with sunlight.
“How long did I sleep?!”
She had an early class that day, but there was no way she was going to make it. She needed to start getting ready for her other classes, but she simply stood in front of her sink staring at her face in the mirror. She had slept solidly, but the accumulated exhaustion still showed on her face.
“Why did he talk to me?” Kimi muttered, pressing her hands to her pale cheeks. She finished her morning routine and left her house right on time.
“You came!”
“H-hello …”
When her lectures were over she went to the place where they’d agreed the previous night to meet. Nishiki was already there. She had only half-believed that he would show up, so when she saw him standing there waiting for her she looked at him incredulously.
“What’s up?”
“Oh, um, nothing,” she said, averting her eyes so as not to be rude.
“Ooh, you’re stubborn,” Nishiki said, and laughed. “You don’t have to be so polite, you know. What’s your first name again, is it Kimi? Can I call you Kimi?”
“Y-yes, you may.”
“Again with the formality.” Nishiki smiled.
“There’s a table over there,” she gestured.
They walked over to the table on the sunny terrace and sat down facing each other across the table. Nishiki took his books and supplies out of his bag. Kimi’s eyes widened. He didn’t seem like a serious person, but his books looked well-used.
“If I try to study alone I just blow it off, so watch me, all right?” he said, and started studying.
Kimi hurriedly got her books out too. She wasn’t sure what to study, but then she remembered all the gaps she had to fill in since the day of the accident, and she got to work.
While they were studying, Nishiki did not speak enough to disrupt them. I feel nervous every time he speaks, but I’m not uncomfortable.
They studied until the sun set and only said goodbye after making more plans.
“Why me?” The question wouldn’t go away. But part of her was starting to feel better.
They kept making plans to study. Eventually they started making plans to hang out. They spent more and more time together.
Nishiki had gotten a little more casual since they’d met. And Kimi could talk to him now without any hesitation.
Now she could hardly wait for tomorrow, when not that long ago she had wished it would never come again. When she was with Nishiki, her pain didn’t seem that bad anymore.
“I heard Kimi’s going out with Nishiki Nishio.”
She overheard someone gossiping about her as she sat on a bench on campus, waiting for Nishiki to come. She looked and saw Shiraishi and Itose walking side by side. Being the topic of conversation made Kimi feel awkward, so she hid behind a nearby tree. They took no notice and continued talking.
“Someone saw them together at a festival wearing kimonos. Everyone’s gossiping about them being a couple, but isn’t it obvious? Nishio doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to relationships, so how true can it be?”
“Nishio’s so hot, how is he going out with Kimi? Even if he’s just looking for a hookup there’s better options out there.”
She was shocked by the way they insulted her.
“Right?”
“I even invited you along to the group date thinking you’d make a good match with him, you know.”
“I don’t know about that.”
They still didn’t realize Kimi was listening, so they said everything they wanted to.
“She was so down after the accident, but lately she’s a lot better. Some girls just don’t care about anyone but themselves. But who cares? At least we don’t have to worry about her killing herself now. It’d look really bad if someone in our department killed themselves.”
The two of them passed by. Kimi was left there twisting her fingers around themselves nervously.
Kimi herself still wasn’t sure why Nishiki wanted to go out with her. She thought there were better options too. She was no stranger to harsh self-criticism.
But the last thing that Itose had said wouldn’t leave her mind.
Lately she’s a lot better. The words weighed heavily on her.
“Kimi, what are you doing?” Nishiki asked, head tilted. She was still leaning against the tree.
“Oh, nothing,” she said, looking up at him.
“Well, okay then. Do you have plans? Do you wanna come over to my place?”
“Sure,” she said.
Kimi walked beside him. Sunlight filtered through the trees along the path, falling at their feet, and each time the trees were rocked by the wind, the light wavered. It was so beautiful it made her smile.
“Nice weather today,” Nishiki said, looking up at the sky. Sharing my feelings with you makes me happy—and sad.
With him by my side, I can be positive as I deal with my painful memories. But I think about my family less and less. And it makes me feel heartless.
When they got to Nishiki’s house, Kimi took the pastries she’d bought on campus out of her bag and they had a light snack. Nishiki had also bought some bread at a convenience store.
Unlike Kimi, who loved to try all sorts of new things, Nishiki didn’t know much about food. He survived on simple meals—simple enough to make Kimi worry that he wasn’t getting enough vitamins.
Often the things he bought would end up expiring before he got around to eating them. Kimi had noticed food left in his refrigerator like an objet d’art time after time, which wasn’t like him in many other ways.
“I’m going to the bathroom.”
When he finished eating, Nishiki got up, put on some music, and went into the bathroom. She was sitting there listening to the music when he came back with a canned coffee in his hand. He always drank black coffee.
They kept talking for a while, but eventually Nishiki touched his hand to her cheek as if to stop her speaking. Kimi felt herself leaning into him.
I feel at ease when I’m with him.
She had often wondered why that might be. And the word that always came to mind was “boundaries.” Just as he set his own boundaries, he never tried to cross over Kimi’s impenetrable boundary—he had never asked about her family. He never spoke about his own family either.
Does he know not to go there? Or is it just a coincidence? Or—does he share the same pain?
When it was over, Nishiki took a sip of his coffee. Kimi looked up at him, wrapped in a blanket.
I want to be with him. But I can’t forgive myself for trying to move on.
After the accident I wished that I had died with my family. I don’t now.
Maybe if I had gone on the trip, my dad would’ve come to Tokyo to pick me up. He would’ve taken a different route. The timing would’ve been different. And my family wouldn’t have been there at that moment, at that place where the accident happened.
It was a series of what-ifs. But those what-ifs appealed to her. She wondered if her own choice not to go had led to her family’s death. So she could not forgive herself. Not ever …
“You have a nice name.” The words took her aback.
“Huh?”
She looked back up at Nishiki, who was fumbling for words.
“It means ‘precious future,’ doesn’t it?”
“My parents gave me one character each from their names. It wasn’t really supposed to have a meaning.” Before she would have easily explained.
But Nishiki’s words had shaken her to her core.
Precious future. What my mother and father gave to me.
Until this moment, when she had remembered her family, she had pictured them as they were in the morgue. But now she saw them as they had been when they were alive.
Her father was grinning, her mother was smiling kindly, and her brother looked slightly fed up, but they all smiled as they looked at Kimi. Their eyes said to her that they would always be there, and encouraged her to hurry up and move on.
On to the precious future that her name suggested.
“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
Kimi covered her face with her hands. “No,” she said. But she couldn’t stop crying.
All the guilt she was hanging on to, all the ways she’d been punishing herself, all of it slowly and quietly slipped away with her tears.
Thank you, Nishiki.
You saved my broken heart.
Thanks to you I’m still here, not lost forever. I want to be with you until you tell me to go away. No matter what happens, I want to be by your side.
This desire was the start of a painful pathway. But that made it no less colorful.
“Nishiki, you saved me … that’s why I’m still here.”
It’s all right, I’m alive.
It doesn’t matter who or what you are.
As long as you’re you, that’s fine with me.
A bridge between Ghouls and humanity.