Work Text:
The smell of rain still permeates the air. In front of him is the glittering waterfront off of the great white bridge he crossed so often to go into Sangatsu-cho. Gently, softly, cranes flap their wings and settle onto the river, bobbing their heads into the water to snatch any errant fish that they come across. Sunlight glows through the passing rainclouds and bathes everything in golden light, warming all that it came into contact. In the background, only the sound of burbling water and the meen, meen of cicadas crying out their mating calls.
Kiriyama Rei looks down at the water, plastic bag in hand. The sunlight feels cold against his skin.
(A lonely, monochrome dream.)
His apartment is cold. Empty. A ceiling far too wide and corners pinched far too tight, and despite the space and the fact that he's the only one living in there, it's hard to breathe. He doesn't cry - how could he, when he has shogi matches to study for and opponents to research? There is no time to drown in tears. So he drowns himself in records, instead. Ink on paper over paper and he is crushed under their weight, but they are the only thing keeping him afloat in the tides he struggles against. It consumes him, and he falls.
Days go by, and he does not eat. There is no more cup ramen in the cabinet and he cannot bring himself to go out to buy some. There is only a painful emptiness in his stomach that reminds him of what he is missing.
Your name is Rei? What a funny name. But it suits you, the voice echoes in his minds, behind memories he shuts behind lock and key. Kyouko - sister, friend, the lover that never was - smiles at him, lips stretched thin and ice-blue eyes cold, mocking. But in the end, she was right about him.
Empty thoughts, empty homes, an empty heart.
-There isn't anywhere in the world you belong, is there?
A life of an eternal "zero".
"Come in, Rei-chan! You must be hungry. Onee-chan made lots and lots of curry, so eat up!"
"Ah, I brought ice cream and pudding. Sorry for intruding all the time."
"Oh, Kiriyama-kun, you didn't have to. Thank you so much for all the gifts, Hina and Momo appreciate them very much. Ah! Momo, don't open it now, you'll spoil your dinner!"
"It's nothing, really. I should be thanking you."
And here he is again, at the Kawamotos' house. He steps in to the smell of stew and old wood and feels his insides warm in a way that nothing else could do. Rei finds himself resisting less and less when they invite him over, nowadays, and the thought scares him. If, one day, he would stop resisting, would he be allowed to stay? Would he stay? Or really, the question he is always asking himself, should he stay?
But Akari-san smiles at him and Hina-chan grabs his hand to guide him to the table and Momo-chan hugs his leg. Their kindness is addictive in this way, and he wonders if he will ever learn to fear leaving its warmth. In that way, he supposes, no creature could love the cold after knowledge of the fire.
The curry slides down his throat and he feels it warm his stomach. Finally, the emptiness inside him is satisfied, if only temporarily.
He is indebted to these sisters. They are stronger than him, kinder than him, gentler than him. He knows that there is a beast inside of him that only wants to survive, and it would devour everything else if it meant growing stronger. He hates this part of him - its existence means that he is weak, because only the strong have the strength to care for people other than themselves. But the Kawamotos have kindness to spare, even to a person like him. In some ways, he fears this warmth, if it meant boiling like a frog in this house that was so sweet.
And this feeling that he refuses to name when he says his farewells for the night and returns back to his apartment, empty and dark -
Don't think, just walk. If you stop, you won't be able to move again-
Well, it was just his punishment.
Glass doors open, and beckon in him with cool air.
This time of day, the grocery store is eerily quiet, which is why he prefers to do his shopping now rather than later when the housewives would descend onto everything marked with a discount and hurriedly take it away like a pack of locusts on a wheat field.
Like clockwork, he fills his basket with udon and cup ramen and other easy-to-prepare items. He doesn't have the time to cook - time at the stove watching broth simmer would be better spent researching match records and preparing for the next tournament.
But momentarily, he freezes. Stickers, the kind Momo-chan liked. Cherries, Hina-chan's favorite. Bargain vegetables, which Akari-san would appreciate.
(Memories flow back, a book turning its pages in reverse.
Hey! Who put stickers on Mommy's drawers?!
W-we're sorry!!
Geez! These are very hard to peel off, you know!)
And now he remembers, why he fears them so much. A warm house so gentle where he can soften and melt, just like a kotatsu. But in that same way, leaving reminds him of how cold his everyday life is. And he is always drawn back, to the home where time, everyone, everything, even himself, were all quietly brought into its embrace. A busy yet quiet, white, dazzling family.
He wipes away tears. Kiriyama Rei is not crying. Not now, not here. Never again.
(He'd already shed enough tears for a lifetime when he had come home to greet family no longer of this world, their bodies once so warm and kind now cold and hardened. He'd shed enough tears when he had told the lie that would bring him the only solace he would find for years, chaining him to the shogi board. He'd shed enough tears after Kyouko had pinned him down that one night, fingers pulling his hair and digging into his skin hard enough to leave marks.
There are no more tears. There will be no more tears.)
The night Hina-chan comes home, tears the size of pearls falling from her eyes and her sneaker-less feet covered in mud, he does not see weakness.
He sees a seething anger, a fury at the injustice of their class standings and the ignorance of her homeroom teacher. He sees genuine grief, sadness for Chiho-chan's transferring away because of the bullies, and in it a deep-set love for her friend that she held so dearly only for all of her efforts to be turned to naught.
And this is the way Kiriyama Rei sees that crying is not weakness, but strength. Refusing to expose vulnerability did not make you more powerful, it just tore your heart in two and forced it to harden until a gust of wind could shatter it into pieces.
Rei comes to understand, how the sisters could have such strength in them.
Hina-chan smiles at him and the way the sunset illuminates her face, her mouth wide open in a smile, makes his heart feel as if it is about to rip wide open, bloodied and throbbing as it were.
Akari-san wraps a scarf around his neck and tucks him into the futon, placing a glass of water and fever medicine at his side, and runs her fingers through his hair once before shutting the door and turning off the lights.
Momo-chan clutches his hands and tells him to do his best, and he has to shut his eyes away from old memories, of Chihiro and bright glittery stickers plastered on bookshelves, lest he is drowned in them.
And in his heart he swears loyalty to those girls, who did not bend their will to the world no matter how much they cried or hurt, no matter how the storms battered against them.
It is spring, and the bridge of Chuo Ohashi lies in front of him again. The breeze brings with it the smell of sakura petals; even, fragrant. The sunlight is warm against his skin.
And he crosses oncemore, from Rokugatsu-cho to Sangatsu-cho, where the light lies.