"Why torture yourself?" Amami asks. It's the last week of Rindou and Eishi's shenanigans.

Mahiru isn't on speaking terms with either of them, and it's anybody's guess why nobody's showed up in Fukue with an army to drag them back to Totsuki. She's guessing that they spun some bullshit about cultivating their abilities. But she doesn't care.

Mahiru rolls her eyes and continues typing away. But Amami is still her grandmother. "You think I torture myself over a lot of things," Mahiru says mildly. "Which one is it now?"

"With your friends, sweetheart." Wow. There hasn't been anyone who'd dared to sass her in over ten years.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Amami traces a wrinkled finger around the curved edge of her teacup. "Life is a path with many doors; both opened and unopened. Friends sometimes, are the key to unlocking one that you thought was closed forever or never opened at all."

"Are you trying to imply something?" Amami has made her impression of Mahiru post-her mother's death very clear. The sting of it has worn off, but the novelty and the... The disappointment never has.

Yes. That seems to be a regular emotion in her life. Disappointment, apathy, and since Eishi Tsukasa and Rindou Kobayashi, utter despair.

Oh man. Life sucked.

"Mahiru," finally, Amami says. And she abandons the tea and the cane. "I'm saying this as you grandmother—"

And anger Mahiru didn't know she had explodes outside of her. "Really?" she snaps. "Since when? Now? Why now of all time? Is it because of those two? When have you ever given a fuck?"

Amami purses her lips. "Just as I was," she murmurs. "Sit down," she commands and Mahiru returns her steely tone with a cool gaze of her own. Amami sighs and relents. "Is it so hard to accept that I do care for you in a familial manner?"

Mahiru laughs. "Actions speak louder than words, baa-can, and the former is probably lost in fucking nowhere for the last eight years. Also, just because you think you care for me. Or hell, maybe you actually do care for me inside that black heart of yours somewhere, doesn't mean I have to happy about it."

Steel-grey transfers their gaze elsewhere. "We're... very similar, Mahiru," Amami says carefully. "You, your mother, and I. We... While we might not come off as so, but we feel to much." Amami looks melancholy now, her gaze on a black-and-white photo— The only photo inside her house. "So much that it destroys us. As it destroyed your mother. You might not remember... But your childhood was not a strawberry sweet as you remembered it to be. Before her death, Nao was going to leave your father."

"You're lying."

Amami lets out a pained gasp. "I'm not, and you need to understand why I'm telling you now. Nao felt too much, that's why she was going to leave. Shiro Tetsuya and his empire weren't good for her. Mahiru, I'm telling you that not just the traits we carry, but this lifestyle we've been born into." Amami's voice softens. "It destroyed us. I'm telling you that it doesn't have to destroy you too."

Mahiru's mouth drops open in anger. "I don't know," she begins in a furious whisper. "What fantasies you've deluded yourself to. But it was her death that led to me and this... This lifestyle that led to her death— Then are you telling me that the pain and suffering were inevitable?"

"Pain and joy come hand in hand."

"Then I refuse to believe that. I refuse to believe that my life was dictated by the circumstances I was born into and had no control over. Amami, she died in a car accident!"

Amami has no more words.

But it's not as if Mahiru fares any better with her angry tears.

x

Mahiru sleeps.

She exists in the grey between work, alcohol and sleep. It's depression, she prescribes. And it's after another night before she finally sends in a request for her mother's death certificate.

She doesn't know what she wants it to prove. After having tried for so long not to let her mother's death and her father's reaction to it dictate her life.

Cause of death: suicide with intent

And she drinks.

Mahiru drinks to forget.

x

"Mahiru? Oh god, wake up!"

A half-empty bottle of wine and an empty wine glass as well as pale hair. Mahiru sighs and raises her head to give her ex-boyfriend a very unimpressed stare.

Eishi, however, seems to collapse into relief. "Thank god," he says. "I thought something happened to you."

"Don't bother," Mahiru tells him. "I know all of the proper dosages and not to eat sleep meds before drinking. I also understand I am underage— But I will also tell you that no one will believe you."

She drags a hand through her hair— Oh god she was a mess. And cups her hand around her mouth, a headache splitting her skull open. She raises her head. "Just," she begins. "Just leave—"

A shaky exhale and she's being pulled against a familiar wrinkled dress shirt by shaky arms. And the sudden urge to cry is so strong that Mahiru can't muster the strength to pull away. This was all a mistake— To call Eishi instead of literally anyone else. To simply think that he could remain Tsukasa, to allow him to get too close. They're too familiar. They know each other too well. Every aspect, every piece, every crevice.

It's too easy to fall into the rhythm, to be swept up in it all—

The routine of loving each other.

And this is the last remnant of this adoration, this attachment, this intimacy, adoration, endearment. Everything, everything embroiled into one action. You were the best piece of me. You were the glue that held me together. God, I loved you so fucking much.

And beneath it, especially when she wounds her own arms around him, so tightly because she fears he might disappear. Were we a product of cruel fate? Were we never meant to be?

I don't believe in fate.

"You can't continue like this," he says against her hair. "This is destruction, Mahiru. This is killing you from the inside— You can't... Do this. Especially after everything. After everything you've been through."

And she wants to say I know. I know, more than you think I do.

But there's something clogging her throat. A sort of pride still holding her back. And even now, she can't bring herself to accept defeat.

x

there's a festival coming up, Rindou texts her abruptly. And even Mahiru can respect this sort of resilience from someone. But it's another wave of fresh despair because Mahiru loved Rindou. And even she can tell she's hurting her.

But every thought of sympathy is also stained with the dirt of her own tears. And how everything could've been avoided if you didn't sign it—

But could it really?

Mahiru doesn't know anymore. She doesn't know what Rindou wants, she doesn't know what Eishi wants and there was always some point in time and place that Mahiru understood the world didn't revolve around her.

Let me guess, she sends back. I'm your fucking chauffeur.

language d:

She debates on blocking Rindou.

please don't block me. i searched it up. i think there's this tea vendor that you'd really like

I'm flattered, Rindou, I really am. But frankly.

I don't give a fuck.

come ooonnnnnnn

pleaseeeeee

retty pleaseeee

cherry w/ the pls

p

l

s

I'm going to kill you.

pls

i'll stop if you drive me

i'll only stay for an hour

We both know that's not true.

It's a familiar banter. And Mahiru, even as she fails, again and again, to make them happy. To limit herself to just this, just one more time can't help but relent. And quietly, she tells herself.

Just Fukue. After this, you're flying to New York and you're never stepping a foot inside Japan for the rest of your life.

It's lights and a lot of people. Mahiru doesn't marvel at any of the stalls but she does see the Tetsuya Corp. logo on plenty of sponsored banners. Huh. She didn't know that the company dabbled in such ventures.

Rindou, on the other hand, seems to share none of Mahiru's reservations. She shuffles from stall to stall.

It's nothing special. Nothing memorable; no food, no event. But it's bittersweet, in every way the last memory is supposed to be. But it is only the realization as they return—

As they step out of the car and walk towards Amami's residence that Mahiru finally remembers oh, these are her childhood friends. Middle school, high school, even despite that ridiculous rivalry she had with Eishi.

They going to be gone.

And the sting is that unlike with her mother, Mahiru is truly at fault here.

"Are you going to be at that New York gala?" Eishi asks. And oh, of course, he's going to be there. But Mahiru is more caught up in the lantern lights and the pale fluttering of cherry blossoms. She's caught up in youth and life and lights that there's a sudden warmth that seeps into her chest.

"If you're going," Mahiru says, "then you should probably stick to cooking."

The both of them collectively wince at the memory of Mahiru's foot the morning after. And Mahiru allows herself a smile in front of him, even when she sees the shine in his eyes at the sight of that smile.

He loves her. He loved her.

They smile at each other for a second before Mahiru glances away and there's a soft breath as he opens his mouth to say something, before just turning and walking away. She listens to his footsteps, first in tandem with her heartbeat. Until her heart begins to quicken and before she knows it there's something in her tongue and—

"Wait." It's soft, barely worth the fanfare. But Eishi hears it, he always does, and his head snaps toward her. She can't see his eyes, she can't see the bright violet under the streetlight and she thinks it's better. Because— "I'm sorry," she says. Voice cracking. "For everything."

Silence.

There are no bike bells ringing, no trains, no idle chatter nor feet upon the road.

There the only people in the world and there's no one to judge them.

She can see Eishi's eyes now. Sad, melancholy. Goodbye, she sees and she wants to tell him not to go.

"Me too," he says and this time when he turns, there's no hesitation.

The sakura petals continue to fall. The lights continue buzzing, the lantern fires continue to burn. Mahiru closes her eyes and feels the tears brimming beneath her eyelids.

That's right.

No judge but Mahiru herself.