hanako-kun...
she’s crying again, which is — … it just makes sense. their parting wasn’t anything good, hanako left a mess of things and the last thing he wanted was to say goodbye. his end goal was to make sure she could live, even if it meant living without him, even if he had to live without her. adjustment periods are always difficult anyway, but he knows he could do it. he did try to speed it along a little bit by making her forget him, but… he’s kind of glad that she didn’t?
but she admits it - that she’s miserable. it’s something he knows already, but it doesn’t make him feel any less guilty. he presses his lips together while he thinks. she mentions ‘that place’ and he wonders if she’s the one that stopped the train. it would also make sense, just given how she is. it’s very like her to figure out a way to get to him again, and he wouldn’t deny that he’s happy to see her. he really is.
“No, it’s not, I guess. I didn’t want to say goodbye at all, but… it was the only option I had. I had to fulfill your wish, you know? … Yashiro, you’re different from me. I think you probably forget that sometimes, but it’s not a bad thing. You stopped the train, right?” he wants to reach out for her again, but he doesn’t feel like that’s something he can do. he wants to build up so many walls that she can’t see over them, that maybe she’ll give up and that’ll be it. but he knows she wouldn’t, not on him. she’s one of the only people that keeps giving him chances.
“I wish I could’ve seen you after that. You went through all that trouble! … But… I get to see you now, so maybe that counts for something. I…” ultimately, he ends up reaching back out for her after all. when he pulls her into a hug, it’s tight. he doesn’t really want to let go of her; if he had the choice, he wouldn’t let go at all. she’s warm. yashiro’s always been warm.
“I’m not sorry that I did it, but I am sorry. I just wanted… I wanted you to live. I guess in this kind of place, you’ll be okay, so… even if you don’t forgive me, do you want to have a life here with me? I want to see you every day again. We don’t have to worry about the things we used to, so—”
even if her being in this kind of state is hard, he likes this side of her, too. the part that wears her heart on her sleeve, the part that lets him know that she cares about him. he doesn’t want to be out of reach anymore. he may not want to make up for what he did either ❪ he still just doesn’t regret it, ❫ but he wants to try to fix things as they are. he loosens the hug a bit, mostly to pull back and press his forehead to hers.
“Maybe if we have to say goodbye again, it’ll be a better one. But I don’t want to just yet. So, please?” he has stuff that he wants to catch her up on on his end, too. he wants to know what happened with her while he was gone. “Anything happen while I was away? Apart from the obvious — you getting into Supernatural means of reaching that boundary. I wanna know how you did that, too.”
is this all my fault?
it’s for her, after all. to make sure she could live until she was 90 or more, to see the world far longer than what her book predicted for her. yet here, with the cost of that wish hanging over her and spreading out to hurt others, was it...
was it ever going to be worth it? was living that long going to be worth it if kou could never see mitsuba again, if hanako-kun vanished from her life forever, if aoi was lost to the gardens of the afterlife without another word between them?
nene doesn’t know. she doesn’t want to know.
a sob comes out of her throat when she’s enveloped in the hug, strangled and hurting and so so sad that nene’s almost surprised by how capable of sorrow she is. it’s strange, this difference between learning she had almost no time left versus confronting the fact she was forcibly given her best friend’s remaining lifespan.
( aoi would have lived a long life. would she have been happy? would she be stronger than nene is right now if their positions swapped within the next year? )
... she can’t think about that right now. aoi isn’t here. hanako is and he’s the one he’s the one she’s held by at the moment, crying into his shoulder and repressing any too-loud wails. nene sniffles and tries to calm herself down, wanting to find her footing again. it becomes infinitely harder when they’re face to face and so close to an almost embarrassing extent, her trembling mouth and watery eyes and running nose all the more obvious when settled like this.
there’s too much to talk about and all the time in the world suddenly. it’s completely overwhelming and despite the questions hanako asks, all nene can provide is a shake of her head and reaching out to hold onto his wrists. her head moves to his shoulder, pushing her forehead into it. she breathes in, out, slow inhales and exhales until her voice returns to her.
“ c... can we sit down? i’ll tell you in a minute, okay? my legs... just really hurt... ”
finding a place to settle down would also give a bit of time for her to gather her thoughts and come up with an explanation. with how everything went in the red house and the events surrounding it, this... would be tough for both of them, wouldn’t it?














