A/N: Written as a Yuletide 2016 gift for psychomachia.
I am aware the tense changes in this story from past (first section) to present (last few sections). It shouldn't be an issue but just a thing I decided to tryout.
For fifteen years, Yashiro repeated to himself every single night before he slept restlessly, Satoru would die and the final piece of the puzzle to his crimes would be erased.
In the long run, the crimes themselves did not matter.
Only Satoru was the opposing factor for Yashiro. He made Yashiro contemplate the future and his place within it.
His future—a distant time a young boy had seen.
And if he could not know what that future would entail immediately Yashiro would search for the answers.
Yashiro sat at his desk several nights. Lit with dim lamplight, he read papers just as he had as an elementary school teacher. Grading was not the goal, however—his attempts at picking out clues Satoru may have left for him. He would have a coffee mug next to him full to the brim with packets of sugar and simply indulge in his childish handwriting. Those old papers scattered across his desk in neat piles, filed deliberately inside his desk drawers.
During his last days as an elementary school teacher, Yashiro had gathered all of the scraps of assignments and essays Satoru had written as a child. He had even asked Fujinuma Sachiko for anything she could bear to part with at the time, and she had kindly obliged the teacher who had cared about her son as much as she loved him.
The curve of his writing. The smudges of erasers on particularly hard questions, or the cross-outs of kanji. All of these things fascinated Yashiro even though nothing substantial came out of it directly. He would look at the way Satoru forgot to put the two little strokes in the second kanji for future. Satoru had sometimes corrected it himself, or simply write future in all hiragana if he forgot about it.
Both kanji looked so similar. But a little change like that changed the entire fabric of the whole meaning.
As the nights continued, he drank less and less coffee with sugar. He took to scribbling on Satoru's papers with red marker on anything he found fascinating and worthwhile. He reminded himself of a child writing notes during class to another classmate. If only writing on Satoru's papers would communicate to him, but he knew it wouldn't.
Sipping bitter coffee, Yashiro poured over those documents. He treated them as if they were the official government documents that he had grown accustomed to ever since taking up the name Nishizono Manabu.
Sometimes he wished he didn't believe in that nonsense, but at his core an insistent fire consumed his soul.
It was simple and Yashiro would make his plans happen.
Whenever Satoru rises from his coma, he would die whether or not he regained those long last memories. Time may wrap each delicate and fragile memory in a time capsule waiting for release, or those memories may warp without simulation. He plan anticipate each possibility.
Murdering Satoru would be far more convenient before those memories clawed their way back and jeopardized his reputation. Yet again, his reputation crumbling as a teacher or politician didn't have much an effect Yashiro.
As far as Yashiro reasoned, he had another purpose.
His new purpose in life was no longer child murder. Now, his ambition would be to understand Satoru's shouted words before the car had submerged the icy undercurrent.
Death for a life, and a life that would make up for his own death. Death, Yashiro decided, would be most suitable if it happened alongside Satoru himself. He could kill him easily and later kill himself—the issue of how then made into present and Yashiro skirted through all his options.
Satoru waking up was all he needed beforehand.
As the years progressed, Yashiro realized that Satoru was all he needed to survive. The trips to the hospital became less sporadic and more and more frequent. On some days, he would sit there with the pocket knife until the nurse poked her head in for vitals. On the rest of the days, Yashiro would stare at his face and wonder when he would see those slumbering eyes open and animate with and abundance of determination and cunning.
Satoru had never particularly been cunning as a child, but—he had something skin deep Yashiro himself didn't.
Every time he poured over Satoru's old work, he swore he would draw a conclusion. But none of Satoru's old essays tipped him off to his ravenous questions.
Yashiro wanted to have that all for himself. Forever.
No, he couldn't have his reputation ruined only for one extenuating reason. Going to prison would separate him from visiting Satoru. In the dank, cold walls of prison he would never see Satoru's blazing eyes open. They would never speak again. And, no, he would not allow that.
So, Yashiro began to ask the hard ball issues to his desired goal. What would attach Satoru to him by the hip with or without strings? What would tie them together?
What power did he have during these dreadfully dull yet quaint years? Satoru couldn't hear a single word.
Satoru drifting away from him would only happen through his own hand. Not even nature's terrifying uncertainty.
Then, he wondered—what would be the point if he let the Satoru's memory return so sluggishly a day at a time and not be there to edge along the process? Obviously, he could not always rely on doctors through a politician's influence. The doctors were immediately supposed to let him know every little detail about Satoru's well-being, but Yashiro could see the little things they couldn't.
No, he had to see Spice fight for his life. He had to see Spice struggle to pull himself out of the darkened waters of his sleep; Yashiro wanted to be one of the first things he ever witnessed in this new life they would lead.
On one fateful day, his hand touched the doorknob to Satoru's room. He checked to see how many nurses or patients may be watching, and he opened the door.
Except the door slammed right into his nose and forehead.
Yashiro stepped backwards, rubbing his sore face. And when he looked up to see who might have also dared to visit Satoru around the same time—those friends of his, his former students?—he met another sight entirely.
Yashiro stared into the stressed eyes of Satoru's dutiful and brazen mother. She glanced at him, recognizing him and welcoming him in with teary half-smile, half-sob.
"Hi. Satoru's doing well today," she greeted him, quickly cheerful. She opened the door wider for Yashiro to enter.
Yashiro smiled. Fujinuma Sachiko was a lovely target.
When Satoru stirs from his coma, he notices several oddities in only hindsight days later. His mother would smile brightly at him; the black lines under her eyes from her time as a journalist would be gone and replaced with the faint lines of aging and not stress; and, lastly, she would chat a mile a minute to cheer him up.
Satoru expects these things, of course. His mother was a welcoming person that never backed down. But… she was different in some particular sense he could not identify.
Even in the timeline leading up to Satoru returning to 1988, Satoru had never seen her so… exuberant. Her smile was sunny and not reserved only for him or the camera but someone else he could not see standing at her side. And it continued like this for several days. Sometimes, her agitation would be clearly visible in the evenings when the sunset fell over the thin blue window curtains. She would fidget and glance at the hospital room's door. Satoru always reassures her that going home would help with her nerves.
"Satoru," she says one day, "I have something I really want to tell you. I don't want to shock you with it right now. But I assure you, I am happy and I hope you will be."
It isn't like his mother to worry about the little things. She's a roadrunner, a tough-as-nails woman that always encourages him to dive straight into his problems. But her for not to divulge something that seems important to her coping gave Satoru a feeling of fascination and dread.
"I'm sure it's fine," Satoru replies. "You know what the doctor tells us; I have to remember things gradually."
By the time Yashiro finally visited him for the first time, the wires in Satoru's mind cross and spark to life and give him a whole new purpose he vaguely registers. His memories had slowly returned at this point. The image of Kayo's face swims up within his brittle and reconstructing memories. He can see snow and a pond but nothing is concrete. Satoru can't figure out what that means.
Until he can, and Yashiro's face brings it back in a rush like the torrents of water pulling down a ship at sea.
"How do you feel today, Satoru?" Yashiro asks. He smiles down at him, knife aiming towards him as he sets to work on an apple. The apple is not red—the color of blood—as Satoru had expected but a sour green one with bruises.
Green, the color of revival. The color of sourness.
Keeping the evidence that he knows Yashiro's tricks even now is crucial. Satoru shifts up on the bed a little.
"I was thinking of going outside," he admits, because he honestly has not been outside recently in his wheelchair and needs a taste of the fresh pine air and the sounds of other people. "But it's so rainy my plans are foiled."
Rain pelts the window. Only the grey, cotton shaped clouds are visible in a sky full of purple zigzags, and the crowns of green trees on the hospital's premises.
Yashiro thinks about this. He cuts the apple neatly, thoughtfully, not paying as much attention as he should when the knife cuts too close to his finger. "I should come back with Sachiko and we can all go outside together."
This is the thing Satoru wanted to hear all along. It is the exotic truth he wanted to flirt with. It is also the truth that Satoru wants to shatter into a million pieces and forget.
Satoru's blood runs cold. What could have been an eternity ago floods back in a chaos of thoughts, ribbons of a time and place that separated him through a coma and time travel. He blinks, delirious for a moment, before the echoes of screeches of a woman in his apartment's doorstep reached his ears. The blood from his mother's dead body seeps into the carpet in front of him.
No, he had remembered this already—but for Yashiro to speak his mother's name so casually like this, without a title that set the precedence of respect and distance…
All of those ancient feeling weigh down on Satoru's heart.
Yashiro pauses in mid-scrape of his knife on the apple as sense dawns on him. He does not appear apprehensive or shocked. "Oh, I see she hasn't told you."
Satoru's heart rate increases again. He could do this. Yashiro did not suspect him, and he needed to know.
"Hasn't told me what?" Satoru wonders innocently.
Yashiro smiles again, but this one morphs into a grin, and he reaches to nervously scratch at his neck with the knife that just cut his apple. He is so carefree, but Satoru thinks he may be faking that much. After all, he had faked his way through being a responsible teacher—but something in his posture gives away a different kind of sincerity.
"I married your mother while you…" Yashiro starters.
Yashiro's voice is lost. Satoru completely blanks out.
And it's all Satoru needs to hear, really, because the water rushes past his ears and drowns him in its icy clutches. He can hear the blood pounding in his eardrums, jolting and scraping against his blood vessels, the ghost of his mother from that future squeezes his heart and pierces it.
Satoru can only speak when his lips stop moving, and even then, his lips feel numb. The hospital gown feels far too light; he must be floating. "You're both… what?" And another thought occurs, one that would show he's happy, or curious, when he really isn't. "Mar… so you're… Why haven't you visited before today, then?"
Satoru decides this is a good question as any.
Didn't Yashiro want to be near him? Didn't he want to see Satoru and have the hole his heart filled with warmth?
A rang of anger rumbles in Satoru's chest, but he tries to shove it down to the pit of his stomach. It is abysmal to want to keep this murderer's attention but he also wants.
Yashiro returns to his peeling. He chuckles. "When I come by, you're usually sleeping or talking to your friends. I don't want to interrupt you." This seems true enough coming from him. "My apologizes, you know. I wasn't supposed to tell you that out of the blue—but it just slipped."
Liar, Satoru hisses to himself. Like hell would Yashiro "allow" a slip that might potentially give himself away. He was testing him and the boundaries he could cross.
"Sachiko and I thought it would be too much for you to handle right away," Yashiro continues to explain. This was also plausible, but Satoru is high on alert. "We thought we'd ease you into it slowly. But I believe I just let the cat out of the bag, so to speak. But I hope, even though you're an adult, you might consider me a father figure—or, at least, a teacher figure like when you were still in my fifth grade class. I still have very fond memories of that time."
Satoru grips onto the edge of the bed. He wants to punch or hit something until the stuffing falls out, because he has never in whole life been this viciously angry, not even when Kayo's mother had abused her right in front of him. He wishes it were another lie. Another cruel lie.
Satoru detects the smugness in Yashiro's tone does not betray.
Satoru watches his mother through weary eyes. She wanders from one side of the room to the other in a hurry even though she does not have to fix anything up. She worries, and he hates to see that, but she spruces up his valuables and he simply finds her presence comforting.
When she sits down, she worries at her lip. Satoru wonders if she wants to tell him about Yashiro, but he will have to beat her to the punchline. Because that is what it is—a hilarious punchline that Revival must be playing.
Satoru's stomach lurches.
"Mom," he tells her, waiting for her to look at him. He breathes in to steel himself against the onslaught of fear, braces for the impact. "I know about you and Yashiro."
Her eyes widen. Briefly, he can see the outline of those shadows under her eyes bulge and the lines around her mouth from stress, but he thinks she is the most beautiful mother on the entire planet nonetheless. She relaxes a second later. He sees the sigh flicker in her expression—love and regret and a rehashing of private thoughts.
"He told you, did he? And I told him to wait." Her laugh is gruff but full of warmth like silver bells, and Satoru's sinks at what that implies. She really does love Yashiro. "I told him not to take the wind out of my sail, but I guess he couldn't wait to tell you. He worries about you more than I think I do, Satoru. He asks about you when he can't come to visit you and makes me dinner while I tell him."
Satoru bets Yashiro does all that and much more.
Satoru bristles. He reaches out for her hand, his IV shaking in his fury. But the motion is so subtle she does not notice. "No one worries about me more than you."
Sachiko shakes her head. She squeezes his hand back. "You didn't see him when you were in the coma. He would come here all the time and pace the room."
The possibility of Yashiro visiting him unattended had not come to Satoru often. Yes, being alone with Satoru could mean death, but Satoru believes that Yashiro really doesn't want to murder him if he has not devised a full proof method by this point in the game. If he had, why had Yashiro not killed him when the chance was laid right in front of him like the prey devoting itself to the predator?
Satoru shivers at the thought of that, and he grimaces.
Sachiko takes this for cold. She pulls up his covers.
"No, really!" Sachiko reassures and laughs. She lets go of his hand and smooths down Satoru's hair. "He talks about seeing the future with you. And he wanted to know immediately when you'd wake up. He felt terrible about it, Satoru, since he saw you shortly before it happened."
Yashiro saw him much more shortly than his mother thinks, but Satoru does not say explain that to her even now. He wants to crawl under the covers and pretend that this is just not happening. "Is that why you married him?"
The tiredness etched itself back into her face, but he detects a hint of redness too. He does not even remember seeing a flush there like that, and he probably would not have since he couldn't even remember his real father.
Sachiko sighs. "It was difficult… Keeping everything in order when you weren't around, and I was trying to take care of you." A tear comes to her eye but she pulls her hand back to brush it away. "The nurses and doctors did everything, sure, but I always wanted to come and help. And I didn't always take care of myself, you know?"
"You didn't have to…" Satoru started.
"But slowly," Sachiko continues, "I found someone to rely on when Yashiro came to event every once and while. He kept apologizing. From there, he would help me with errands. He would bring coffee up here for me. It wouldn't be much, but I knew I wanted him around. The bills, the housework… it all became easier under stress." She pulls out a blue handkerchief from her pocket and rubs at her eyes. "At that point I realized that Gaku was the person I wanted to trust with your future. A man that asks for nothing but my Satoru's happiness is my ideal relationship partner."
Right. She would call him Gaku still. Satoru had heard Yashiro had changed to his name for another job.
The summary of what happened is like a bottomless pit, and Satoru finds himself trying to imagine those years.
Trust with my future. Satoru has to let this sink in.
Sachiko leans back in her chair heavily. "You don't have to see him as your father, Satoru. You're an adult now and I don't expect anything like that of you. But if you can, I want you two to just get along with each other."
Yashiro cares. Cares more than he ever should.
Satoru could agree with that sentiment.
Kenya, Hiromi, and Kayo jumped through the roof at the news. He explained that to them, and they all smiled and congratulated him and his mother. Deep inside, Satoru still felt empty. So Satoru did not explain anything about the murders (at least, not yet). He hoped no one ask him for details he couldn't readily make available. Kenya may have noticed he shook far too much in bed the next day, but he didn't comment on it. Kenya simply changes the subject about the marriage to a recent television show.
Satoru hated to admit one thing. He regretted everything.
At one point, Satoru had truly seen Yashiro as his father figure. Helping find Kayo's murderer had made Yashiro his golden light in the dark cavern; he had relied on him and believed in him, following the kind words he had given. Yes, now he could see through all that as rubbish, but Satoru could still see that Yashiro needs a tangible force to cling onto. And that force had been became Satoru.
Oddly, Satoru believes, he should feel smothered and confused. But he doesn't. He feels content about this.
Yashiro's visits increase. Satoru is not impressed at first, but as the days progress, he wonders constantly why Yashiro does not make any move to kill him.
Shouldn't his cover be blown yet?
Yashiro is more intelligent than not to find the clues.
Sunlight streams through the emerald canopies. The breeze plays with the strands of his hair, and he marvels at the balmy day. It's much different from the recent seasonal rain from the past month. Satoru relishes the change of pace and the feeling of a new beginning.
Yashiro hovers behind his wheelchair. The trees around them both surround them immediately from the view of others on the small path leading from the hospital. Dinnertime is soon and people are retreating inside.
Less people to interfere. Satoru can play into that.
Satoru shifts in his wheelchair, not ready to leave the comfort of fresh pine air and sounds of children playing.
Relaxing distracts him, which is what catches him off-guard. Satoru should have known he would hear it.
"You know, I can kill your mother at any time."
Satoru's eyes sharpen. He peers up at Yashiro and the lopsided smirk of triumph. His skin crawls. Usually, he isn't as rash as he feels right then.
Satoru acts on impulse. A bubbling, insatiable anger that he does not bother putting into check surges within his ribcage and spreads. Satoru feels the wind rush past his skin as he reaches up and grabs Yashiro's curled collar. He yanks down, and Yashiro's face drops next to his.
Momentarily stunned, Yashiro stares. Satoru desperately wants a way out of this, suddenly, but he just can't believe the amusement that sparkles in Yashiro's eyes.
He had to make his feelings known. He crossed the line.
Yashiro chuckles slightly, pleased. He takes his hand off of the handles for Satoru's wheelchair and pushes his sunglasses up his nose. "I like seeing that aggression—it proves you're alive." The words obviously tasted delicious on his tongue. "You know, Satoru, I didn't think you'd remember. But maybe I have learned something about you during all those years you were in your coma."
Something about that takes the bite out of Satoru's retort. He hisses, "Don't you dare. For me to go back into the past and save her. And now you… you…" He pauses, breath harsh. He might as well say it. Yashiro would not fully understand anyway and he already knew Satoru had something up his sleeve. "From you killing her in the future. I didn't do that for you to kill her as her husband!"
The birds in the tree nearby squawk. Satoru is amazed that a nurse didn't hear him bellow at the top of his lungs, because no one rushes over to check on the situation. Which was for the best, Satoru decided; Yashiro would never get the message that he hated this otherwise.
Yashiro stood still, thoughtful. Then, he pried Satoru's hand away from the suit collar. It was not especially rough, but not altogether gentle. He pulls his arm back behind the wheelchair and pins his arm in between the bars. Satoru struggles to release his arm from its prison.
Tentatively, Satoru relaxed when Yashiro does nothing to actually hurt him. But he can feel the impending threat to the core of his bones, and he wishes he could run.
"Don't take me terribly, Satoru," he says, voice silky yet affectionately warm, "I think your mother is the strongest woman I've ever met. Resilient like a bull, independent and beautiful. But I could have murdered her at any given time when you were in your coma. If I wanted to, don't you think?" He lifts his hand and presses it against Satoru's cheek. "Any ideas as to why I didn't kill her?"
So he had used it as a ploy to draw out Satoru's true intentions. A clever layout of words. Figured as much.
Satoru flinches. He has no idea why. All rationale screams that he can't trust Yashiro for anything, and he wants to rip his away. But that really would cry for too much attention. This moment had to be between them only, even if it lead somewhere Satoru had to dig himself out of—and he would do that just like he had foiled Yashiro's plans fifteen years ago. He had not stopped him from all of his crimes, but… He did know he had stopped murdering within that timeframe. By itself, that was another question Satoru had been sitting on for the umpteenth time the last few days.
"She never did anything to you," Satoru guesses. It is a weak reason, but he can't think of anything substantial. "And you'd pull suspicion to yourself if you called someone even closer to me. That would have negative effects."
And Satoru hoped that Yashiro actually didn't want to hurt him through reigning in any desire to kill his mother.
Satoru felt half sick and completely selfish.
Yashiro does not grasp his internal battle. "Partly. I wanted to know when you'd wake up. I didn't want to wait for someone else to tell me." Low, his voice had drops several shades of concern and lands into a voracious hunger for answers. "Your mother was the perfect person to ask. She always knew what was going on with you, and she always had something to say. And I knew I could trust her."
Satoru bet his mother had spilled the beans on everything—that demon. His mother was never shy to share about his triumphs and failures. She thought all wins and losses of each type were important for growth, and Satoru had taken those to heart even in Yashiro's classroom. She had always encouraged him. He winces nonetheless and imagines again how his mother had spun herself into a web so dangerous and tangled.
"And she never had anyone else to tell. Without you there, she said, she felt like she lost a part of herself and didn't know how to keep going," Yashiro continues. His grip became rougher and his fingers are on his jaw. "She would tell anyone when they would listen to her, though. But see, I didn't want her to tell anyone else—I was the only one who should know anything about you."
Satoru shivers. Yashiro's logic about wanting to know all about him still did not fully make sense. He should have taken that extra step and killed him, but his blasé approach to this conversation spoke volumes about his desire to live a normal life. But he just didn't understand.
Why didn't Yashiro understand how alive worrying had made him during all those years? How, after being gone for so long, Satoru had given Yashiro hope that he would talk to him one day again? Satoru highly doubted Yashiro had the capacity to get it, but he could detect the need for confirmation underlying Yashiro's words.
The truth mingles with the darkest secrets in Yashiro's heart. Satoru feels confident in that. That was his.
"So you don't love her after all," Satoru replies dryly.
Because, of course, Yashiro would not love his mother. He has suspected that all along. If his main objective had been to get to him through her it wouldn't happen. Satoru would forever step over himself trying to figure out the how and whys, but time and circumstance had brought Yashiro and Sachiko in the same safety bubble for comfort.
Yashiro needed someone, but that wasn't his mother.
And it is as if Yashiro knows what he just thought. Because, under the shadow of a giant tree, Satoru feels the gloved hands slide down to his chin. Yashiro leans in and Satoru can taste the faint grit of sugar and salt on his lips.
Satoru reels back and punches him in the gut. Yashiro just sidesteps him and makes certain the wheelchair doesn't tumble in the backwards direction with Satoru's struggling.
Satoru's heart pounds so hard his ribs feel like they are clanking together like an off-beat melody. His teeth chatter, because that was his first kiss. How dare… how dare…!
"I suppose not," he agrees after a moment's critical thought, composed. He taps on the wheelchair in a slow rhythm. "I wanted to kill you when the time was right."
Yashiro could believe that all he wanted. Even so—
"But I changed my mind," Yashiro continues, "and I think I want someone more than that. And if I had to intertwine your life and mine to do it as a family of sorts—a broken little family that would become manageable with time and effort—I didn't quite mind doing for you and me."
You and me. Like this had been a mutual agreement.
But guessed… If he was forced to accept this…
Whatever this was.
Satoru was the ray of hope Yashiro had desperately clung onto and refused to let go of. He was the one that Yashiro needed to feel like he could let go of his darker, crueler roots and live a fulfilling life that probably meant nothing to the outside world. It was stability to someone who had known bitterness and loneliness for as long as he could remember. It was a life for someone who, Satoru decides, did not have anyone close they could tell anything to.
That was what a family was supposed to represent.
Satoru's lips twitch and his eyebrow furrows. In an incredible way, Yashiro's mindset makes a significant bit of sense.
"Saying you knew my future… there's still plenty I need to know about that. And you have to tell me now, don't you? Will you see what this future has in store for us?" Yashiro asks. He reaches for Satoru again, but pulls back seeing the glare at him, actually heeding his anger this time. "You are the one who said you knew my future, after all. Now, why don't you share that with me? We're bound for the rest of our lives—even if it isn't father and son." He laughed a belly-laugh. "To think of you as my son—that's not what I had in mind. I think you know what I mean."
Satoru is quiet while he thinks. He breathes, harsh. The obvious implication is there and place for Yashiro to stay where he could watch him would be ideal. Explaining to his mother would be difficult, and he thinks perhaps no explanation might even be required or plausible.
A little siren beeps in his head, the one that constantly told him to throw Kayo's murderer into jail where he belongs. Not build some weird pseudo family with him. But the chase is still not done, and the dance has barely begun.
Satoru guesses in this timeline he only has one choice.
"Alright, Yashiro," Satoru says finally, unyielding. The words are carefully picked out and steady, but he can hear himself smile just the tiniest bit, "we'll live the future together, and I'll show you what you've been missing out on."
Admittedly, he may have to endure a lifetime of hell and confusion, but… Satoru decides it will be worthwhile.
And more importantly, worthwhile for Yashiro as well.
Satoru did not know how or if he would have a stomach for it after all the things Yashiro had done. He would recall anger and pain for all that had been inflicted on him, but he never wanted to let go of their connection.
And then Yashiro takes them out of the shadow and into the blazing orange sunset. Another day will come.
Yashiro pushes the wheelchair forward with a decisive step. The sunlight reflects of his sunglasses, a promise set in the sands of time. "We'll be a happy family."