March 31, Nerima, Tokyo

The time was ten minutes past twelve noon.

The sun was high in the sky, shimmering through the branches of the cherry blossom trees. It was spring once more, spring in Japan, spring when the cherry blossoms bloomed, covering the land in the vibrant pink. Cherry blossoms were beautiful, an unparalleled sight; people came from abroad to see them, and not for nothing was the tree one of the many national symbols of the country. The shops were alive with sakura-themed memorabilia to take advantage of the time. Nearby, a child pestering their parents about when the trees would fly into bloom could be heard, the eagerness in their voice clear like birdsong; apt for the season.

It was also spring for Kousei Arima, spring when he met the girl underneath full-bloomed cherry blossoms, and spring when his fate began to change.

The girl had a name once.

Kaori Miyazono.

The girl who had dredged him up from the dark sea of silenced notes he had found himself in, the girl who had returned colour to his life, the girl who had wormed her way into his life and changed his fate.

The girl whose grave he stood in front of.

The young man stared at the cold, blank stone, his breathing slow, his eyes sore. He'd been standing there for what felt like forever; a quick glance at his phone said it had been half an hour since he arrived at the cemetery where Kaori was. He'd left this day free for that purpose; no meeting up with Tsubaki or Watari, no teaching piano lessons, no recitals, nothing. At least he would be lacking for an excuse to avoid what he hadn't done.

It was true, Kousei hadn't been to see Kaori, not since the funeral, not since her parents thanked him for being the reason she wanted to live, not since-

The letter.

It was hard to read. She hadn't even been dead a few days and with the letter, she had become a whole different person. Kaori wasn't Kaori Miyazono, the vibrant girl who liked his best friend and yet hung out with him of all people, who pushed him back to the piano with all her might, who pestered him for caneles and called him at odd times, she was Kaori Miyazono, the dying girl who loved him- had loved him since she first heard him play-, who wanted nothing more than a chance to play alongside the boy who changed her life as equals, who wanted to be remembered in the hearts of everyone she'd ever met, whose volatile personality hid a girl in fear of her impending mortality.

Kousei exhaled deeply. He wasn't sure what to think nor what to say.

His eyes lay upon her gravestone, her name engraved in the harsh, smooth facade, the last trace of her presence a monochrome memorial to someone far more vibrant, far more colorful than it could ever possibly represent. It was ironic, really; Kaori always asked if he could forget her. Kousei wouldn't- no, couldn't- forget her, but now all that was left of her was a single block of stone in a row of dozens of almost identical memorials. If he hadn't committed her grave to memory, he'd have forgotten where she was.

Somehow, he found something to say.

"Kaori...if you can hear me, please, listen."

The tombstone was silent. Of course it would be.

"Please, there's just one more thing I have to say. One more thing, one more miracle, Kaori. For me."

As if he needed to say this, as if the words could not simply remain unsaid. She was the one who helped him be reborn as a musician, pushed him onto the stage, asked him to perform a miracle for her, to play through his pain and worry about her.

'Is it really so unfair….to ask her for one?', he thought. 'She always pushed me to do the impossible. Always. Is it so unfair for me to ask you to do one, to do the impossible, just once, for me?'

"Don't. Be. Dead."

The words caught in his throat, brought tears to his eyes, tears he fought back. His chest twinged, the pain fresh as the day it had happened.

"Would you do that? Just for me?

He hadn't even managed to say a thing to her, that day on the rooftop, after she collapsed into him, begging him not to leave her all alone. And now he was asking something of her, a request she couldn't fulfill.

He clenched his fists, breathing in deeply to try (vainly) to maintain his composure.

"Stop it. Stop this. Just stop."

A bitter tone lined Kousei's voice as he asked, begged, ordered Kaori to return to him, his breath ragged and his face scrunched up in pain. The tears streamed down his cheeks, his composure having failed him. His chest felt tight, but his gaze was fixed on her name, carved into the uncaring stone.

'I don't even know what I'd say if I saw her again,' he admitted to himself. 'There's…..so much that needs to be said, so much I haven't told her, so much we should've talked about, so much….'

Truth be told, Kousei didn't know what he'd say if his wish were somehow to be granted, if Kaori were to miraculously appear at his doorstep one day, large as life, with her lovely smile and the spark of life returned to her eyes. Would he tell her he loved her? Would he confront her on what she did to return him to the world of music? Would he demand an explanation?

Kaori had done so much and made him feel so many things in the short period she'd been in his life, so many that Kousei could hardly settle them in the space of a single day. He'd need a year, a decade, a lifetime with Kaori to figure it out with her, to understand what kind of person would have been so caring and yet so temperamental to be her.

And he'd hardly even known her for a whole year.

Minutes passed. For Kousei, it was an eternity, left standing there to stare at the poor substitute for the girl who had meant so much to him.

He closed his eyes, raising his glasses to wipe his tears with his sleeve. There wasn't really anything he could say to Kaori that wouldn't seem pointless; even his request was pointless, but at least it lifted a little bit of the weight he still felt. He simply stared at the grave for a moment.

'What do I even say? Goodbye? I'll see you later? Thank you?'

A moment later, Kousei decided on nothing at all. Exhaling deeply, the young man walked away from Kaori's grave, paying it one final glance, before heading down the dust path back to the rest of the world, to the world of color and sound, the world she'd returned him to.

The spring breeze blew lightly across the branches of the cherry blossom trees in the cemetery, carrying Kousei's plea to unknown harbours, beyond the clouds and skies and towards the four corners of the earth.

Don't. Be. Dead.

...

Kaori Miyazono was dead.

That was the first fact Kaori knew.

She was dead for sure. She knew she had to be dead. The operation had failed, she'd felt her heart stop, her breath catch, she'd felt herself fade into oblivion. That was the first fact of the situation; she'd died and gone to Heaven or wherever the dead went to. She was hardly in any position to argue; the dead didn't exactly rise up from their graves to dispute the afterlife.

It was the only way she could explain that beautiful dying dream she'd had.

It was the last thing Kaori had seen; herself and Kousei, playing together, performing the duet she'd promised to play with him when-if- she got better and the reason she'd been in surgery in the first place. She was proud of Kousei, and happy for him; in that dream, in that moment, he'd returned to being the boy she'd heard all those years ago, no longer reciting but playing the notes. It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever heard and seen.

So she was dead. That was certain.

So what was this?

Kaori looked around herself and down at herself. The second thing she'd noticed was that she was most emphatically not dead. Or, at least, not in oblivion like she'd expected to be. After all, how could she possibly explain being able to think, to remember what had happened? Or maybe she actually was dead and there really was an afterlife. Perhaps God had heard her, all the times she'd said Elohim, essaim, and she really was in Heaven. She certainly didn't feel her heart beating or hear the sound of her own breathing; she wasn't an expert in anatomy, but she was sure that the lack of either usually meant you were dead.

The third was that she had no clothes.

She drew her hands up to hide her breasts from unseen onlookers instinctively, before looking around, realizing she was wholly, entirely alone and surrounded by thick fog, so anyone who was looking on like some sort of pervert could hardly see anything anyway.

'Of all the things to care about, having no clothes probably isn't the first thing I should be thinking about,' she mused somewhat bitterly. '…..where even am I? I'm dead, right? If I'm dead, what is this?'

"Oh, but you are dead, Miss Miyazono."

Kaori whirled around to see a calm-looking man in grey robes, his gaze firmly fixed on her face and thankfully not lower. He didn't look much older than her, from her estimation; probably in his early twenties at best. His hair was a platinum blonde, almost white, and his eyes were a steely gray. Though a light smile graced his lips, Kaori couldn't help but feel his eyes piercing into her very soul. The effect was rather unnerving; it made him seem so young and yet so ancient, all at once.

'Okay, whoever this guy is, he's kinda…..I dunno, off?' she thought to herself, lacking anyone else to talk to. 'It's the eyes. What's up with them?'

"I will be keeping my eyes up 'here', so to speak, so do not worry," the man reassured her in a calm, smooth voice. "But yes. You are dead."

"Then explain this," Kaori replied cautiously, gesturing around her. "Where am I?"

"I will be blunt. You are in the land of the dead. I am what people would call the ferryman."

So she was dead. That much was clear; she hadn't been wrong about that at least. She didn't particularly feel sad about that; it wasn't as if she could do something about it.

'Okay, so I'm dead. Not insane. Funny how that works; I'm dead and I care more about not being crazy than that.'

"I expected you to be more….mysterious than that, really," she answered. Then again, she didn't exactly expect to be meeting who might as well be the Grim Reaper in person.

The gray-eyed man shrugged. "You're already dead. What could I possibly achieve by lying to you, except providing false comfort? This isn't some sort of story."

"Okay. I'm dead. So…..if this is the land of the dead, where's…" Kaori looked around through the fog. "…..everyone else? I'm not the only dead person, right?"

"Not important."

"Okay, I'll ask again." The young woman grew impatient, despite who she was speaking to and where she was. "Where am I? This can't be the land of the dead, because I don't see anyone else but you, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who's ever died."

"Where do you want to be?"

"…..what's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm asking you a question, Miss Miyazono," the man answered calmly. "Where do you want to be?"

Her answer was so quick as to be instinctive.

"With Kousei-" she blurted out, before catching herself in the act. Not that it wasn't true of course; after all, one of the last things she'd ever said to him was that she loved him, and her whole life, she'd done nothing but drive herself to try to become someone who could perform with him. She loved music so utterly, so deeply, that for him to leave the world of music seemed an unforgivable sin to her.

But why should she expect this guy to know who he was?

The man's smile widened slightly. In some respect, that scared Kaori more than if he'd simply professed ignorance.

"So it is you," he whispered quietly under his breath.

"Huh?"

"Not important," he repeated. "So….with a boy, then. I must admit, you aren't the first young person I've seen, their life cut short, pining for a second chance."

"I-I'm not pining for a second chance!" Kaori snapped irritably, but even as she did, she knew he had a point; she DID want a second chance at life, now that she had a reason to live it. It was ironic; the moment she had a reason to want to live, her life got cut so, so short.

Still, she wasn't going to let some know-it-all smug-looking man tell her about it, even if he was probably the Grim Reaper. She had far too much pride in herself for that.

'Imagine what Kousei would say if he saw me now,' she mused to herself. 'Imagine what they'd say. I'd be the girl crazy enough to talk back at Death himself. I actually kinda like that idea, now that I mention it…..'

"But would you turn one down if you were offered one?"

That caught Kaori off-guard.

'….is he seriously giving me a chance to….no way.'

She blinked, staring at the gray-eyed man.

"…..what do you mean….offered one? A second chance?"

The man simply sighed. "A chance to settle things with….Kousei, was it? Yes. A chance."

Kaori stared back, speechless, processing what, exactly, he meant.

A chance to settle things with Kousei, just as he'd said. A chance to perform that final duet she'd dreamed about.

A chance to talk to him about the things she'd said in the letter, to reaffirm exactly what she'd told him; that she loved him, loved him so much it hurt to lie to him about it, and that she was sorry, sorry for everything she'd done to try to get him back to the piano.

The decision was obvious, really.

"What do I have to do?" Kaori asked calmly. "To….get a second chance, I mean."

"Nothing whatsoever. I can't give you one."

Her gaze turned to daggers at the man. "W-what do you mean you can't? Y-you just said-"

"I just asked a question and you answered. That's all. I can't just let people walk out of the land of the dead, Miss Miyazono. That would be breaking the laws of the world. The dead are meant to stay dead. You are no exception."

"So why would you even bring it up then?" the young woman exasperatedly asked. She was seriously getting tired of the gray-eyed man's nonsense.

"I can't let you out. I cannot, as long as I am watching you, let you leave."

And then it suddenly made complete sense to Kaori.

A mischievous smirk crossed her lips as she figured out what he was saying.

"Ah. I get it," she smiled, nodding. "You can't let me out of here. So you'll just…..turn your back, go out, get a coffee, that kinda thing?"

"If I do not see it, I cannot be accused of negligence nor of breaking the rules," the gray-eyed man stated. "Peculiar thing about those rules; they were never written down."

Kaori smiled; she'd gotten that reference. "Lucy, from Peanuts, right?"

"One of their TV specials," the gray-eyed man confessed. "Never liked how Lucy always took the ball out from under his feet at the last minute. It's not the exact quote, but I feel I made it appropriate for the situation. How long do you think you'll need?"

Kaori thought for a few moments. She couldn't ask too much longer after all; this man, whoever he was, was possibly already going against the law of the world to bring her back, and being too audacious was being unfair. She'd had her time in the world of the living; it wasn't fair for her to ask for much more, even if her time had been cut short.

'And anyway, it won't take me too long to deal with it, right?' she thought to herself. 'How long could it take me to get all this unfinished business done, right?'

"I think it'll take me a day. Twenty-four hours," she clarified. "Yes, that should be enough."

'Enough time for me to say goodbye to my parents, meet up with Tsubaki and the others, and…..Kousei,' the young woman concluded.

"If you say so," the gray-eyed man agreed, his expression and tone ambivalent. "Very well then. I shall turn a blind eye. Oh, and one more thing."

He held up a finger for a moment.

"You'll be in perfect health when you return. It'd be….unfair to return you in the condition you were when you left and expect you to do everything in a day, would it not?"

Kaori Miyazono woke with a start and a gasp.

The first thing she felt was an odd coldness across her back. Then the beat of her heart, strong and constant, thumping in her chest as if she'd woken from a nightmare, the thrum of its beat pounding against her ribs.

She pulled herself up, her breathing quick but strong, looking down at her hands and poring over them as if they were not her own, clenching and unclenching them. The young woman felt a strength she hadn't felt for years, not since she'd fallen as a child. An instinctive grin spread across her face as she supported herself against the surface she was lying on, despite the cold wind raising goosebumps against her warm skin.

Her illness was gone. She was healthy; at least, as healthy as a girl who'd returned from the world of the dead could be.

"Now…." she peered around. "Where am….uh-oh."

She paused, realizing the source of the coldness as she gazed down at her own body once more.

She was naked. Again.

"I suppose that makes sense," she closed her eyes, sighing and shaking her head. "My clothes didn't die with me, after all. Still, would it have killed that guy to resurrect me with some clothes on? Some pervert's going to see me if I wander around like this."

She shivered as she pulled herself off the surface she was lying on, almost stumbling. Her hands caught the edge of the surface, revealing it to be a wooden bench, made cold and hard by rain and air. The young woman looked around her surroundings.

The man had delivered on their deal. Kaori recognized where she was; this was Tokyo, Nerima ward. Judging by what little she could see in the limited moonlight, she wasn't far from her family's bakery, a couple of streets at most. It was nighttime, probably midnight or early morning. A few streetlights were on, but not many; this part of town didn't have too many; they didn't exactly expect a normal person to be wandering around this late.

It was always this dark when she and Kousei finished practicing, late at night, and he brought her home to her parents. Kaori smiled a little at the memory of the boy, before returning to the task at hand.

The first task she had, of course, was to get to Ma Fille and see if her parents were in; not just because she wanted to see them, but because Kaori utterly refused to wander around the place with no clothes on. Her parents would probably rather die than let their little girl wander around with nothing, and she couldn't exactly just show up at Kousei's house and ask for one of his shirts like she did that one time when they jumped into the river. He was probably still awake, knowing Kousei, but she needed time to figure out what to do, or how to even approach him.

'Actually, what do I even say to him?' Kaori thought to herself. 'Do I just…..show up and go 'hey, I've got twenty-four hours to take care of unresolved business, how are you'? Won't he just think I'm some hallucination or something? Dammit, I'll think about it later. I need to get out of here. It's cold!'

Looking around, Kaori gathered her bearings. Her feet curled up on the hard concrete of the sidewalk she was standing on. She breathed in deeply, taking in the midnight air, looking up at the sky where the moon shone and the stars twinkled. She could faintly see the cherry blossoms in the moonlight; they were about to bloom. Spring was in full swing, and the best part was about to commence.

It was a shame she wouldn't get to stick around to see the cherry blossoms bloom, not when she'd only given herself a day.

'A little poetic, huh, coming back to life in time for spring,' the young woman thought to herself. 'Right when we first met properly.'

Still, there were more important things to worry about. So many things and so little time to do it, but then Kaori was no stranger to having a time limit for herself.

So Kaori ran, ran towards her parents' bakery, to begin what she came back here to do.

The time was ten minutes past twelve midnight. Twelve hours ago, across town, Kousei Arima had stood at her grave, pleading for Kaori Miyazono to do the impossible and return from the dead.

The date was April the first; a year ago, Kousei had met her beneath the full-bloomed cherry blossoms, and she had begun to change his fate.

And twenty-three hours and fifty minutes remained in the day.

The day was young.

April 1, Nerima, Tokyo

Twenty-three hours and fifty minutes remain.

Eurydice

Spring

A/N: Welcome, one and all. Hoo boy, this anime really, really got me. I am a man who has sat through the likes of Clannad After Story and AIR without so much as a change in expression. The ending, however, was one of the very few times I've ever felt close to crying in any work of fiction. Not for nothing is Your Lie in April well-known; if it wanted to pull your heartstrings, take you on the feels rollercoaster and make you feel simultaneously sad and happy at the end of it all, it passed with flying colours.

I'll admit it, this is pretty much a shameless fix fic, as much as I'd like to pretend I don't indulge in that kinda stuff. Much as I hate to say it, I hated the ending, as I pretty much hate all downer endings. However, I do have to give it to Arakawa; the story couldn't have ended any other way. However, I'll leave it to the show to tell the story the author wants. Also, one of the reasons I decided to watch the show in the first place was because this fic idea has been calling in my head ever since my friend told me what the ending was, long before I even knew the name 'Your Lie in April'.

So I'll ask you kindly if you'll let me indulge myself just once and write a happy ending for a guy who needs a win and a girl who never got a shot at one. Also, you'll excuse how rusty I am at writing; I only really write comedy, so drama is far beyond me. Anyway, it's also an excuse for me to play around with a time-limit. Of course, it probably won't affect Kaori's characterization too much; after all, she's always been living on borrowed time. What will probably affect it is my terrible writing skill, which is the bigger worry. Also, the story takes place in Nerima because, as far as I can figure, that is apparently the real-life basis for the story's setting; quite a few locales in the story get taken from the ward. I wish I knew enough Ranma to make references to that. On the plus side, though, cookies for anyone who catches the Sherlock references.

Anyway, this'll be a little departure from my usual type of story, so it'll only be four chapters. You can already guess what they'll be called. So, I hope you enjoyed that, leave your ideas, comments, reviews, suggestions and thoughts, and I hope you have a GREAT day! Until next time!