Hotaru never tried to forget. Some people dealt with grief by pretending it never happened, like her neighbor.
The poor lady always said with such certainty that her husband would be back with the eggs tomorrow, and if you mentioned the fact that he had run off with a waitress, she would ask what you were talking about.
But Hotaru kept his name in her heart, like a precious treasure. Today was the first day of school after that long summer, and while not eager to go back, she was glad to have something to do.
She stepped into the school, enjoying the kiss of warmth. It was getting colder outside, and trees were dying. The janitor was outside, mumbling about the never ending Hell that was raking leaves.
The Janitor was a bitter woman, though someone who cleaned up vomit on a daily basis was allowed to be.
Hotaru was making her way to her classroom, bag dangling from her shoulder, when a boy stepped in front of her. He had a shaved head and eager eyes.
"Um, Hotaru..." He said, taking her hand. "Will you go out with me?"
She looked away, uncomfortable. She was just about to whisper an excuse (because really, how could you explain that the boy who held your heart was not dead, but gone?), when someone walked by and distracted her.
It was another boy, with black hair. His face made her heart ache. It was strange; he looked so much like-
The bell rang, and everyone hurried to class.
Hotaru sat at her desk, sharpening her pencils and stacking her paper. The class was filled with voices loud enough to be heard, yet quiet enough that the words weren't clear.
Hotaru spoke to no one. None of her almost friends were in this class, and she wasn't good at making new ones. She had grown out of the ability to make friends easily, like most children do, and therefore she was all alone. She looked up when the teacher cleared his throat and clapped his hands.
"Alright, we have a new student," he said. Standing next to him was the boy who has passed by earlier. His eyes darted around, and he looked like he was trying hard not to be nervous, which made it all the more obvious.
He looked up when the teacher asked his name, and in a quiet voice said, "Gin."
Hotaru missed the teacher deciding not to scold him for only saying his first name because it was his first day and of course he was nervous, because she was frozen. Her hearing was muffled, eyes wide, her throat stuck closed.
She didn't notice the boy, Gin, walk uncertainly over to the desk next to hers and sit down. She only noticed when she heard his voice.
"Hello."
She unfroze herself and turned to him, tears falling down her face.
"Hello, Gin," she whispered. He smiled and wiped a tear away with hand.
She managed to utter a nearly silent, "How?"
And Gin took her hand, took a breath, took her heart, and simply said, "I love you."
Yes.
Yes.
I love you too, Gin.
The janitor was not beautiful, because she had long ago decided she didn't give a damn about looks. She wasn't very smart either, though the assumption that janitors weren't smart wasn't true.
She just didn't want to trudge through all those damn numbers and poison herself with information she didn't want or need. She ate dinner every night, and that was all she asked for.
But she was kind. So when that boy had come up to her yesterday while she was raking the leaves off the parking lot in preparation for the first day of school and begged that she be his mother, and she asked why, and he told her his of-course-that-can't-be-real story, she couldn't help but believe his wild words and do as he wished.
Sure, if now she had to work one more shift, rake a few more leaves, scrape some more dried gum off the bottom of desks so he could eat dinner too, then so be it.
She was just about to etch off two names carved into a tree (the principal was not fond of foolish things like that. The janitor often quipped that the principal was lucky that she had such a nice girlfriend like the janitor who didn't mind that the principle wasn't all that romantic) when the boy came out of school, holding hands with some cute girl.
Her heart melted, and she set the knife down to go and meet them.
Damn it, she was a sucker for romance. Maybe she should take the principal out to dinner tonight.
She couldn't wait to see her face when she told her that she had adopted a kid.