Remember Me
By Confused Panda Bear
Part I.
"Past"
She could hear the beach.
And it was as if they had been washed up on its shore; like twin sea shells sleeping with abandon.
She felt him smile against her neck, his fingertips brush aside her bangs.
"Kou…"
He whispered, softly.
"…It's time to wake up."
"Mrs. Nanase? Mrs. Nanase, can you hear me?"
The voice had changed, Gou thought.
It was no longer soothing, but disturbingly urgent.
"Mrs. Nanase!"
She wasn't with him anymore.
In his place was chaos; the morning glow of her alternate reality obliterated by harsh light fixtures crooning above her on a cold, metal bed.
At least four sets of hands were touching her, strapping her down and cutting off her clothes.
They were shouting at each other from all directions, using words that she only half-understood from basic first aid class and TV hospital dramas.
"What have we got here?" came a harsh, clinical assessment.
"Female, twenty-six years old, car accident," another answered, the voice accompanied by the snapping of latex against skin. "Internal bleeding, undiagnosed head injury…"
"…Pupils dilated, unresponsive…"
"…she's tachycardic. Someone get me large-bore, sixteen gauge IV…"
There was unexpected stabbing pain in the crook of her arm, and though she tried to cry out, her parted lips could not produce a single sound.
Her whole body thrashed as compensation, fighting her intruders off until the noxious liquid began to circulate her veins and her muscles went lax, lulling her into a deep and dreamless sleep.
"Shh, its okay, Mrs. Nanase, you're going to be okay…" a female voice stroked at the top of her had.
Mrs. Nanase? Who is that...?
Gou thought, as her eyelids slid shut.
…Are they talking about me?
When life deals you a bad hand, it is far too easy to turn to the past and pick at your mistakes.
'If only I have started studying earlier,' you'd say.
'If only I had told him before it was too late.'
In Nanase Haruka's case, it was as simple as choosing to stay at the office an hour later than usual.
If only I had left on time…
He thought, sprinting up the hospital steps.
…If only I had driven her myself.
The first and only thing Gou could recall after the accident, was waking up in a hospital bed feeling like she'd been hit by a truck – and then nearby nurse telling her that she was there for that very reason.
Naturally, she had a thousand and one questions that needed answering.
What had happened?
How did she get here?
And why did her head hurt so much?!
Strangely enough, the staff treating her simply smiled through her concerns.
They would tell her, in an almost patronising way, not to "worry about the details" and to "focus on her recovery," always so politely, always sympathetic.
And though she appreciated the sentiment, there was something about the way they studied her in between questions, the way they would pause and exchange a look between themselves, made her believe that the answers that she was providing weren't exactly the ones that they were looking for.
Her doctor – a young, serious looking man – reassured her and her worrying mother constantly that everything was looking 'great,' that she was 'right on track' for a 'full recovery.'
Her tests had came back positive, and she was still able to walk, talk and recite the alphabet correctly – simple tasks that should have brought some sense of relief but instead, left her with daunting impression that he was just easing her with the formalities before he dropped a bombshell.
"The results of your cognitive tests however, have…raised some concerns," he finally admitted.
Gou nodded, neck stiff and unknowingly holding her breath throughout his explanation.
According to an eyewitness account, the roads had been icy on the day of her accident, and a driver in front of her had lost control and caused her to break her own car sharply.
Although her actions had managed to avoid the hazard in front of her, Gou's decision did not quite register in time for the driver behind her, who ended up colliding with the back of her car at full speed.
It was a miracle in itself that she was alive, and with very little physical injuries.
"…It seems as if your executive skills were not affected either," her doctor continued. "Our tests show that you still have full control of your motor movements, speech, vision and other, basic functions…"
Gou inwardly groaned throughout his medical jargon.
She did not care for what was not wrong with her, when there was something that was not quite right.
"…the good news is that I don't see any major cognitive problems in your short term memory either. In fact, we are all glad that the outcome of your injuries are relatively minor considering the severity of the accident–"
"–But what is it?" Gou spoke over him, with obvious impatience: "what's the bad news?"
The young doctor hesitated, stalling his explanation by folding his red-rimmed glasses and cleaning the lenses with the corner of his white coat.
He looked to her mother – a fleeting exchange, irritating Gou more than it should have, because it reminded her that she was still painfully uninformed: like there was a secret that everyone knew and she was the only one being kept in the dark.
"The issue seems to lie in your long term memory store," he explained. "We have noticed a disruption in your ability to either retrieve memories, or damage in the part of the brain that holds them..."
He spoke so clinically that it took a moment for Gou to register what he was saying, and even longer to make any sense of them.
A disruption in her ability to – what?
Without a reaction from her, he continued:
"…At this moment, we are hoping that it is just the former, that your memories will return to you naturally with time. Now, I know this is a shock, but retrograde amnesia is not uncommon after a severe head injury..."
She must have made a face at the word 'amnesia' because the doctor paused at her change of expression, studying the mixture of shock and bemusement carefully.
"...Gou-chan?"
She startled, the overly familiar address gathering the rest of her awareness.
"Do you understand what I am saying?" Dr. Ryugazaki said. "Going from our tests – from speaking your family and friends – you seem to have absolutely no memory of the past three years of your life."
Of all the reactions that she could have produced – Gou had laughed out aloud.
They had to be wrong – she said to her mother, to her doctor, repeatedly – they had to be talking about someone else.
She had insisted so until the very end – until a man she had never seen in her entire life came barging into her hospital room, demanding to see her.
She heard a nurse's voice panic: "Mr. Nanase, please understand, in the interest of your wife's recovery–"
"–Kou!" he called without suffix, pushing his way through the hoard of medical staff and ignoring their cautioning as he came to her side.
He pulled her into a fierce embrace, irrespective of the intricate network of wires that were connected to her; "you're awake, thank god…" he whispered, reassuring himself if anyone at all.
He was breathing against her neck, his large hands smoothing over her bandaged hair, her shoulders, and her back, so swept up in his own relief that he did not feel her try to lean away from his touch.
"...I was so scared," he breathed. "Rei wouldn't let me see you. I thought...I thought..."
"…Excuse me," Gou began, the formality of her tone throwing him off guard.
The unknown man drew back from her; blue eyes glassy and wide and unable to ignore how the distance he had created between them seemed to set her more at ease.
"I'm sorry to be rude, but–"
Gou blinked.
"–who are you?"
He was thrust away from her the second his grip slackened, in a flurry of panicked hands, apologies and assorted explanations for both confused sides of the party.
Dr. Ryugazaki pulled the man aside and out of her line of sight, thinking that by simply drawing the curtain divider between the beds would block out their heated conversation.
"Haruka-senpai, please calm down and listen to me," she heard him say. "We…we think Gou-chan has post-traumatic amnesia…"
"…the collision of her head with the windshield has caused some swelling in the brain tissue…"
"…memory loss can be a side effect…"
"…it could be temporary, it could be permanent…"
"…no telling at this stage."
Gou trembled in her bed, suddenly registering the room drop several degrees and hugged herself against the truth they so easily disclosed to a stranger.
She had no idea who he was and who he was to her, but the man seemed so adamant that he knew her – not only that, but that she belonged to him – recalling his hands gripping at her shoulders so tightly, she feared he was about to shake her.
"But how can she get her memories back…?"
She heard him demand, with an abruptness that made everyone in the room filch.
"…How can I make her remember me?"
Following the morning's assessment, Gou requested the rest of the day free from tests and visits, and thankfully, no one objected.
"Take all the time you need," Dr. Ryugazaki had said, and escorting the man out of her ward, Gou at long last allowed herself to think.
She was sure there was no word to describe it: the feeling of being dislocated not in place, but in the very fabric of time.
She had woken up in a hospital bed and was, all of a sudden, three years older and married.
A shudder worked up her spine at the thought.
Her mother explained that his name was Nanase Haruka, and it rolled off of her tongue like an unfinished sentence.
But before she could contemplate the ending, an attending nurse entered her room with a stale looking lunch that was promptly ignored.
"You must have a lot of questions," she stated diplomatically.
"Just a few," Gou grumbled from under her sheets.
"I've brought you today's newspaper," the nurse remained undeterred by her tone. "And a few of your belongings that we've been keeping for you as well." She suggested: "Maybe looking through them will help trigger some of your memories?"
She picked at the pile on her bedside table when the curiosity got the better of her.
The date on the newspaper confirmed the time skip, and though most of her clothes were ruined beyond repair, the accident team had managed to salvage her handbag from the car and most of her belongings inside of it.
Intact, there was a wallet, a small cosmetics bag and cell phone that definitely wasn't cute the flip phone kind she had owned three years ago.
It was a smart-phone-type thing, that complained with every incorrect four digit code she tried – her birthday, her mother's birthday, her brothers and her cat's – before it locked itself off from any further attempts and asked her to contact her service provider for further assistance.
Frustrated, Gou tossed the device back into her handbag and fished out the next clue as distraction: and a transparent plastic bag with, what she assumed to be, the jewellery she had been wearing during the accident.
There were some pieces that she recognised, like a charm bracelet she had owned since she was a teen, but caught up in the knotted strands of silver chain were two, beautiful rings she had never seen before.
Gingerly, Gou emptied contents of the bag; the hospital light glancing blindingly off the sapphire and diamond ring that fell into her palm.
It was an engagement ring – she was sure of it – and the white gold band with it was her wedding ring.
Their immediate beauty temporarily surpassed their implication because not long after peeking around her ward for any lingering staff or spectators, Gou threaded the diamond onto her finger and admired the piece at arm's length.
She let out a shaky breath.
It was a stunningly, perfect fit.
The almost blissful moment was short lived when her hospital door swung open and her supposed husband himself appeared on the other side, along with a purple haired doctor who had been treating her.
Mortified, Gou tugged the ring off of her finger so fast that it flew off the bed, bounced twice on the bleach white tiles before it went rolling by his feet.
Without a word or greeting, Haruka retrieved and handed the ring back to her, his gaze so penetrating that Gou hesitated before sealing it back in the plastic bag.
She caught his change in expression, the way he averted his eyes as if he couldn't physically bring himself to look at her at that moment.
He looked so hurt by her actions that she felt the need to apologise.
"Please, don't take it personally," she attempted a broken explanation. "I don't feel as if I deserve to wear it right now. If that makes any sense? I just don't – feel married at all…"
The man regarded her with a curious look on his face, assessing her answer with such intense scrutiny that made her blush.
He did not need to speak but she could feel his frustration; it channelled into her and melded with her own.
Because the way he looked at her was as if he were expecting her to say something that he would put him at ease, like there were a script running somewhere and she was the only one who hadn't read it yet.
Thankfully, the purple haired doctor spoke up in their silence.
"I have briefed on Haruka-sen – your husband," he dithered, "on your...unique situation. He understands the extent of your injuries, and the impact it has had on your ability to retrieve your recent memories..."
Gou nodded, eyes trained diligently on the doctor and not on the man who called himself her husband.
There was a difference between 'fully understanding' and 'fully accepting' the situation, and she was sure like herself, that he had yet achieved the latter.
"...in light of this, we've been discussing with your mother and Rin-san how to–" he paused, choosing his words carefully. "–tackle your release."
"My release?" Gou felt her forehead wrinkle.
"Of course, I'd like to keep you here for the time being – to monitor your recovery in these early stages," Rei continued, despite her questioning. "But it's more than likely that your memories will return once you're home, in familiar surroundings..."
Unconsciously, he looked to her husband, and it was clear what he was implying: that the best course of action was to send her home with him.
"Anyways, I'll let you discuss this with your husband and your family," Dr. Ryugazaki said as he took his leave, and as he passed him, placed a hand on her Haru's shoulder in a comforting gesture.
It was obvious to Gou that they knew each other; later finding out that they had attended university with her brother who, she had found out from her mother, was also fond of her new husband, the both of them insisting above everything else that she return to her marital home once she was discharged.
It was as if she did not have a say in the matter, and even though she tried to suppress it, Gou began to dread the day.
She did not mean to feel this way towards him, honestly.
She liked Nanase-san – as far as liking strangers went.
He clearly cared for her, and for his sake only, wished that that unwelcome stirring in her stomach would cease whenever the thought of going home with him dawned upon her.
Gou was unable to differentiate the feeling. It was something in between fear and excitement.
Like being strapped into a seat of a roller coaster ride, and knowing that there was no turning back now.
He was nice – if not a little quiet – and for the week that followed her hospitalisation, never failed to make a visit every day despite the amount of staff that asked him to leave, with reason that he was making her uncomfortable.
He did not speak much, simply sitting by her bed during visiting hours and observing her during her check ups – staring as if he were waiting for something in her brain to click.
He was adamant that his presence would make her remember, always patient with her questions, which were few and far between because Gou would never miss the way he winced whenever she asked him the simplest of things; like how long had they been together and if they lived together and where.
"What do – what do you do for a living?" she had asked one afternoon, desperate to make conversation whenever they were left alone.
"I'm a photographer," he said, with no inclination to elaborate.
Gou nodded, attempting to appear contemplative.
She didn't know the first thing about photography.
"What," she then asked, feeling incredibly stupid, "do I do for a living?"
That was the most unsettling part for Gou – to have someone she considered a stranger answer questions on her behalf – faster and more coherent than she ever could.
Details like her birthday, her home address, her phone number and that of her general practitioner, were answered by him before she could produce the response herself.
Even when a helpful nurse offered to make them both a drink, her husband ordered himself a still water and asked her with a look of what she wanted.
Her mouth had only half formed the word before he answered:
"Tea for Kou," he said, spinning his dark head back around to the nurse. "Half."
The nurse looked unsure, "half…?" she dragged the word for him to elaborate.
He didn't, and Gou had no idea what he meant either.
"Half milk?" the nurse suggested, but Haruka shook his head with the slightest trace of a smile curving at his lips.
"No sugar, no milk," he explained, "half as in you should only brew her half a cup because she never finishes it."
He looked to her with brows raised like they were meant to share a private joke with hers, but instead her face mirrored something like terror and after that, Haru didn't answer questions for her anymore.
Along with her new husband, it seemed as if Gou also had an entirely new social circle; judging by flowers delivered to her room with get-well-soon cards signed from names she barely recognised.
Her visiting hours were popular, with her mother arriving with scrap books and picture albums for her to look though, and a group of what she assumed were now her friends, filing into her room whenever they had the chance.
"So you really don't remember anything?" a yellow haired boy named Hazuki Nagisa asked her for the nth time. "You don't remember the time we went to the summer festival and ate that amazing squid paella? Or when we took a boat out to the beach with the guys, and swam between the islands?!"
Gou shook her head regretfully, and Nagisa gasped:
"But Rei-chan almost died!"
"Nagisa-kun!"
He was close with her husband, along with a tall gentleman named Tachibana Makoto who was also part of her visiting party, greeting her so kindly and so sincerely that she felt terrible that she had no idea who in the world he was to her.
She noticed that her brother greeted them like old friends whenever their visits coincided, which left Gou trying desperately to recall her him ever mentioning their names in her recallable past – giving up soon after remembering that details of her brothers personal life were always few and far between.
But she could tell that they were all very close: by the way they spoke and left her unable to contribute without context, leaving her feeling like an outsider even though it was apparent that she was once a part of their jokes and anecdotes too.
"Hey Gou-chan, do you remember the name of that album you were gonna lend me?" Nagisa would occasionally let her amnesia slip his mind.
Gou blinked at him, a mixture of baffled and exasperated. "No, I don't, sorry…"
Nagisa pouted, aggravatingly, "well, if you do happen to get your memories back and remember–"
"–you'll be the first person I call, alright?!" she snapped without thinking, followed by an embarrassment from having yelled at someone she had basically just met.
But going by his unfazed reaction, and the way that everyone laughed, Gou figured that their relationship had that kind of dynamic.
Haruka was always quiet during these visits, Gou realising that he was usually always so quiet and withdrawn regardless of his company, only contributing when coaxed by Makoto or when mediating an excitable Nagisa causing ruckus in her ward.
And in the moments where she felt out of place, she would catch herself watching for his subtle expressions, and studying his handsome profile for a reaction.
Haru was tall – not too tall – but at least a foot taller than her.
He was muscular but lean, easily detectable whenever he wore short sleeved shirts that strained with the bulge of his biceps.
His hair was dark and straight and fell across his forehead; his chin sharp and his nose tall, and he owned these expressive blue eyes that brought all of his features together and made her insides quiver whenever he laid that searching gaze of his on her.
He caught her stare and Gou ducked her head and sunk into mattress bed a little further.
Yes.
Very handsome indeed.
She just wished he would smile little more.
She was sure he would be even more handsome when he did.
Because for reasons she was unable to explain, Gou could not bear the sadness reflected in his eyes whenever he looked at her.
She thought that Haru was out of earshot; but he was standing in the shadow on the other side of her hospital room door, listening to her tearful voice say:
"…but I want to go home with you, okaa-san…"
"…I'm sorry Gou, but 'home' is with him now."
"We're home."
Haru held open the door, and followed her every move with careful eyes.
Expecting some sensation of familiarity, Gou hovered in the empty space between the hallway and the living room of their apartment, and waited to be drawn to anything in particular.
A side of the sofa she would to curl up into to watch TV.
A spot in front of the electric fireplace where she would settle and get into a good book.
She looked around, and waited.
Nothing.
It was a funny feeling, being like a guest in your own home.
"How long have we been married again?" she asked, too stunned by her surroundings to be ashamed.
Haruka replied, watching for her reaction: "a little over five months."
A little under half a year, Gou translated in her head. Enough time to make her mark, to make the place her own and yet, she couldn't see herself living here at all.
Where was she here? Where was her mess, her picture frames, her thrift store trinkets and half drunken mugs of tea?
The apartment was as bare and as clinical as her hospital room, decorated with neutrals and of pale blues and furnished to the bare but functional minimum.
Gou had never felt more out of place in her entire life.
"It'll take some time," Haruka reminded her, but after the first week of living together, Gou grew more and more impatient at how long exactly it would take.
They did not exist together in the way she imagined a husband and wife would do.
Most of the time, it felt like they were tiptoeing around each other; like two roommates who barely shared a language, managing only simple exchanges like what they wanted to eat for dinner and if they had slept well that night.
Haruka was trying, she had to admit.
He was markedly more comfortable in their apartment than she could ever be.
There were times where he strip down casually in front of her, wear little else but a blue apron as he cooked, whilst Gou would break into sprint between the shower and the locked bedroom door.
It just didn't make sense, but Gou knew that she was being unfair.
She was grateful that Haru was patient with her – gently reminding her on several occasions that she didn't need to ask permission to use the bathroom, and was always there to show her where things were kept and how the tv worked.
Gou could not deny that that her supposed husband did everything in his power to make her feel comfortable – to make her feel more 'at home.'
Even on days when she felt like locking herself up in her room and crying about it all, he gave her the space she needed – waiting patiently on the other side of her locked door and, unbeknownst to her, desperately wanting to hold her through her tears.
She did that a lot, during their first week.
She would cry for herself at first, because even though she was alive, that her cuts and bruises would heal with time, she had come out of her accident to an existence that did not belong to her and on her darkest days, that was as good as being dead.
But what surprised her the most was how often she found herself crying for Haru, though the reason for it was simple and unsurprising.
Because whenever he thought that she wasn't looking, Gou would almost always catch him staring at her in the corner of her eye – a faraway look, she always thought – as though he was not in the present, but in a place where Gou was curious of but could not follow.
It was as if he was wishing to god, to anyone that was listening, to bring his real wife back in place of this imposter.
A week after being discharged, Haru drove her back to the hospital for her follow up appointment, sadly reporting no change in her ability to retrieve her memories.
"I thought as much," Rei had stated unhelpfully, and advised the couple to be patient. Recovering them was going to be like a healing wound – that it doesn't happen overnight.
He sat them down in his office, and talked her and Haruka through the results of her tests against a backlit screen.
"Your MRI scans have revealed some swelling in several parts of your brain," he explained. "An 'acceleration-deceleration' injury, as we'd describe it. The organ was 'thrown around' during the accident, the impact with your skull causing some damage to your long term memory store..."
Astonishingly, Rei seemed delighted by these findings.
"...There have been cases like this before, but nothing quite so – selective," he completed, stars in his eyes. "I'd like to write a paper about it. It's absolutely fascinating!"
"I feel so special," Gou said mordantly, and the doctor cleared his throat, belatedly appreciating how insensitive his comment may have been.
"I'm sorry I can't provide any more insight," Rei apologised sincerely.. "But you must understand how unique your situation is, Gou-chan. There is no cure, no medicine you can take. And from similar cases I've read about, the best thing to do is to get you back into your normal routine."
He took her to their favourite restaurant for breakfast, where the chirpy young waitress greeted her with a friendly smile and asked her if she wanted "the usual," and Gou ate the most delicious pancakes she had ever tasted.
Feeling more proactive after her check up with Rei, Haruka and Gou spent the following days looking at photographs together, visiting her workplace and on walks in the park by their apartment.
Haru would try his best in relaying little anecdotes, conversations, even arguments they had, and though Gou grew more informed of their relationship as each day passed, she still felt very much of an outsider, listening to love story that did not belong to her.
Their third weekend together came around, and with and the medical 'ok' from Rei, Haruka decided to take Gou to their favourite and most frequented venue of them all.
The car pulled up outside the local swimming pool and Gou's immediate reaction was panic.
"W–What are we doing here?!"
Haru held the passenger door for her, with a look that meant something along the lines of: what do you think?
Sheepishly, she followed him into the centre, and was greeted by a middle aged man a star cut into his hair, standing behind the reception desk.
They must have been good friends before her accident, because she could barely get a word in edgeways.
"Ah, Gou-chan!" he greeted her boisterously. "I haven't seen ya in awhile! It's good to have you back! Only ever see Haru visiting by himself these days. How've ya been? How's everything going with the–?!"
Coach Sasabe stopped mid-sentence soon after registering a frantic Haru making a cutting gesture at his throat.
"–Huh?" he blinked, before coming to belated realisation. "Oh – shit – I mean, sorry!"
He slapped a hand over his forehead so comically that she couldn't help but smile.
"I completely forgot. Maybe I've got amnesia too!" Sasabe joked without taste, and though Gou had laughed as graciously as she could, Haru did not look best pleased.
Red faced, the coach issued her a pass and pointed her in the direction of the women's changing rooms.
"Have a good swim – Miss!" he blundered awkwardly.
Without her knowledge, Haruka was well prepared with an already packed a sports bag for her, handing it to Gou before shooting off into the direction of the pool.
Inside were toiletries and a fresh towel, and wrapped within that, a red bikini that looked as if it were made for bathing in the sun than for any kind of water activity.
Gou inspected what little material there was from arms length, and sighed through a tiny smile.
It was definitely something a boy would pick – especially one whose wife had permanently relegated him to the living room sofa.
Dressed (somewhat), Gou crouched at the poolside with the toes curled over the tiles and her elbows wound around her knees.
Haruka was already in the pool, limbs gracefully gliding through the water and looking the happiest he had been in the past few weeks.
She watched him in something like awe, because even though she used to spot her brother and support him in countless swim meets, she had never seen anyone look so peaceful in the water like Haruka did.
She would have been happy to sit and watch him in there the entire time, if it wasn't until he fell into a steady stride towards where she was sitting, mindful of her hesitance.
He stopped in front of her, regarding her expectantly, and Gou ducked her head in shame.
"I already told you. I can't swim."
"Yes you can," Haru insisted. "I taught you."
Gou blinked at him, "y–you did?"
He nodded, his chin dipping in the surface of the water.
"Yes, you're very good."
Gou shot him a skeptical look and his lips curved upwards guiltily.
"Okay, you're alright," he admitted. "But you're much better now than when we first started dating."
With that little persuasion, Gou agreed to get into the water at the very least, meeting Haru at shallow end of the pool.
As she lowered herself in, Haru supported her gently by the wrists – the first time he dared to touch her since the incident at the hospital – and with his touch, came a searing sensation on the surface of her skin, like being branded as a belonging.
He asked: "do you trust me?"
And for some unknown reason, Gou felt compelled to say yes.
He guided her into the water until she was submerged to the collarbones, and the harder it was for her toes to touch the bottom of the pool, the more panicked she became.
"Nanase-san…"
"Relax," Haru reassured her, "I've got you..."
To her surprise, when her feet could no longer touch that tiles, her legs began automatically kicking into a perfect breaststroke formation – shocking Gou so much that she spun her head around to look at her legs as if they were a different entity to her entirely.
"What – how?!" she gasped.
"Muscle memory," Haruka explained. "Rei told me about it. Even though your brain doesn't remember, your body does…"
His grasp on her relaxed.
"…I'm going to let go now."
Before Gou could protest, he was already lengths in the opposite direction, and certain that she would drown without his assistance, followed after him without a seconds thought.
Her legs began to kick and her arms began pedaling into crawl – the motion so innate that it took her a minute or two to realise that there was nothing to worry about – that she was absolutely fine.
"I'm swimming!" she repeated joyfully, to Haruka and anyone that was listening. "I'm swimming!"
The sport had always been her older brother's thing, where her whole family's focus on Rin took over to the point where no one thought to teach herself.
It didn't matter to her of course. She always supported her brother, even when he decided to take his training abroad, but she had always thought it would be nice to be able to jump into the pool with him one day, to visit the beach and swim in the ocean – without the aid of several embarrassing flotation devices.
Haruka passed her with a splash – he's so fast! she thought – and Gou laughed and took after him in a vain attempt to get him back.
It had seemed like a decade since remembered having so much fun, and at that moment, with him:
Gou had never felt so free.
He was waiting for her outside the lobby, when the sun had set and they were the last ones to leave the pool – apparently a regular occurrence according to their friend Coach Sasabe.
She came to his side, and as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Haru lifted a hand to graze his knuckles against her cheek, brushing away a strand of hair still damp from her shower.
"Ready to go home?" he asked.
Gou nodded enthusiastically, "sure!"
He sat close, shoulder to shoulder and occasionally providing context as she studied the snapshots of her misplaced memories.
"That was at our wedding," Haru said, with a light-hearted humour in his tone.
He had always sounded so serious that it both surprised and intrigued her.
"Rei got completely wasted on champagne and made an impromptu speech about the 'beauty' of marriage. The next picture is Rin and Nagisa dragging him off the stage…"
Gou could not imagine someone has straight laced and serious as Dr. Rygazaki to do such a thing, until she turned the page and saw just that, and in spite of everything, she laughed out loud and he laughed along with her.
Gou decided that she adored the sound of his laugh.
It made her heart lurch violently against her ribcage – tearing at her in a way she had no idea how to respond.
He wanted to kiss her, desperately.
Gou could tell, by the way his eyes would linger at her lips whenever he thought she wasn't looking.
The part that worried her the most was how desperately she wanted him to kiss her too.
It had been this way since that day at the pool: an increased desire to be near him, to hear him speak and find excuses to touch him – once coming across him fast asleep on the couch and wanting nothing more but to curl up by his side and feel the length of his body enveloping hers.
"That smells like mackerel," Gou had teased one night, entering the kitchen to offer him her help with dinner.
"Yes," Haru replied tenaciously. "I don't know if you remember, but you love mackerel."
Feeling completely natural with doing so, Gou came up next to him teased: "do I, now?"
And unexpected to them both, Haru swooped down and placed his lips against hers – a chaste, completely unconscious kiss – that was nothing in comparison to the myriad he had given her before.
"Yes, you do," he smiled, knocking the temple of his head with hers playfully.
It was a good five seconds or so before Haru could appreciate the magnitude of his offence, and another five for Gou to register what had happened herself.
"Shit…" he reeled back from her immediately, "Kou, I'm so sorry–"
"–No, no, it's okay…" she managed, though her cheeks were lighting up and her tongue felt far too large for her mouth.
Because, despite his earlier apology, Haru was still staring at her with that deep, all consuming look he was so good at: eyes tracking over her every reaction intently and darkening with thoughts that she could only guess because she shared them too.
Her heartbeat shifted up in tempo, her mouth running dry on the brink of a sudden quivering surge of intense awareness.
"…I mean…" she managed, "it's fine…I want…I want–"
Haru took a step closer to her, placing a hand on the counter between them, his fingers spreading over the granite causing Gou to shudder.
It was as if she could feel them, as acutely as if they were on her skin, realising shamelessly at that moment just how badly she wanted him to touch her.
As if he had read her mind, his other hand rose to her face, his thumb smoothing along the curve of her lower lip.
His gaze dropped down to her mouth.
"–More?" he asked.
A second of her hesitation was all he needed, before he gathered her into his arms, and this time, he didn't hold back.
Haru ran a hand up the length of her back, and gripping at her hair, tilted her head up to him and brought his mouth swooping down into explosive connection with hers.
His tongue ran along the compressed line of her lips and she parted them against his instinctively, as if she had any idea what she was supposed to be doing in the first place.
But she didn't need to know, because her muscles moved for her; arms looping around his shoulders, her legs wrapping around his waist as he lifted her onto the kitchen counter.
She did not mind his wandering touch, or the way he pushed her clothes aside to feel the heat of her skin against his own; his gentle touch brushing against her spine and deftly releasing the fastening on her bra.
He smoothed the palm of his hands up the length of her shins and gripping at her knees, pried her legs apart and continued their journey along her thighs and under her skirt.
She could hear herself begging – please, please, please, Haru... – because everything he did was simply not enough, not until he was as close to her as he could possibly be.
She could feel her nerves delighting in the way he reacted to her encouragement, her pulse jumping underneath his lips, reveling in her shuddered intake of breath.
He groaned into her mouth, the single, most delicious sound vibrating to the back of her throat.
"Kou…"
She let her eyelids fall shut with his silky voice.
"…Do you remember me now?"
In a span of a breath, Gou was fired back into her harsh reality.
Her whole body stiffened with rejection.
With all of her strength, she shoved at Haruka's shoulders and sent him flying into the table set.
"No!" she cried behind her trembling hands. "No I don't!"
Haru gathered his footing and gaped at her, crestfallen:
"Kou, calm down, please–"
"–stay away from me!"
He took a cautious step towards her all the same; "Kou. Y–You must remember – even a just little? Because even if your mind doesn't, your body does and what just happened shows that–"
"–I know, but please don't try to force it!" Gou raked at him with impatience. She gripped at her head, insides spinning out of control. "Don't you see how frustrating this is for me?"
"Kou–"
"–Stop calling me that!" she spat. "I don't even know who you are!"
"But–"
"–I don't want to be here anymore! I don't want to be anywhere near you!" Gou fused her eyes shut, yelling madly over his protests. "I want to go home!"
Silence fell, alive with the throbbing undertones of her hysterical outburst.
If heartbreak were an expression, it was stamped all over his face and poised in every wilted muscle of his body.
"I'm sorry, you're right, that was…" he apologised, the light leaving his eyes, "…I won't let that happen again."
Wordlessly, Haru left the kitchen, abandoning dinner all together and took off towards the front door.
He snatched up his keys on the way and slipped on a pair of sneakers.
Gou didn't know why she felt compelled to follow after him.
"Wait, w–where are you going?" she asked, like she had the right to question him at all.
"For a run," his voice was brittle. "I won't be long."
The sound of their apartment door clicked shut before she could question him further, and noise that followed was the sound of her own tears.
With knees threatening to fold, Gou covered her face with spread hands, a feeling of despairing emptiness closing around her.
She didn't mean to shout at him like that.
She had never hated herself more in her whole life.
Haru was not sure how, but his impromptu evening run somehow ended at a nearby bar where Makoto was waiting, ready with a freshly pulled pint of beer.
With a slurred tongue, Haru spieled on about how difficult the past three weeks had been, ranting bitterly about their argument, how he and Gou had "never spoken like that to each other before" and how "god damn sexually frustrated" he was these days.
"It's like she's not even trying!" Haru denounced, always a little more talkative after a couple of drinks.
"Isn't it obvious, Haru?" Makoto offered his rational outlook. "Gou's mind has erased the last three years worth of memories, and you have been present in her life for the past two..."
Hunched over the bar counter and swaying in his seat, Makoto realised that he had to spell it out for the slightly inebriated Haruka.
"...The reason why she doesn't trust you, why she isn't open to trying to fix things with you is because, in her current state of mind…"
He explained:
"…Gou is still in love with Mikoshiba Seijuro."
Gou waited up for Haru's return, but with no word from him minutes to eleven, she decided to distract herself with a bath – sitting for what felt like hours glaring at whatever skin she could see through the clouded water.
Muscle memory, Haru had called it at the pool.
Gou traced a fingertip over her knee and the top of her thigh and shuddering, could still feel his hands every inch of her skin.
She blew out noisily: what had happened to her just now?
She couldn't explain herself – that was the most appalling discovery of all.
How had she lost control like that?
On every level her body had recognised his, reached out to him with an insanely instinctive need that she could not control.
Oh god, her very bones ached for him.
She let a hand dip between her thighs, remembering how she much had wanted him, so badly that she thought she would die if she couldn't have him.
Throwing her head back against the edge of the bathtub, Gou thought of his lips on hers and the way his hands had taken control, mimicking the feeling as she fused her eyes shut and curled two digits inside of her.
"Haru…" she heard herself moan – until she startled upright the second she realised exactly what she was doing.
A sob escaped her throat at the realisation: that she had never wanted anything or anyone more in her entire life, and it terrified her.
Because, why?
Who was he to her?
What had he done to provoke that kind of reaction from her?
There was only one thing Gou knew for sure, and that was:
She needed answers.
The single, most potent memory before her accident had occurred was the day that Mikoshiba Seijuro proposed to her.
It had been at the restaurant where they had their first date and to add to the authenticity, he was the same, blumbering mess he was the night he had proposed that Gou said yes, of course, in a heartbeat.
Seijuro was everything a girl who had grown up without a father would want: a strong, male figure, devilishly handsome and above all else – present, a constant in her life from the very start, when used to tail after her all over campus and carry her books, begging her to give him a chance.
And when she did, she fell in love with him – so deeply that it seemed impossible to have woken up and learnt that she had chosen to spend her life with someone else she did not even remember.
It wasn't difficult to track him down.
Mikoshiba Seijuro was now head coach of the senior swim team at Samezuka, his high school where he spent his most of his treasured teenage years as their captain. He had always said to Gou that if his own career as a professional failed to take off, it would be his dream to end up teaching there too.
He spotted her from across the pool and his eyebrows rose halfway up to his hairline.
"Gou-kun!" he waved exaggeratedly, and even though she always hated that nickname, it felt familiar to her ears and she couldn't help but smile and wave back.
He hesitated before her hugged her, and even then his arms were loose around her shoulders.
"It's – it's so good to see you," he said, apprehensively. "I heard about your accident...I wanted to visit but…"
She waited to speak to him when practice was over, not wanting to cause too much of a disruption, and agreed to meet him inside his office.
It was like an adult version of his college dorm, she thought, and about a similar size too.
His desk was cluttered with unopened letters and empty protein bar wrappers, and his walls were tacked with pictures of his team, his family, and Gou was pleased to see that his goofy younger brother hadn't changed a bit in the past couple of years.
She found that anything with a frame held slightly more significance; his university diploma, his teaching licence and awards.
What surprised Gou the most was that he still had the framed snapshot of her that had been in his room too – hidden amongst the books and trophies that lined the shelf above his desk.
Serijuro returned before she could pick it's meaning for too long.
They fumbled through the formalities – "you look well," "s–so do you, Gou-kun!" – before she explained the reason for her visit, her accident and her amnesia, and the all questions she needed answering because of it.
"...It's all a bit strange for me, as you can imagine," she completed with a nervous laugh. "Because, the last I remember...I was...engaged to you..."
Serijuro had offered her the only seat in his office, and sat himself perched on the edge of his desk with hands resting on his knees.
He looked as if he were struggling to hold himself up in that position, even more so to digest what she had told him, making no indication to elaborate on anything she said.
"...I'm really sorry for bringing this all up again," Gou prompted, feeling awful as she did. "I just – I want to know...what went wrong between us? And how I ended up with...?"
For some reason, she couldn't even say Haru's name around him, judging by the way her ex-fiancé blew air past his lips and ran a stressed had through his hair.
He was still as handsome as ever, Gou thought sillily.
Age had only made his features mature and his stubble grow a little darker. He was still tall, tanned and well built, and she was pleased to see quite clearly through his uniform that he was sticking to that strict gym regimen of his.
"The thing is Gou. I'm still trying to figure that out myself," Seijuro finally admitted.
Gou blinked, taken aback. "What you do mean?"
"We were happy, we were planning our wedding – we had that huge country house booked for the day, the one with the big gardens – like you always wanted..."
His voice trailed off, apparently in recollection that was too painful to rencounter.
"...And then you met Nanase-san," he skipped a beat, unable to let a little bitterness slip into his tone. "I knew he liked you, from the very first moment I met him..."
Serijuro looked at her then, eyes still searching for answer.
"...I just didn't realise that you liked him too."
Gou leant back in her seat, with no idea what she had expected him to say.
She enumerated the countless of reasons of why people break up – arguments, differences, simply falling out of love – but she had never considered that she had been the one to end it, to have left someone who loved her and she loved in return.
Her throat contracted, "it was...me?"
Serijuro glanced at her briefly, before averting his gaze to the corner of the room.
"I'm sorry I can't be more helpful. It honestly came as quite a shock when you asked me to call it all off." He admitted sadly: "I had no idea you were unhappy."
And Gou could not see herself unhappy with him either and this new information, was thrown into a state of anguished conflict.
Of course, with her luck, it wasn't never going to be as simple as a bad argument or 'falling out of love,' – she had fallen for someone else and hurt Serijuro in the process – for feelings that barely existed to her anymore.
"How...did you feel?" she swallowed, "when we...when I…?"
She watched his shoulders deflate with the weight of the question.
"It was hard, I mean...this is the first time we've properly spoken since…"
To hear that they were no longer on speaking terms was apparently the last straw as Gou's trembling bottom lip quickly escalated into full on wails, snot and tears.
Seijuro, as any man would, panicked and frantically began shuffling around his desk looking for a stray box of tissues.
"Please, Gou-kun, don't cry–"
"– I – I'm so sorry" she sobbed, "I must have caused you a lot of pain–!"
"–It's okay, it's been years now! I got over it as soon as I saw how happy you were with Nanase," Seijuro insisted good-naturedly. "I worked hard on myself, ended up getting a job that I really enjoy..."
He added, after a beat:
"...I'm even seeing someone now too!"
The tears stopped the instant Gou felt a pang of jealousy pound at her chest.
"You are?" she sniffed.
"Yes, for a few months now," he confirmed, and a second pang hit her in the stomach, leaving her with a winded feeling that made it difficult to breathe.
"I–I'm glad," she managed nonetheless. "I'm really glad you're happy now, Seijuro."
Awkwardly, she wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands, and before she could embarrass herself any further, stated that she had to be somewhere in the afternoon.
Politely refusing a ride back into town, Gou pulled her best fake smile and stepped into to his arms for an final, amicable embrace.
She breathed in the familiar smell of chlorine mixed with his aftershave, "thank you for seeing me," she spoke into his chest. "Even after...everything. You have no idea how nice it is to see a familiar face."
Gou felt his arms close around her, tighter and for longer than before, and it was so nice to be held by him, to look up and see his face smiling down at her, telling her that everything was going to be okay.
Because it came from Seijuro – not from her doctors, her mother or Haru – she could actually believe it, and unable to help herself, Gou raised up on her tiptoes to reach that last couple of inches that separated their lips.
It happened too fast for her to stop herself.
The next thing she knew, there was a racket of folders and stationery swept off the desk before she was laid onto it, and Serijuro towering over her, hands at tangled in her hair, tracing down her sides and wrestling tirelessly through several fortresses of clothing.
He was muttering under his breath of how much he missed her, how he always knew that she would come back to him and even though it was all she could remember, Gou could not help but feel it was not quite what her body was used to, or rather, what she truly wanted.
He did not kiss the way Haruka had kissed her; did not touch her like he did, in that way that made her toes curl and her lungs gasp for air…
Gou's eyes snapped open, as if coming out of a daze.
"...I'm – I'm sorry, I – I can't!" she strained her neck away from his mouth. "I'm married. I'm married, Serijuro!"
At that moment, the office door swung open and Tachibana Makoto walked in, already halfway through a sentence explaining a swimming schedule or something or other.
If Gou could have chosen to remember anything at all, it was that Haruka's best friend worked as an instructor at the same school as her ex-fiancé.
The couple sprung apart, but not fast enough for him to register the position they were in.
"Mako-kun," Seijuro teetered nervously, maybe even a little irritably. "I didn't hear you knock…?"
Makoto shot the man a boding look, making an effort to soften it before they fell into Gou's smudged lipstick, tousled hair and giveaway guilty expression.
He stepped through the office door again, holding it open for all the world to see.
"Gou-chan." He said it as more of an instruction than a suggestion: "do you need a ride home?"
Gou nodded and followed after him, unable to utter a single word.
Makoto put the car into park outside Gou and Haru's apartment building, but the girl in the passenger seat next to him made no indication to exit the vehicle.
She had been silent the entire ride home, with her hands fastened to her lap, tracing the perimeter of her fingertips as if they wanted to escape from her palms.
He spoke to tell her that they had arrived and with a startle, Gou turned to him and panicked:
"Makoto-senpai, please don't tell–"
"–Gou-chan," Makoto cut short her pleas. "I know you don't know him very well right now, that he's nothing but a stranger to you, but–"
He appraised her with all the earnestness he could muster.
"–Haru is a good man."
Gou closed her eyes against the hot moisture lashing in the backs of her eyelids, threatening to fall.
"I know," she said.
He was not home when she arrived, his absence was enough to send warning signals to every nerve in her body.
She called his office and mobile, twice – did this guy ever answer his phone? – and paced around their apartment for something to do, eventually deciding in light of the wasted meal the previous evening, to get started on a dinner of mackerel for his eventual return.
She heard keys and the apartment door unlock not long after she had set the table, apron clad and acting like the perfect wife she was supposed to be.
"Harukra-san, okaeri..."
Gou didn't have to know her husband well to see that her sixth sense had not betrayed her, when Haru cast a look at the meal she had prepared and saw every angle of his body go rigid with tension.
They had not been married long, but it was long enough to know all the places where she tickled, and the way she laughed when he did.
Haru loved the way her ponytail swayed when she talked about something that excited her, hated that she never finished her tea, and he knew that whenever Gou felt guilty – for dropping that expensive camera lens he just bought, or accidentally dying all of shirts his pink – she would make him mackerel for dinner, even though she hated how it stunk up their tiny apartment for days.
"You're home late," she spoke into their silence nervously.
She pulled out a seat for him, her guilt also making her unnecessarily helpful.
"Busy day?"
Haru sat down, without a word, and she hurriedly took the seat opposite him, desperate to put something between them due to his current mood.
Gou picked at her food, and Haru barely touched his, sitting for minutes that were hours with his hands fisted underneath the table.
"I was just on the phone to your mother," he finally spoke.
Gou sat upright in her seat to his attention, unaware that she was waiting for him to acknowledge her.
"Oh? I haven't spoken to her today. Did she say anything about–?"
"–You can move back in with her tomorrow."
His statement was followed by a clatter of cutlery against china plates.
Gou's throat contracted, "w–what are you saying...?"
Haru glanced up at her, his expression indifferent.
"Isn't that what you want?" he delivered as a flat aside.
Her carmine eyes searched for his desperately, hating that after everything they'd been through these past couple of weeks, that he was acting so indifferent about her.
"D–Don't you want me here anymore?" Gou heard herself say, a stupid question because she closed her eyes against his answer, already knowing what he was going to say.
Haru looked down at his meal, and did not look up at her again.
"No," he whispered. "I don't."