This fic is pure wish-fulfillment. If you're too edgy for a happy ending, click away now.
"The surgery was successful…" the doctor said.
Kaori's mother gasped, and her father drew a sharp breath at almost the exact same time, but the doctor shuffled his feet awkwardly.
"The surgery was a success, in the sense that her life is in no immediate danger, but I…" He spread his hands before him in a gesture of helplessness. "She will never move her limbs again…" He looked straight at her parents. "Kaori-chan is paralyzed from the neck below…"
Her mother raised her hands slowly to cover her mouth, but suddenly, Kousei clenched his fists. A strange, inexplicable surge of anger – raw, burning anger that he could not explain – rushed through his body like a liquid fire.
"I don't care!" he growled. Kaori's parents looked at him in evident shock. "I don't fucking care! She was going to die! She was going to die and now she isn't! I don't care what anyone has to give up for that to happen! I would cut my own limbs off if that was what is took! I don't care if she's paralyzed. I don't care if you care about that! I will live with her. I will love her enough for the entire world. I will live my life for her alone, because it belongs to her already. I belong to her already." He breathed, the tension in his limbs relaxing, his fists opening again. "I would do anything not to lose the person I love most again…" he said softly.
Her mother broke the silence. "Of course," she said solemnly, wiping her eyes. "We don't care if she can't walk anymore. We don't care if she can't…" Her eyes swam, and the tears spilled down her face again. She clutched her husband's arm for support. "But she'll never play the violin again…" she whispered.
"I – I'm sorry for yelling… I just… I just – She just means so much to me…" he admitted. "I just cannot bring myself to care about anything other than the fact that I'm not going to lose her. This feels like a dream… I can't even feel my legs."
Her father took a steadying breath. "You're right, Arima-kun – Kousei-kun." He turned to the doctor. "Thank you, sensei," he said, and fell into a bow. "Thank you, for saving our daughter. Thank you, for bringing us the best news anyone could ever receive. Thank you."
xXx
At last, "Hello!" You've opened your eyes. But why won't you even look me in the eyes? What's wrong with you?
She is sitting up when he enters. The window beside her bed has its curtains pulled to the sides and the sunlight streams in, filling the room with a bright white light where the only other color is the gold of her hair. She looks up at him when he enters, and smiles.
You say I'm late... But I came here as fast as my legs could carry me
He stares at her in awe like he always does. Speechless and breathless and unable to think anything except marvel at the perfection of the one before him. And how can he not? How does one react when faced with a goddess? How does one react when faced with the object of one's hope, dreams, borderline worship? He does not know, and there is nothing he can do except stare.
My heart got here before my body could ever make it
"Yo," she says, and suddenly the world is bright and colorful and beautiful and wonderful and time itself stops, and he feels like he stands in that room, nothing but a white light around him with her at the other side, from the beginning of everything until the end, and every instant he spends staring at her is like a lifetime, because of how complete her perfection is.
Seeing your hair falling, and your eyes glowing, hurts my very core
Wish I could breathe in the same dimension... I don't wanna let it go!
Now that I am finally faced with the voice I've known for so long
I don't know what the words should be... The very first I say to you
"…Yo," he says, his own voice feeling alien to him.
She smiles, and he feels like the breath is stolen from him like a huge gust of wind flowing away from him through the room, almost as if something pushes him forward, as if the hand of fate propels him to move closer to her, and he marvels at how her smile affects him the way he always imagined their meeting – like a string pulling him to her.
運命の赤い糸とは...。
Like a chess piece, or a spirit with no purpose, no meaning, no reason to live, a leaf upon the wind coming across something that suddenly makes the sky light up in meaning and leaves it gaping, a small fire burning up inside, he walks forward. It feels like he's walking through a dream, because all he sees is her. His legs feel like he's pushing through water, and the time around him has slowed to a near halt, and she watches him like a merciful, forgiving god looking onto her subjects with acceptance, he walks forward, walking as if he were shedding the weight of the world, walking as if he's shedding a life's worth of sin, and without thinking he takes her hand and kneels before her, and when he stands it's as if he rises a new man.
She opens her mouth as if to say something but hesitates, and it occurs to him she's uncertain about something, so he hovers above the chair he was making to sit upon. He looks to her, and she chews her lower lip, a slight red of uncertainty upon her cheeks. She moves her head in half a gesture, but his eyes widen as he realizes what she wants. Perhaps it does not make sense for his eyes to widen. The thought does cross his mind, but when he's with her there's nothing but her and he forgets the world or the world does not exist for a moment, or maybe it's never existed, and there is so world, no universe, and all that exists is the two of them, or maybe he does not even exist, and only she exists, an eternal, birthless, deathless existence, and he's nothing more than the sliver of a concept, a sliver of awe that's only there as a result of her perfection, a reaction born of the golden light she gives off, and suddenly all that exists is that she's expressed a desire for him to sit on that bed with her, so he abandons the chair and does as she commands.
"I heard your music," she says.
He feels disconnected. Perhaps it's being in the same room with her again. Being able to talk to her again. Perhaps deep down, he'd felt like he would not be able to do that anymore. Had he made peace with that, he wonders? What would have happened had her surgery gone wrong? What would he have done, had she indeed lost her life? He thinks he knows the answer. Yes. He definitely knows the answer. And it doesn't bother him.
"I was playing for you," he says, and he sees the two of them almost as if from outside his body, sees a plain, subdued boy sitting beside a goddess, talking to her in quiet tones he cannot place the significance of but knows mean something. "I always play for you." A quiet comfortability that can only exist between two people who've accepted each other in way that should not be possible outside the world of fairytales. They talk for a long time, exchanging quiet words while time is stopped around them.
She sighs, and averts her gaze. Her hand is in his, and perhaps through that, he feels a tug at his heart when she looks away as if there's something troubling her.
"I have to think about 'what now?'" she says. "That's something I never thought about before." She pauses, as if this is hard for her to admit for some reason, or otherwise hard to put into words. "For the longest time, my life was about getting through the day. I'd try to have as much fun as I possibly could, try to forget there was anything beyond that day. I think… I think I was scared, perhaps? Or maybe that's not the right word. I don't know what the right word is, but I could never think about the future. It was like I was not living one, continuous life, but rather hundreds. Hundreds of disconnected, completely standalone lives, each coming to an end when I laid down to sleep at night every day.
"It was when I met you… Under those cherry blossoms, that my eyes suddenly opened to the concept of the future. I knew my death was only a matter of time. I knew, and yet I… I began to look forward to every day as another opportunity to be around you, to make memories with you, despite knowing full well the tomorrow I was looking forward to might never come. Despite knowing I was not promised tomorrow, I started to look forward to it. I was stepping out of line. Out of my station. Hoping for a tomorrow that I had no right to. Hoping for a place I had no right to."
She looks at him, and her eyes are glistening. "But now I have to think about the future… I… I don't know – Perhaps it's because I haven't felt hope – or anything related to a future in so long I'm not used to it anymore, but my mind is going crazy… So many possibilities… A future I'd never dared to even think about is now within reach. All I have to do is reach out, and it's mine. Even though I don't really have any claim to it.
"The surgery paralyzed me, yes, but right now…" Her breath is short, as if her heart is thundering. "It doesn't even bother me. And… I have to think about the future now. I feel bolder, in a way. I know I shouldn't think I have the right to – But you know… even so… I'm still going forth with it.
"Kousei." She looks at him, her gaze suddenly sharp, and he blinks, his heart suddenly thundering. She's never said his name before, but now she does, and he feels himself staring again.
"There." She gestures with her head. There's a letter on the nightstand beside her bed. "This was supposed to go to you after I died. But I'm not going to die, so I shouldn't show you, but I poured my heart out in that letter. Everything I am, everything I've ever been and ever wanted to be, is contained within that letter.
"Kousei," she says seriously, and he finds he cannot look away from her. "This letter contains the essence of all that I am. You read this letter, you're accepting all of who and what I am."
He laughs softly, and raises a hand to her face. "I belong to you, Kaori. I have since the day we met. You know that. Do you not?"
She smiles, and looks down at her own lap, shaking her head. "Tsubaki loves you. I'm such a horrible person. I'm supposed to be her best friend."
"But I love you," he says. "Tsubaki means a lot to me. In fact, I'd give my life for her without a second thought. But I love you."
She nods. "I know."
He takes the letter, tacitly accepting the covenant she's laid before him.
xXx
好きです。
好きです。
好きです。
It's the most beautiful thing he's ever read, more beautiful than any piece of music ever. He cries. Even knowing she's here beside him, that she'll always be here beside him, it hurts. It hurts knowing she wrote this as a farewell. It hurts knowing she wrote it thinking it will be her last address to the world. And somewhere deep down he feels good. He's selfish for thinking so, but he feels good. Her last address to the world, and she addresses him.
"I love you too," she says softly.
No. She's not an eternal, birthless, deathless existence that has always been and always will be. No, she's a girl. Just a girl. A fourteen year old junior high school student. A girl with the weight of the world thrust upon her shoulders, fear and pain no one should have to bear. A girl who's been scared all this time. The realization doesn't stump him, as he might expect. Rather, it makes the love he harbors for her burn even stronger until it lights up the darkest recesses of the world, and a sudden, fierce desire to take her in his arms and protect her against the world that would hurt her seizes him so powerfully it's as if he's looking at the world for the first time, and suddenly it's not them suspended in a white space. Suddenly, the world exists around them, and it's him and the girl he loves, the girl he'd split the moon in half for, the girl he'd fly up to Heaven and tear whatever God resides there Who would dare to try and hurt her down upon the Earth and lay His perfect Kingdom at His feet. She's no less perfect to him for his realization that she's not a goddess but a frightened middle school girl, but for the first time he sees his place in this world of hers. He lives for her. That he already knew. But he knows he has to take a step or something will come and take her away from him. And he would tear existence itself down to keep that from happening.
"Kaori," he hears himself say, emboldened by the adrenaline that's suddenly flowing through him. "Move in with me."
Yes, the answer to what he would have done had she died doesn't bother him. Now that he knows who he is and what his place in the world is, he finds that he's comfortable following her wherever she goes.
"What…?"
It probably sounds stupid. He has to be the first fourteen year old to ever ask someone to move in together, but he knows the bond they share is stronger than any couple in the world.
"I'm not asking you to marry me right now," he says. "I know we can't yet, legally. But move in with me. I want to be with you, all the time. Let me push your wheelchair. Let me cook for you. Let me do something for you. Let me love you. Let me live for you, and nothing but you, until my last day."
xXx
Even if you were to lose everything and be scattered to the winds,
I'll never lose my way again - I'll just start searching again from step 1,
Humming this song for as many light years as it may take!
Her parents saw her after Kousei. It was only after he was already out of her room that he realized they'd sent him to see her before anyone else. Even her parents had stepped aside and let him see her first.
The sudden realization hitting him, he turned around, perhaps to thank them, but the hallway was empty save a nurse. He sighed, but a soft smile crept up onto his lips. Shaking his head, he continued to walk forward.
xXx
It was not exactly an easy decision, and he had not expected her to answer immediately. She had to stay back at the hospital for two weeks after the surgery while they performed so many tests Kousei could not even count them, but he accompanied her to as many as he was allowed into.
Kaori spent long hours talking to her parents while he waited outside her room. He never asked about it. No doubt they were talking about some private matters. After a few days of being with her all day, she convinced him to start going to school again.
Watari and Tsubaki had already visited. Kaori tried to formally break off her relationship with Watari, but Watari simply smiled and shrugged her off, saying that he always knew she and Kousei were perfect for each other. Tsubaki accepted their new relationship with a smile as well, but perhaps the pain Kousei saw behind that smile was his imagination. He felt a surge of affection toward his childhood friend, but his heart belonged to Kaori, so he knew he had no right to try to make Tsubaki feel better. But they were both happy to see him in school again.
He realized the implications of his offer, and what he was asking of her. If he were told it was the first time in modern history that someone had made an offer so bold, he would not be surprised. But even though thinking about it made him weak at the knees, he did not regret asking her.
Her parents didn't talk to him about it. Their treatment of him didn't change either. They were still as genuinely kind as they'd always been. If anything, they seemed even warmer toward him now, since Kousei and Kaori announced their relationship. Kaori had requested a few days to talk to her parents about it, and he imagined they were discussing it in the times they spent in her hospital room alone.
It was the day before she was going to be discharged that she summoned him to her room and he knew she had his answer. His heart began to thunder when he saw her, her expression almost grim. His heart in his mouth, he walked slowly forward as if walking to judgment and sat down on a chair beside her bed.
"I… spoke with my parents," she said.
He could only nod numbly, the air seeming absolutely silent around them.
"And…They agreed with me. They're letting me move in with you… if I want to…"
He released a breath he did not he'd been holding, and suddenly his heart was in his throat again.
"So… You'll move in with me?" He took a breath, a slight excitement rising inside him. "We'll have the house to ourselves. My dad barely ever comes home, so it'll pretty much be like we're living alone."
But she appeared torn, so he paused and looked at her. She looked away.
"What is it?" he said.
"Are you really sure about this…? Is this what you really want?"
"I… Of course it is. What are you talking about?"
"You'd dedicate your entire life to a girl who can't even feed herself?" she said, looking at him.
He cupped her face gently and rested his forehead against hers. "My life was yours the moment I saw you among those cherry blossoms," he murmured.
Her lower lip trembled, and she bit it, the tears spilling from her eyes.
「運命の赤い糸が僕を君に引き合わせてくれた」
He ran as fast as he could. He ran until the world around him disappeared. He ran until he was flying through the air. He ran until the wind was like a solid around him. He ran until he was flying through the universe like light.
The door burst open before him. He came to a screeching halt before the bed.
"Kaori…"
She didn't move.
He reached a hand out toward her to touch her face, but her skin was cold, and suddenly the world tore apart around him.
He sat up, drenched in sweat, his heart pounding. There was darkness around him. All darkness.
Right. It was nighttime. He'd been sleeping. He was in their bedroom.
"Kousei…" she said sleepily. "Dou shita no?"
She was alive. She was okay. It'd been two weeks since her surgery, her successful surgery, and she'd moved in with him. Right.
Telling his raging heart to calm down, he took several deep breaths. He settled back into the sheets, moving closer to her and wrapping an arm around her slender frame.
"Uun~" he said, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against the back of her head. "Ureshii yo."
xXx
Taking her hand, he raised her bare arm, running the towel gently over her skin. Kaori could no longer sit up on her own, so he sat her up in the bathtub where she could sit against the wall instead of washing her on the stool most people used for washing themselves before a bath. He knelt outside the bath, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, holding the towel wet with hot water in his right hand. Every few seconds or so he had to wipe his glasses with his left sleeve as they fogged up because of the steam from the bath.
Finishing her arm, he put the towel aside and rolled his shoulders.
"Kaori," he said softly, gathering her blonde hair in his hand. "Lay your head back."
She didn't move.
"Kaori," he prompted gently. She still sat in silence, staring ahead, her eyes unseeing. Suppressing a sigh stemming from the ache in his heart, he leaned forward, brushing her hair out of her face, and turned her face toward himself with a finger under her chin to look her in the eyes.
She sniffed, and averted her gaze. "I'll never play violin again…" she whispered, defeatedly, brokenly.
He hesitated for a moment, then leaned forward, resting his chin on her wet shoulder.
"Don't be like this…" he said softly. "Bring back the Kaori I love. The Kaori who was always full of cheer… Who sparkled like the stars in the sky… Whose light reached me at the bottom of the sea where I could hear nothing… This isn't like you…" He trailed off, before realizing the implication of what he saying.
He shot up, waving his hands in front of him in panic. "I mean, not to say I don't love you if you're not cheerful! I love everything about you! I love you all the time! I – I didn't – I mean, I didn't mean –"
He paused, the words dying on his lips as he heard a sound he hadn't heart in so long it hurt… A sound that was more beautiful than any piece of music he'd ever heard… A sound that suddenly made the world seem colorful again.
She laughed. Softly, and only for a moment, but she laughed, and her beautiful, perfect face lit up again for just an instant. He found himself smiling along with her, and he sat back down. She sighed, a small smile gracing her pink lips, and laid her head back.
"I'm sorry that you'll have to spend the rest of your life looking after me, now that I can't even walk or use my hands…"
He sighed. "Kaori," he said seriously, and she raised her head at the sudden change in his tone. "I might sound insensitive, but I don't care."
She blinked.
He took her shoulders and looked into her eyes. "I was going to lose you!" he said. "You were going to die! But you didn't, and I'm so glad about that… I'd give anything to have you with me. I don't care what the price is," he growled, and leaned forward, smashing his mouth into hers, stealing her breath away like she did his.
He drew back, panting, the sweet taste of her mouth still upon his tongue. "You don't have to worry about anything! I'll be here for you. I'll always be here for you! Like you always are for me."
She smiled then. Closing her eyes, she laid her head back again. "Maitta na…" she sighed. "Well then," she said, a wicked gleam of mischief in her eye that he had yearned for for so long, that he now realized he would give anything for – Tsubaki, Watari, even his mother – "Yuujin A, wash my hair."
He bowed his head, his eyes suddenly threatening to tear up in a strange joy. "Yes, my lady," he whispered.
そうだ。これでいい。
Even if you were to lose everything and be scattered to the winds,
I'll never lose my way again - I'll just start searching again from step 1-
Or maybe I'll start the universe back from zero again
xXx
前前前世から僕は 君を探しはじめたよ
そのぶきっちょな笑い方をめがけて やってきたんだよ
Not all stories need end sadly.
Wow. I wrote most of that in one sitting. Needed some motivation to start this. I'm a bad artist. I shouldn't wait for motivation. But I mean, I was working on my original stuff in the meantime. But fanfiction is relaxing. Writing with someone else's characters is surprisingly like taking a hot bath after a long day. Allows me to decompress. Also a lot of freedom to experiment like I can't in published work. For example, I would probably not play with tense in my original work like I did in this fic.
As for the Zenzenzense lyrics, half of them I got from lyrical-nonsense and the other half I translated myself because I didn't like their translation. If you haven't seen Kimi no Na wa., you need to. Just like Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso is my favorite anime of all time, Kimi no Na wa. is my favorite movie of all time.
Also, yes, I have some dialog that's in Japanese and untranslated. Don't worry. You don't need to understand it to understand the story. Don't leave me angry comments saying, "I don't speak Japanese, neeaaah," because I always have Japanese in my stories. If you need to understand it, I will translate it. If you don't need to understand it, I'll prioritize style and not bother. If that's a problem, you can politely fuck off.
読んでくれてありがとう！