Chapter I: Monday You Can Fall Apart
The first day he saw her was on a Tuesday. She made a rather large scene yelling at one of the attendants at the subway station-honestly he wasn't sure if there was anyone present that day who didn't notice her.
Soon after that she quickly became one of the regulars, just another face in a sea of people. He saw her every day at the station, on his way to and from the baseball mound.
It was a Wednesday when he noticed the routine she had for the color of her outfits. It vaguely reminded him of an anime character his best friend had showed him- the Depression of Haruhi or something. Mondays were yellow, Tuesdays blue, Thursdays red, Fridays black. And today, a Wednesday, she wore pink. Not like the kind that matched her bubblegum pink hair or her cotton-candy eyes. No. The brightest most obnoxious shade of hot pink he wasn't even aware could exist in fabric.
And he could only grudgingly admit that it suited her-in a weird punk rock sort-of-way.
He learns her name on a Thursday.
This is the first time he's ever seen her with someone else, and, rather surprisingly, it was one of his friends from high school last year. Her name is Yui and he thinks while watching them talk like old friends that they look like sisters.
(He also recalls Masami had formed a band last year and wonders if how they met had anything to do with that.)
It was also on a Thursday when they first made eye contact. Upon seeing him she grinned, her eyes closed and head tilted to the side. He wants to think that maybe she's been noticing him as much as he has her.
But he knows that's impossible since his eyes have never left her since that Tuesday nearly a month ago.
Without thinking about it he smiles back and is struck with the realization that the action is familiar and fills him with a wave of nostalgia that he can't quite explain.
Their first conversation occurs the next day, on a Friday. He realizes that they go to the same school although she's a year younger which explained why their paths' never crossed.
He mentions an upcoming baseball tournament when she asks about his sports bag and she promises to come if he'll get her tickets to the next school concert. (First years weren't allowed to come on their own.) He replies that he never asked her to come but reluctantly agrees and finds himself genuinely excited for the next few weeks.
On Saturday she accidently slips and calls him Hideki instead of Hinata and he can't decide why he's blushing as much as he is or where the sudden happiness came from.
He doesn't ride the subway on Sundays. Without baseball practice or school, he has no reason to excuse himself. After a few weeks his mom asks him why he keeps doing a double take every time a short girl with pink hair walks by.
He tells her it's nothing and walks out of the grocery store slouching and grumbling to himself.
(He wonders if he's becoming attached to her.)
It's the Monday of the tournament and he's running unusually late. He shrugged his baseball gear off his shoulder the night before upon returning home and couldn't find it in the morning. His breathing is labored by the time he reaches the platform and he scans the crowd for Yui as he hears the train drawing near in the distance.
Spotting her, he begins to push his way through the crowd and opens his mouth to get her attention. The words die in his throat. Before he knows what he's doing he's shoving people out of the way to get to her.
She's standing near the edge of the platform. Too close, he thinks not bothering to apologize as he pushes past someone else. Too far, his brain tells him instead. Too far from him.
He's almost made it to the front when he watches in horror as someone innocently bumps into her from behind with enough force to push her in front of the incoming train.
Hideki's the only one screaming.
It was on a Monday when he watched Yui die.
(He gets the feeling he had promised to catch her, years ago.)