.:Wherever you are in the world, I'll find you:.
The train station is clear that day.
Schroeder Hermann picks up his suitcase and gazes outside. The train is still a spirit world, with the same old passengers and the same old people mulling the station for another day. The sky has turned a rosy purple, and stars are starting to dot the sky. It's silent from where he is, and all he can hear is the rumble of the train in it's tracks and the screech of the wheels as it stops.
The train skids to a halt, and a girl bumps into his chest lightly. When it does, and finally the engine driver is calling them out. So he picks up his suitcase again and starts to walk, paying no heed to the girl behind him.
He doesn't know who she is.
"Wait!"
She blinks, and he gazes at her for a second before he finally finds his voice on the tip of his tongue.
"What's your name?"
The girl shakes her head, as if contemplating her thoughts, until he realizes that there's a kunai on her hand, and she throws it to him so precisely it lands perfectly on his hand, so perfect that no blood is drawn.
"Clarisse! My name is Clarisse!"
He steps out, repeating her name over and over under his breath, and the twilight had finally faded out and the darkness have pulled in.
Later that night, he watches comet Miyazaki beam in the sky.
KATAWAREDOKI
By Alex
Sometimes, when he concentrates enough, he hears the stars whispering.
All memories of a girl had washed away, nothing but a blank sheet of paint that had been drained out by water. He's sitting on his bed, phone in hand, trying to look for her. It's a girl, he thinks, and he know's she's been with him all his life but he doesn't know who she is.
Nobody comes to mind when he thinks those words, and he tightens his grip on his phone once more. He's been up all night, searching, for her name, her anything, but the results end up vague and he has given up, head throbbing.
Twilight's beginning to fade again.
So he closes his eyes, the image of a village hidden in the leaves fresh in his memory, though he cannot make out when or where he's ever seen it. The pictures of a war, of blood, of hope and love and friendship all are more real to him than anything he had ever experienced in his life.
His life is a spirit world, and he's the passing roamer.
And for a split second he makes a decision, and he's rising up from his bed, clutching a knife he's hid so thoughtfully inside his bed cabinet, and the metal stings his skin and it feels so familiar, like he's felt it before, on twin buns freeing in the wind, but he cannot make out the face or the person and he doesn't know anything about it anymore.
Outside, the last of the sun's rays have finally disappeared. Twilight's long gone.
Suddenly, the village is nothing. There are no knives, no words of hope, no war and blood and death, and the twin buns wiggle out of his mind once more.
He isn't seeing things.
That much he's sure.
So the knife clanks to the floor, and nightfall looms into the horizon.
He meets her for the first time the other day.
She's reading alone in the corner of a coffee shop, and her buns are so familiar he sees it in his memory, on a head with a mind that tells her to wield weapons and kills people. She's all alone, so he assumes he can sit by her, so he buys her a latte and places it in front. When she looks up, she smiles, and sips from the coffee he provided her. He doesn't know her name.
The book's about Japanese history, and there's a silver band shaped like a leaf in front, the words "Konoha Shinobi" evident on the cover. The word seems so familiar, like he's been there before, the words so achingly there he just needs to know what it means.
"Is something the matter?" he asks. It's more out of common courtesy than interest, but his mind can't help but think he's seen her somewhere before, and she is racking her head visibly as she turns a page. She nods.
"It's this."
She points to a picture, and there's a girl dressed in red pants, twin buns high up in the air and a braid that catches in the wind, she realizes he's trying to look. He's interested.
"Care to read a page?"
He dips his head and she sets the book in front of him. There are drawings of people, in long suits and green vests, scattered about a battlefield. But he can't help but notice the one person he sees at the edge of the field, clothed in white robes and lavender orbs, and from that moment he feels like everything has changed because that person is him, and he sees it, and thoughts start to overflow in his mind.
He looks out the window, the outside is a mere blue ink splattered into a night sky. Twilight's over.
"What's your name?" he asks, and she looks up in wonder to gaze at him. Her eyes are so familiar, like he's stared at them for a hundred million times before, and he shudders visibly when he realizes it.
"Clarisse. What about you?"
Suddenly the kunai and the wars and the killing doesn't seem all that distant like before. In fact, it felt so real he could almost feel the knives piercing into his flesh and soul, and a girl in twin buns looking out at him, and he looks up, where she is staring. Tears are falling from her eyes, but she isn't frowning.
"I-I don't know your name," she croaks, he realizes he doesn't know her name as well. No, he does, it's Clarisse, Clarisse, Clarisse, Clarisse, and her mind screams the name at him just when he's about to think otherwise. But there's a certain tingle to it, and it feels so wrong, like she isn't like that, there's something else out there made for her and he knows it.
"Don't worry," he says, tilting his head.
"It's Schroeder. Schroeder Hermann. Write it down so you don't forget."
He recites his name, but it doesn't feel right anymore, like it did so before, and his brain is leaking out because of it. It's what he's called, what he was born with, but in his heart he also knows that someone, somewhere, is there to prove him wrong, and all reality is wrong, because Schroeder Hermann seems so unreal all of a sudden.
His name. He needs to find it too.
"Schroeder. I got it," Clarisse says, buns wiggling a little when she takes it down in her book. When she does, he pulls out a napkin so she won't forget and writes his name legibly when she hands him hers.
"I'll keep this in my pack," she says, and he looks down at her book when she hands her his, closing it before handing him a bookmark. He gazes at the front cover, the same leaf symbol he's always found so appealing, and the recent thoughts of battles and blood go flooding back into his brain,
"Why are you reading this?" he asks. She brings up her hand to feel the creases of the cover in her fingers. When they brush over his, they send tingles on his spine, like he's been through all this before.
She frowns.
"I don't know," she says, and he realizes that he, too, doesn't know what exactly is going on. "It's like something that came out of a dream. I know that place. I've been there before. It's just that—"
She pauses for a while, and takes out the piece of tissue he wrote his name on from her bag and reads it quickly, before shoving it back in quickly.
"Just in case," she comments, and he nods as she stands up, and they say their goodbyes, him staying for work as she crosses, without a second glance at each other or another word in.
They meet again in the playground.
It's almost past sunset, and children are being picked up from the place by their parents, and he's sipping a tropical drink on one hand. He notices her, on a swing, with a single ice cream in her hand. There's a line of it from the side of her lip, dripping down her chin.
"I didn't know you like to hang out here."
She blinks, and she looks up at him. He's looming over her, his shadow over her body, so she jumps back, the shudder of the swing following after.
"Oh hi Ne— Schroeder," she breathes, and he nods along with her.
Taking a seat at the place beside her, they stay there until the last of the kids leave and the sun leaves warm, orange streaks of light at their swingset.
"You know, I've been feeling something."
He looks at her, and he realizes he feels quite the same as well.
"Like I'm not from here. Like you're not from here. Like I've known you all his life."
He doesn't object because he feels the same way, remembering a girl with buns in a training field, kunai and shuriken scattered across the field, panting and surrounded by blue rays of light he can only remember as chakra.
Twilight had reached it's peak.
"Me too," he says.
They wait a little longer, tiny feet moving back and forth to rock the swing, the cool, night breeze sending goosebumps down his back. They've wasted too much time. It's already nighttime, and he decides it's time to go.
Until he realizes her crying.
"What happened," he asks, and she shakes her head quickly, cheeks flaming up when their shoulders brush. The crying is inevitable; he was never good with crying, or comforting people, and it made him feel guilty not to be able to help.
"I forgot your name," she says, and a single tear drops down from her cheek into her chin.
"It's Schroeder," he reminds her, but she shakes her head, and the expression on her face looks furious.
"No. Your real name."
That night, when he reads the book, he notices a boy at one page, under the names of shinobi that have passed. His hair dips into the small of his back, much like his, but the most striking fact is that his eyes are a pale thistle.
Just like his.
But the weird thing about all that is that it's happening at this very moment. The date of his passing is set now, and he knows that it possibly couldn't have happened because he's living in the present. He knows this because the date is etched under his gravestone, and a cold shudder washes over his whole body when it happens.
After that time, he doesn't remember her anymore.
Cold hair brushes over the small of his back when he walks. His breath is cold and the air is frosty in the snow, and the warm, orange lantern is the best thing he can feel from the outside of Cordell's house. He knocks twice, and the door opens five seconds after, and his friend is leading him in.
Tea is served; there is a crackling fireplace overlooking them on the chairs, and once he is comfortable, he feels it right to speak.
"Why did you call me here again?"
Cordell lifts his teacup and sits down, sets the cups on the table, and stares. There's a creased expression on his face, and he rubs his chin as if thinking hard. Sighing, he lifts himself a little more in his seat so they can have a leveled conversation.
"There's this thing I've been seeing."
He gestures to a scroll on his table, and scanning over it quickly, he notices two words that appeal to him.
"Shikamaru Nara," he reads aloud, and Cordell nods, pointing at the words. Suddenly, for some insane reason in his head, he faintly remembers a certain boy around his age, leaping around villages in a green vest with spiky hair tied up into a ponytail, and Cordell, businessman and master detective is drawing the name to himself. Like it was his. It was his. It is his.
"That... that's your name," he says. His partner sighs audibly, and he can tell he agrees with him.
"That's right. I don't know why it came over me. It's just like I know it, and I've been through all of it before."
Schroeder nods, and he closes his eyes as the flashbacks start to warp his mind once more, one memory after the next. He can make out images, of people and teachers and green spandex, of kunai and shuriken and justu, of chakra and rotation and sudden sparks of blue and his eyes burn as the world turns into a warped one. The walls are suddenly clear, and he knows about the comings and going in the other rooms.
Until all of it blows up in his face and reality overcomes his mind once more, and sweat is dripping from Cordell's face.
"You aren't alone here," he says, and he stands up to come closer to him.
The train picks up once more, and they're leaving the stop, his dark suit and black suitcase moving along with the motion of the train. The day is far spent; it is merely a blur, a movement of time he can't seem to catch up with, and he's struggling, struggling to move on with it.
With so much tasks to do, and so little time, he didn't really have a chance, did he?
So he stares, into the fading twilight, the rustle of leaves scratching the window outside. It was beautiful; lights were glowing everywhere in the city, and he counted the minutes until twilight would end.
There's the sweet scent of alpine and morning dew so he breathes into it, savoring the smell. It's not long after until he is met with a pair of honeysuckle eyes, staring into his, chestnut hair wrapped in two buns from each side of her head.
It's queer, because he thinks he's seen her before, somewhere, but he can't tell what time it was. He doesn't know anything about her, her eyes are like those he's never seen. But they stare up to his with such familiarity, like if she were somewhere with him, in a different dimension, or a different time, or any other place but he knows, he feels her like he's known her for every single moment of his life.
Her eyes are stained with gloss and her eyes are a violent crimson, and it's as if he knows everything that has happened to her before, but he can't see it. He doesn't know it.
"Do I know you?" he asks, and the girl frowns a little.
"You do know me," she says, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. But it is, it was, at least, before he...
She's known everything about him, everything, at least if twilight is still going on. It's awkward, being with someone you remember so well and he doesn't know a thing about you.
The playground? The coffee shop? Nothing?
Still, she hides her embarrassment, and the Neji she knows is only looking away at the window, ignoring her completely.
It's a shared moment of peace, a second chance for her to say something, anything, but she doesn't, a red flush staining her cheeks when she continues to gaze at him. He looks away.
She doesn't.
So he walks away, and for a single moment in his life he feels like there's a loud hammering in his chest, as if telling him to stop, or turn around, or do something, and with every step he takes it grows painfully.
But it's too late. The doors in front of them have already opened, and he is stepping outside, the girl behind him, and he stares at the dark sky once more before exiting the train. He's about to walk outside, but he makes one final decision and turns, and the girl does too, and he can feel their hearts in perfect sync when they do. It's a fleeting moment, a last straw, and he does his thing in the quickest way possible.
"Wait!"
She blinks, and he gazes at her for a second before he finally finds his voice on the tip of his tongue.
"What's your name?"
The girl shakes her head, as if contemplating her thoughts, until he realizes that there's a kunai on her hand, and she throws it to him so precisely it lands perfectly on his hand, so perfect that no blood is drawn.
"Clarisse! My name is Clarisse!"
He steps out, repeating her name over and over under his breath, and the twilight had finally faded out and the darkness have pulled in.
Later that night, he watches comet Miyazaki beam in the sky.
He's working with Cordell again.
His name is Shikamaru Nara, that much he knows.
But why can't he remember his?
"That kunai you're holding — whose is it?"
The girl he always thinks about crawls her way into his memory again, twin buns a golden brown in the sunlight, and everything goes back to him. The he and the girl sitting on the tip of a large mountain. He and the girl crossing a wide, red gate, with the words he knows reads "Konoha" clear on the top. He and the girl sparring, exchanging blows of weapons and blue chakra at each other, until they call it a day and they're both heading home.
And from that moment, he remembers everything again, and his mind is rushing like a speedboat.
He isn't surprised when he says it; he had seen it before, have heard it before, had uttered it before. He isn't from here — this isn't his home, his home is in the village hidden in the leaves, in Konoha, nothing like the urban reality his mind tells him is real.
"Neji. My name is Neji."
Suddenly, his vision is blurred, and he realizes he doesn't know what's happening anymore when tears start to drip into his chin, and Cordell looks up in worry. Twilight has finally faded.
"Why? What's wrong?" he asks, and he wipes away his tears.
"My name. I don't remember my name."
From that moment on, he makes a decision. He has to find himself, know himself, because all he has thought about before, a village, a girl, they're all very blank in his mind. And it's queer, because for moments of time in the day he swears he can remember, remember everything that's happened to him before. His name, who he is. It's nothing, now.
And under the horizon, the sun takes it's leave.
The girl he knows. He has to find her.
He's off searching again, although he knows it didn't work the last time. His heart is pumping in a rapid pace, and the only thing he's thinking is that he has to find her. Her name, Clarisse, is the only piece of information he can hold on to, and it isn't working very well as of now.
It's someone special to him, he tells himself, and he looks around for any place she might've been. Somebody kind, he tells people, and they shake their heads no.
The map is useless.
And even though he's met her only once, well, that's really as much as he can remember, she knows she's been there all his life, guiding him, teaching him, making him, changing him.
The village, he knows how it looks like, how it feels like, and it certainly feels like he's so close to something he can't reach. The villagers know nothing of a girl with buns, a kunai, a Clarisse anywhere.
The name sounds cold and dry on his tongue, and whenever he says it he's starting to believe he doesn't know a Clarisse at all, like he weren't even there. He is merely a ghost now, a spirit wandering the depths of the earth, and with every step he grows limp, tired, even.
So when he gives up, he props himself down on a sidewalk and buys himself an iced latte from the vending machine. It's cold, and the latte seems so familiar, and he looks back on the time when he once gave it to a girl his age. The afternoon is almost gone, and the night is nearing once more.
He passes fences, and the city is far away from where he is now, only a silhouette he can barely see. The last rays of sun glint on top of the buildings, beaming at him when he walks by. The air is cool, and it kisses his skin as if it's lips were frozen, blowing on his shirt and his long hair.
He's walking again, alone in the countryside, past the cows and the grass and the lambs, past the goats and the cattle and the rice that it growing, and it's nearing twilight and the moon is present in the sky. There's a grassland surrounding the pavement he's walking in, on a cliff, and he knows if he doesn't watch his step he can walk out of it immediately.
He is way above reality, way above his normal life that it feels so much like a dream, when he continues to walk up, up, up from his troubles, into a place he doesn't know he's going to, fluffy clouds surrounding the land underneath. He gazes down, and the water is a mere puddle from how high he is.
And taking a brave foot forward, he watches the sun as it sets on the horizon.
Kataware Doki. Twilight.
Slowly, edging closer to it, there's this sound, this scent he recognizes, and he feels a distinct tingle in his heart. It beats on his nerves once more, like a rush of chakra escaping through his veins he know's he's so familiar with.
He moves back.
It's an entrancing, addicting feeling, like a magnet and he's the metal attracted to it, and he wants to go closer, taking steps back, not clearly believing what he's feeling.
There is it again.
It feels nice; it feels like her, he feels her, and he wants to feel her more and more so he's running, and almost falls of the cliff when he doesn't watch his step. He needs to find her.
"Clarisse!" He calls, but no figure emerges from the shadows. The cliff is still a cliff; above a city he knows is his home, faces of past generals engraved in the stone. All the memories rush back again, like a dam that had just been broken free, and the feeling he has is indescribable. "Clarisse!"
And at that moment, her name is so fresh on his mind, and his mind is singing it to him like the most perfect melody it's ever created, and the girl with two buns appears in front of him. He knows her. He knows her life and her name and her everything and he knows her like the palm of his hand, so within reach.
He's known her all his life, the way they were formed and destined to be together in the same team, the way he would scoff and she would yell at him for it, the way she'd watch him handle enemies like they were mere punching bags, blue fire glowing in the tips of his fingers as he presses them into fading bodies.
He knows her weapons and the way they're her life, and the way she twirls a kunai on one finger and holds a sickle on the next. He knows her game and her chakra and her smile, and he can sense her presence from miles away, can see her presence from a mile away, with just the flash of blue chakra he emits from his eyes which he knows so well, and he's been doing it for years, and my, what a life it has been.
He knows her scent and her smell, and she knows the way she walks and how she talks and how she is with him, after sweaty training practices and long missions, when they're just together again during twilight, staring at the sky like nothing was after them, and he wasn't going to leave her, and she wasn't going to leave him.
He knows her. He knows her name.
"Tenten?"
Suddenly, she appears, like an image that pops up from nowhere, shining in all she is. And he is there, watching in awe and in amazement, because this is something he's hoped for and wanted to see all his life, wind catching on their clothes as it blows from it's sweet breeze. She looks at him, and the sun is slowly coming down from the horizon, making the sky more purplish than the recent warm orange, and she's tearing up when he looks at her.
She's holding her hands on her mouth, gasping sharply as if she doesn't believe that she sees him. He takes a step forward, so much that their shoulders brush, and he holds her shoulder to make her feel that yes, he's real. She jumps back, and he sees the tears almost falling out of her eyes when she does, and she goes nearer again, touching him, feeling him, testing him, needing to know he's there. And when she finally believes, she gasps once more.
"Neji? Neji, is that really you?"
Neji. That was his name. Nejinejineji. Mouthing the name on his tongue, he breathes, and a huge weight is lifted off his chest because that is his name, the name he's been looking for so long. The name that's been with him in battles, in sunsets, in mission reports with the Hokage, and before death, and suddenly the meeting with Shikamaru finally makes sense.
"Neji," he repeats, and it sounds so right when he pronounces it out loud. "Neji. That's my name."
Tenten smiles, tearing up once more, until she envelops him into a hug. The air around them feels so light, and warm at the same time, and everything feels mystical like all the times back in Konoha, when they were merely kids, genin, and watch sunsets like this all the time.
"Yes, Neji. It's you," she breathes, and wet warmth seeps into his clothes when she says it. "It's really, really you!"
She's laughing and crying and he's starting to see everything himself. He's been with her before. He knows her. She is Tenten, his training partner, his comrade, his best friend.
He loves her.
"I... thank you," he says, and Tenten hugs him once more. "I didn't think I'd see you again."
The expression on her face changes, and suddenly her eyebrows are furrowed, and she's backing away from him quickly.
"You left me!" she wails, and he slaps his hand harshly when she says it. "You died for me, you idiot! I never asked for that!"
Oh right! He died before, didn't he? He vaguely remembers the date set on the grave, which would have passed by now, during that late night study after meeting her the second time. Tenten must have been worried sick.
"I did, didn't I?" he asks, and Tenten nods her head furiously when he says so.
"Don't ever do that to me again."
He laughs, and he knows she can't keep that same angry expression on her face, so she does too, and their voices make a ringing sound echoing above the cliff when they do. Blinking, he stares right back into her eyes, and Tenten the kunoichi she is almost seems completely real.
"I won't. I promise!" he tries to say, but she's still laughing at him when he does. This time, she playfully knocks him on the head, and on the mouth, and he is reminded of a chunin Tenten returning home after a long mission.
"But still. You..." she crosses her arms. "Arrogant bastard."
"Don't call me that," he retorts. "Back then you used to worship me."
"I did not!" she shoots, and it's louder this time, until she finally turns away. He's scared for a while, fearing that the moment would end too soon, so he connects his hands.
"I'm sorry," he says, and he knows that Tenten knows that he does not say that phrase very often, so she opens an eyes to peek at him.
"Still. But you're forgiven," she says, as sternly as possible, until she gags into a laughing fit once more. He notices the sun edging lower and lower, and there's just an amount of time before the moment if finally over.
"Tenten," he says, and that catches her attention. "That day at the train..."
He remembers her throwing the kunai, the way it lands so perfectly on his hand and his confusion for the days after. Did she plan this all along? Did she know he was going to remember her?
"You didn't tell me your real name."
Her eyes widen, and she coughs a little, a tinge of pink blooming on each of her cheeks.
"What? Is something... the matter?"
"No, not at all," she coughs. She brushes the wrinkles out of her clothes and leans up so they can look at each other eye to eye. He notices her cheeks, and the frazzled expression on her face, before she coughs twice to look at him. She smiles.
"I wanted you to go look for me."
She rubs her neck afterwards, and he understands. It was typical of her to do such a thing, after all. Like all those times when they were starting to loosen up she would always play jokes on him. When he looks up, he sees the multitude of stars that dot the sky, and he looks at her seriously.
"Tenten."
He gestures to the setting sun, and she turns around with him. "Katawaredoki," she breathes. "Twilight. The moment of magic."
"I hope you understand," he says. She nods nervously. They don't have much time left.
"Listen, after this, I hope you remember your name. Mine, too. It's probably the most important thing in our lives."
She nods, and her face saddens so quickly he falls immediately guilty. For having to leave her, in here and before, in cities and in battlefields alike, having to make her lose something precious for a second time. He steps forward.
"Look at me, Tenten."
She looks up at him, eyes twinkling with tears, and he suddenly grows worried. About what happens next, if he will remember her again, if this is the last time, and it hurts so much he can't help pull her chin up, so that she is looking directly at him, honeysuckle irises staring into his own blank ones.
"I want you to know that I know you, and, I-I love you, even if it's just for a moment in time."
She's nodding and tearing up, and graciously Neji lifts a hand to touch her face, fingers searing her flesh with it's touch. She holds him close, and he returns her hug, her arms fading into nothingness as they wrap around him, like she's turning into a ghost. Like she's disappearing. It's almost nighttime and the last rays of the sun finally disappear from the horizon.
"I love you."
Katawaredoki.
He's huddled up with Cordell again.
Why? He thinks he's going crazy. He just woke up in a grass field on a cliff the other day, and for no reason. Before that, he doesn't remember anything from before, that encounter with twilight. He remembers the meetings with Clarisse, though. That was good enough.
Still, all those memories involving a place he doesn't know... it was weird. He needed answers. There's a name he knows he's supposed to have but can't really grasp it.
"Listen here," he says, drawing out a scroll. "Twilight. Neither night or day. That's why stuff that are supposed to be real aren't valid anymore. Why? They never happened."
Which would explain why he was able to see Tenten at that time. Right after, her figure completely disappeared, and it was as if he woke up with amnesia.
"Somebody died once, before," Cordell says, nodding at him. He still doesn't know what it means when he does that. "And for a moment in twilight, they start to remember everything that happened to them before since the time isn't exactly valid. It's the point; it isn't a day, it's just an event in a specific moment which makes everything that happened before real. To reiterate."
He points at the textbook. There's a gravestone, with the name Neji Hyuga engraved on it. The date of his death, which is written under the stone happened during that last meeting with Clarisse, the time where he forgot everything.
"Of course, if it's twilight and somebody had died before, like, in another dimension or something, twilight doesn't make it happen. Like I said, it's neither night or day, so it's a magical time. Weird stuff," he says, closing his textbook."
"Then why don't I know 'name'?" he asks, and the man in front of him shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe you knew it before, or something. The thing is, with twilight, when it's over, reality seeps back in again. If you died before, like I mentioned, you start to forget anything involving yourself before that. Probably why you told me you forgot everything after meeting with that girl."
Schroeder nods, looking back at the time. Cordell continues, "For example, if you remembered something before, you gotta write it down. Or else, when twilight is over, you're literally going to forget everything that happened during that time. Which means that after your death in the other dimension, you will forget everything that happens regarding the things you know."
He lifts his eyebrow in confusion, and Cordell groans in impatience.
"For example, if myself from the other dimension dies right now, I'll forget anything related to my identity in that other world. But since I still remember, and my other self didn't die yet, I know my name is Shikamaru Nara, and I live in Konoha. But in twilight, that event in the other dimension never happened, since it's neither night or day, so I start remembering everything again. Make sense?"
He nods. It may have been that he had been seeing things, after all. Twilight, all these stuff, probably nonsense. Cordell seemed to notice his discomfort, so he refills his cup of tea.
"Just forget about it."
"You believed in it too, once."
Cordell is sipping from his coffee, the same steamy ones he enjoys so very much.
It's been years since that incident with the girl, and he never saw her again. He didn't mind that all now; it was weird how one who was searching for something for so long can change in just a short amount of time. For him, it only took a month for him to realize everything he thought was real was nonsense; a hidden leaf village, a war death, that was all in the past.
Those memories are nothing to him now.
They're gone like the winter, and it's almost spring, the last of snow melting into something warmer. The temperature is warming up, and the flowers are starting to bloom amidst the snow.
"Did you?" Cordell asks again, and he can only nod curtly because it was true. His coffee is almost finished, and Cordell is done eating his cheesecake when they both agree it's time to leave.
"You'll find your name soon enough," he says, and he can only hope so too when Cordell stands up, packs his bags, and leaves.
Still, the night is cold after he exits the coffee shop, something he remembers he's done sometime before, maybe in even years. It's routine.
The streetlamps illuminate him enough to walk on the path. Snow is sloshing in his boots and his feet are turning cold, and a puff of mist pools out of his mouth when he breathes.
He doesn't really have anything to do, so he decides it's okay to take a walk, admiring the last days of winter. There's really nobody near the bridge right now.
But there's this thing, this smell, this sweet smell of alpine that he can't help but ignore, and a girl walks past him quickly, hair wrapped in a bonnet. He turns to look, but she's pretty far away from him now, and there's nothing really he can do about it.
So he trudges on forward, his heart sinking a little whenever he makes another step, and he doesn't see the brown chestnut that turns to make a peek at him.
The train station is as silent as ever.
He stands in the station like he always does, and he realizes it's nearing nighttime so he'd better hurry. The train leaves at an intersection, and several other carriages pass by. It's only a blur now, like the day before he met the girl who is nothing but a person he barely knows.
He looks out. Twilight is about to go by.
So his train car passes, and so does another one, and for a single moment out of a train door he can see her, like a wave of nostalgia that washed over him like a shipwreck that he hasn't seen in years.
So when he reaches his stop, he runs until he can't run anymore, until his legs are failing him. Still, it doesn't matter anymore because he must find her, where he'll find his name, and it aches so much to know that he doesn't even know who he is because he's someone special.
Though maybe just not here.
He follows where his feet take him, and he rushes through cars, prickly bushes, bridges, even past telephone booths that he's sure is empty by now. He doesn't stop because he's so close, so close to his goal that it's just within his reach, until finally he finds himself back at the train station, eyes empty, but not lonely.
There isn't anybody here.
Has he finally become crazy?
The time has run out, and outside the window twilight has already ended. A single train car passes quickly, rumbling as it goes by. When it leaves, it reveals a girl sitting pretty on a mahogany bench on the other side, hair shaped in twin buns.
He wonders who she is.
Still, there is something vaguely familiar about this girl, like he's known her from somewhere, so he can't help but have a spring in his step and approach her, crossing the train tracks in front of him when he does. She sees him, and she smiles shyly, both in unfamiliarity and in interest.
He stops in front of her, and she looks, chestnut eyes bearing into his, and from there he realizes he needs to know who she is once and for all.
"I know you," he says, and the girl frowns a little.
"You do know me," she answers, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and he smiles. It's been a while since they've seen each other, she thinks, although she can only hope that he can.
So he blinks, and hands her the kunai she's given him so long before, and it seems so familiar when she touches it again after such a long while. Like this burst of familiarity. Like he's been with her this whole time.
Suddenly, the feeling between them becomes mutual, and even though it isn't twilight anymore they know that they've been with each other, maybe in another time, or place, or dimension. Or if something's preventing them to see, they do not know.
It's all in the way they stare into each other's eyes.
And although he doesn't know anything about her, he straightens up, coughs loud so that he'll get her attention, and when she does, he starts speaking.
"Do you want to go out somewhere?" he asks, shyly but with a pinch of confidence. This was his moment. "I mean, I know a place where they sell a lot of weapons, and I figured you might be interested, so..."
The girl blushes, twin buns waggling when she shakes her head, and he finds this so cute all of a sudden. A train rustles by, shaking their clothes in it's direction.
"No, I mean, I would, but maybe..."
She smiles nervously.
"...sure," she says, and he blinks at first, as if in disbelief, but the look in her eyes is so serious, so he smiles in satisfaction when she gets up, connects her elbow with his, and they're walking together, fingertips brushing by their sides. The sky is a purplish blue, and he watches comet Miyazaki beam through the sky.
"...Neji."
Katawaredoki.
END
Author's Note: wow, 7,000 words... that's a lot.
I know, I know, there are so many things unanswered, like why did she suddenly remember his name even if twilight is over? or what the heck is going on exactly? but that's for you to theorize. I made it specifically that way so that ya'll can read.
Okay, so I thought of all of this when my uncle mentioned something about stories that make you think... like, really think, and I started thinking of all sorts of stuff when I made this.
And if you were wondering, the events of this story are based on Your Name by Makoto Shinkai.
In Japan, Kataware doki, or Twilight in English, is a time where it's neither day or night so strange things may start happening, and in this story it's a time where everything in the past (or in the Naruto world, if you notice) didn't happen anymore, which means no Neji death, and so on.
But for the other stuff, like the okay, why did he forget everything about her all of a sudden? is in the story, so I hope that answers...stuff.
Until Then!