Akari
I recall a rather unusual quote from the author a certain series I read once before: "Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like."
I remembered this quote vividly as we met with our accident.
My fiancé and I were in a taxi, running errands for my parents. We were a month away from our marriage, and I remember I was looking fondly at the ring that shone on my finger. I smiled faintly as the metal flashed vibrantly. I decided to take it off to look at it from another angle. Then it happened.
"Yuuichi, you'll be coming over tonight as well?" I asked, leaning forward in my seat to talk to him. He sat in front with the driver, and they were in the midst of some eager conversation about baseball.
"Hmm? Yeah, I will. We can settle the invitations then." He smiled at me, glancing sideways and flashing a grin. I smiled back and leaned back.
Just as that happened, I remember feeling a lurch forward. It felt like a sudden break on the taxi, but at the same time, I felt myself being flung to the right, even with my seatbelt on. Immediately, a resounding crash followed, a cacophony of glass breaking and grinding of metal. I felt myself spinning to the side as my hearing was filled with a loud buzz that came with the loud crash. After what seemed like an endless spiral of confusion and sudden pain, we came to a halt. I weakly pressed my fingers to my forehead and my eyes widened. The red dark liquid dripped off my fingers, and some trickled down my wrist, staining my white sleeves with red.
Blood. It was only then when I realised what was going on. I felt myself start to panic as my vision darkened.
"No. No… I can't die now…" I whispered and noticed I was crying, tasting the tears that trickled down my eyes. I'm getting married. Why? I can't die. I felt my vision fading and I was slowly falling unconscious.
Around me, I heard distant shouts, and soft dialogue. "Oh my God!" "I wonder if they're still alive." "Someone call an ambulance!"
As I succumbed to fatigue and blood loss, only one thing ran through my head.
Yuuichi.
Takaki
It was a hot day, and I had nothing better to do. Maybe it was fate that led me to her, though.
Just having returned from my childhood neighbourhood a few days earlier, I wandered around aimlessly, unsure of what I could do with my life. I exit the train station and decided to relax for a while.
Till what? A random job flies at your face? I let a miserable sigh. I had no job, and my money was on a slow but steady downfall, and I had just broken up with a wonderful girl. Face it, you and Risa would have never hit it off anyway.
Or would we? I was about to meet her parents after all. And we'd been together for three years…
The more I thought about it, the more upset I felt. Especially after coming back from where I had my first love. Akari's childish look still remained fresh in my mind. Her smile and the fluttering feeling she gave me when we were in the library together. I wonder if she's doing alright now. Though if I met her all of a sudden again, I probably wouldn't recognise her.
After much contemplation of my thoughts and emotions, I found myself in a park. The fountain shot out pristine, clear water that shone against the sun. It made me remember how hot it was. For an instant, my mind went back to the island. Where the sea was as clean and bright, and the smell of sea salt hung in the air no matter where you went. And…
My eyes had drifted to a rather tanned female sitting at a bench near the fountain, a luggage in front of her. A foreigner? She looked quite fit, like a surfer, or maybe a cyclist. She seemed out of place, considering no one in Tokyo was particularly that tan, or bothered with being under the sun for that matter. Maybe she's lost. I decided to go over and see if she needed help.
About ten meters away, I suddenly stopped walking. The girl raised her head as she put down her phone, probably just ending a call. Part of me wanted to walk away, but when I saw her face, I stood still, frozen.
Her graceful, but yet childish, looks were ever so reminiscing. Kanae pouted her lips and suddenly her gaze drifted over to me. I saw her eyes widen in shock, her mouth hung open. Then, spreading into a smile, she got up from her seat and ran over. She looked exactly the same as she did all those years back. Forcing myself to smile, I awkwardly walked towards her. Just before she came in for a hug, she kind of slowed down and sheepishly looked around.
"Hey, Kanae." I broke the slightly tense atmosphere with the quick greeting. "How've you been?"
She smiled, embarrassed. "Hey Takaki. It's been a really long time. I'm fine I guess." She laughed awkwardly before adding a question. "How about you?"
And so from there, the two of us started talking again, and I walked around with her till we settled at a small café by the roadside. We caught up and talked about life back on the island, and how my life was a bit of a mess at that point of time. She couldn't do anything but offer a weak, apologetic smile.
I sipped on my iced coffee and looked at the beautiful young woman in front of me. While she definitely looked like the Kanae I knew on the island, she was definitely more mature. She gave off a kind of beauty that I couldn't really express in words. Not that you could express anything like love in words that well anyway.
"Oh right," I suddenly remembered what I had forgotten to ask. "More importantly, why are you in Tokyo?"
Instantly, Kanae looked down at my iced coffee and I noticed her turning red.
"Y-You see… The t-thing is I actually came…to find you…" she mumbled her words fast and soft, but I heard it, being half a meter across her.
I had never been good with handling relationships, as can be seen from Risa, and this time was no different. I didn't know how to react to Kanae. I remembered a few years back when I had left the island, she had confessed to me, and I had done the same thing – nothing. I suppose the guilt had been weighing in my heart for some time, and this one instant made the weight even heavier.
"Ah…" Sipping my coffee again, I felt sweat on my brow, from the heat and the slight embarrassment I brought to myself for troubling a girl like that.
"But I'm leaving tomorrow morning."
That surprised me. "Oh?"
Kanae gave me a hopeless smile. "After being here for just these few hours, I already realised that the city life is too much for me. I think I'll go back to the island and live there the rest of my life." She let out a slightly quivering sigh.
I heavily contemplated what I could do at that point. I didn't really have anything to do anymore, and I had just been reunited with a friend from a few years back. And you just broke up with Risa. You're desperate, aren't you? I had no excuse, but maybe it was worth a shot. Just to get my mind off things.
"Hey, uhh, Kanae." The young woman who had gone back to stirring her milk tea looked up at me. "Do you think I could go back to the island with you?"
I'm not sure if she heard me the first time, but she hadn't responded, so I repeated my question. And she nodded her head, her face turning red. "O-Of course! You're more than welcome to stay around, especially since you're in a bit of a financial fix right now."
I let out a short breath. Worth a shot. "Also…remember those years back when you, well, confessed to me?"
Kanae choked on her tea and started coughing. Alarmed, I stood up, not sure how to offer her help. I offered a cup of water at the side and she drank gratefully, hiding her face behind the clear glass. "What about it?" she asked timidly.
I scratched my head. "Well, do you think, even though I'm a few years overdue, you wanna give the relationship a shot…?" That was really lame, dude.
But somehow, she nodded. Her eyes were wide open, and she nodded her head, as if she couldn't believe it. Somehow it made me feel a little embarrassed. I wasn't any great person worth feeling that way about after all.
But somehow, she agreed to be my girlfriend. Even though we hadn't talked in years. Even though we ended our last meeting with a confession that I never answered up till that day. Even though…
Even though I was such a failure of a person.
Because at that moment, as cruel, as idiotic a thought it was, it made me wonder, if somehow…
I could actually be with the girl that I hadn't talked to in years, having been separated since we were children.
I thought all that as I sat in front of my new girlfriend, who was hiding a smile that looked like it was the happiest day of her life.
(A/N: Hey there, I haven't written in a while. Now anyway, this is just a...well, a shot at trying to give 5cm/s a happy ending? Well, who knows. I'm sorry I can't make as much feels as Makoto Shinkai-sensei, but I'll do my best!)
