"… our lives can still be used to help someone else…"

The rubble began to fall down and obscure figures appeared from the intense light that had appeared. The group of eleven survivors looked at it with disbelief, half expecting to be taken by the light to a distant place. It had been a week, a week that'd be forever burned in their souls. They had given up hope, and they were sure that would be the end, without food or water. They were lifted and carried out, unable to move, unable to comprehend the miracle that had just happened. They were all numb, and couldn't feel a thing. Not fear, not pain, not even relief. One by one, they fell into unconsciousness, not knowing or caring if they'll get to see the sun one more time.

Two days later, a brown haired man woke up on a hospital bed. He tried to stand, but his arms were too weak to support his weight. He felt dizzy, and sick, he felt like he'd never walk again. But he was alive. He twitched his head after hearing a noise by his side, to find the two teenagers that had been there with him for what felt like the longest time in his life. He turned around, but was not able to find the one he was looking for. He felt like crying, but couldn't muster the tears.

He had already understood it the moment of their rescue, but hadn't processed it yet.

The doctor came, surprise and relief in his face after noticing he had woken up.

"Igarashi-san, isn't it? It's good to see you awake; now it looks like all the survivors are out of danger. We'll have you up to speed in no time."

"The… survivors…"

The red-haired young man next to Igarashi closed his eyes. "That… doctor or student or whatever. He is not in this room."

His partner looked at him with an unfathomable expression. He knew the pride his classmate had, how it had to pain him that he owned his life to the casual kindness of a stranger, and what he was couldn't say. "I don't think he is in the other one, either."

Igarashi sighed.

The silence filled the room. But it wasn't an oppressive silence, the one who takes your breath away and makes you want to cry. It was just the slow realization that the next day would come, and then the next one, and the one after that too.

They would live on.

It was two months later that Igarashi was finally discharged in full health. By then most of the survivors of the train crash had already left, though they had all promised to stay in contact, and the media had finally calmed down as their story became 'old news' that didn't reach the front page anymore, and Igarashi was more than ready to leave the past in the past.

Before that happened, though, he had one last thing to do.

As soon as he was cleared to drive again he took his second-hand car and made the three-hour trip alone; it took him two days before he was able to find the address he was looking for, and gathered the courage to stand in front of the graveyard were their savior had been buried. He didn't know if he had family, or how the ceremony had gone. He wanted to imagine that a lot of people had come to think of how Yuzuru Otonashi had changed them.

He steeled himself to look for a cold marble tomb, standing alone and utterly silent.

What was his surprise at seeing not one, but two graves, one next to the other, one slightly larger than the other but obviously making a matching pair. The figurines on top of the larger one were looking towards their right side as if looking after the other. With trepidation, Igarashi got closer until the names were clearly visible, along with a surprisingly short epitaph:

Otonashi Hatsune - 199X-200X

Loved Sister

Otonashi Yuzuru- 199X – 201X

Loving Brother

Somehow, he could not think of anything better. Two simple words, but somehow, they told everything about the man he had met so briefly. He smiled even as the tears finally fell, knowing that he would never forget the red-head, but also that this was the only time he was going to cry for him. Igarashi was not a particularly religious person, but he thought that if it didn't exist yet, Heaven should have been created just for these two.

He had a new motivation now; a second chance in life, and he would use it to the fullest. He would make Yuzuru proud if by any chance he was looking from above, make sure that he would never regret his kindness to a stranger.

And he lived on.

Forty years later, an old man was walking down the street, taking his granddaughter's hand as they walked to the park, when he saw it.

He saw him.

The same fiery hair, the same gentle look, even his movements were the same as the ones burned in his memory; as if he hadn't aged a single day. He was walking down the other side of the street, nose buried in what seemed like a school book, walking through a café's terrace. The man watched as a blue-haired boy, slightly older than the first, got up from his chair and caught him in a head-lock, making him drop the book and yell something exasperatedly but not un-fondly.

He watched as a pink-haired girl tackled the blue-haired one to the ground, jokingly berating him for his move.

He watched as a calm, white haired girl crouched down and picked the book up, giving it to the boy with a blush on her delicate figures.

The old man only realized that he had stopped when he felt his granddaughter pulling his hand now, eager to arrive to the swings and a new playmate she had met the other day, and Igarashi let himself be pulled away.

They had almost turned around the corner, when he felt the pair of brown eyes looking at him from the other side of the street. There was no recognition in them, but even so they were brilliant and alive, burning with a force that he had never seen in the dim lights of the tunnel.

The old man smiled, turning his back on the teenagers who had already returned to their argument, and leaving them to their own lives. He still didn't know if a supreme consciousness existed, if there was truly a Fate who moved the world.

But just in case it did, for the last time he sent it his gratitude for the life of a boy, who had shown so much kindness for a stranger.

Thank you for reading.