The day started off like any other. The same sun, the same room, the same Taki. Sometimes, he missed his younger, aggressive self. At least, when he was getting into fights every fortnight, there was some spice to life.

Taki could feel his father's gaze on him as he emerged from his room.

"Ah, Taki, got any interviews today?"

"Yes, I have to go to Marunouchi this afternoon."

"Remember to iron your suit."

With that remark, his father left. Taki could feel the disappointment emanating from him recently, after all he had been ironing that suit for the past year without result.

"Oh well, maybe today is the day."

In his voice, Taki found not the hope he had wished to express but caustic sarcasm.

Tsukasa and Takagi already had jobs, why did he have to be the odd one out?

It probably had a lot to do with barely scraping by in college, Taki reasoned. Yet, he knew that wasn't all of it. Truth was, he hadn't really felt any of what he had been doing for a long time. Ever since that trip to Itomori. He might have repeated the words a younger, fierier self would have said yet there wasn't that feeling behind it. Passion. He was an artist, not an accountant. Without passion, he was as useful as a blind pilot.

His future looked bleak but if he was being honest with himself, he really didn't care. It didn't matter if he ended up in some dead end job, the void in side him would be the same as it would be if he became a partner with a corner office. The void that had sucked all joy out of his life, leaving a hollow shell of a man in his place.

Itomori.

What had happened there?

I will find out, today

You can't, Taki reasoned. You have an interview today, you need a job.

You won't get it anyway

Shut up!

Taki stood up. Yes, it was pointless to run after a job for himself. He truly wouldn't feel any better. However, others would. He couldn't give up, his father was crushed beneath the debts that his mother had run up. He was only his hope for a peaceful retirement. A minimum wage job wouldn't make much of a dent in those debts, he would need much more. A lot more.

Even as he convinced himself, however, Taki felt his shoulders droop. Ponderously, he dressed and left. Maybe he would ride the metro all day again, he never got tired of watching the Tokyo skyline flash by.

Taki eyed the building he remembered only too well from his college field trip.

"This, students, is the shame of our trade. In this work you see ugliness so profound it touches you to your core. In fact, I'm unsure if it is safe to show this building to those new to our trade such as yourselves, it might corrupt your soul. I have showed you countless buildings that I wish you to emulate, this is one I wish you never come close to imitating in any way. If any of you ever sign a contract that includes demolishing this evil abomination, I'll pay good money to be the one to press the button. Hate is such an overused word, yet you will find that when you come to love architecture you'll truly come to hate this!"

The building really was ugly, Taki thought as it slipped by. Someone who designed that got to design a skyscraper, though. Maybe his cause wasn't so hopeless.

A metro running parallel to his suddenly cut off his view. As it sped by, Taki lowered his eyes.

Taki kun

Deja vu. He had been on this metro before, not pressed up against the window but standing comfortably in the middle. A ribbon, a red ribbon.

Taki kun

The eyes that were watching him when he raised his face were new, yet old. He did not know their owner, yet he knew them. They widened as he felt his own eyes widen. Who was she?

Taki kun

With a sudden lurch, the metro was gone. They had entered the terminal. Was this the terminal that woman had gotten off at?

Taki jumped off the compartment and ran, harder than he knew he could. Outside the crowded terminal, his progress became noticeably easy though fatigue began to catch up.

Taki kun

A red ribbon, he was almost about to touch the woman's shoulder when he realized she was a blonde.

Taki had bemoaned his lack of passion this morning yet passion seemed to be pushing him closer to a cardiac arrest with every step. He couldn't slow down, not when she could be vanishing even now in the teeming crowds.

What if she didn't get off here?

Taki shook his head. Her eyes, she had recognized him, hadn't she?

You saw what you wanted to see

The sinking feeling in his stomach grew with every passing minute. He had rushed far from the station, driven by an almost instinctual sense of direction. Wouldn't it have made more sense to stay there?

Taki felt a laugh well up inside. He wished to be sensible about chasing a woman he had seen across the glass screen of a metro. Of all the things he could have chosen to do today, he decided to have a breakdown.

Well, it beat being rejected by another scrupulously polite suit.

Isn't that her?

Framed against the sky on top of a set of stairs, the mysterious woman stood.

Please speak.

Taki could feel his heart beat now. He knew this woman, he knew her deep inside. Yet, he did not know how. He had no reason to talk to her. This feeling he had, of this great cavern deep within, had always struck him as somewhat psychotic. After all, it had all started with that sudden trip to Itomori, a trip he still could not recall in full detail. What if this was all a delusion? Even if it wasn't, he hadn't told anyone what he truly felt yet. Not Tsukasa or Takagi, not Okudera not even his father. Why did he want so desperately to tell this stranger what he had so far guarded as his closest secret.

The woman drew closer with every step he took. The gap between them closed till finally they were level. Taki's feet continued their rhythmic movement, although it was as if a colossal weight was added to his chest with every step he took. In a few seconds they would be strangers again, just two solitary figure among the thirteen million that lived in the metropolis. He would never see her again in his life, this feeling would pass and he would not be humiliated publicly. Yet, this face, it seemed to him as well known as his own.

He had reached the top of the stairs. He turned to find the woman still descending, her cascading black hair moving away from him one tantalizing step at a time, the red ribbon bobbing goodbye.

The ribbon.

"Hey!"

Taki waited nervously as she turned. That ribbon, he remembered a hand stretching out to him across a crowded metro, stretching out that ribbon. Or one that looked like it any rate. Whose hand was it? He did not know, yet there was an intense longing associated with this memory, a longing he knew only too well for the past five years.

"Haven't we met?"

She turned slowly, her eyes finally meeting his. In her eyes Taki saw an odd mixture of hope and fear. Sunlight glinted as a bead of water rolled off her chin. Water?

"I thought so too."

Her face broke into a wide smile as the tears rolled freely down her cheeks now. Taki felt a tear of his own join hers on the concrete steps. That voice, it seemed to him as well known as the face it emerged from. For the first time in many years, Taki felt he was where he was supposed to be.

"Your name?"

"Tachibana Taki."

"I'm Miyamizu Mitsuha"

Taki descended the stairs, imitating his father as nearly as he could to avoid appearing too eager. Mitsuha, waiting at the bottom, fought with her urge to run up the stairs. As she attempted to tuck her hair, disheveled from the breathless sprinting she had just done into shape, she felt the wetness on her cheeks.

You just cried in front of a total stranger because he asked you if you had met before.

The realization filled Mitsuha with burning shame. Hearing him get closer, Mitsuha buried her face in her hands, maybe he hadn't noticed from afar.

"Here, I..."

Taki was stretching out a napkin, it seemed her ploy hadn't worked.

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

With a few furious dabs, her cheeks were dry again and Mitsuha looked up.

"Do you remember where we met?"

"Not really. I seem to remember that ribbon on a metro though."

"You mean the corded braid?"

"Yes, only it was being offered to me according to what I remember, which obviously isn't the case. It might have been a similar braid, did you call it?"

Taki paused, a frustrated look coming over his eyes.

"I seem to even recall a voice calling out to me but I just can't remember the face. Do you remember by the way?"

Mitsuha shook her head.

"Only, when I saw you on the metro I felt as if-"

"I was looking in a mirror?", Taki completed.

Mitsuha's expression reflected the shock she felt.

"You too?"

"Yes, only I don't know why. We don't look alike, at all."

In spite of the immense relief that was washing all over body, Mitsuha felt a tiny stab of disappointment. The emotions that had begun in the aftermath of the meteor strike, emotions from which only her dreams were a refuge seemed to have dissipated. There seemed to be peculiar sense of contentment that had settled over her, yet her curiosity was still sharp.

The events now nine years past had intrigued her for a long time. She had spent many hours on the internet, attempting to find fresh information on the day that had become a legend among conspiracy theorists. After the comet strike, she couldn't explain to her father why she had been so unusually assertive on that day, why she had convinced him to hold that drill. Eventually, her father had chosen to disguise her role in the affair and attempted to pass off the drill as a pure coincidence however questions continued to be asked about the explosions in the power plant. She had felt that her sense of incompleteness was tied entirely to the events of that day and yet it seemed the resolution she had been hoping for would not arrive from the man standing in front of her, a man who seemed to be the cause of and the cure for it.

The feeling was fleeting, however, and the powerful euphoria that had flooded her the moment she had seen Taki soon came back.

"Tachibana san, are you going this way by chance?"

Mitsuha kicked herself mentally as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Of course he wasn't going her way, he had been going in the opposite direction. If only she had thought it out...

"Yes, may I accompany you?"

Taki blushed lightly as he realized how transparent the lie must be. He didn't wish to appear desperate in front of her yet here he was messing everything up.

"If it would not be too much trouble"

"So where are you going?", Taki asked as he fell in beside her.

Mitsuha fumbled. Truth was, she did not know. She might have been in Tokyo for close on two years now but she still wasn't familiar with the city, she had never visited Shinjuku before. To admit that she got off at Yotsuya solely to meet Taki would however be mortifying.

"You know, just going to meet some friends at a cafe."

"Oh? Is it that place?"

In front of them had materialized a small cafe, as if right on cue. In the bottom floor of a narrow building, Cafe Tabac was a cozy affair, perfect for couples. Not so much for friend groups. Mitsuha hoped Taki wouldn't be so observant as she pulled out her phone and faked a a look of annoyance.

"My friends seem to be running late. Would you mind talking this over till they get here?"

Taki had pulled out his phone in the meanwhile, Mitsuha noticed he seemed to have a frozen expression.

"Something important come up?" Mitsuha cursed herself, she probably appeared crazy. After all, if a guy began to weep rivers on seeing her, she would be getting as far away as possible, not sitting down at a cafe with him.

"Oh no, it's nothing important. Just...not hungry. I'll sit with you, though."

Mitsuha emerged from behind the menu with a smirk on her face.

"You know I have a company card for expenses like this."

"Huh? Still..."

"Come on, you must be hungry. It's bad manners to let a lady eat by herself."

"Is it?"

"Sure it is, at least it is where I'm from."

Taki inclined his head

"Huh? Are you from out of town?"

"Yeah, I'm from..."

"A town in Gifu."

The lie slipped out before Mitsuha could catch herself. Her past life was too much trouble, you never knew who was one of the Itomori truthers and if they got to know she was the daughter of the mayor who was at the center of every theory, at the very least she would be subjected to questions she knew she could not answer truthfully without being put in a psychiatric institution. She hadn't wanted to lie to Taki though. She wanted to ask him if his feelings too were linked to the comet's arrival. How could she do that now? Why was she such a good liar?

"Oh, so you're from one of those small towns where there are pubs but no cafes?"

"Huh? That's a weird way to describe them."

"Is it? I think stereotypes about dying small towns are the same everywhere."

"Yeah, I guess. So, Tachibana san, you are a Tokyo boy through and through?"

"100% purebred, never set foot outside it. Well, except that one time..."

Taki's phone buzzed.

"Sorry about this, I'll try to keep this quick."

Mitsuha signalled that she was going over to order and left the table as Taki began talking.

It felt odd but there was a certain degree of familiarity in these streets, Mitsuha realized as she stared out the glass doors. She had never come here yet she knew the way to the shrine in front of which she met Taki, she knew instinctively which way the exit was from the metro station. Even this cafe, it seemed familiar, like she had looked at it a thousand times but never entered it before. It could just be her imagination, the nervous tension from this impromptu meeting with Taki definitely could make it play up.

Taki kun

Mitsuha shuddered a bit imagining herself calling him by that name. Yet, it felt like she had said it countless times before, it felt like she had never wished to stop saying that name.

Nerves

Unbidden, images of nerves floated to her mind. Narrow, twisting vines carrying one's life in them. Interconnected with each other, a network spread all over each person's body. What if they were all linked to a greater system? What if the musubi of her grandmather's tales was what connected each person, placing them in their neat little box of space time, with all the others in that same box. Linking past, present and future, lovers and strangers. A LAN for life, the Universe and everything.

I sound like a pretentious fanfiction writer

Mitsuha ordered two cappuchinos, it seemed as if Taki had refused out of financial concerns but she couldn't dismiss the chance that he really wasn't hungry. Besides, if the conversation flowed like it had, the coffee would work as well as anything else. At the end of the day, Mitsuha didn't have any company card after all.

Taki was wrapping up the call as she returned, coffee in hand.

"Ok I'll be there, you don't need to bother me again."

"Yes, I understand."

"Yes."

Taki hesitated a bit and then finally came out clean.

"So I have an appointment at 4PM today, I'll probably need to leave around a quarter past three just to be safe."

"Oh, that's OK. It's only 2 right now."

Taki nodded with a smile. A smile that seemed to change the light in the cafe.

Kataware doki

"Sorry, I didn't get that."

"Ehhh"

"You just said something, something ki I think?"

"Oh no, no, that was nothing. Anyway, Tak-"

Mitsuha caught herself. What was she doing?

"Oh, it's about that. You can call me Taki if you want, I'm not really one for formality."

"I-I see."

The instances of deja vu were getting too numerous. It seemed like everything around her triggered her past memories. Tessie was always harping on about rebirth and multiverses but this was the first time she was seriously considering it. Was she close to Taki in her past life? But that wouldn't make sense, given that she was older than him by 3 years. What was happening?

The sound of her ring tone broke her stream of consciousness.

Shrugging her shoulders apologetically at Taki, Mitsuha received the call.

"Hello, boss."

"Where are you? The interview starts at 4!"

"Wait, what? I thought it was at 8."

"So did I. Apparently our interviewee had a different idea. Get to the studio before 3:30."

Mitsuha put her phone down.

"Tachibana san, I'm sorry but there's an emergency at work. I must leave immediately. However, I want to make this up to you."

Taki looked bemused

"Make up what? I was getting free coffee."

"Well, a free dinner would go well with that, won't it? How about next Saturday?"

"This is from your company card too?"

"Yeah."

"Wow, the poor shareholders."

"So that's an yes?"

"Uhh...sure. You'll need my number to set up it up though."

Of course I forgot that

Taki watched through the glass windows as Mitsuha marched resolutely to the road, hesitated, did an about face and marched right back and stuck her head in through the door.

"I'll text you the details, Taki kun."