A/N: The concept for "A Distant Shore" began as a side story to Wildwolf's "The Fall of Angels"; and while it might digress from that a bit as it goes on, I must start off by mentioning that this is based on her ideas for the characters, namely that Mitani and Izuru become shinigami assigned to Sector 1, Okinawa, after their deaths in volume 4. Other than that I don't think it's a prerequisite, but if you like the characters and haven't already, you gotta read "Fall".
A Distant Shore
They had been lucky enough to get New Year's Eve off that year. The changing of the year always saw a great influx of souls brought to Meifu through violent means, but this 31 December left them without an open investigation.
For sentimental reasons they returned to Nagasaki, only realizing when they got there how few good memories the place actually held and how little it had ever truly felt like home. Watching bored young people at various levels of intoxication sing karaoke through drifting tendrils of cigarette smoke, the year changed. A year ago would have found them in a small hotel room in Naha in front of an equally small television set, drinking awamori out of cheap wooden cups as they watched old enka stars on that year's Red and White Song Competition and waxed nostalgic. Mitani sang along with the lyrics that scrolled along the bottom of the screen, and Izuru laughed because he knew the songs in the first place and downed another cup. His cheeks were flushed, but somehow his eternally seventeen-year-old body held liquor better than his partner's. Neither would say it aloud, but the inevitable silence made it clear they both thought about it every 31 December: it had been almost a year since their deaths, or two as the case may be. Or three.
Now in the karaoke bar in Nagasaki, Izuru poured himself another cup of warm sake obtained on a falsified ID that put him at the magical age of twenty. Technically, it was accurate. If it had been possible to retrieve the one he had had when alive it would have said the same thing. He was lucky now; another decade and he wouldn't be able to pull it off without raising a few suspicious eyebrows, even if some thirty-year-old rock star could pass as eighteen. Sipping his drink with one hand, he flipped through the song list with the other. Apparently he did it for the thrill of seeing a favorite song scattered among the multitudes. He never sang anymore, not even along with the TV. Not since he had died and become a shinigami. In the faint, wavering light of their table's candle his downturned eyes looked tired beyond his age. That was the thought that would not leave Mitani alone as he rubbed his own exhausted eyes.
It was after two in the morning, 1 January 2001, when they left. Shoulders scrunched, they tucked their chins into their mufflers against the mild cold they had grown unaccustomed to after years spent drifting between Okinawa's warmth and the eternal spring of Meifu. They mused on how inconvenient it would be if someone from their lives were to recognize them on the street, but they didn't care enough at this hour to disguise themselves from the gazes of the living. They passed brightly-lit storefront displays attempting to entice customers in, and attempting to make up for lost sales even years after the burst of the economic bubble.
Somewhere along the way Izuru slipped his arm beneath Mitani's and leaned close as they walked, heedless of what any passerby might think. There was no need for him to say it, because the same thing was on both their minds: Without something better to distract them, their thoughts returned inevitably to the year they had met and fallen into a forbidden relationship that far surpassed anything appropriate for a teacher and student, and died. In some ways, that time seemed to them now like a nightmare they had merely awakened from; in others, what was dreamlike was this afterlife neither of them had once believed in, let alone been able to fathom, to which they feared—on the worst days even hoped for—a sharp, waking end, and a return to the agony of living.
The fountains in a bayside park were lifeless. The sea stretched out black and invisible before them, only the rush of the tide telling them it was there. Somewhere out on the dark bay was that island that haunted their dreams, but for now it was out of sight and mind. They leaned against each other for support, two drunks on a park bench. What had seemed like a good idea a short time ago did not so much now. They must have thought that upon returning to this place they would feel something anchoring them to it, as one with a strong connection to his roots feels upon approaching his hometown. The numbness they felt in actuality should not have come as a surprise, but it did.
"What do you want to do now?" Izuru asked him.
"I don't think there's much open at this hour," said Mitani.
"You've been saying how you'd like to go back to the cathedral."
"But services probably ended hours ago."
The tension hung thick in the air in the ensuing silence as the same dreadful idea occurred to them both. Out of a sense of duty, Mitani carefully began: "We could go there, if you're feeling up to it, just to look around if nothing else—"
"I never want to see that place again." Izuru's voice was loud in the still air, as though the thought were a lone scavenging animal that needed chasing away. In a sense, that was how ominous it was to him. The simple mention was all that was needed to set his mind. "I'd rather just go home."
Home. A value equal to Meifu, the land of the dead. That was still a strange concept after three years.
Every once in a while, at times like these, it hit Mitani as something alien.