The day Izumi lies to her is the day that Meroko starts counting.
She counts her shoes, her socks, her necklaces, her lace ribbons, her Gothic Lolita accessories. She counts her eyelash hairs and the holes in her boots and how many times she can make Takuto smile. She counts the people every day and the cracks in the wall and the lies everyone tells her.
Sometimes she flies over the skies of the Human Realm and counts all the people—souls—below. She sees their lifespan and counts all the people with broken hearts and all the people with happy lives and all the people with shorter life spans (the girl with cancer in the hospital, the boy who got run over by a train, the lady who swallowed pills on accident) and all the people who are like her, once.
Because Meroko is happy and is sad and miserable and a cheery and bright girl, or she was, she doesn't know anymore. She's been through enough pain in her life (and her death) and she doesn't know what that makes her.
One day she's walking down the streets, running some errands for Takuto (this is before she fell in love with him) and sees him.
He's sitting with his new partner—what was his name? John? Jonathan?—and talking, looking for all the world like he's uncaring and cold and unaffected, as usual. She hurts a little, but she knows that this is probably for the best, because she's always, always falling for the wrong kind of guys—
Her first love went for her best friend, her fiancé tried to rape her, her partner betrayed her, and Takuto—Takuto.
She walks the other way.
It's the fifth week of them working together when she realizes that she is in love with Takuto. So she forgets about Izumi and starts pursuing her new partner, the one with the adorable cat ears.
It is also the fifth week without her that Izumi finally, finally—because it's taken him such a long time—to realize he loves her.
Their hourglass tipped over.
Sometimes, when it's raining, Meroko remembers. She remembers.
And then she puts on a smile and tells Takuto she loves him.
He never accepts, of course, because to him they're just friends, just Shinigami partners, and she can be a little annoying sometimes, but she's still a good person and he doesn't want her to get hurt so he takes care of her.
That's something Izumi has never done. Takuto's the one who took care of her, who's watched her back for so long. And for that alone, she could love him for the lie that's called eternity.
When it rains, Izumi paces around his room and realizes that he is officially Screwed.
She is in love with her new partner.
Damn it.
Meroko gets dragged into a dark alleyway one day, and when she comes out of it, she feels filthy and sad and miserable, because since when had Izumi fallen for her?
Then she curses men and their stupidity and their pride and she trudges home, back—back to Takuto.
When she meets Mizuki, she quite likes the girl.
Then she realizes that Takuto is falling in love with her.
She goes out into the rain and pretends that there are tears running down her face, and not rainwater.
She's done crying for the people she loves.
Because it's about time they start returning the favor.
It's mostly regret Izumi feels.
Because, really. Maybe he was a tad bit cruel and a tad bit unnecessarily cold to her attempts at loving him. Maybe if he hadn't tricked her into leaving, maybe if he hadn't lied so much, maybe if he hadn't—
He looks out into the rain and apologizes to her. Because maybe he had been a tad bit of a jerk. Probably. A little. Only maybe.
Meroko remembers a time when her name was Moe, when her hair hadn't been long and pink, when she had been a good friend and a loving partner. She remembers how the boy she had loved turned towards her best friend instead. But that was minor. She could handle that.
She remembers her fiancé.
She remembers. Every time it rains, she remembers.
But then she remembers what he did, and she goes back to slitting her wrists.
She sees Mizuki and Takuto together, and sometimes she wants to chop the girl's head off.
Mizuki hadn't done anything to win Takuto's affection. She hadn't been beaten or lied to or tricked and Meroko—
Meroko can't forgive her for that.
When he sees Meroko, Izumi feels a mixture of emotions—first the adrenaline, the same adrenaline he feels whenever he sees her, the type that makes his heart race and his blood pound in his head.
And then he feels guilt and sorrow and love because he lied to her; she trusted him and believed in him and he had been her hero.
What kind of hero would lie and trick and steal?
The last emotion he feels is determination.
Because he's still in love with her and he'll still do anything for her, and he's promised himself.
When he plays, he plays to win.
Meroko sometimes is able to see the way Izumi looks at her.
There is grief, she knows. There is sadness. There is love and hope and magic. An entire Pandora's Box of emotions.
Because between grief and sorrow and anger, there is also hope and salvation. She feels glad that Izumi--cold, apathetic, heartless Izumi--can finally feel better things than revenge and sadness and death. She hopes that he can one day experience better emotions.
She thinks that she can forgive him for hating her. She is a tad bit annoying—she knows that. She understands.
She can forgive him for stealing her heart and crushing it every time she was rejected—you're not enough, you've never been enough, I don't love you, you're not enough—because she's never been enough and she's used to it so it's fine.
But she cannot and will not forgive him for lying to her and tricking her, because she knows that she would never have been that selfish. She would never have been so self-absorbed to drive herself to lie to someone who loved and looked up to her.
I'm not coming back to you this time.
Izumi used to be so full of hate that he couldn't think straight. He hated the rain, the sunshine, the darkness, the light, death, life, his mother, his friend, Meroko.
Now he only hates himself, because he's made her cry so many times.
And so whenever he sees her tears for Takuto he wants to break something, because—because—
Because he doesn't want to see tears in her eyes ever again.
For being a Shinigami, Meroko has always been a happy girl.
Shinigami are supposed to be sad, death-like, carrying the weight of both worlds. They are supposed to be depressing and cold, like Izumi.
She isn't.
She wonders if that's why nobody loves her. Maybe she's just too different. Maybe she's just too full of life to be dead.
But the stinging cuts on her wrists remind her that she isn't alive anymore.
There are no second chances.
She looks up into the rain.
She comes to him one day.
Izumi watches her out of the corner of his eye as she sits down with him. He waits for her to say something—that she hates him, that he's annoying, that he should stop following her around, that he should leave her alone, that she doesn't love him anymore.
That she loves Takuto.
She says nothing. Instead, she murmurs, "I hate the rain."
It is bright and sunny.
He understands.
"I used to hate it, too."
She looks at him, finally. He notices her eyes are foggy and misty, as if she's trying to remember something but can't get it back. "What changed?"
"Nothing." He gets up. "Except you."
He's standing and she's sitting down, but he doesn't move away and she doesn't stop him. He wonders if it's always been like this—if it's always been him leaving her behind.
No. It wasn't.
Back then, she would have stood up with him. Back then, she would have followed him.
Right now, she's sitting and he's standing, and he's waiting for her to stand up with him, because that's—that's how it's always been.
She isn't standing. She isn't following him anymore.
She isn't going to come back to him.
"I hope you're not going to ask for my forgiveness." She says.
He shakes his head. They aren't even looking at each other and he feels the connection. "I don't want your forgiveness."
"Good. Because you're not going to get it."
He looks at her this time, curiously, with an eyebrow raised skeptically. Really now?
"You're going to have to earn it."
She stands up and she walks away, leaving him standing by the bench, wondering.
Mizuki visits Meroko in her room. The two of them gossip, and Meroko is enjoying herself, even though she knows that Takuto is in love with the girl, and the girl is falling for Takuto, also—it's in Mizuki's eyes, only she doesn't know it yet.
Meroko doesn't tell her.
She just wants some time with Takuto for herself, just a little while longer, please, because she'll miss being with him.
For once, she just wants to be selfish.
Like Izumi.
So she talks with Mizuki, hiding Mizuki's secret, because the girl is still oblivious of her own feelings.
Not for long, though, not for long…
"Hey Me-chan?" Mizuki is asking her. Meroko grunts.
"Do you like Izumi-kun?"
Meroko practically chokes on her own spit.
"…what."
"It's just," Mizuki avoids her eyes now, "he likes you. A lot. I can tell."
He likes you a lot.
Meroko remembers rain and betrayal and lying, and running away from something so fast that all you want to do is turn around and run back.
"I doubt that." She says bitterly. She doesn't notice the sadness in the younger girl's eyes.
Izumi confronts Takuto one day.
He wants to punch him and yell at him and ask him why he can't see Meroko for who she really is—she's amazing, she's brilliant, she's so many things at once—and appreciate her. He wants to slap Takuto in the face and tell him that he's so lucky to have her admiration, so lucky to have her love.
Instead, he asks him how the weather is.
Takuto says that it's going to rain soon.
Izumi remembers eyes, beautiful scarlet eyes.
He stays out in the rain, even when everyone else has gone inside.
It's the least he can do.
"You've changed."
He pops it out to her one random day, a day when saving Mizuki's life isn't a priority, a day when they are alone in the house.
"Thanks. You haven't." she shoots back coolly. She can play his game, too.
"I'm going to guess that's not a compliment."
"Lucky guess."
They fall into silence again. Meroko feels a bit uncomfortable. Izumi, as always, feels just fine.
"I like you." He finally says out loud, and for once doesn't feel so confident.
"…yes, Izumi." Meroko sounds exasperated. "We are friends. Friends tend to like each other…"
"No. Not as friends."
Meroko paused, uncertain. Was he really…?
"As partners?"
"We're not partners anymore."
"No thanks to you." She shoots at him, but then her expression softens. "Let me guess. As acquaintances?"
"No."
"As…fellow Shinigami?"
It was a lame guess, but she was trying to put off the inevitable for as long as she could. Izumi glares at her.
"That's not it and you know it."
Meroko stays silent for a moment, then she finally turns to face him fully, and Izumi remembers a time when her eyes hadn't been dimmed and dark and full of anger and sadness, when they had been full of life and bright and happy and--
"What should I say, then, Izumi?" she hisses, and she's angry, so suddenly. "Put some more words into my mouth, why don't you, because I honestly haven't had enough with you deciding on my leave of our partnership, or how you decided to join my mission with Takuto, or how you suddenly decided for me how Takuto wasn't fit enough, or not good enough, or too weak, like you said I once was."
She pauses for breath, and he tries to talk, but she's on a roll.
"You bastard," she's hissing, and he can see the strength in her eyes—since when did she become so strong?—"I never blamed you for anything. Maybe I should have. Maybe I'm too weak, or whatever nickname you still have for me."
"Me-chan." He says, and it isn't a nickname.
Not anymore.
And she remembers.
She remembers.
"I hate you." She whispers, and it's quiet, so quiet, but she may as well have been yelling in his ear. "I hate you. I hate you."
Izumi just shrugs, because he was prepared for this, anyway.
And it really doesn't hurt.
Not much.
(But inside it's his heart that's shattering, and not hers anymore.)
"You know, don't you?" he asks her coolly, and she doesn't know what he's talking about at first, until—
"Takuto's in love with Mizuki." Izumi says this curtly, as if it had never mattered to him, "He loves her, Meroko. He isn't going to stand and let her die. You won't reap her soul. He won't let you."
His eyes level towards hers. "You failed." He whispers quietly.
And she—she is so tired of failing, of not ever being enough, of hating Izumi and loving Takuto and switching from hate to love to hate again and again with both of them, and she just—
She can't take this anymore.
"No." she says at last, strong and clear and loud, and her eyes are clear and scarlet and lovely and hard.
"No. I won't reap Mi-chan's soul. I don't want to. She doesn't deserve death. I don't care how long Eichi has waited for her." Meroko stands straight now, her back like a ramrod. "He can't possibly have waited for her as long as I have for Takuto."
"And besides," she adds, finally turning away, "waiting isn't so bad, anyway."
Izumi knows that this last line is a lie and she knows that he knows, also, but she's still telling him.
Because he doesn't deserve to know.
"What about Eichi?" Izumi prods. "What will you do?"
Meroko shrugs. "He's in Heaven. He's an Angel. Their rules are different from ours. If he wants to watch over Mi-chan, so be it. Otherwise…" she turns towards him again, her eyes full of darkness.
"He can let her go." She lets it out in a whisper. "He can forget. He can start over. I'm offering him closure." She turns away again.
"That's something you never let me have, Izumi. Closure." Her last words are bitter. "I had to find that for myself, with you."
"And Takuto?" he asks, after a short silence. Meroko shrugs.
"What about Takuto?"
"You love him." Izumi states flatly, and it hurts him a little, to say it out loud for the first time.
And not me.
"Yeah. He loves Mi-chan. She loves him back." She's slipping away from him now, and Izumi can feel it. "There's really nothing I can do, is there? Like…like when I was alive."
He doesn't answer for a while, because he knows her story. He knows how she had to step aside and watch as her love went for her best friend.
He knows that doing it again, this time with Takuto, will destroy her.
"And me?" he says, so softly, and this time, he feels her hesitate.
This time, it is special.
"…you love me." She says. "You love me and I can't love you back anymore."
"You didn't even try." It's his turn to be angry, now. "You never even tried to."
"I tried to forget." She replies sadly. "I tried to forgive. I tried, Izumi."
He knows that she is telling the truth, but that doesn't stop him from being mad at her.
Why can't you love me again?
"So you take care of Eichi." His hands are clenched into tight fists now, he's so angry, "And you take care of Takuto and Mizuki. Who takes care of you?"
There is a slight pause, and they both know the answer.
"I do." She whispers softly, and suddenly she wants to cry.
"I do. It's always been like that."
And she leaves. She leaves, because it's always been Meroko healing herself, always been her taking down her walls and then rebuilding them and drawing her own blood. It's always been her taking care of herself, of trying to heal herself, of gathering her broken hearts and trying to sew them whole again.
It's always been Meroko and herself.
Meroko immediately starts counting again.
She counts.
And counts.
But for some reason, everything she counts never seems to reach the right number.
Sometimes she goes out into the rain and stares at the sky, ignoring the droplets falling on her face and in her eyes and hair.
As always, she pretends they're tears.
"Poor Eichi," she murmurs. "Poor Eichi."
Because Mizuki and Takuto are together, and she knows what it's like to stand aside and watch. She knows. She understands.
She hopes that the boy is happy in Heaven.
She hopes that he's alright, because she isn't.
"I want you to be my partner again."
Meroko turns at the sound of Izumi's voice. She is at the park, and he probably followed her there. He does that a lot, these days, when he thinks she can't see him.
"And I want you to stop stalking me." She doesn't turn away from the duck pond. It's been a long, long time since Takuto went out of his coma, and Mizuki is happy with him.
They are both happy, so Meroko is happy, mostly.
But now she is partner-less and she has no jobs or assignments. She had been thinking of applying for a new partner soon, actually.
But then Izumi had to show up.
And ruin her plans.
"I heard you following me thirty minutes ago." She informed him, and she feels satisfied, until he ruins yet another thing for her, by saying,
"I was watching you for an hour."
Damn. Maybe she should have brushed up on her skills.
"I want you to be my partner." His voice is softer this time, and less commanding. And…a little hesitant. She realizes that he is giving her a choice.
He is letting her decide, for once. She looks at him. She sees the expression in his eyes before he can hide it. She sees his knuckles, white from clenching his fists, and the blood that pours out of the half-moon-shaped indents from his nails.
She realizes how much her answer means to him.
And…and maybe it's been going on for too long, anyway.
Maybe she's already healing, anyway.
So she says, "Sure."
And he takes her hand and he squeezes it, and everything feels perfect.
And he tells her, "Start counting."
So she begins.