And this is essentially the end of the 'A Thousand Words' multi-parter. If anyone's wondering why I called it that, it's based off that saying of how a picture can say a thousand words.
For some reason this chapter was somewhat hard to write. I'm not even fully sure as to why. But I managed it somehow, and now here it is. It still seems a bit...lacking, somehow, but I think this is the best it will be, so meh. Next chapter will be better, I promise, but all the same I hope you enjoy this one.
Masashi
For a moment, we all just stared, first at the spot Hokuto had just disappeared from, and then at each other, disbelieving. I don't think any of us had a clue what had just happened. She just seemed to have up and left out of nowhere.
"Where did Hokuto-san go?" Shizuka eventually piped up.
"I'm not too sure." Chieko answered, honestly.
"Shouldn't we run after her?" Noriko wondered.
"But we don't know where she's going, how will we be able to follow her?" Akira pointed out. "Though, there isn't really a better solution."
"I'll go. She can't have gone far." I got up. Holy shit, Nanto-tan. What's up with you? At least if I went now, there was a better chance of catching up with her.
"Do you want one of us to come with you, or..?" Chieko asked. I shook my head quickly.
"Nah, it's fine. You guys stay here, I'll drag her back soon enough."
"Are you sure?"
"Yup, I am." I grinned, and then before we could waste any more time, I strode in the direction that Hokuto had run off it and pushed through the crowds, looking for a glimpse of her, or at least of her height and general appearance, since that would at least be a start.
"Excuse me, just coming through, sorry, sorry, just coming through, ah-"In the last few seconds, the number of people seemed to have multiplied, and I had to bite back from cursing as I seemed to keep getting elbows and bags shoved into my sides and my legs, but after a few moments, the crowd lightened up, and I spotted Hokuto further down, still running.
"Nanto-tan! Hey, Nanto-tan!" I called out, speeding up. She didn't appear to hear me, still running, and also looking around her, occasionally pausing, as if searching for something. Hell. I broke out into a run and pursued her.
"Nanto-tan, what are you doing? Who are you looking for?" Who? Why are you assuming it's a who? No, hold on, why would it be a what? Of course she's looking for someone, you dolt, but who? Of course, the first thing I needed to do in order to find that out was to actually catch her, which seemed to be increasingly difficult. Was she actually going to pursue whoever it was right out of the mall? I wasn't sure I exactly relished chasing her that far-
"HOLY SHITTING FUCK-FINGERS, NANTO-TAN!" I ended up calling out, just as I almost ended up colliding with her, not realising that she'd come to a stop right outside the clothes shop Noriko had bought her t-shirt from. Hokuto shrieked and jumped back.
"Kita-kun?! What are….I thought you were in the food court."
"I thought you were!" I retorted, putting my hands on my knees and taking a moment to catch my breath, silently cursing how out-of-shape I was. Hokuto just waited for me, saying nothing, and eventually I felt my heart beat return to normal and my breath even out, and I straightened, wiping my brow.
"What was all that about, then?"
"I…thought I saw someone I'm supposed to know." Hokuto said after a moment. Her choice of words didn't escape me, but that didn't mean I understood them.
"What does that mean?!" I asked, irritated. Hokuto glared at me.
"Exactly that!" she responded hotly. "It's not my fault I don't remember anything, is it?"
The meaning of that didn't escape me either, but this time I did understand what she meant, and my jaw dropped open. Okay, wasn't expecting that.
"Wait, someone you knew back then? Then, how did you even recognise whoever she is?"
"I have a photograph. Not on me, but I've practically memorised it, and then I thought I saw someone who could be her, seven years later. Apparently not, though."
Hokuto's shoulders slumped, and just like that my annoyance dissipated, leaving me with a sense of something I couldn't really name. After all, how could I be annoyed now? Of course we were the same where memory loss was concerned, but there were no loose ends, no real enduring mysteries. Fucking Matsuda and his memory wiping program, fucking Enoshima and her plans that needed it in the first place. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I sighed and rubbed my head tiredly.
"Let's just go back to the others, okay?" It was all that I could say.
"Hmmm." That, clearly, was all she could say.
We started to walk, slower than I would have liked, but I couldn't bring myself to get her to hurry up. Especially since she was still looking around her, still clearly hoping.
"So, who is she? Well, who was she, rather?" I asked. Hokuto looked at me, startled. I stared back at her and waited for the answer as we walked."
"Her name is Rei. I don't know her surname, for some stupid reason I don't have that written down anywhere, but hey. And she was my girlfriend. "
"And she didn't try to get in touch with you after we were rescued?"
"We broke up before that happened. At least according to my journal." Hokuto answered flatly.
"Oh. Shit." I wasn't sure what to say to that, and Hokuto chuckled wryly. Well, that puts your own heartaches into perspective, doesn't it?
"Yeah, that sounds about right. Unfortunately, I apparently wasn't counting on losing my memory when I wrote in my journal and didn't put in much detail, but it came out of nowhere for me, and I didn't even know why back then…."
"So you just want to know what happened, pretty much."
"Yeah." Hokuto nodded. "I can't really get over something I don't even remember happening now, ca-"
"Huh? You're not going to run away again, are you?" I asked. Stupid, considering Hokuto had ground to a halt. I stopped beside her, and followed her gaze to a woman who had just come out of a clothes shop, swinging a couple of shopping bag absently and listening to music through thin white earphones snaking somewhere into her pocket, where I assumed they were attached to a phone or something. Well, nah, people's jacket pockets don't generally play music you dipshit. She was dark-haired, and a similar height to Hokuto, maybe a inch or two shorter.
And judging by how Hokuto gawped at her, she clearly held a resemblance to her Rei.
"Rei? Rei?" Hokuto took a couple of steps forward as the woman looked around, possibly considering which shop to go to next, or something like that. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and jabbed at the screen for a moment, before looking up and in our direction. At that precise moment, a group of tourists cut across us, obscuring our view of her before they filed away into the nearest shop jabbering in whatever language they were jabbering in. But they seemed to me to be in slow motion, like something out of a movie
But they were soon gone, and when they were, Rei was left looking at us, and this time she had clearly noticed us, features coloured in astonishment. She frowned, and blinked at least twice, before she gripped her bags and her phone tightly and moved quickly, until she was standing in front of us. She paid no attention to me, instead gawping at Hokuto for a full second longer.
Then, rather than put her bags down and use her hands like a normal person, she made a quick shaking movement with her head that made her earphones fall out and rest on her shoulders, and then she spoke.
"Hokuto…is that really you?"
…
Hokuto
I don't know why I was expecting it too, but her voice did nothing. It didn't trigger any feelings, it didn't cause a wave of memories to suddenly burst forth and miraculously reverse the process I knew were irreversible. But she was standing here in front of me, and she looked so much like that photograph. Plus, she had asked about me by name. At the least, that has to mean something….right? Right?
"Yes, it is. Are….are you Rei?"
"Yes, that's right. I….you look so different. Good, still good. The glasses in particular, they look nice on you. But you look so different." Rei blurted out.
"It has been seven years." I said neutrally. Rei looked good too, to my eyes, but it felt hollow to echo her compliment. I was starting to feel something now, but I wasn't sure if it was an actual feeling, or the feeling of wanting to feel. Certainly, there was the dizzying sensation of knowing answers were this close, at last. There was a silence between us as we considered each other.
"I…well, how are you? What are you doing around here? Do you live nearby?"
"No, not here. I still live where I used to." I answered, making the assumption that Rei would have indeed known I lived.
"Oh, okay. You're quite far then."
"Yes. We're just here for…."I hesitated a moment. "A daytrip, but we're staying in Towa. "
"We?" For the first time, Rei looked at Masashi. "With you?"
"Yes, with me. But not just me, with the others too. Our friends."
Rei frowned at Masashi, tilting her head and trying to get the full measure of him, before she seemed to come to some sort of realisation.
"Oh! You mean all the rest of you who survived Hope's Peak?"
"Yes. You know what happened?" It was a genuine question, considering I had no idea where she had been or what she had been doing or anything, but Rei looked wounded by that.
"Of course I did. What with the videos, and the news. I kept up with the news. I….well, Hokuto, I'm glad you're okay. Especially after….well, you know."
"I don't." I said, simply, quickly, not wanting to let this moment stretch out when she had the advantage in memory. Rei gave me an odd look and Masashi made a frustrated sound.
"Of course she doesn't know. You watched the news, you should know this." He said grumpily. She looked at him askance, but then turned to me again.
"Oh, yes, of course." Rei still sounded uncertain. "But in that case, how do you even know I exist in the first place?"
You don't believe me?
"Personal effects." I didn't want to elaborate, too busy trying to calm the oddly familiar spiky feeling that had suddenly flared up. Rei nodded thoughtfully at this, seemingly oblivious.
"Well….there's a lot I'd like to tell you about…if you want to listen. You do have every right not to, though." Rei's shoulders hunched slightly at this, causing one of the earphone wires to fall and dangle, and the spiky feeling flattened out into something softer, but still painful. Is this because I felt for you once? I shrugged.
"You can imagine that there's a whole lot that I want to know too." I said. "But not now-we really need to get back."
I looked over at Masashi, suddenly glad that he'd decided to come after me and make it obvious that I did have other things to do, that I wasn't hinging my entire life on the lack of memories of Rei. He nodded.
"Yeah, the other guys'll be waiting- Shizuka-tan'll be wondering why we're taking so long."
Rei's eyes silently asked the question of who Shizuka was, but since she didn't verbalise it, I didn't answer. Instead, she nodded slowly, and put her shopping bags down to pull out the earphones from her phone.
"Well, we can exchange phone numbers and stuff, and then maybe we can arrange something for...well, whenever you're free. I'm in the country for a few more weeks anyway."
"You don't live here anymore?" I asked as I dug out my own phone and handed it to her, somehow not expecting that. Rei shook her head as we exchanged phones
"No, I live in America now. I do come back regularly though-this is my home country after all." She said as she busily entered her details into my phone. I did the same, but seemed to finish much quicker than she did, and waited patiently until she handed my phone back to me. I took a look at them.
"So, your surname is Yamagawara." I noticed immediately, looking up.
"Yeah, it is." Rei said softly. Rei Yamagawara. Yamagawara. I would not forget it this time. I nodded and looked down, and then noticed the extra email address she had written down.
"'Raye Northstar'?" I asked, looking back up at her. "Is that….you?"
"Yeah. It's a pen-name. "
"Oh. The 'Northstar', is that…..?" I trailed off, not wanting to complete the thought. It seemed so silly-she'd broken up with me, why would she pick a pen-name that related to me? Weren't breakups about starting over? Then again, if she'd wanted that, wouldn't she have just ignored me when she saw me? Of course, I could hardly ask all that, either, but apparently Rei knew what I was talking about, because she nodded, and for the first time since this exchange started, she smiled.
"Yeah. I…are you upset about that?"
"Why would I be? I just don't understand it. But you can explain it to me though. But anyway, we really do need to go now." I reasserted, tucking my phone away again. Rei nodded as she put the earphones back in her own phone.
"Alright then." She took a breath. "Okay….well, I'll see you soon, hopefully."
"Yeah."
And with that, we walked away, leaving her standing there. I felt a little bad about it, but not completely. Rei Yamagawara, Raye Northstar. My Rei. Finally, finally, I was starting to get somewhere. I found myself looking behind after a few moments, but she had disappeared again.
"So….is that what you wanted, or what?" Masashi asked me, making me whip around again. I blinked, and eventually shrugged.
"Ah, I don't know." I shrugged.
"So, are you going to meet her, or what?" Masashi asked. "And what are you going to do after that?"
"Well, I guess I'll have to decide after I meet her, obviously. Which answers your first question, actually."
"That it does-oh, hold on." Masashi pulled his phone out and stared. "Oh, Akira-tan texted, probably to ask if I found you yet….yep, okay, I'll just answer….found her, on our way back to you now. Okay, there, done."
"Ah, were you guys really worried about me?" I asked. Masashi sighed as he tucked his phone away, and rubbed the back of his head for a moment.
"Vaguely alarmed for a moment, more like."
"Oh. It was pretty silly for me to do that, wasn't it?"
"Too bloody right." Masashi shook his head in mock-annoyance. "Still, the main thing is that you're fine and well….the others are going to be wondering."
"I know." I said, wondering just how I would explain it to them. Obviously, in the same way that I did just now! Even though I knew that, I still wondered. Perhaps because for so long I'd not said anything. Still, at least there was a use for my box now. That, at least, was something.
"It'll be fine though, Nanto-tan. Whatever happens, we're behind you."
"Yeah. Yeah, I know." I said. "Yeah."
We didn't say anything for a while, then I felt my own phone vibrate, and I pulled it out, only to see it was a message on our group chat, from Wakana, telling us that Tyson had come back from seeing Yashiro's father and asking where we were. She'd also added that they were sitting in the same bookshop that she'd been staying while waiting for Tyson.
"I've got it, Nanto-tan," Masashi said as I looked up at him. "No, wait, Akira-tan's typing, we'll leave it to him. We're almost there anyway."
"Sure, okay." I put my phone away, and we walked in silence until we reached the food court again.
Akira and Noriko were still at our table, the former standing and typing on his phone, sending a fair number of messages judging by the vibrating I felt. But Noriko, still sitting down, noticed and grinned and waved, and Chieko also smiled, looking up from the ice-cream that she had almost finished. Shizuka looked over to see what Chieko was looking at, and broke out into a huge grin and waved with both her hands. Masashi went straight over to Chieko and Shizuka, but for a moment, I found myself staring at them all, before pulling myself together and walking back over to them.
"Oh, hey, you're okay?" Noriko checked instantly.
"Yeah, I am. I'll explain all when we get back home, I promise."
"And we should be getting back quickly. They're waiting for us, after all." Akira said, indicating his phone.
"Yeah, let's get going." Chieko agreed, gathering her rubbish together, then going to get everyone else's, before throwing it away in the same bin I'd gone to before I'd spotted Rei. She came straight back, and then we started walking.
"Oh, hey, Kita-kun." I said, something occurring to me.
"Yeah, what is it?" he asked.
"Were you the one who was yelling 'shitting fuck-fingers' back there?"
…
Chieko
Having persuaded Shizuka to stay upstairs and play (after extracting many promises that one of us would play with her later on), we gathered in the living room and waited for Hokuto to bring down whatever it was she needed to explain herself. It didn't take her very long, and she came down and sat on the empty armchair, a purple box on her lap. She didn't meet our eyes as she looked down at its lid for a moment, but she opened the lid and set it on the ground, and pulled out a slim stack of small black, hard-cover notebooks. Setting the box next to the lid, she then picked up the piles of notebooks, pulled out one in particular, flipped it open and took out a sheet. All of this she did in silence while we waited, and then when she turned it so we could see what it was, she started to speak.
"This is Rei. Rei Yamagawara, as I found out her name was today. But this is the only picture I have of her. "
"Where'd you get it from?" Noriko asked. Hokuto shrugged.
"I don't know. Must have taken it at some point, right? It was just returned to me along with everything else in this box."
Of course, Hokuto didn't need to explain who had returned the box, and where it was returned from. The answer was clearly written on her face. And in any case, we hadn't been in any other situation that would require such a thing. I thought of my own box, filled with all sorts of little things. A pencil case full of stationary, photographs whose situations I had no memory of, trinkets, exercise books, an appointment diary, a birthday card, some coins. I had stared at some of the things, finding it so difficult to believe that any of the happy things they chronicled had ever happened, but there were no real mysteries, no questions. Nothing to wonder about and struggle to understand.
No, the things to question had happened in the killing game. Koutarou…
"And you told us she was your girlfriend….?" Akira prompted carefully.
"Yeah. Was is probably the key word. I've written in here that she dumped me, but I don't really know why. Here, I'll show you."
"Oh, you don't need…." I protested from where I was sitting on the floor, not sure how I felt about Hokuto giving us access to what must have been very, very private thoughts. Hokuto shook her head at that.
"Ah, it's fine, really. It's not personal. Well," Hokuto rethought this. "It isn't personal in the same sort of way anymore. So yeah, you may as well take a look."
Still, I didn't want to take it, so in the end Wakana did, and she looked down at the pages for a moment, looking increasingly sorrowful as she did.
"Ho-Chi…." She murmured. Then, she closed it and handed it back.
"What's all the numbers and directions?" she asked.
"Oh. Observations. This wasn't actually a diary, it was an observational journal, that's all information about whatever stars, planets, whatever I observed each night back then. Some stuff about the Astronomy Club I apparently created. I just sometimes liked to use them as diaries. So it wasn't their main purpose, to be a diary. Hence how random my writing was. But in all of these ones, the ones I got through while there, I wrote a lot about Rei."
"You must have loved her, then." I ventured. Hokuto nodded.
"I know I must have….but I just have no memory of it. Of meeting her, of breaking up with her, of anything in between. I have no memory of it."
"Just the evidence that it happened at all." Tyson concluded. Hokuto nodded.
"Exactly. "
"Did we ever meet her? I mean, that's not really going to be helpful to you right now, but still. Perhaps if you did then we've got stuff written down somewhere too that cou-" Noriko stopped midsentence as Hokuto shook her head quite vigorously.
"No. No, that much was clear. We kept it a secret. She was a Hope Valley High student, you see."
It took me a moment to realise what she was saying.
"And why would have that mattered?" Masashi asked huffily. Oh. Oh, of course….
"Of course it mattered." Noriko said. "You know what relations between Hope's Peak and Hope Valley were like!"
"Of course I bloody do, but-"
"You're thinking of it in the wrong way, Masa-san." Akira interrupted. "You're thinking as well….you in the present, away from when everything happened. Back then…..especially if you consider how so many of the Hope Valley students were manipulated by Enoshima to do her footwork, things were very different. They probably had good enough reason to keep things discreet."
I shivered a little at Enoshima's name, but managed to keep myself together. I wondered if perhaps, the disconnect and Enoshima's ability to play on it had had anything to do with the breakdown of their relationship.
"Well, can't argue with that, I guess. Do you think that had anything to do with why she dumped you?" Masashi asked, almost as if his thoughts had been running on similar lines to mine.
"Probably. " Hokuto. "I mean, I have no idea. I didn't think that I ever would, and to be honest since she dumped me I supposed that was that. But given that I literally have no memory of all this, I didn't want to let it be without ever finding out what had happened. Yet, I didn't really have anything to go on, so I didn't…."
She paused and took a moment to collect her thoughts. We waited, and then she took a breath, and continued.
"I had this vague idea that I could track her down somehow while I was here, hence why I have all this stuff with me." Hokuto laughed nervously as she gestured to her box. "But yeah, again, I didn't really know. When we went past the place where the Wishing Tree used to be, I looked to see if I could spot someone who was possibly her, but I didn't. You can imagine that was a relief in some way, but still that left me back to square one. I had no idea what to do next. But you know, we were doing the paintings, so I sort of just pushed it away."
"And then you spot her today, through sheer chance." Noriko concluded. Hokuto smiled at that, though she looked a little wistful.
"Yeah. I got lucky, I did. Though…I don't know what I was thinking when I gave chase. I'm lucky it was her, I guess."
"Did she tell you anything, when you found her?" Tyson asked.
"A little, but under the circumstances, we couldn't really hash it all out there, you know. So we'll meet at some point later. Maybe after we all go home. Or something. She said she's in the country a while longer-she lives overseas now. America. She's an author. Raye Northstar, she goes by."
"Oh! I saw some of her books in the bookshop I was waiting in, actually." Wakana said. "The 'north star', that's from your name, right?"
"Yeah, it is. I don't know why, either."
Guilt, I wanted to say, but didn't. I probably shouldn't be making assumptions, given how little I actually knew. I didn't know Rei, I didn't know what their relationship had been before it broke down and then everything else happened. But for Rei's penname to incorporate Hokuto's name-that was a very specific, very meaningful gesture. And it was one of guilt, I was sure of it.
"Huh. That's quite the coincidence, isn't it?" Wakana mused.
"You don't need to wait until after we leave to see her, you may as well go sooner rather than later, right, Akira-tan?" Masashi said suddenly.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah." Akira blinked, apparently having been lost in thought for a moment. "It's not really a big deal, we've not yet got anything planned to do all together."
"Apart from the festival." Noriko pointed out, referring to the leaflet she'd brought back when she had gone shopping a couple of days ago, that was now stuck to Akira's fridge. Akira nodded.
"Yes, and that's at the end of next week. So….as long as you let us know."
"I….you're sure?" Hokuto blinked. Akira nodded.
"Sure."
"Yeah, we'll survive without you for a night." Masashi joked.
"You guys….." Hokuto picked up the old photograph of Rei and looked at it for a good long moment. Then, she sighed, and tucked it back into one of the diaries, before piling them together and putting them back in the box, closing it and then settling it on her lap again.
"Well….well, yeah, I guess I'd best put this away now. And I'll do dinner today-I'll get started now." Hokuto said as she got up.
"Oh, I'll help too if you'd like, Nanto, Ma'am." Tyson said, as we all followed suit and also got up. Stretching once I was up off the floor, I held out my hand to help Wakana up.
"Sure, I'll see you in the kitchen." Hokuto told Tyson, perky again as she dashed out of the kitchen and clattered up the stairs.
Noriko stayed in the living room, grabbing the remote to turn on the TV, and the rest of us left the room, Tyson, Masashi and Akira going to the kitchen and Wakana and I heading upstairs, Hokuto coming out of her room just as we reached the top of the stairs. Hearing us, Shizuka opened the door and came to drag us in, and we went to join her in her game.
…
Hokuto
"Hey, the others are finished with the bathroom, do you want to go first, or shall I?" Noriko asked.
I looked up from my phone, and shook my head at her.
"You go first."
"Cool, okay." Noriko grinned at me, and then left the room. I sighed, and got up off the bed and went to the window. I'd been staring at my phone for the last few minutes without doing anything. Surprisingly, explaining Rei had been quite easy. Possibly because there wasn't that much to explain in the first place, considering, but still. It had been so easy.
And they'd all been so nice about it. A little mad about me running off…which was a pretty stupid thing to do, especially in an area we weren't too familiar with in the first place. But they'd been nice about it, so nice about it. Though it wasn't exactly their niceness that I was surprised about, because I knew that as Masashi had said, they had my back-just as I had any of their backs. Perhaps it was just how easily it had come, their niceness about it all. And really, it was just weird to contemplate that not only had I actually talked about Rei, I had talked to her. And now I would be able to find out what had happened.
Well, if I could work up the courage to text her I would be.
I wasn't sure what was making me dither, but all the same, I was. Ah, pull yourself together. I brought up Rei's contact details, stared at them, finger hovering the button that would allow me to compose a new message. Rei. You're real….you're really real. I sighed, and took the plunge.
Hey, Rei-I paused, wondering if it was right to be so familiar under the circumstances, then left it and continued. Hokuto here. It would be good if we could meet up soon. How does Sunday work for you?
I read it over, wondered if Sunday was reasonable enough given that was the day after tomorrow and therefore short notice, shrugged that off and then deleted the 'Hokuto here' bit as it seemed unnecessary, and then before I could agonise over it even more needlessly, I sent it and sighed in relief. And then a second later, I had another thought.
Haruhi-Chan.
Once I'd taken off after Rei, I'd not even thought about her. But now…what did I do? Was it fair of me to want to see her, even though Rei had come back into my life? Would it count as stringing her along? On the other hand, if I just left it, then what would she think of me? Rei was still my past, even if she was here now. Haruhi could be the future, but how did I know she would be? I sighed, and exited the message screen and went back to my contacts list to find Haruhi's name, and opened a new message under her name.
Hi, Haruhi-Chan, it's Hokuto Nanto from earlier today. Thanks for helping us out, we're all grateful. Here are my contact details. Perhaps we could meet some time for coffee, once I'm back home? Once I had typed that, I added in my contact details, and then after a couple more re-reads, I decided I was satisfied, and I sent it off. I didn't even realise that I had been holding my breath until I let it out.
There, it is done. I sighed heavily, and looked out of the window for a moment, before moving away from it and sitting down on my bed. I played with my phone absently for a few moments, then decided to turn it off. I'd set things into motion, now all that needed doing was to wait.
Had to reupload this because I did indeed mean 'inch', NOT 'foot. Thanks for pointing that out for me, arans :)