Chieko

Walking away, I could hear their laughter.

"Sounds like they're having fun, aren't they?" I commented idly.

"Yeah," Wakana agreed. "I'm glad of it."

"Yeah, me too."

Entering the kitchen, I went to get the basket while Wakana opened the kitchen door, and then we went out to collect the clothes.

"I didn't think it'd be possible, really, to laugh like that again." I mused randomly.

Wakana looked at me questioningly.

"Yet, the others are all laughing so much; I can still kind of hear them from here."

Well, it was pretty faint by now, and it was more the occasional snatch of sound rather than proper hearing. But still, I could hear them, and that was the point.

"And, we've had a lot of moments of laughter here, haven't we?"

"Yeah." Wakana nodded firmly. "We really have. And we'll still be able to, won't we?"

"Mhmm."

We got on with taking down the clothes, folding them and putting them into the basket, so it didn't give me more work later, when I ironed them. Between us, it didn't take that long, and when the last item of clothing was folded, I went to pick it up, but then Wakana took it from me.

"Oh, here, I'll carry it."

"Oh, are you sure?"

"Yeah." Wakana shrugged. "You've got to go and pick up Shizuka-Chan soon, haven't you? I'll deal with this, and ask Kazama-Chan about an ironing board. "

"Okay, that works." I decided.

I thought that was that, but rather than just head back inside, I paused.

"What is it, Chieko-Chan?" Wakana asked almost immediately, not missing my hesitation.

"I…well, if…or when, rather, I end up telling Shizuka a bit more about…about seven years ago, even if it's just specifically about Koutarou…I…"

The question I wanted to ask was an easy, short one: Will you help me? But of course, something seeming easy didn't necessarily mean it was easy.

"I'll help." Wakana said simply.

I just blinked at her.

"Of course I'd help. But, are you sure you're pressuring yourself into it?"

What? For a moment, I wasn't sure what she meant, and I just blinked at her, but then it dawned on me.

"No, I'm not. And I don't mean right now…help or otherwise, I just can't do that. "I explained. "I just meant, when the time comes. "

"But I thought…" Wakana trailed off. I smiled.

"No, you're right-I did say that I'd prefer she never found out. But, I'm sort of re-evaluating that choice. It might have happened anyway, even without Noriko-Chan's book, you know, because Shizuka's here with us anyway. "

"Hmmm….and maybe you might have ended up thinking about it as she grew older." Wakana suggested.

"Yes, exactly. Plus, the killing game, it's why she exists in the first place, essentially. "

"Oh, but…"

"Yeah, I hate how it sounds too. But, there's no way around it, is it. It's the great contradiction-she's the paradox of my life. But…you know, well…..."

I gave a short, sad laugh, and trailed off, not sure how to finish my sentence. Eventually, I just shrugged. I was always struggling to find the right way to communicate something, yet at times, it seemed like I didn't always need to finish the sentence. Sometimes, unfinished ones conveyed just as much. And this felt like one of those times.

"Chieko-Chan…"

Wakana stared at me. Her expression was sympathetic, but I couldn't mistake the sorrow hiding behind her eyes. It was a lot like the look she'd had with the phone call to Sachiko earlier, when she was talking about remembering our dead.

"Ah, sorry-" I started to apologise, but she cut me off.

"It's fine. I'll help. Just let me know."

"Thanks."

That's not enough. That's not enough.

"And you, too." I blurted out.

Wakana gave me a quizzical look at this, and I scrambled to clarify.

"I mean, if you need help with anything, too." I shrugged, reddening a little. "I mean, all these years, you've been helping me, right? So I should be able to return that, too."

"Ah." Wakana mulled over this for a moment. "Well, in that case, thank you. Now, we'd better get all of this inside, right?"

"Yeah."

When the door opened, I was expecting Sakura to be the one on the other side, so for a moment I was confused when all I saw was empty space in front of my face.

"Mummy! It's you!"

"Oh!"

Jumping a little, I looked down, and sure enough, I hadn't imagined it-it was Shizuka who had answered the door. She looked incredibly pleased with herself, apron dotted with flour and icing, but surprisingly not that messy.

"How come you're answering the door?" I asked.

"It's okay, Tsubaki-Chan's mummy said it was okay, because of it probably being you. Anyway, come, you need to see the cake!"

"Ah, right, sure. Then, I'm coming in!"

Despite my mild misgivings, I stepped in, closed the door firmly behind me, and took off my shoes.

"Shizuka-Chan, is that your mother?" I heard Sakura's voice call down.

"Yes, it's me." I called back out.

"Okay, I'll be down soon, you make yourself comfortable."

"Ah, sure."

"Mummy, come." Shizuka insisted, pulling my trouser leg.

I obliged, and was led into the kitchen, where Renge was standing at the sink, washing up bowls and dishes, and Tsubaki was attempting to put the pieces of a weighing scale into a cardboard box.

"Oh, hi!" Tsubaki said. "Mama's changing Ayame's nappy."

"Ah, I see." I nodded.

"The cake's on the table. We all decorated it. " Tsubaki informed me.

Sure enough, there was a cake on the table, and though I could see that well enough, I let Shizuka drag me over to look at it. It was a rather chunky cake, clearly meant to be round but a little lopsided in its shape, covered all over in light pink icing, decorated with swirly icing patterns and some icing flowers, hundreds and thousands sprinkled liberally all over this. Some of the leftover icing from covering the cake had been used to make three animal models-a dog, a cat and a rabbit-that just sat in the middle of the cake, also covered in hundreds and thousands.

"What sort of cake is it?" I asked.

"Chocolate!" Shizuka and Tsubaki chorused in unison.

"There's icing in the middle too! Pink icing." Tsubaki informed me.

"I wanted purple," Renge called over. "But I was outvoted. It's okay thought, I like pink too."

"I see."

I was just about to ask them how they wanted to divide up the cake, when I felt a tugging on my jeans, and looked over to see Shizuka.

"Do you think Shun's mummy would like this cake?" she asked, wide eyed. "We tried to make it look pretty and everything."

I glanced back over at the cake. Andou's confections were pretty, and often pink like this cake. But this, there was no mistaking this for something professional-it was clearly the work of children. Yet, that was what made it perfect.

"Yes, I think so. How about we take a photograph of it before we cut it up, and then we can show her once we're home?" I suggested.

Shizuka beamed and nodded, so I took out my phone and took a couple of pictures of the cake from different angles. Shizuka wanted to take one as well, and so did Tsubaki, and then Renge finished washing up and wanted to have a go too, so by the time Sakura came down with Ayame, there was more or less a photoshoot happening for the cake.

"Photoshoot?" Sakura asked, echoing my thoughts perfectly.

"Well, the cake deserves the attention." I shrugged. "Plus, we're going to show the cake pictures to a friend when we get home."

"Oh, the one who's a confectioner? Shizuka-Chan mentioned her-well, mostly her son, but yeah." Sakura shrugged back at me. "So, how did things go?"

It took me a moment to remember the reason I'd asked Sakura to have Shizuka in the first place.

"Oh, right, yes, it was fine in the end. I'll call you one day and tell you more about it."

"Sure, sure. " Sakura nodded. "So, anyway, we only ended up making the one cake, so how do you want to do this?"

We spent the next few moments debating how to share the cake, and in the end went for the most obvious option-half for them to keep, half for us to take-and cut the cake up into slices and put them into plastic boxes. Renge found us a plastic bag to put our two boxes in, and then we were set to go.

"Will you be going to the festival on Saturday night?" Sakura asked me as we were about to leave.

"Yes, all of us will be. What about you?" I asked in response.

"Renge's going with some school friends, so I might take Tsubaki and Ayame there as well, just so we're not stuck inside and bored. We'll see."

The response was casual, but I could tell that really, Sakura felt anything but. Eighteen months, I thought, long enough that this isn't her first summer without him. On the other hand, don't they say that the second anniversaries are actually the harder ones, not the first one? Because everyone expects all the firsts to be hard, but then that support drifts away afterwards, as by then people expect you to get over it? On the other hand, it was not like I really knew. All anniversaries-Koutarou's birthday, the day of our escape and the days leading up to it-had been hard, and that hadn't changed even with the seventh. And I am lucky, that there are the others as well, to know how it feels, who don't assume that I'm over it after a year's gone by. Either way, it left me with the power in this situation-the power to be the helper, not the helped.

And I would use it well.

"Okay. " I nodded, matching Sakura's nonchalance. "I'd have to check with the others to see if they're okay with it, but maybe you'd like to come with us?"

Sakura stared at me for a moment, assessing me as she had the first time we'd met. And then, though her expression overall did not change, I could see understanding dawn. A couple of struggling widows. That's what we were.

"If you're cool with it, then maybe. We'll see. Either way, I'll see you later then."

"Yes, see you later."

"Bye-bye!" Shizuka called out as Sakura shut the door.

I took her hand in mine, and we turned away and started to walk down the road.

"So, did you enjoy yourself today?" I asked her as we walked.

"Yup!" Shizuka said earnestly. "I still want to go to movie night though."

"Of course you can-I said that it would be fine, didn't I?" I reminded her.

"Oh?" Shizuka scrunched up her face for a moment, and then giggled. "Yeah, you did. What movie are we watching?"

"Well, we're going to start off with Kiki's Delivery Service." I told her.

Shizuka thought about this for a moment, and then beamed again.

"Jiji!" she said, delighted.

"Yep." I agreed.

"When we get a cat, if it's black I'm going to call it Jiji." Shizuka informed me.

I decided not to debate the likelihood of us getting a cat in the near future, and smiled at her.

"That would be a perfect name for a black cat."

"And if it's a white cat, I'll still call it Jiji anyway." She continued.

"Why?" I asked. "What about….?"

My mind blanked for a moment as I tried to remember the names of any white cats that Shizuka could vaguely be aware of. It's a shame that Kazama-kun didn't have The Cat Returns….didn't that have a white cat in it?

"'If you wake up in the morning and see a white cat, it's me'."

It took me a second to realise she was quoting something, and then as soon as I realised that, it all came together, and I couldn't help but chuckle slightly.

"I see. But what if the cat was black and white?"

"Like the kitties in Akira-san's garden?"

"Yes, like those."

"Hmmm…..then, I would have to think about it when I see the cat."

"I see."

Shizuka then launched straight into stories of how they'd made the cake, in a lot of rambling detail. I listened, nodding along but mostly just letting her do all the talking, and eventually, the subject changed again. Or, sort of changed.

"Renge-Chan and Tsubaki-Chan talked a lot about their daddy, too."

Shizuka gave me a hesitant, sideways look at this. I sucked in a breath, forced myself to be as neutral as I could.

"They did?"

"Yeah. They showed me photos-you know, the ones on the fridge."

"I know the ones."

Breathe, Chieko, breathe.

"So, what did they say?"

"Lots of things. Like, he was funny, and he knew magic tricks, and he could do all the voices in their books. He used to call them and their mummy the flower girls, because all their names are flowers. Even Ayame-Chan's name is a flower, though their daddy didn't get to meet her-they chose it while she was still in the tummy. Did Daddy help to decide my name?"

"I…uh…no, he didn't." I managed to stutter out. A question already?!

"Why?"

"Well…he didn't get a chance to decide a name. He didn't know that you were going to be born. "

"Why?" Shizuka asked again, frowning. "You didn't tell him?"

"I…even I didn't know. Even I didn't know that you were growing inside me, not until after he died."

This seemed to shock Shizuka into silence, but I could see the question in her eyes, so I scrambled to try and find an explanation.

"You were small, and hiding, and babies have to grow a little bit before their mummies know about them."

"How small was I?"

"Very, very small."

"Like a kitten?"

"No, smaller than that."

Shizuka's eyes bugged out at the possibility of being smaller than a kitten.

"Then, like a bird? Those really tiny, round ones that go hop-hop-hop?"

"Probably, I gue-"

"Oh, I know!" Shizuka exclaimed, cutting me off. "Like a bean?"

"Yes," I let out a sigh of relief. "Like a bean."

"Ooooh."

Well, at least I don't have to think about explaining the facts of life alongside figuring out how to talk about Koutarou.

"So I'm a bit like Ayame-Chan, but not completely."

"Mhm."

"Is it because you're sad about Daddy?"

I stared, not having expected her to hit the nail on the head quite so accurately. Then again, after the past few days, I shouldn't have been surprised that she was starting to understand. And today had clearly made her see the parallels between herself and the Higuchi sisters, especially Ayame, so it was natural she'd wonder. So I nodded silently at her.

"Oh." Shizuka thought about this. "But Renge-Chan says that talking about their daddy helps them feel less sad."

"For some people, it can help. But for me…" I scrambled. "I suppose I would like to talk about him more. But it's hard, because I'm still sad about him, so I have to make sure I'm ready to talk about him before I do so."

Shizuka nodded seriously at this.

"So…will you talk about Daddy when you're ready to?" she asked, looking up earnestly at me.

The request should not have been a surprising one-we've just been talking about him for the last few minutes, indirectly at least, what did you expect?-but still, it knocked my breath away from me. But where before I might have scrambled for a way to distract her from the question, this time, I managed to steel myself and face it head on. Because I owe it to her.

"Yes, of course."

But, I don't know when I'll be ready to. Or even if I ever will.

We were now approaching Akira's house, and I had to hold back a sigh of relief.

"Look, we're back now. Are you going to tell the others about your cake?"

"Yes, but Mummy, do you mean that?"

"About Daddy? Definitely." Even despite myself.

"Okay." Shizuka nodded.

I spotted a twitching at the curtains as we opened the gate, and sure enough seconds later, the door opened and Masashi was standing in the doorway, grinning. This wasn't his house, but he looked so relaxed he may as well have been the owner. So wait, would that mean he feels like we're a part of the household or something? It was a weird thought to me, but then again perhaps he relished the opportunity to pretend while he could, given that he lived alone. Most of us do, don't we? It's just me, Noriko-Chan and Hokuto-Chan that get to welcome people home and be welcomed home.

"We're back." I said automatically.

"Welcome back!" he said back. "Did you have fun, Shizuka-tan?"

"Yeah!" Shizuka grinned. "We made cake. Mummy took photographs."

"Oh, this I have to see. Akamine-tan, you gonna show us?"

"Sure, but let us actually get inside first."

"Right, yes."

Masashi let us in, and after we'd taken off our shoes, we went to join everyone else in the living room.

"We're still playing, as you can see." Hokuto told us by way of greeting.

"How many rounds have you gone through…."

"Uh….." Hokuto thought about this for a moment, and then shrugged. "Dunno, but these two have been winning most of the time."

She pointed at Akira and Tyson, giving an exaggerated mock glare. Tyson smiled a little bashfully, while Akira just shrugged as if it were no big deal.

"Well, maybe Shizuka and I will join you, that might change things up a little. I'll go put these in the kitchen first though-and show you the cake pictures."

Shizuka giggled as I mentioned the cake, and bounced a little.

"Of course." Akira nodded.

So I quickly went and left the cake on the kitchen counter, then came back to sit with the others, taking out my phone and finding the many photographs while they gathered around me. And for a while, I didn't need to think about how I would explain our shared history to Shizuka.

After the photo exhibition, and a few card games later, Akira, Wakana and Tyson went off to make dinner. After some thinking, Shizuka decided she wanted to help, and went to join them moments later. Masashi, Noriko, Hokuto and I decided to switch to another card game, but Noriko and Hokuto quickly got bored, and somehow that ended up translating into all of us attempting to make a house of cards-attempting being the key word.

"Oh, dang it, you shitflakes!" Masashi yelled as the card house fell down for the fifth time, just as Wakana poked her head around the door.

"Dinner's ready…" she said. "Are you alright?"

"We've been attempting to make a house of cards but it has failed pitifully like, seven times." Hokuto told her.

"Five! It was only five!" Masashi protested. "We'll get it eventually. "

"You thought the idea was stupid when we suggested it though." Noriko said, teasingly.

Masashi's face went through a series of comically exaggerated expressions, presumably in lieu of whatever insults he'd decided to supress. I laughed a little, and he turned to look at me.

"It's fine," I reassured. "You can always try again later on."

"Psh." Masashi pretended to be annoyed, but that lasted all of three seconds. "You're right. You guys go, I'll clear this disaster up-it's not going to take four people just to clean up a deck of cards."

So we left, and sat down to eat, Masashi joining us a few moments later, and we all tucked right in.

"We decided to keep dinner simple and light, since we'll be having snacks for movie night." Akira explained.

"Yeah, that makes sense," Hokuto said. "I'll want to leave space for Shizuka-Chan's cake, after all."

Shizuka beamed at this.

"Yeah, me too." Masashi agreed instantly.

"More food is always good in my eyes." Noriko beamed.

"You always say that." I smiled.

"I do, don't I?" Noriko replied. "But honestly, I'm just excited for this movie night. It's gonna be so much fun!"

"It is, isn't it?" Akira agreed. "It's nice to be able to put some of my DVDs to use like this, rather than just watching on my own."

"Where'd you even get so many DVDs from anyway?" I asked, curious now that I was thinking of it for the first time.

"Hmm, well, some of them are old ones we all acquired over time as kids, you know, like birthday presents or that kind of thing, then Hibiki had quite the collection that she used for inspiration or reference for her voice acting, "

Akira counted each of the places off on his fingers as he said this, frowning intensely as he did so.

"That in itself's a lot already." Tyson remarked to nobody in particular.

"I bought a few myself, later on, so I'd have something to do on rainy nights and the like," Akira continued, still concentrating.

"And then Nee-san noticed that and decided to buy and bring me random titles. Ah, and I acquired some while I was still recovering at home, and most of those Nee-san got for me again-there wasn't much for me to do apart from reading, and therapy, and stuff, you know?"

Noriko practically came skidding into the room, arms flailing, clearly out of breath.

"Guys, guys, guys!" she said.

"Woah, what is it, Noriko-Chan?" Wakana asked. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah…" Noriko managed to steady herself, and the grinned. "It's Kazama-kun, he's woken up!"

"He has? For real?" Hokuto asked, getting up.

"Yeah, I just went to get a nurse-but let's go get Kita-kun and de Guerre, and let's go to see him ourselves!" Noriko exclaimed.

"Yeah, that's a good idea." Wakana got up too, but I stayed sitting. She noticed this though, for she turned to look at me.

"Chieko-Chan?"

"Will…he want to see me, though?" I asked.

"Ah…well…" Wakana floundered for a moment. "Well, let's go anyway. He's just woken up, so the more familiar faces around, the better, right?"

Wakana was right. Akira needed the rest of us around, especially considering we were all that was left. I couldn't imagine that he'd want to see me-wouldn't having been unconscious for so long mean that remembering everything came back as if it had just happened-but still, we were classmates and we'd escaped together. And I had been just as worried as the others, so even if it turned out I was right and he didn't want to see me, I wanted to see him, to see for myself that he was fine. And so, because of that, I got up.

"And you know, it's kind of funny, even with that many movies at his fingertips, he's never actually become a movie buff or anything." Masashi was saying when I returned to the present.

"Well, it's not like you absorb that kind of thing just by being surrounded by it, right?" Hokuto asked.

"Perhaps, but I've been surrounded by music ever since I was a child, and look where I am now." Wakana said.

"Eh, I guess. My dad was an astronaut and my sister and I both have star-related names. So did Mum, actually." Hokuto shrugged.

"Well, yeah, but I became a geneticist and I wasn't surrounded by genes, or geneticists, was I?" Noriko pointed out.

"Technically you were, and still are." Tyson responded, earning a fairly confused stare from Noriko.

"What?"

"We all have genes, right?"

There was a beat of silence while we all processed this.

"Wait, was that your idea of a joke?" Masashi blurted out eventually.

Tyson smiled at this, clearly pleased with himself.

"Yes, it was."

"Holy fu-I mean, wow. That was awful, you know that?"

"Yeah, that's why I made it." Tyson's smile became wider.

"It wasn't that bad." Akira commented.

"You're just being nice." Masashi retorted.

"But in any case, it's not like just having certain things near you influence you into becoming something just because they're near to you. It's got to be more than that, right, like how you interact with the thing, right?" Noriko asked.

"I mean, if we're using a genetics analogy-an analogy, not a bad joke-then even if you only got tall-height genes from your parents, if you don't get good nutrition, you might not grow up as tall as you'd expect from having tall parents."

"Yes, that's a good point." I agreed.

The discussion went into full-flow, and as we talked, I looked at Shizuka, eating happily and laughing along whenever someone else laughed, though no doubt she didn't understand all the jokes that were being made. And I could not help but think about what was surrounding her. Not in this precise moment, but more generally. Though we were dancing around naming it specifically, we were talking about what had influenced our former talents, more or less. But Shizuka would never become an SHSL in anything, and that was a good thing, so it was not really that I wondered about. Just who would she be, in general, when she got to sixteen years old, or even when she got to twenty two, the age I was now? Of all the things that surrounded her, what would be the one that ultimately shaped her? I really wanted to know, I wanted to see it coming, but yet…at the same time..

as long as she's safe and happy, it shouldn't matter, right?

I pondered on this a little while longer, as we finished our dinner, not finding any real answer to what we were discussing-because in truth, there was no quick, easy answer, whether we were talking talents or who we were as people. And, it shouldn't matter. As long as I can continue being okay, it doesn't matter. Though maybe I'm just saying that to make me feel better about the fact Enoshima took gardening from me….

Akira and Wakana started to clear up the plates, and Noriko and Hokuto followed them into the kitchen to sort out the snacks, and so I put my thoughts firmly aside for the moment, and turned to Shizuka.

"Let's go brush our teeth and change then, Shizuka."

"But Mummy, we'll be eating anyway, won't we? The popcorn and the crisps and the cake?" Shizuka asked.

I blinked at her.

"So we haven't finished eating, have we?"

"She's right." Tyson remarked as he walked past us.

I just kept staring, because I really was none the wiser. Shizuka just sighed heavily.

"Mummy, you always say that you brush your teeth at night after eating, but if we're still going to eat, we're not finished, are we?"

Oh, yes, right. That did make a certain amount of sense. The only thing was I wasn't sure how I would deal with her teeth if she fell asleep during movie night-as she inevitably would-but that was another thing I could concern myself with later.

"Yes, you're right about that. But, we need to change into our pyjamas, right? So we're all cosy for movie night. So let's go and do that." I decided after a moment.

"Okay!"

So we went up to change (and to get Yosa), and then came back down again just as Masashi and Tyson came out of their rooms, also pyjama-ed. Tyson had a thin dressing gown over his pyjamas, and Masashi had the fluffiest white slippers I'd ever seen.

"Since when did you have those?" I asked.

"….the entire time I've been here?" Masashi replied, clearly confused.

"Right, I never noticed them." I said, feeling about as confused as he looked.

"Ooooh, they're so fluffy." Shizuka was also clearly bowled over by the slippers.

Masashi's look of bafflement changed into an easy-going grin.

"Yeah, they are. "

"Can I touch?"

"Uh…sure?"

Shizuka hopped over, crouched, and patted the fluff. She giggled.

"They're soooo fluffy!" she said, getting up again. "Are they cosy?"

"Yeah, they are."

"Don't your feet get hot in them though?" Tyson asked. "It's summer, after all."

"Eh, I suppose so." Masashi shrugged.

We all went down the stairs, and went straight to the kitchen. Akira and Wakana had just finished the washing and were already leaving to get changed, while Hokuto and Noriko were still sorting things out.

"You guys, go and change." I told Hokuto and Noriko. "We'll take over from here."

"Okay, sure." Noriko grinned.

"Then, I'll go sort myself out too." Akira said.

They left, and I went over to the counter. Most of the stuff had been poured out into bowls-and Shizuka's cake arranged on a plate-but there was still a little left to do, and the packets to clear up as well.

"Shizuka," I called out. "Take these and put them on the coffee table. Kita-kun will help you."

I shot a look at Masashi to make sure he was fine with that, and he grinned, saluting me. Relieved, I handed two bowls to Shizuka, and Masashi took two more, and they left together. The process repeated a few times until we'd taken everything over, and then once all the packaging and mess was swept and thrown away, Tyson took the drinks and the cups, and we went to join Shizuka and Masashi in the living room. Wakana had also come down.

"Well, this is quite the spread." Wakana said.

"It almost looks like we're having a party of sorts." Tyson observed.

"I guess so, but what are we celebrating?" Masashi asked.

"…." Tyson considered this. "That's a good question."

"What's a good question?" Hokuto asked as she came in, Noriko and Akira following behind.

"This set-up looks like a party, so we're wondering what it is we're celebrating." I explained.

"Ahhh." Noriko pulled a face as she considered. "Life being awesome?"

Noriko sat on the sofa as she said this, and Hokuto flopped down on the floor next to the sofa. Wakana smiled a little as she settled down on the sofa as well, and I went to sit next to her.

"I suppose so."

"That you're all friends again?" Shizuka asked innocently, as she climbed onto my lap.

"Yeah, yeah, that's worth celebrating too." Masashi said, giving Shizuka a thumbs-up.

"That we're here."

This answer came from Akira, who was busy setting up the DVD player. We all went silent, thinking about this. That we're here. Here, as in gathered together for this movie night, but here. Alive, and whole, despite everything.

"Mummy?"

Shizuka turned to look at me, confused, and I hugged her for a moment before responding

"Yeah. That's the perfect reason to celebrate. "

"Indeed." Tyson agreed.

"Yup!" Masashi said at the same time.

"It is, isn't it?" Wakana seemed wistful, but quickly smiled again.

Akira finished with the DVD player, then got up to turn off the lights. When he had, he came back and sat down, and everyone settled down. The start screen showed up, and Akira picked up the remote. And then once we were ready, he pressed play, and the movie started.


Kiki's Delivery Service is the suggestion of guest reviewer Ochuu. Thank you!

Most of the events of next chapter is just...the characters sitting watching movies. Which is obviously the point of movie night, but it's hard to write a chapter when not much is happening. Hopefully it'll work out though so ehh.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter!