The Foregone Conclusion
Ten
A young woman made her way along a busy university path. Her hair was tied back in a single ponytail, her face was pale and thin, and the weight of her backpack had her tilted forward, making it appear like she was leaning into a gale. That was a bit of exaggeration. Just a bit of pageantry. It was all the art Kodama Horaki felt she had left in her soul.
She was drowning, she was dying, she was getting hammered on all sides. It had been two weeks since she had slept right, and there was no end in sight. She had just been released from Organic Chemistry I, and was heading to a class on Bioinformatics, across campus. After that, she had study group for the Anatomy lab, and then it would be back to the library for four hours of reading, with a vending machine dinner in there somewhere and, hopefully, no getting creeped on by the undergrads who loitered in the stacks and apparently had nothing better to do than bother people dumb enough to try being doctors.
The university was a long sliver of artificial island in the Kitakyushu Bay. The ocean smell was still invigorating, and Kodama dreaded the day that stopped being the case, because that would leave her with nothing. She arrived at her destination, the courtyard outside a brutalist chrome cube, bought a lobster roll from one of the food trucks clumped along the access road, and sat down on a bench. Class started in forty five minutes, and she was dead set on enjoying every second of that stretch. Just eat her roll, finish off the thermos of green tea with honey in her bag, and spend the rest of her time simply enjoying not having to do anything, except perhaps curse Misato Katsuragi.
Fine Arts had been unimpressive to Dad, but she had enjoyed it. Even the hard parts. Probably would have had an okay job right after graduation, if she had gotten a few more commercials under her belt, or finally accepted that a multi-month run as Titania in Midsummer was worth the jackass producer insisting on body paint.
But then Misato Katsuragi had shown up and upset the delicate system of scarcity that had justified Kodama's place in the Horaki household. Fine Arts was roughly half the price of its general equivalent. Fewer hours and no lab fees. That saved money that could be used for Nozomi's school trips and Hikari's educational degree. Dad couldn't force her to take out a future-destroying loan and her stint in America had consumed all the scholarship money her placement exam score had sent her way (and ate up plenty more money from home, besides), so Kodama had been comfortably stuck with acting.
Except now she had a scholarship. A ticket to ride all the way to the end of the line, if she could just hold on for long enough. Hikari too. Kodama had smiled and signed in all the right places, attended orientation, bought textbooks, moved out of the cramped loft she had been sharing with three other Fine Arts students and into a student efficiency on campus. And all the while, in her head, where before there had been modest ambition and some confidence in her abilities, there was now only a voice bleakly screaming that this meant four more years of school. Four more years after this accelerated semester.
Dad had been so proud. So relieved. Katsuragi had seemed so pleased with herself, but also sad.
Someone sat down on the bench and asked Kodama about the roll. She pointed them to the truck, noticing when she turned to look that the landing strip that occupied the island's artificial coast was occupied by a VTOL. She couldn't make out the markings, but the machine was painted the same green-grey as the one Katsuragi had arrived on. She'd seen a few helicopters parked there, but never a VTOL.
She finished up the roll, quiet and contemplative. She pulled out her notes from the last class and spent the rest of her time reviewing them. The bell chimed, and she got up, absently waving to the person she had pointed to the food truck. Past him, the ocean was the wrong color. Dark, more green than…
"Blue." She said to herself, as she turned away. The sky was pale gray slate.
Thirty minutes passed, and Kodama was neck deep in it, entirely focused on the bioheuristics example the professor was dragging the class through. Midway through scribbling out a matrix transformation, she realized what shade of blue she'd been looking for… and she started to spiral.
It was not bad, not nearly as bad as it had been before, back when simply being near the ocean had been a problem for her. She simply didn't have time for anxiety and the confusion it caused, and managed to bargain her way clear of it before it drilled in too deep: it had been at least a month since she had tried to contact Katsuragi, so it was time to give that another shot. She'd finish up this class, the Anatomy group, get through her reading and, if all that was all done before 8:00PM, she'd call Katsuragi on the walk back to the dormitory, so they could talk. So she could maybe remove another sliver of shrapnel from her headspace.
The anxiety gradually faded with the bargain made, and she was able to catch up and plug along, gratified by the occasional question from her classmates that she already knew the answer to. Not everyone was doing the reading.
By the time the bell rang she was right where she needed to be. But as she packed up, as she unclenched, the rest of the dominos fell into place.
Blue.
Ice cream.
She'd seen blue.
Lobster roll.
The elevator was open. She could have headed right into it, but she took the stairs, certain that if she wasn't moving, if she couldn't feel the progress, she wouldn't be able to contain herself. Dread gnawed at her, hope buoyed her, and those two forces roared through her head, risking annihilation the longer they were required to mix.
Out the stairwell. Into the courtyard. Crowded. Too many people. Three men in flight suits by the VTOL, cradling the clear plastic shells that lobster rolls were served in. She went along the benches, shielding the muted glare from the building's mirrored walls.
"Ms. Horaki?"
She whirled, and one of the men from the VTOL was approaching her. She squinted, mindful of the sweat running down her face, that her uniform had been twisted up by her mailbag strap.
Not him. She was sure of it. She clearly recalled how much she had enjoyed the height advantage.
Not him. His hair was the wrong color, a patchy salt and pepper.
Not him. He was shaped wrong. Not just height, but in a way she couldn't precisely work out. Her brain just knew it was true.
It took her too long to respond. She opened her mouth to respond, but gasped instead. Too much running.
"What?" She finally said, still seeing blue against the disappointing black waters behind him.
Momentum slipped from the man, literal and emotional, his expression slackening up and reforming into something measured, a face that would speak words measured, clipped. Polite.
It wasn't him, because he didn't look the same. And he'd been gone for months, and Katsuragi had failed to say so many things.
"I thought you were dead!" She said, trying not to shout but not quite getting it, her brain running ahead of her mouth, skipping right over skepticism and resentment, arriving at a comfortable place, finally. A place she had not been able to reach since the day the ocean went solid.
"You made it!" She was laughing. "Oh. Oh Mister Ikari."
The man grimaced. "Kodama, then."
Author's Notes: got COVID, so I'm doing this now.