Track Back

"You still in there, Shimashi?"

With a jolt of surprise I was shaken out of my daydreams and had to hold on to the railing of the escalator. We were advancing forward at a moderate pace, yet it felt like I was experiencing whiplash similar to a racecar suddenly stopping in the middle of the track. Slightly disoriented I took a few shifty looks around me and figured out that I was still at the mall. Of course I was.

"You look like you just bit into wasabi." Hino commented like it was none of her business and kept chewing on her donut. Seeing her with something so sweet and childish did enhance her natural youthful look. If it weren't for the kimono she was once again sporting she would have passed as a school girl. Keeping those thoughts to myself was not hard this time, as they floated by and drowned somewhere at the back of my mind.

"Just lost in thought." I responded curtly and tried my best to let my heartbeat slow down.

"That's a whole lot of thinking! You've been like this since weet up already." She pointed out with a raised brow. For some reason she was standing with her back towards the escalator's destination, meaning she was ascending backwards. Just to look at me? It made for a comical picture, though that was standard for Hino.

"Really? I didn't notice." I replied something that only made me seem more suspicious, but there was no reason to feel guilty. This entire shopping date was Hino's idea anyway. I just tagged along because… Actually why did I? My head was hurting from trying to shift gears so quickly.

"Just don't forget to pay when we leave the next store." She winked and finished her donut with a big gulp.

Wait, had I really done that? I glared at the two paper bags around my wrists and made sure to check the price tags. The fact that I couldn't remember buying any of it was a bad sign. Especially for my credit card. If Adachi was here she would have told me that I was acting like an airhead again.

"You've become such an airhead Shimashi."

There it was. Hino had the uncanny ability to always say the things that you least wanted to hear. Maybe she developed that skill when she started being a businesswoman. Some method to get under a troublesome client's skin. It probably ran in the family, considering the success of the Hino group. Not that this young woman in front of me had any particular attachments to their work. There was a freedom in her poise and smile that could only come from someone who had found their own path in life. I saw it every day when I woke up in my bed…

I was doing it again. How hopeless I had become, trapped in my own daydreams. Every moment that I was away from her my mind was wandering back the way I came, to our shared apartment and our comfortable little bubble. It was like the gravitational pull of a neutron star, except I could take a train away and back again whenever I wanted. Or even if I didn't want to, just like I had done today right after work. It was a sign of how far my illness had advanced that I now found myself developing some slight irritation towards Hino who had called me here to this mall. The reasonable part in me knew that this was for my own sake, but then again, the reasonable Shimamura had gone to her eternal slumber party a while ago.

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" I replied with delay and pushed Hino over the edge of the escalator exit. She hopped back adroitly despite her restrictive outfit. I was sweating just looking at the large sash and long sleeves.

"Everyone? You know a lot of rude people Shimashi~" She chuckled behind her sleeve and then spun on her sandaled heels.

Wouldn't that include you as well then? I grumbled to myself, but only inside my heart of hearts.

We sauntered past the many fastfood joints and the occasional toy store to get to the back lane of the mall which contained all of the clothing stores. They were all bunched together in this section for some reason. I wondered if this mall was just weird or if that was standard these days. How many malls was I ever going to visit to compare? Obviously I only went to this one that was close to my home station. Hino had a longer way getting here than I did, but she also had a personal chauffeur on beg and call, so the sacrifice on her part was rather minimal.

"Maybe they will have something more interesting up here." The small woman skipped around the stall in the center that was selling phone accessories and shielded her eyes from the sunlight streaming through the giant top windows above us. Her sharp eyes targeted a store that was selling the latest summer collection with perfect accuracy.

Interesting, huh? I once again looked at my shopping bags which contained pointless trinkets, mostly. I must have been really absentminded to think any of this garbage was worth my hard earned money. Hino on the other hand had the right idea, we came here with a purpose and that store was far more in line with it.

I took some somber steps towards the store that my friend had already wandered into and looked at the mannequins near the entrance that always showed off their perfectly molded waists and amazingly balanced curves with the latest dresses and outfits. Was I pathetic enough to envy lifeless dolls now? After subconsciously squeezing my hips I gloomily submitted to that envy. My mother would have taken this opportunity to gloat endlessly about her fitness routine, but for once I saw the merit in it too.

Pushing past my self-depreciating thoughts I similarily pushed through the entrance and was greeted by blissful cool air streams coming straight from the store's AC. The last thing you wanted when you tried on outfits was to be a sweaty mess. I actually had never thought about it, but trying on items that other people had draped all over themselves didn't seem very hygienic. Especially when it came to the type of thing we had come to look for today…

"Bi-ki-ni!" Hino jumped out from behind a shelf and raised something shiny and yellow in front of my face.

"No way." I rejected her choice before she could even blink.

"This is your color, I swear!"

"I don't care about the color." I was just not going to wear a bikini. That was final. Adachi could have pulled it off, but not me. Knowing her though she would have picked something more subdued and practical. And still looked amazing in it anyway.

"Don't glare at me, it was worth a try." Hino smirked and pushed the bikini back into its rightful spot.

I didn't intend to glare, but what could I do about this twisted feeling in my chest and stomach? Everything around me was a reminder of how little I was prepared for summer… for our trip.

"That means yellow is fine, just not the skimpy kind?" Hino wondered and cupped her chin.

"So you knew it was skimpy." I squinted my eyes at her, but she did not seem to feel bothered by it.

"Adacchi is going to be all over you no matter what you pick. That leaves me as the only instance to judge your style before the field test!" Hino grabbed random swimsuits from all the shelves until her face was hidden behind the pile. "Let's try on everything!"

"You are having fun, huh?"

"You know it!" I could basically see her grin even through the fabric now.

I settled down on the café chair and sighed long enough to empty my lungs twice over, before finally putting my head into my arms. Somehow I had escaped the overeager doll dressing debacle that Hino had put me through for the last few hours. When I asked her why she was so into it she only said something about having no sisters to do this with. Certainly, she only had older brothers, but couldn't she pester Nagafuji for this stuff?

I imagined Hino trying to fasten a bikini top around Nagafuji and had to smirk into my arms. That would have been a spectacle alright. No wonder she avoided that scenario.

The thump of a milkshake being placed in front of my arms made me raise my face a little. My partner in crime had gotten our drinks without even asking what I wanted. Whether she knew me that well or just really didn't care about my objections will be left up to your interpretation. Either way I greedily sucked on the straw the moment I managed to get a hold of it. The summer heat was fading with each gulp and left me a bit more refreshed.

"You are the pickiest person I have ever met." Hino declared with a serious look. Behind her were several dozen bags of various clothes that she had picked for herself. Meanwhile I was only sporting one new plastic bag on my chair. After a long and grueling session of dress up I finally put an end to the torture and selected a one-piece with a neutral design that had frills just in the right places to hide… unfortunate parts of my body.

"You enjoyed every second of that." I said with a twitching brow. I couldn't even get my revenge, because Hino was the type who knew exactly what she looked good in and she was carefree enough to get everything that struck her fancy anyway. My credit card had cried in sympathy with hers.

"Absolutely." She nodded without a hint of shame. "Adacchi is lucky to get your fashion show every day."

"Since when are you the type to butter people up?" I smiled wryly.

"It's part of the job." She replied teasingly, but then she smiled with a warmer nuance and sipped on her cold soda. "You looked like you were goin' to the dentist when we got here, but now it's all fine, am I right?"

"The anesthesia is going to wear off soon."

"Hahaha." She laughed pretty loudly at my silly quip. I was a little proud that I could put that kind of smile on someone's face. Other than Adachi that is. With her I knew some tricks that tended to work pretty reliably.

I stirred my half-empty milkshake and sighed quietly. Although I had not been happy to come here today, there was no denying that this had been necessary. If I was uncharacteristically honest with myself, I'd even say that coming with Hino was the best option I could have selected. An old friend I could rely on and be open with about various matters was definitely a rare thing to have. To be exact she was the only friend I seemed to have left from my past. Everyone else was long gone – not that the list had ever been a long one to begin with.

Unware of my complicated thoughts, the small woman just kept talking leisurely about this and that, never seeming to worry about our surroundings or the time on the large central clock hanging above us. Hino seemed so free to me. Untethered as I once had dreamed to be.

But there was something that could bind me instantly and never let me go. The most curious thing is that I seemed to long for that tight rope around my body and soul. How could I have changed so much in such little time? The girl who wanted to float in zero gravity and drift away from reality was now preparing for a journey that would take her across the planet, firmly planting her feet on the Earth, tied down by the one thing she had never conceived of. Love.

What an embarrassing line of thought. Maybe the constant airhead call-outs had some truth to them. If I didn't focus on what was in front of me I was afraid to lose myself in the emotions I felt towards the trip again. I wanted to see Adachi soon.

"…and then he said he would take me to Cancún for the summer!"

"Where's that?"

"I don't know, but it's far away from this dreary town, so it's gotta be an improvement."

Two women were loudly chattering and squealing as they passed by the café, not giving any heed to the people around them that were bothered by the racket they made. Their outfits were reflecting the fashion trends that I had just gotten aware of at the last store we went to and whatever they did with their hair was a mix of inspired and modern art. If I had to guess they were probably around my age, but you wouldn't be able to tell from the way they acted. Gaudy and shrill were not words that should describe an aura, but here was proof that words were flexible.

Without wanting to I briefly made eye contact with one of them and the moment of passing stretched to infinity. It was as if time slowed only for us and the step she took past me was dragged on endlessly. My face was stiff and her eyes were showing a glimmer of recognition. My heartbeat seized and her blabbering stopped with it.

As I struggled to inhale air she stopped in place completely, not even minding her friend getting ahead of her. Similarly I completely forgot about Hino in front of me and had my eyes entirely fixed on the woman. This painful wordless exchange between our irises and pupils was so binding that I really expected us to stay still forever until we would petrify and join the statue in the center of the mall as new monuments.

"You…" She dropped the straw from her mouth and fixated me with more force in her expression. Somehow she had recognized me the same way I had remembered her. And yet…

"A friend of yours, Shimashi?" Hino's words echoed inside my numb ears. Her presence overpowered that sense of dread enough for me to turn her way. The moment eye contact between me and the gaudy woman was broken my heartbeat returned and I took a few painful gasps.

"What are you doin'? Let's go to the tanning salon already!" The woman's companion was so far ahead now that she had to yell. The folks around us seemed even more bothered by that display, not that the culprits seemed to care.

"Yeah yeah, I'll be with ya in a second." The woman didn't pull her gaze away from me, even as I desperately tried to ignore her existence. "You are Shimamura, right?" Her tone completely changed compared to when she talked to her acquaintance. Something about it was… sad.

"Who are you?" Hino intervened, probably worried about my tense posture and darting eyes.

"I'm an old 'friend`', you could say." She replied with a sigh and then unceremoniously sat down at our table.

"Heeeey, why are you parking your ass at a café now?! Are you serious!" The other woman shouted with indignation.

"Just go to your boyfriend or somethin', I don't care." She brushed her off in an unexpectedly cold tone. The other woman gasped and then rushed off while cursing.

"Wow, being 'friends' with you doesn't seem fun." Hino said while shaking her head softly.

"That girl wasn't my friend. She is the daughter of my boss." The gaudy woman replied with another sigh. "I asked you a question." She slammed her hand on the table and kept glaring my way.

"What do you want?" I replied through my teeth and didn't turn her way.

"A name."

I bit my lower lip and then forced myself facial muscles to relax. Whatever this specter of my past was doing here, I had no reason to feel this oppressively scared. Something inside me had tried to flee the moment I noticed her, but I could control that. I had grown up since those days. Now I had an anchor.

"What do you want?" I repeated and this time I managed to face her directly.

"So it is you." She had dropped her sloppy way of talking and that fake gal speech quirk instantly and was now looking quite different. There was something menacing about her, despite the colorful get-up. "You cut your hair." She noted.

"So what?" I had to push back or otherwise I would probably have crumbled.

"Looks good on you." She replied honestly. That was about the last thing I had expected to hear out of her mouth, so I loosened my creased brows and lost concentration. "How are you doing?"

"Why…" …do you care? The words wouldn't quite come out. Her attitude was a complete mystery to me. Everything seemed to be slipping, first and foremost my sense of reality.

"I have started working at a nice company. The suits are too tight and hot, but the job is fun. I got some interesting people to play around with." She suddenly started talking about herself with no proper lead-in. "It's a whole lot better than the campus at least. No annoying boys trying to hit on me or my friends."

I didn't understand what was happening. Just why was I sitting here with her, listening to her prattling on about herself and the world? Everything was swimming in my mind already. Hino was just observing too, not too sure whether to intervene.

"Hm, you don't look so good. Probably the sun." She shielded her eyes from the powerful rays descending from the shining disc above the city. "You don't remember my name, do you?"

You don't even remember my name, do you?!

Another unexpected swing hit my blind spot and left me reeling. The words were pushing against me like a wave, but they also seemed to hit me from behind with a distant echo. I tried to swallow, but there was no saliva inside my dry mouth. The face before me overlapped with another, similar, but not exactly the same. Echoes, slowly synchronized until they became a layered mask of noise and remembrance.

University is a place of study and growth for young adults with aspirations and eyes that are sparkling in anticipation for the new challenges ahead!

That's what they said in the pamphlet, I'm sure. It was also the sentiment my high school homeroom teacher had been pushing on me for most of my third and final year. These days every kid was pushed to get an advanced education. It almost felt like a requirement to work towards a good enough score for a renowned university. If you didn't get a referral then it would be harder to find a spot for entrance exams. If you could not pass the entrance exams it also reflected badly on those around you. Those were the words that kept students up at night cramming who knows what into their heads every week before graduation.

I always wondered what the meaning of a university diploma would be if everyone had one. If having a higher education was the standard, then why was it not mandatory? And even if it was there were so many other things that still didn't sit right with me. As I would find out myself eventually, graduating university didn't mean that the job market was waiting for any of us with open arms. What irony is it to work so hard just to get told that you are 'overqualified' for the job? I was certain that if I became Olympic level athletic I could still become an exercise trainer on some TV show. Not that this comparison suited the eternally lazy me at all.

Studying and earning certificates had become some kind of social level measuring stick and I was bound to hit my head eventually. My parents didn't tell me to do it and I was quite happy about that, but the truth was that I had no other aspirations to strive towards. There was no way I could find some purpose all of a sudden just because graduation had come so soon.

If I had nothing that could get my interest I needed some other way to get attention from a company I would work for eventually. A shiny diploma was the only thing that came to mind. If nothing else it proved that I had the perseverance to get it. What a hollow proof for a hollow young woman. So I did it. I enrolled at my local university that I could just barely reach by train and became part of the fold.

One of the only things I had been good at during my boring high school life was to integrate myself into a group. A cheap smile here, a pointless chuckle there. Going with the flow was all I was good at. I did not stand out, but I never entered people's awareness either. Especially after I stopped dying my hair. It had been the only thing about me that was going against the flow and it had gotten me the image of a delinquent for my first year at high school. Eventually the teachers realized that the only troublesome quality I possessed was my inability to stay awake during lectures, though.

As expected it wasn't that hard to find a group to tag myself on to. Young women who always had something to gossip about and lived their university life to the fullest. Something like that.

I could not remember any of their names, but that was just the standard for my mind. I had nothing against them. In fact it was a frictionless and amicable arrangement like this which I had strived for in high school and it seemed like this was how the rest of my life would continue. I neither felt relief nor irritation at my grey world as a directionless cloud.

"What is with that long ass hair?"

The cotton cloud received its first low crackling of electricity. Friction was in the air.

"It is pretty long." The group agreed as they acted like it was the first time they had ever looked at me properly.

The girl who had spoken first grabbed the tips of my waist long hair and inspected them. Even my drowsy autopilot controlled brain seemed to realize that something had encroached on my comfort zone, as I instinctively pushed her hand away.

"Haven't cut it since what, middle school?" This strange girl spoke to me, but didn't seem to care if I responded. I noticed that her hair was dyed and in a much more eye-catching way than mine from the old times. Her gaudy looks were fashionable as far as I understood fashion at least. Despite that I had not noticed her creeping into my friend circle. Just where had she came from?

"For real? That's crazy!" The other girls gasped and snickered. It took not much to focus their ever excitement-deprived eyes my way.

"You need to take better care of it if you want to break the world record." The gaudy girl said with a smirk and then avoided retracted her hand from my hair.

Our eyes met and I felt an unexpected shiver down my spine. I could not understand it myself, but I instinctively knew that I was never going to be able to find my path across the endless grey sky again. This spot where I had been floating aimlessly was now surrounded by towering black storm clouds.

"Hey, are you even listening?" She snapped her fingers and I fell out of my internal musings.

"I take care of it." I responded carefully and averted my eyes. It was hard to be the center of attention for once.

"Sure thing! Just like you took care of the notes I lent you?"

Something was seriously off with her. I was starting to feel anxious already. She said things that made no sense to me. Who was she? Why did she act like we were familiar?

"You probably don't remember." Her sharp smile had turned into a frown and the atmosphere changed considerably. The other girls were watching in anticipation for something juicy. Their sense for drama was almost as good as mine for an escape route. If only there had been one this time.

"What…?" I mumbled and turned my head to find some convenient reason to excuse myself. No luck.

"Shimamura, do you even know who I am? Do you know who any of us are?" She pointed at herself first and then at the gaggle of girls next to us.

"Of course." I replied with feigned countenance. This entire situation was completely abnormal and I couldn't find the right entry point to return to the airstream that would let me coast along.

"Glad to hear it!" She smiled all of a sudden and my heart calmed down in response… only to be treacherously pushed down my stomach. "Then you remember my name, right?"

I turned visibly pale. My reflection in the steel mug filled with cold cocoa told me as much and everyone else noticed it too.

"You don't even remember my name, do you?!" She hissed and smacked the table with her flat hand. "I've been watching you for a while now Shimamura and you never call anyone by name. You always give vague replies and I can't even remember ever exchanging more than two sentences with you!"

What was going on? Why was she getting so worked up? I honestly had no clue and it felt like figuring it out was not an option at this point. Something inside me back then had given up the moment she asked me for her name.

"That's…" I swallowed the rest of my sentence, because it would have turned out just as confused as my mind.

"Are you even alive, Shimamura?" Her words pierced me more intensely than anything that had ever been thrown my way. No insult could compare, not even the biggest lecture my mother had ever given me. Those words penetrated something I did not even realize existed back then.

"That's too mean~" One of the other girls waved her hand and seemed to come to my aide. It was futile.

"I'm talking to her." She glared the girl down, but then shrugged. "She's been with you for longer than me, but does anybody here know her hobbies? Does she have siblings or pets? Favorite color?" Being talked about like some unknown suspect in a criminal investigation was the last thing I expected, but her words echoed inside the vapor around me and set off electrical discharges. The lightning had been unleashed.

"Nah, Shima never talks about herself."

"I don't hear her talk much at all."

"She wears a lot of green, so maybe…"

They all started to realize what the gaudy girl was getting at.

"Shimamura is always here, but she isn't actually there." She said with a penetrating glare my way and then went back to grilling me. "Ya aren't even alive. You're just a corpse walking the same road every day from pure habit."

That moment a vivid image of my rotting legs and putrid skin assailed me and I felt nausea well up. I knew she didn't mean it literally and yet I felt my stomach revolt. The source of this painful sickness was the realization that I had been unmasked. Something I hadn't even realized myself was revealed and with no preparation or support I was left falling to my doom.

"You aren't my friend and you aren't even present enough to be my study buddy. I hate empty people like you the most." This aggressive declaration was filled with true revile and made me shiver.

"I… that's not…" I covered my mouth and pushed my chair back. The cold sweat soaked my blouse and turned my back into a sticky tarp. Just being watched by those judging eyes had made me retreat by instinct.

"Stop bullying her. She is totally freaking out."

"Yeah, being a wallflower isn't a crime~"

"Maybe not green. Blue?"

They mostly sneered my way or kept saying thoughtless things. All of them had stopped ignoring me and now seemed fully aware of my existence. The friction kept rising as our presences would soon overlap and destroy the flow.

I had no place in this group anymore.

It was overdramatic and rash, but that is what I felt that day and that's how I acted in the coming years. With every semester I became more reclusive. I stuck to going home right away, I slept through a lot of morning lectures (even more than before). By the end of it all I barely had enough credits to pass and with some inhuman effort I passed my exams. I really owed mom a lot for that one.

Something in me had been broken ever since that day. I didn't recognize anyone's face soon enough, so it was like everyone could have been one of them. It made me feel… helpless.

After graduation I applied for job after job, but with my weakened state of mind and listless approach I was unable to find a job that suited my portfolio. I ended up joining a random company that would take me. What had all of my work been for? What did I even expect?

The fall on the hardened earth of reality had left me crippled. Somewhere along the way I had lost my precious insides and now I was just a hollow doll twisted on the ground I had crashed into.

Those thoughts were unlike me, so vivid and depressing. But the truth is that I had no clue who Shimamura actually was anymore and the most heartbreaking part is that I stopped wanting to find out.

The wheels of the train kept turning every day and I started to wonder if I was actually being grinded to dust under them…

Until the day I finally looked up for once and saw her reflection in the window. Those sharp eyes that glared at her wristwatch and that pale face like a beautiful glacier winding down an ebony mountain. Her presence was almost surreal on this train full of grey and blurry faced commuters. Something about that woman was different. She didn't know I existed, much like the rest of the masses around us, but it seemed like she didn't acknowledge anyone's existence at all. Somehow I knew that she was a rock in the ocean, never caring about the current's way.

I wanted to know who she was.

I did not forget her face. And once I learned her name, I was sure to never forget that either.

In the present I was now looking at a face that I also vaguely remembered. One that had left a mark on me in a different way from Adachi.

Apparently my twisted lips and pale face gave her all the answers she needed, as she tapped the table and nodded to nobody in particular.

"It's been a while so it's nothing weird." She almost seemed to absolve me there. "I know you didn't remember it back then either tho." Or not.

"I'm sorry." I responded quietly.

She shrugged, a gesture that was also carved into my mind. Then she repeated the prior tapping motion and looked past me at some random mall plant.

"You never told me that you date women." She said almost a bit accusingly and watched for my reaction from the corner of her eyes.

Hino coughed loudly all of a sudden as she had gotten some of her soda into her windpipe. Meanwhile I was just staring ahead into her analyzing gaze without being able to make heads or tails of that statement.

I dated women? Sure, that was a complete affirmative right now. My one and only relationship was with a woman. Adachi. One out of one meant I only dared women. That made sense.

Was this something that you could see on my face, though? How did she know about it? This topic shift didn't just make little sense, it was also worrying. It should have been anyway, but why did I feel more at ease now?

"So what?" I repeated my earlier loose response, but now much more firmly. It seemed like something had risen inside me and bolstered my fickle heart.

"I just didn't figure it out back then. You really don't strike me like the type at all." She claimed as if it was my fault for deceiving her. Then she rubbed her neck and averted her eyes slightly. "I said some things to you that I can't take back. It's been too long to ask you to forgive me and make peace, I know that much. I wanted to say sorry anyway." She smacked the table again and pushed back the chair.

Her excessive gestures and loud voice really pulled attention to us from all around, which didn't help my unsettled mood. But her words did reach me completely. Although she was a vivid reminder of the most unpleasant time of my life, there was something cathartic about it. A reminder of what I had escaped perhaps.

The moment she had mentioned my relationship it had sunk in how different I was now. Someone who could claim to know the name of a person I always spent time with. Someone who would go out shopping with an old friend to prepare for the trip of her life. That was kind of a relief, honestly.

Maybe this woman before me had also stewed in regrets for a long time. She had at least apologized and making amends usually required two parties. The only issue is that I didn't feel like she wronged me. I wasn't trying to make myself look like the bigger person (although I was taller than her, yup), those were my honest feelings. What she had said back then was not wrong. The reason it had devastated me so much was that they were accurate.

"Thanks." I spoked in a polite tone and bowed my head.

"Seriously? You are thanking me? I will never get you Shimamura." The woman scratched her face with her long sparkly nails and seemed at her wit's end.

"That makes two of us." Hino muttered behind one of her long sleeves.

I was always surrounded by rude people.

"I don't get what she sees in you, but I wish you a happy future together." The stranger of my past said something cryptic and waved us goodbye. "I need a girlfriend asap." She spoke to herself with exasperation, almost out of earshot, but not quite.

"You know some entertaining people Shimama~"

"Look into your hand mirror for another one." I snorted.

My heart that had been as uneasy as the gathering clouds above the mall ceiling was clearing up. It looked like rain, but that didn't faze me now. Those grumpy clouds full of friction and potential lightning had nothing to do with me. Not anymore.

"Looks nasty, we should probably stick around for a bit longer." Hino spoke as if this was a tragedy, but I could tell she was eyeing the next store already.

"Do you think I can get a blue swimming armlet anywhere around here?" I asked casually while finishing my drink.

"Do I?" Hino's eyes sparkled and the flickering of the suddenly activated mall lights illuminated her even more than the sun could have.

I had desperately wanted to leave this place and see Adachi again. There was a need inside me to anchor myself to her and now I had a slightly better understanding of myself. Yet when I took my steps away from the rain pressured train tracks and towards another shop with Hino in tow, I felt that I finally found a flow that I could enter without being dragged away.

When the storm subsided and our roads were lit up again I would give her a call and we would find to each other as we always did. Because I knew that she was out there waiting for me, anticipating our reunion every bit as dearly as I did.