A/N: Happy 10th Angel Beats anniversary! I think that this, being the 50th chapter as well, warrants a Friday update. Look out for part II on Saturday. Thanks to all new faves, follows, and reviews! (And by the way, take care of yourselves! Stay healthy!)
ZainR: Oh man, I know, how that prologue plagues me (and now we're throwing a two-part chapter into the mix)! It's been a while since we got a Yuri POV chapter, huh? I guess she can't hide her feelings from us or herself. I'm glad you liked the interactions there! I get a kick out of imagining Nagisa trying mapo tofu! What a disaster that would be. Also, means a lot that you felt the moment Naoi realized he didn't deserve her. Was particularly trying to land that scene! We'll get into it more in this chapter.
Seiram: Poor guy, did he really think he could? Not if these boys have anything to say about it! He's on the verge of something, at least. Something that could move him in one particular direction. (Oh Ushio XD he's quite the catch, isn't he? Can't really blame her) What exactly Yuri thinks is "not that deep" will be revealed, within this Battlefront weekend, at least! It's a small thing but very telling (as in, absolutely that deep). If only these two would just give each other something to go on?
Anyways, posting this now (twelve hours earlier than usual) because I wanted to make sure it was out while it's still April 3rd in Japan too.
Enjoy!
[Chapter 50]: Something to Believe In (Part I)
The makeshift baseball game persisted. And Ayato had to give credit where credit was due – it worked considerably better this time around with seven players instead of three or four. Or maybe he just paid more attention now that he had only Mitsuo to distract him.
Hinata had been up to bat, and then Fujimaki waved Okazaki along to go next. Okazaki resisted the gesture at first, but after a surprising amount of reluctance, he'd gone up to home plate and readied himself to swing.
Ayato watched him rather doubtfully, thinking it had been a phony attempt at modesty. But as he looked closer, there was something off about the man's stance. Or maybe it was the way he held the bat... or even the way he held himself. Something in his shoulder.
Something.
Okazaki swung hard, and winced. Ayato couldn't see his face but he didn't have to. It rippled through his shoulder down to his arm.
He'd missed. The ball zipped into Noda's baseball glove – a strike.
Incensed, Noda leapt to his feet. "What kind of weak pitch—?!" he roared, launching the ball back at Otonashi's face.
Otonashi's shock wore off in milliseconds as he reflexively caught it out of the air before it could break his teeth. He let himself laugh in disbelief, lingering in the absurd nostalgia, before indignation hit.
"Idiot!" he shouted, pelting the ball back again. "How many times are you going to try to kill me?"
Noda snatched it up and hurled another deadly pitch. "Oh toughen up, you weakling!"
"Some injuries in this life are more permanent!"
Okazaki rubbed awkwardly at his arm, watching the two lob the ball back and forth, while Hinata clutched at his own scalp in distress.
"DON'T START THIS UP AGAIN!" he shouted at them.
That had lasted a few seconds longer than was actually funny, so eventually Noda grew bored of it himself and calmed down enough to resume Okazaki's turn. Maybe it was the way the latter had begun to film some of it and mentioned how embarrassing it would be if Kyou watched her boyfriend make a fool of himself. Noda seemed to know Okazaki well enough to tell when he was and wasn't bluffing.
Okazaki made his second swing count. It struck hard with a ringing crack and sent the ball rocketing across the field. He didn't spare another second. Ayato followed him with his eyes as Okazaki dropped the bat and ran the bases, mouth curved into a subtle grimace.
Not from exertion, or determination, but…
When Okazaki made it back to home, Ayato regarded him with a furrowed brow as he slowly approached the bleachers.
"You favor your left arm," he noted, a few seconds after Okazaki sat down. Right next to him, in fact – the gall. In spite of that, he still looked surprised that Ayato had spoken aloud, and glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. "Is there something wrong with your right?"
Okazaki frowned uncertainly. Perhaps it was a sore spot with him.
"I noticed that too," said Hinata, from nearby. "It looked like there was some pain in your swing."
More faltering from Okazaki at first, then he managed a wry grin and seemed to relent. "Yeah, my right arm's been pretty bad since high school," he admitted, mostly to Hinata. "Back in ninth grade, I dislocated my shoulder. Can't raise my arm too high without it hurting like hell."
"How'd that happen?" asked Ooyama, tearing his attention from Fujimaki's cheeky banter with Noda over at home plate to look upon Okazaki with friendly concern. He blushed then, realizing how nosy he must've sounded. "If you don't mind us asking."
"Just a really bad fight, is all," Okazaki responded evenly. For a second his dark blue eyes glazed, just like Yuri's did when she lost herself in a fog of painful memories. Then he shook himself out of it with a sardonic chuckle. "Let's just say my dad and I didn't always get along too well."
Ayato stared at him, more than a little taken aback by the implications there. Perhaps he didn't know this Okazaki quite as well as he thought he did.
"Yeah, I hear you loud and clear," he muttered before he could stop himself.
Okazaki hesitated. Furrowed his eyebrows. Turned his head more fully to look at him. Comprehension dawned on his face, followed by an expression that essentially translated to: This explains so much.
"Yours too, huh," he said, reading him for a moment. Contemplation tugged at his mouth. "What about your mom, did she…"
"She didn't do anything." The truth slipped out so quickly, instinctively, it surprised even him. He chuckled dryly at his own words. "I mean, really, she did nothing. Most of my life, we just… lived in the same house, sharing the same man's wrath. She was too scared to intervene, so we were never very close. This past month was the first I'd talked to her in four years."
Okazaki nodded, looking out over the field. "So she's still alive then." He sounded distant, maybe wistful.
"If you can call it living," Ayato scoffed. He kneaded his fingers against the bleachers and thought darkly of Yui's storybook. "Beauty's still captive in the Beast's castle. He won't let her leave and she doesn't want to leave. Not even for…"
He stopped. Shook his head. Not even for her own son. He still couldn't believe he was even telling him all of this.
"Maybe she knows he's a miserable person, and can't bear to think of him all alone," Okazaki said reflectively. "Some people look at guys like that and see a damaged soul they can fix with love. Too self-sacrificial for their own good."
Ayato harrumphed. "Some people deserve to be alone."
Okazaki side-eyed him for a few seconds. He seemed to be reading deeply into something, and in that instant Ayato was ready to trade hypnotism for mind-reading. Finally he broke the silence and spoke.
"I heard what you said. Earlier."
Ayato narrowed his eyes in confusion. "What—"
"I didn't deserve Nagisa either." He leaned forward, wiping his palms on the knees of his jeans. "I was just some cynical smartass delinquent who hated everything – life, my dad, our town – and spent most of my time feeling sorry for myself. When I met Nagisa, it was like my whole life there'd been an overcast sky and then suddenly the sun had come out."
Ayato glanced away. He hated how familiar all of that sounded. Except Yuri's entrance into his life was more like a tornado.
"She changed my life," Okazaki said quietly. "When things got too hard with my dad, she let me move in with her. Her folks even helped me settle into my own place after I graduated. She practically lived with me then too. She was always there for me. And I…" he paused to laugh at himself, "I missed dates, worked late, fell asleep even though she'd worked hard to have a hot dinner waiting for me…"
He studied his knuckles, rubbing a finger over them as if they were injured.
"You know I even picked a crappy way to propose to her?" he continued. "Just outside of jail, collapsed on the street after shouting at my dad. He'd gotten arrested and lost me a job opportunity, so we'd confronted him in prison and I told him to rot in hell. Then I punched a wall until Nagisa had to wrestle me to the ground. Sitting there, blood dripping down my knuckles, that's how I asked her to marry me." Despite all this, he managed a smile. "She sure picked a winner."
Ayato laughed weakly. It was a pretty unfortunate proposal. Even he had done better than that. But everything else…
"Losing you a job opportunity, though…" The more he thought about such a thing, the more he clenched his fists. Earlier, Okazaki had mentioned to Otonashi that he was from Hikarizaka, born and raised. "You hated that town, but you never left. Not even when he caused you so much trouble." He flicked his gaze to Okazaki, furrowing his eyebrows at him. "Why would you stay? Why not move somewhere he and his reputation could never reach you?"
"You don't know how much I wanted to do that," Okazaki said, reaching down to pet Mitsuo. "Seriously, the night before, I practically begged Nagisa to come with me and start over somewhere new. She told me she'd go anywhere with me, but we couldn't just run away from our problems. She said if we left with regrets, we would never be able to come back."
"That wasn't a big problem for me," Ayato cut in. "School and money permitting, Yuri and I were out of there the first chance we got."
Okazaki scowled, looking moderately offended. "You said you didn't see your mom for four years. How is that not a problem?" He turned to fix him with a skeptical frown. "And what about Yuri's parents? What about your friends? You'd really erase that much of your past and refuse to go back?"
Biting the inside of his mouth, Ayato fought back a wince and clutched Mitsuo's leash tighter.
"Yuri's parents visited us," he replied, silently adding when they could. "Our friends too. They understood at the time. But Yuri could tell you just as well as I can that some things are better left…"
"Forgotten?" Hinata finished for him, giving him a look. Ayato frowned back at him, resolutely watching Fujimaki work on his practice swings as he yelled about the sun being in his eyes.
What did he know? Maybe he was going to say behind us, in the past.
"Akuma just isn't a place either of us would like to revisit," he responded at last.
"Well, to be honest I don't really blame you." Hinata's voice came again, and Ayato couldn't help wondering with vague amusement if he was purposefully trying to find his way into the conversation. "When we went looking for you guys in April, I swear something about that town felt off." He made a face, trying to think back. "I don't remember it feeling like that back in 2010, at that baseball game. But it did this year, don't know why."
"What do you mean it felt off?" said Ayato, wrinkling his nose.
Hinata shrugged, struggling for the right word. "I dunno… hidden. Somewhere even God can't see you," he said. "It was like we knew where to find it but we weren't supposed to. Ever heard of Silent Hill?"
"I don't think it's literal demons he's running from," Okazaki deadpanned before Ayato could answer.
Ayato only raised an eyebrow at Hinata. He didn't have a clue what Hinata was on about, but he desperately hoped he'd mentioned it when Saki Nanashima was within earshot.
"Akuma never felt like that to me," he said. Or was it just because he'd grown up there and was used to it? He didn't think so.
In fact, he'd argue that at some point he'd started feeling watched, and Yuri admitted she sometimes felt that way too. But that hadn't disappeared when they moved to Mizuzaka, so it wasn't strictly a small-town Akuma thing.
"It's nothing like that," he went on. "We left Akuma so that we could move forward. We cut some ties in the process, and then others were cut for us. All that's waiting for us there is painful memories."
Okazaki looked unsatisfied, and then pensive.
"I cut ties with my dad too, back in high school," he said, leaning back and propping his elbows on the bleachers behind them. "Ran away, moved in with Nagisa, got married… Finally reconnected with him after Ushio was born, and that's when he told me he did the same thing at my age." Okazaki stared across the field, at Otonashi or maybe nothing. "I never knew this before, but he ran away from his biological family a long time ago. He was smoking, drinking, getting into fights even back then. Always fighting with his parents and being a disappointment. One day he left and never came back. Told me my grandmother took him in and let him have her last name, and he hasn't spoken to his birth family since. Hasn't even tried."
Having a thought, Ayato harrumphed a small chuckle. "Sounds like Yuri's long lost uncle."
"Huh?" Okazaki glanced at him.
"It's nothing," he said, waving it away. "Yuri's father had an older brother like that. The drinking, the smoking, the arguing. He told me his parents thought his brother killed himself, but he chose not to believe it. Convinced he'd just run away and found a new family and was too ashamed to call him after all these years."
Okazaki's expression danced between amused and considering.
"Maybe I should ask my dad if he has a little brother," he said, only half-joking. Then he blinked and furrowed his eyebrows at him. "Hey! Don't change the subject. I was making a point."
"Reconcile with my abusive father…?" Ayato squinted in mild distrust.
"No! Ugh, maybe that was a bad example. Let me think." Okazaki rubbed at his temples. The wrinkle in his forehead smoothed over with decisiveness. "Alright, I'm going to tell you something I've never told Nagisa. The real reason I believe in other worlds. Or specific afterlives." He closed his eyes, ruminating, then opened them again. "I'm pretty sure I was in one."
Ooyama and Hinata choked on surprised sounds, while Ayato stared hard at him. As if even though Okazaki wasn't looking at him, he could use hypnotism to urge him along.
"Ushio was a high risk pregnancy, because Nagisa's body was weak and she used to get sick a lot. Her illness made her go into labor early. We were snowed in. We couldn't go to the hospital. We had to do the birth at home like she'd asked to."
Okazaki's eyes glazed over again. He let Mitsuo hop onto the bleachers and into his lap, and absently stroked his fur.
"I remember it so vividly, it couldn't have been a dream," he said. "Ushio was in my arms and I kept trying to show her to Nagisa. I was calling her name and she was… she was just gone. And I remember thinking to myself... just regretting all of it. Meeting Nagisa at all, falling in love, having Ushio. If we'd never gotten together, maybe neither of us would've suffered like this. I blamed myself. I thought we never should have met."
Swallowing, Ayato looked away and tried to ignore the pang in his chest. The grieving always found someone to blame.
If we'd never gotten together… He knew the sentiment all too well.
"Obviously Nagisa is alive and well," said Okazaki, "but I remember a life where she wasn't. I can still smell spilled beer and cigarettes from the years I lived alone in our house. Her parents raised Ushio without me for five years. I was just a stranger rotting away in a corner. I pulled away from everyone. Too much of a coward to face them. Just like Nagisa, I was sure she was better off without me."
He paused then, and chuckled ruefully.
"Listen to me, mourning someone who's still alive," he muttered. "I know I must sound crazy."
Ayato fell silent as more old thoughts festered. "You sound like someone who lost his wife," he said after a moment. "I know what that sounds like."
Glancing up, Okazaki regarded him with a hint of close scrutiny. There was a wondering behind his eyes. Perhaps he thought that Ayato was talking about himself.
"Same here," he responded, and went on. "One day Nagisa's mom arranged for me and Ushio to go on a trip together. That's where I met my grandmother. She told me how hard my dad struggled after my mom died, just like I did. How he sacrificed a lot to take care of me on his own. I got Ushio's forgiveness that day, and started raising her myself after that. It wasn't too late to be a good father, or make peace with my own."
Ayato scowled with reignited distrust and deliberately looked away, squinting into the sun as he watched Fujimaki stride over to rejoin them at the dugout. Okazaki didn't seem to notice, too immersed in his own thoughts.
"Then Ushio got sick too. Same sickness as Nagisa's but worse. She died in my arms that same winter." Even on a hot day, Okazaki faintly shivered with the memory. "I must've died with her, right there in the middle of the street. Over a little thing like heartbreak. Because I have this vague memory of a different world, a body that wasn't this one, and then a lot of lights and suddenly I was brought back to the moment Nagisa and I first met."
"You were sent back in time?" Ayato asked, skeptical. He thought they were talking about an afterlife here.
"It was more like a moment than a time, if that makes sense." He was staring at the cherry blossom trees in the distance, his expression faraway. "Like I'd been given another chance. To choose her. Even if life could get difficult, even with the painful memories we made. I almost let her go but then I came to my senses and ran after her." He laughed to himself, shaking his head. "Almost literally knocked her off her feet."
The mental image made Ayato snort quietly to himself. Perhaps Okazaki really did fit in with this group of imbeciles after all. "That must've been some first meeting for her."
"It wasn't time travel," Okazaki insisted. "She remembered me too. She told me her life had been full of happiness and she was glad we'd met, and I promised her I'd never regret any of it ever again." He gave a faint smile and scratched behind Mitsuo's ear. "Next thing I knew, we were back at the day of Ushio's birth and both of them were fine. And just outside the window were those lights from that world."
"Wait, what are these lights?" Hinata broke in, furrowing his brow.
Okazaki shook his head. "To this day I'm still not sure. Somehow I knew they'd caused a miracle. I can't say if it was a dream, or if they really sent us back in time. I just know they gave us more of it. Nagisa and Ushio haven't been sick since."
Having heard enough, Ayato heaved an exasperated sigh. "It's a compelling story, Okazaki, but once again I fail to see your point."
"My point is that everything I went through made me who I am," Okazaki said with surprising intensity. "Everything. The good, the bad, even the life I lived without Nagisa. I wouldn't change any of it. I understand my dad better because of it. I forgave him because of what I learned from that world."
Ayato narrowed his eyes dangerously. "I'm never going to forgive my father—"
"I'm not asking you to do that." Okazaki returned his gaze as sharply as if he were the one capable of hypnotism. "I'm only saying what my other world taught me, and what yours was apparently supposed to teach you: there are some things you have to meet head on, that you have to run towards and not away from. If you can't accept your past, if you push it away or block it out, you won't learn anything from it. You lose sight of everything it gave you. So how can you ever really move forward?"
"Why do you care so much about my life in Akuma?" Ayato demanded. "What does that matter—"
"Because it's more than just Akuma!" Okazaki erupted.
Wide-eyed, Ayato glanced awkwardly towards the field to see if that little outburst had disturbed the baseball game. Otonashi, Matsushita, Noda, and Ooyama (who was up to bat) quickly stopped eavesdropping and tried to look busy. Come to think of it, Ayato hadn't registered much of anything other than Okazaki's ranting in the last few minutes. Noda and Otonashi could've started up their one-on-one again without him noticing.
He turned back to his more immediate audience and regarded Okazaki dismally. Please enlighten me, oh herald of wisdom.
"I didn't deserve Nagisa," said Okazaki. "At least I thought I didn't. But I know that our lives were better together. I know that we make each other stronger, and I can try to make her as happy as she makes me. That's why I chose her. That's why I took my second chance—"
"Well not everyone has a bunch of PRETTY MAGIC LIGHTS that can bring their wife back!" Ayato spat out, his tone almost approaching a snarl.
A shock of silence fell upon the field. Ooyama's bat clattered onto the plate.
And then, the blowback.
Fujimaki and Hinata were instantly on their feet, fingers pointed at Ayato's face as their explosion of astonishment gave way to hooting and roars of triumph. Ooyama yelped something to Otonashi like I told you this was more interesting than baseball! Otonashi closed his dropped jaw and muttered back something Ayato couldn't quite hear over the blood rushing in his ears.
"Wait!" he cried, panicking and flailing his hands. "No! I didn't mean – I wasn't talking about me!"
But you were. The little voice that had tormented him for those long six months began to seep through, as uncertainty burned in his cheeks. Even if you didn't know it, you meant her too.
Okazaki didn't seem to register any of the uproar. He studied Ayato thoughtfully for a few seconds, then said calmly, "Yeah, it's going to take a lot more than that. Especially with you." Pausing briefly, he stared at Ooyama until the latter obligingly picked up his bat and turned to Otonashi. Then he fixed his attention back on Ayato and lowered his voice. "Listen… Yuri made you happy, right?"
Ayato's mouth cracked open but he didn't say a word. The little voice roared the answer inside his head. He could feel Okazaki reading it in his eyes.
A satisfied nod. "Ryou told me you used to make Yuri happy too."
"Key words being used to," muttered Ayato, before he could stop himself. "I don't know if I can make her happy anymore. I'm not the same man I was back then."
Hinata groaned heavily, leaning aside to Fujimaki. "Not this crap again…"
"It's not the reincarnation thing," he argued. "Or maybe it is. Ever since the concert, all I've done is hurt her. It's like when I regained my Afterlife memories, I lost the person I used to be. And when she drank that potion, so did she."
Sighing, Ayato ignored Okazaki's puzzled expression and toed forlornly at the dirt.
"Those versions of us, it's as if they vanished to completely different worlds. Sent back to Akuma, even the Afterlife. Somewhere I can't reach them," he said, more to himself than to the others. "I don't know how to get them back."
Hinata made a sound like a throat-clearing chuckle. "But you do know one way to get Yurippe back," he reminded him.
Ayato tried to send him a half-hearted glare. It died out in an instant.
"I can't," he said morosely, and tipped his cap to get the sun out of his eyes. "It won't happen between us. Not as we are now."
Crossing his arms with a rich snort, Fujimaki shook his head at the sorry sight moping on the bench in front of him. "You wimp. How hard is it to tell a person you love them?" His smirk ever confident, he turned around to face the field. "Hey, Ooyama!"
Ooyama glanced over his shoulder, a curious and cheerful smile on his lips. He was bracing his bat for another swing, but his eyes were bright as they flicked to his roommate. "Yeah?"
Fujimaki hesitated, a flustered blush tinting his cheeks.
"Uh. Nothing. Never mind," he stammered. Ooyama shrugged it off and faced Otonashi again. Fujimaki turned back to the dugout, not even looking at Ayato, and muttered, "Shit. Fuck."
"Yeah, that's what I thought," said Ayato, and ignored the ringing thunks of Fujimaki's head against a pole.
Only a fool would think it could be as simple as that. A lucky fool. Clearly after all his claims to godhood, their expectations of him involved delusions of grandeur. Yes, he could see how they must picture it inside their feeble minds.
He would march across the park and throw open the salon doors. Finding Yuri in the middle of the crowded room, he would take her into his arms, look deep into her eyes, and tell her that the man who had divorced her on sight was actually so in love with her he couldn't think straight. That he couldn't understand how he'd ever thought he didn't because trying not to love her now was like holding his breath – a futile and excruciating conscious struggle. That she was never nothing, she was everything, and the only lie was the life he'd been living without her.
And then—
Ayato blinked and drew a breath, pulling himself out of the fantasy. There was just one small problem these guys forgot to factor in.
It was one thing for Ayato to confess. Another matter entirely would be Yuri's reaction to such a thing.
"Why would Yuri want to be with me?" he murmured. Looking Okazaki in the eyes, he continued as bitterness poisoned his tongue, "You speak of learning and growing from your past, Okazaki. But in case Ryou never told you, Yuri can't remember anything about me. And even if she could – especially if she could – given the same magical opportunity as you, she never would have chosen me. She would've taken it all back. And even I couldn't fault her for it."
Realization stole his breath, a small sound choked off and clogging the back of his throat.
"That's what she did when she took that forgetting potion," he said softly. "She was given a choice, and she didn't choose me. Because I didn't choose her."
That night, after the concert – that had been the moment of truth. That had been his chance to choose her. And he'd chosen power, pride… cowardice, misery. It was a test he had failed. For that, he was still reaping the consequences.
"She thought the same thing as you, apparently." His sneer fell into the dirt and landed as a grimace. "We never should have met."
Okazaki let this sit between them for a long while, contemplating something in his head. Perhaps the forgetting potion aspect, which should be just as easy to wrap one's head around as alternate worlds and shining miracle lights.
Finally he spoke again, his words almost lost over the crack of the baseball bat.
"You can still choose her, you know. It's not too late for that."
Ayato scoffed, watching Ooyama startle in delayed realization before he started to run. "Yes it is," he said stubbornly.
"She's in your life again," Okazaki pointed out. "That's got to count for something."
"You don't understand, she can't stand me," he stressed, smacking his free hand against the bench. Mitsuo gave a disgruntled yip at the noise so Fujimaki took the leash from him. "I tried being civil last week—"
Hinata laughed through his teeth. "Is that what you call it?"
"I did!" Ayato ruffled indignantly at him. "I offered to let her stay overnight, I promised to stop calling her an NPC, we had a good conversation. And then the next morning, you remember, out of nowhere it was like she was even more frustrated with me than before! If I even look at her, if I catch her looking at me, if I so much as bet on Yusa more than once she gets angry at me."
Hinata wrinkled his forehead in thought, then laughed some more. "Maybe she just has a crush on you, ever think of that?"
The very suggestion made Ayato roll his eyes at Hinata's stupidity. "That's ridiculous," he said darkly. "What am I to her, except some belligerent stranger with a god complex and the ex-husband who broke her heart? How could she possibly have feelings for me?"
Hinata shrugged, leaning against a dugout pole. "It just seemed like she was really starting to warm up to you." He paused to consider, before amending, "You know, before the whole fiasco at the bridge. And then you started going all full-blown Afterlife Naoi and acting like an asshole."
"Yes, well…" Ayato sunk lower into the bleachers, adjusting his cap and trying to disappear under it. "Who's to say that isn't exactly who I am?"
"It's not." Hinata's reply was surprisingly quick, yanking Ayato's attention back to him. "I mean – yeah, you're still the asshole in the Afterlife who hypnotized me into toilet paper and clothespins—"
"Just toilet paper," Ayato corrected with a faint nostalgic smile. "You were inferior to the clothespins."
"Right. How could I forget," Hinata said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "Look. You're still that guy. But do you remember the first thing I said to you in this life? That you hadn't changed a bit? I was wrong. Or I didn't know you as well as I thought I did. I know you now, and there's way more to you than that. Why do you think Yurippe wanted to remember you?"
"She did until she found out the truth," Ayato snapped, "that I was worth forgetting!"
"Then show her the Naoi that's worth remembering!" Hinata shot back, banging his hand against the pole. "And stop trying to hide behind the Afterlife Naoi like he's the one who doesn't love her. Because I've got news for you, Mr. 'I Want to Find the Girl I Graduated With' – I'm pretty sure he does!"
Ayato froze, momentarily thrown by Hinata's fervor, then glared at him halfheartedly. These guys – they just didn't get it. How could he get her back when he couldn't even get himself back? How could he win her heart when he didn't even understand his own?
"The Afterlife Naoi?" he repeated with a scoff, finding that he'd rather be irascible than reflective. And Hinata had used the term twice now. "I thought you didn't buy into that theory."
"Maybe I do, maybe I don't," said Hinata, as he folded his arms across his chest. "But I will say this. Even if Yurippe isn't the same person she was before, and neither are you… you know, it is possible to love two different people." His voice softened as he stared in the direction of the salon. "You just love them differently."
Ayato eyed him warily, before allowing his words to sink in with a furrowed brow.
He vaguely understood what Hinata was trying to say. The way he felt about the Yuri he'd met in Akuma, versus the way he felt about Afterlife Yuri… it was like she'd touched two different places in his heart.
But had he touched hers?
After everything that had happened, was it even possible for her to love him again – this version of him?
He was pretty sure he already knew the answer.
"As you are now, it's true you don't deserve her yet," Okazaki said, as if reading his mind. He shifted his gaze back to the game in time to see Ooyama nearly trip over his own feet, catch himself, and slide into home plate anyway. "But put it this way… isn't she worth it to try?"
Ayato's breath caught at the back of his throat. He glanced sharply at Okazaki, just as the latter stood up and walked over to join Otonashi, Noda, and Matsushita the Fifth at home plate. Apparently they were about to switch positions. Laughing as Mitsuo dragged him over to meet Ooyama, Fujimaki made a big show of acting like the dog was too strong for him. Mitsuo danced wildly around their legs, possibly attempting to tie their feet together with his leash.
He watched their happiness for a moment. Watched Otonashi say something to Hinata that made him laugh. Then let their world fade away from him, the conversations blurring together and turning into distorted white noise.
Try…
Taking his cap from his head, he studied it in his hands and twisted restlessly. Yuri Nakamura was worth… a great many things.
She deserved something real. Deserved someone reliable, someone she could count on. Someone who could look her in the eyes and say, "I love you with all that I am."
But how can anyone love someone with all that they are, when they aren't completely themselves?
Try. He scoffed and shook his head at the idea. He'd have better luck recovering Angel Player from the depths of the Afterlife. Provided Yuri had not decimated it as thoroughly as she did her own memories. He'd have better luck stopping a shadow monster apocalypse.
And yet…
A memory flashed to mind, of her waking in that infirmary bed three days after it all. Of her eyes finally opening, and the relief and fondness that had coursed through him at the sight.
"Even you're here," she'd said, with the same surprise as when he made his presence known in the Guild. "What are you doing here?"
It was also the same uncertainty he'd sensed from her when they regained their memories, and when he'd almost kissed her at the baseball game in Kyuuya. It seemed that Afterlife Yuri had faith in his abilities and intellect, but not his loyalty to her. He couldn't blame her for that.
Once upon a time, there had been a Yuri Nakamura who'd had an Ayato Naoi she could truly believe in. One who was as devoted to her as she was to him. And now both of them were lost forever.
Ayato sighed, squinted up at the unforgiving sun, and set his cap back in place. He stared blankly ahead at the amphitheater, letting it go in and out of focus.
What did this Yuri have to believe in?
Part two coming soon!
Preview:
"Why don't you tell her about Angel Player?"
"Some might say Yuri was a villain."
"You were zoning out again, weren't you?"
"It's kind of like a game."
"I didn't realize you and I had something like this in common!"
"She won't have to wait much longer."
[Chapter 50]: Something to Believe In (Part II).
