Author's notes

I'm really sorry for the delay getting this chapter out. It's been sitting on my HD waiting to be edited, but my editor and I haven't been able to sync up in over a month and a half. This chapter is therefore unedited except by myself. Feel free to berate me for errors you find.

My editor thinks it's hilarious that I write my A/Ns before I write the chapter itself.

Nana, for those of you who are like me and didn't know this without doing research (I'm working my way through marimite s4 right now, but it's a slow haul) was Yoshino's petite seour.

Don't tell me you've never made the mistake of mixing the very bitter with the very salty. My own particularly disgusting mix is usually my morning coffee (black, like a man) followed shortly by my morning v8. It's rarely pleasant. On one occasion, I made stirfry with soy sauce, and overreduced the soy sauce a bit (making it saltier still); I drank it with an IPA and nearly gagged. On rare occasion (more often than I should admit to you), saltines and brandy. Good god, but I'm stupid.

Three

Stave: Commala come free / will ya come to me / though no one knows how far or wide / the gap might truly be

He recognizes me the second time I come in, and tries to make conversation as I pay for my ramen and pads. I wonder if he understands how difficult it is for me to buy pads from an actual human being, much less a male, much less a male who is at least feigning interest in talking to me. I don't say a word to him throughout the whole thing, and by the time he instructs me to have a nice evening, I'm halfway out the door.

I wonder if he thinks I'm a bad person.

By the time Yumi reached Yoshino's house, her 2AM shivers had faded into a vague, dreamlike memory, but a terrible, heavy dread had replaced it, settling in for the long haul in the very top of her bowels. Something academic inside her told her she was being silly, but something else, in a curt, no-nonsense voice which reminded her strongly and unexpectedly of Shimako, told her to listen to her instincts before she listened to something as useless as common sense. It was probably this voice, whose presence Yumi could honestly not account for (she had never had any sort of internal chorus of voices when her own thought process was concerned, but rather acted primarily on an intuition which ran deeper than she cared to admit) which caused her not to turn around and go home after the initial fear had passed.

She pulled into a narrow parking spot in front of Yoshino's apartment just after 2:45 in the morning, and Yoshino was waiting for her on the staircase leading to the second floor of the simple two-story building. She looked as composed as she ever did, dressed in a light blue blouse and jeans. Where is she planning on going? Yoshino could have been going out for coffee with a friend. Yumi, dressed in the disheveled T-shirt in which she slept, white shorts, and little else, could have been emerging, hung-over and bleary-eyed, from a one-night stand after a night of drinking.

Yumi got out of the car, and Yoshino stood, started towards her, and within seconds, Yumi was embracing the girl; at first in a simple greeting, which was not unusual, but within seconds she found herself squeezing: At first craving the pressure on her heart, on her stomach, as though this could force out the horrid feeling which had spread from her bowels all the way up to her throat; and then because she found herself unable to stop. She was crying gently, before she had registered even that holding Yoshino tightly made her feel just slightly better, and then she was sobbing-all this in the span of about twenty seconds. Yoshino, for her part, was not as surprised as she might have been, as though she understood – (and indeed, she knew what this brand of anxiety felt like, because hadn't it been Yumi who had done the same for her just over two years ago?)

It took another minute for Yumi to calm down, during which time not a single word passed between the two of them. When Yumi could lift her eyes again, Yoshino took her by the hand and led her inside; in part because she knew how badly embarrassed the girl would be if somebody actually took notice of what was happening (not likely, but still a consideration) and in part because she wanted Yumi to drink some tea if she was feeling sick to her stomach, or some brandy if she wasn't.

They took the stairs one careful step at a time, but Yumi's footing was surer with each, and by the time they reached the top, her face had regained some of its normal color. She started to fumble with an apology, but Yoshino refused to allow it, silencing her with a squeeze of her hand.

They entered Yoshino's apartment, the sudden, white light making Yumi squint. Yoshino half-encouraged, half-forced Yumi to sit down at the small table in the dining room, and left to put tea on. She took her time, and finally allowed her own, special breed of terror and Déjà vu to overtake her, finding herself shivering and crying with helpless rage. She had a deep feeling, one which lacked any basis in reality but nonetheless seemed utterly correct, that Yumi, in the coming years, would have to experience what she herself had experienced.

Isn't it all the same? Isn't it?

Didn't you watch Rei go down that alleyway, seem to duck behind a dumpster? Didn't you feel the same sick, inexplicable sense that Rei was simply gone the instant you lost sight of her? There was absolutely no logical reason to feel that way, except that she didn't come back, and when you went to look for her, she was not there, and in her place were those horrible chimes.

It's all the same.

The dull white noise of water boiling infiltrated her thoughts, and she poured a cup of tea, not thinking about it until she spilled some of it on her hand. She let a hiss out and recoiled, jerking back to the present, and went to the tap, ran cold water over her hand, trying not to curse herself a fool.

(What was it that Rei used to say? Getting mad at yourself won't make the tea cooler, and if it did, you'd just be mad at yourself for serving cold tea.)

"Are you all right?" Yumi was at the door to the kitchen, the concern on her face deep enough that Yoshino could not help but curse herself this time.

"Fine. I'm fine. I Just spilled a little. Please sit down, I'll be out in just a moment."

"Can I help with anything?"

Damn it, Yumi. "No, please have a seat. I'll take care of it."

Yumi lingered a moment and Yoshino refused to turn to look at her, feeling more frustrated by the second. When she heard the girl retreat to the table, she shut the tap off and took a moment to dry her hands, forcing her exhausted brain to stay on the (admittedly simple) task at hand.

Tea. You're making tea. You need to make tea.

There was a mostly-full cup of tea by the teapot, cooling by the second. You already made tea. At some point, Yoshino, you should probably check back into the present. They saved you a place, but since it's so late, you may have to bring tea if you want them to let you back in.

She had already laid out a second cup and a little tray to shuttle them with. (why on earth did I buy a tray? I think Yumi is the first person, aside from the ones that I ask to leave before we might get onto a topic as intimate as tea, to come to my house since Rei disappeared.) She filled the cup and put both cups on the tray, and after a moment's thought, prepared a small plate of crackers. (She probably won't be feeling like eating much after this. I know I didn't.)

She picked the tray up and started to carry it out,

How am I going to get her to eat? She's going to lose weight if she's anything like me, but she's barely got any weight to lose. At least Rei had been experimenting with cooking French food, so we'd been ordering pizza a lot

But then she found that marsala wine, and it was like she was born with it in her hands, she was finding new things to do with it every day

She was tuning into a great chef, I was starting to get jealous

and was about two centimeters from knocking it against the door frame before she stopped, closed her eyes, and forced herself out of her head and into her apartment. All at once, Yoshino couldn't remember if she had ever really divulged the circumstances of Rei's disappearance in their entirety to anybody, and all at once, it was critically important. When Yumi had made tea for her in her little kitchen, brought it out with some crackers to make sure Yoshino ate something, and sat down, held her hand, and just listened, had Yoshino ever mentioned that the alley that Rei had disappeared into had been a dead end, and that the manhole cover that seemed to egg her on was far too heavy for either of them to have lifted on their own? Had she tried to convince Yumi that Rei had been, and then not been, with no worldly explanation as to why?

What if I go in there and she wants me to tell her that she's being silly?

Am I even capable of that?

The first question is whether or not you're capable of focusing on another person, I think.

That was a good first question to answer, and Yoshino wasn't sure she could answer it, but then she was out in the dining room, setting the tea tray down near where Yumi sat, and it was far too late for that shit.

She poured Yumi a cup, and then poured one for herself. She had no idea how it would taste – if she'd burned it or oversteeped it, she'd never know until one of them pulled a face; or rather, until Yumi pulled a face. She sipped her own cup, and didn't taste it.

"It's very good," Yumi said, and while Yoshino wasn't sure if she believed her, she was quite certain she didn't really care, and that Yumi didn't, either. It was just something people said, and Yoshino had found herself increasingly disinterested in things people just said in recent years. In all my time with her, I was never really sure whether Yumi was unfalteringly kind or a master of just saying. I suppose I'll know soon enough.

She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

They sat in silence for a while, sipping their tea. Yoshino slowly came to the conclusion that her tea was indeed oversteeped, as she became increasingly aware of a bitter aftertaste building up in the back of her mouth. The crackers, which were salty and a little stale, probably almost a year old, did nothing to help, and the mix quickly became so heinously difficult to deal with without gagging that Yoshino wasn't sure she could finish the lot, hungry though she was. (She had skipped dinner, and her memories of lunch were fuzzy at best. This was the makeup of about half of her nights, while the other half saw her eating as ravenously as she had at the nice Italian restaurant with the nice, not-so-clingy,

you're awful

boy.) She occasionally glanced up at Yumi, whose eyes were distant. Yoshino knew exactly where Yumi was – she was wherever Sachiko was, and that, if what Yumi had told her was true, was nowhere.

Then, all at once, Yumi said, "It's probably nothing. It's got to be nothing."

It was just a dream, right? Not even that – just a feeling. A chill. A matter of less than a minute.

Yoshino thought about what she should just say. You're probably right, just silliness. Do you feel any better? I know my tea was horrible, but you must have calmed down from the drive, right?

Why in the hell would I say that?

And yet, Yoshino couldn't quite bring herself to ask the other question, either - the important question. If you thought that, why did you wake up in the middle of the night and drive all the way to my house? That would be too cruel, too soon, so she was stuck in an awkward middle ground – unable to lie and provide comfort, but equally unable to force Yumi to see reality.

You are certainly making a very arbitrary decision about what reality looks like. For all you know, Sachiko is fine, and Yumi had herself a scotch last night and it's catching up with her.

(Yumi doesn't drink scotch)

And in the middle of this convoluted train of thought, Yoshino asked, "Have you tried calling her?"

This simple, logical question seemed to take Yumi off guard. As though she hadn't even considered it.

"I couldn't…" Yumi said, slowly. "She's in the middle of a meeting right now."

She doesn't really believe it.

She does, but she's trying not to.

"Where was she staying?"

Yumi gave a start, and then clamped her hand over her mouth. "She was staying with Sei! Last night, she was with Sei."

"Sei Satou?" A name Yoshino hadn't heard in what seemed like years. Had they ever been close? Yoshino couldn't remember, which meant they probably hadn't. She had made Yumi very happy, though—Yoshino remembered this quite clearly.

"Yes! She called me from her apartment last nigh—well, this afternoon. They were—Sachiko was—very drunk."

Yoshino had a hard time believing this, but then, Yoshino knew next to nothing about Sachiko Ogasawara, and she was fully aware of this. She and Rei had been close, but she had never wholly taken to Yoshino, who had always wondered if it had been her choice in literature.

"Do you know Sei's phone number?"

Yumi, completely unexpectedly, blushed slightly at this, and Yoshino frowned, not quite knowing what to make of it. "She…always sends me her new phone number when she moves or changes cell phones."

Yoshino still didn't understand why Yumi was blushing, but resolved not to ask about it, either. "Why don't you try calling her?"

Apparently, Yoshino's tone had been less patient than she had intended. "I'm sorry!" Yumi said at once, bowing her head. "You must be so exhausted!" As though she had only just realized that it was nearing three in the morning. Yoshino found herself unable to keep from smiling at this, and in retrospect, wondered why she had wanted to.

She reached across the table, stretching just a bit awkwardly, and took Yumi's hand in both of hers. The two girls, old friends, companions, occasional partners in crime, met one another's eyes for a moment, and both smiled, each in spite of herself. Yumi leaned in a bit, letting Yoshino hold her hand without pressing her chest against the table, and Yoshino said, "Don't apologize. You did the same thing for me, and even if you hadn't, I wouldn't care. But call Sei. It's a fine time over there, and I'm sure you'll-" you won't feel better after you do. You'll feel worse. But why am I so sure of that? "Well, I'm sure you'll feel more certain."

Yumi nodded in agreement, and she took her phone from her jeans pocket and dialed Sei's number.

After they hung up, she was sure.

Response: Commala come three / if you won't come to me / then past the worlds and across the stars / I will come to thee

It's my third time in this convenience store in a week. It's a heavy week, and in addition to being terrified I'm bloated and angry. I don't think I'm ever angry except for on heavy weeks – it takes more energy than I have. I've ruined two pairs of underwear since I started, and I can't afford to replace them. And to top it off, he's working again. Does he do anything else? (That's stupid,if he's got a regular schedule, why wouldn't he be working regularly?) Does he always have to be in here when I'm in here, being nosy and intruding in my space? And does he always have to smile at me? Doesn't he know it's creepy?

No matter how hard I try, I can't quite seem to make him be a bad person. That makes him all the worse.

It was about five in the morning when Yoshino finally got Yumi to stop crying and lay down, and, after sending a quick email to her office informing them that she would be absent for a day or two, she laid awake, alone on her couch until well past sunrise. Not thinking about anything in particular, but rather, feeling. Something she hadn't really done at any length for what seemed like

(two)

years.

She started with guilt, and ran with it. As horrible as her dear friend's situation was, she was grateful to see her again. How long had it been? Long enough that she had to ask that question. Both she and Yumi were gainfully employed, and Yumi, at least, had a wife. (And I have my awkward IT boys, ha-ha.) A wife, and that rhymed with life, and that was what she had. And having a life meant, didn't it, that you had to do things like ask your friends how long it had been since you'd seen them.

Those people who she had seen daily in school, relied on in more ways than she herself knew, she now had to make plans with. Somehow, Yoshino had never been very good at making plans – maybe she was just too prideful to ask people to come, to please smile at her and laugh with her and catch her eye and know what the look meant at just the right time. Maybe it just made her feel pathetic to admit that she really couldn't do it by herself. Maybe it hurt her pride to know that they wouldn't always call you right when you needed them to, or sometimes at all.

Yes. Prideful.

That sounded about right. Pride was a sin, but if she didn't have one or two sins, she'd never have a reason to make plans with the Virgin Mary, would she?

The guilt deepened as dawn approached. Not only was Yumi finally here, she was giving Yoshino a purpose. Something that was actually worth doing. Something beyond going to work and going home and reading those emails that he sometimes sent her, looking at the photographs of the alley that he'd taken, of the men who sometimes loitered around it. Something beyond picking someone up at a bar on Friday night and sending them packing on Saturday morning.

Yoshino knew that she would remember the few hours she had spent in the middle of the night with Yumi more vividly than she would probably remember the last month of her life. She had slept with one person in the last month, that IT boy, and he had seemed thoroughly enamored with her, and she probably wouldn't even remember his face in a week. She had already forgotten about what they had done — she knew they had done it, but that was a far cry from anything meaningful. He was just one more part of her routine. Wake up, brush your teeth, eat something so you don't pass out, get dressed, get felt up on the train, get to work and do nothing of importance to anyone, scratch an itch if you feel it too sharply. Maybe I should abstain from sex for a year just to see how it feels.

As the sky continued to grow color, (red like a blushing virgin, not that you remember much about that, ha-ha) she realized just how much she was enjoying feeling guilty, because of how long it had been since she felt anything so sharply. It seemed that everything had meant the world to her in high school – a couple of words from Rei had been enough to enrage her to the point where she was no longer thoroughly in control of her tongue. How long had it been since she lost control of anything?

(When you're sober, anyway.)

A single look from the same girl could calm her entire world. Hell, even Nana had been able to set her on fire from time to time.

Now?

Now the only time she treated herself to a piece of cake was when she made plans. Now she was lying here in the dark, not feeling sorry for her dearest friend in the world, but feeling sorry for herself, because she was just enjoying the feeling so fucking much. Now she no longer crushed rabidly on one of the bosses from a floor up, a handsome man just a little older than her, and came home every day to talk to Rei about it.

What in the hell happened to me?

Eventually, the sound of Yumi's gentle crying prompted her to sit up and take notice of what her friend was going through. She had tried to be really there for her that night, and she couldn't help but think that she had entirely failed. The feeling was so gutwrenching that she was unable to stop herself from taking a moment to savor that, too. She sat up and thought to herself, not for the first time that night, your friend needs you more than she ever has in her lifetime, in exactly the same way you needed her not so long ago, so get the fuck out of your head and help her.

And this time—maybe it was the small noise of Yumi crying, a series of tiny gasps punctuated by an occasional sob, or maybe she was just so fucking tired that she couldn't think anymore—it actually made an impact on her. She sat up, and went into her room, where Yumi was supposed to be sleeping, found only a lump underneath her sheets. She sighed gently.

It's almost the same. Almost the same as when I went to her house, two years ago.

The only difference was that it hadn't taken Yumi the better part of the evening to go to her. She hoped that Yumi would forgive her that in time.

She gently pulled the comforter back, and found Yumi, curled into a ball, her face in her hands. Wordlessly, she laid down and took the girl in her arms, and did not move, and so doing, provided exactly what the girl needed. One of them fell asleep eventually, or maybe both. Maybe they slept in turns. Yoshino was never able to recall, which, of course, meant that she had slept.

When she regained some semblance of higher brain function, she had no idea what time it was. Yumi was still there, her chest moving gently, her cell phone clutched in her hand. Waiting for a call that logic and reason told her should come eventually, but that her heart told her never would. Yumi didn't know it yet (Yoshino did, all too well), but she would spend the better part of the next year obsessively checking her cell phone.

Yoshino was dozing again when Yumi's voice jerked her awake.

"Does it get easier?" she said, her voice small.

You should say yes. Yoshino knew it, but she also knew that this would be a disservice. She had been to several support groups over the last two years, to several more therapists, and all of them said that it got easier as time went. All of them were fucking liars. "No," she said eventually. "You stop feeling it so intensely, but you stop feeling much of anything."

Yumi didn't reply for just long enough for Yoshino to wish that Rei had spent a week or two beating the honest out of her when Rei had still been able to beat anything out of anyone.

"I'm sorry," Yumi said, eventually, "that I didn't come to see you more often."

What the fuck are you apologizing for? You have your own life.

"Don't apologize," Yoshino said, "It's…I'm the one who stopped calling." It wasn't as though they had stopped seeing one another altogether. Only that they had had to start making plans, and those plans had become less and less frequent as time went on.

"I understand why."

Right now you feel like the only thing you might ever be able to make plans to do again is cry all over somebody's couch.

Exactly the same.

"Promise me something," Yumi said.

"What?"

"Promise me that you'll start calling again. I'll start calling you more often, too. I don't want to…to be alone."

"You could move in," Yoshino suggested wildly, and wondered why she had. Of course Yumi wouldn't. Because

"No. I want to be home if Sachiko comes back. Whenever she comes back, I want to be there."

Because that. Because exactly that. That's why Yoshino hadn't moved out of her cheap apartment, even though she had been able to afford to for years. Because she wanted Rei to know where to find her. Just in case.

"I promise," Yoshino said quietly. "I'll spend every day with you, if you want."

"You have a job."

"I have a job but no life." She smiled against Yumi's back at this. Isn't that by choice? How could it not be? As if feeling her grin, Yumi shifted into her slightly, and Yumi tightened her arms. They didn't say anything after that, not for a long time.

Eventually, Yumi said, "We have to find them."

I already know how to get to them. You just go all the way down an alleyway, climb down a manhole, and into hell.

"I've been trying," Yoshino said. "For two years now. If you like, when you're ready, I'll show you everything I've learned."

"We could—" Yumi tried to sit up, and Yoshino forced her back down, said, "Not now. Not even this month."

"But—"

"If you start now, right away, while you're still feeling like this, it will eat you alive." I started the week after she vanished. Cops are too fucking slow.

"I don't care about—"

"You can't find anybody if you're a meal to an obsession," Yoshino said gently, and wished she was better at taking her own advice. How wise an alcoholic is about moderation. Doles out great advice about how to keep it from eating your life. Usually while drunk. "Promise me."

Yumi was quiet for an indeterminable length of time (they were all indeterminable in a dark room when your only view was the back of the neck of a woman you loved.) "I promise."

And so, promises to one another made, they eventually drifted off again. They slept listlessly, but they slept.