When Inaho was eight, his family was in an accident. It was very serious. He almost died, but he was luckier than his parents. His sister was either the luckiest, or the most unlucky, depending on how he looks at the situation in hindsight. Yuki was away, so she escaped the incident unscathed as far as flesh was concerned. The emotional impact was worse, Yuki bore the brunt of it; she bore it alone, without complaint. She was a strong willow for him to hide under, and she never once wavered in this dedication, but she and he were suddenly alone. For several months, it seemed very likely that she would lose him too. He doesn't understand the pain this must have caused her, but he tries. She never once cried. She stood proud and strong and resilient against the odds facing them.
He lost his left eye in the incident, and a surprisingly large part of his brain. When he did recover, his silence made the doctors think there was something wrong with him. It was a stigma that would not leave, no matter how his older sister protested that he had always been quiet, that there was nothing wrong with him. Perhaps worst of all, he couldn't remember if she was telling the truth, or lying for his sake. Had he been quiet? Was there something wrong with him? He didn't know, and he didn't know which would be worse -that he was born this way, or that he was now stuck this way.
He was unable to relate to people. People thought he was strange. They didn't understand him. They didn't like him. He was to quiet. He wasn't normal. These were all things that people piled upon his tiny shoulders, and they were all true. They looked at him, and said things like 'An incident like that, it's to be expected.' No matter what comfort Yuki could bring him, these things were all true, and he could not simply be what everyone else wanted him to be. He could not wish himself normal, and at how the 'normal' people treated him, he didn't want to. He wanted to be like Yuki, strong, reliable, dependable, and always with the right thing to say. Inaho was none of these things. He was weak, no one needed to rely or depend on him, he was slight, unimposing, and every time he opened his mouth, he said the wrong thing, even if it was right. It was surely impossible for him to be like Yuki, he would realize that at some point, but early in his life he tried. He tried very hard.
What he did have was what remained of his brain, and that worked much better than anyone (other than Yuki) anticipated. For how unnatural he was, he was ten times as smart as the rest of them, those foul 'normal' people. He forced himself un-resentful, and un-malicious, because those things were un-Yuki. They only hurt her, because when he failed, it was her fault. When he didn't fit in, it was her fault, and when people didn't like him, she worried. This was unfair, so he tried harder, but what he lacked was not something he could simply replace.
At around fifteen, he'd created himself an eye, more advanced than most super computers. It was proof that he could create, that he was not flawed or broken or lacking. He thought that perhaps without the physical deformity, others would be kinder, they would relent. He was mistaken, they did not. But with scorn, also came accolade. He was renowned at a young age, even if the media hated him. People wanted to study him, wanted to know how his brain worked side by side with a super computer. He was more interested in the money they promised, because Yuki had spent every dime to support his eccentric, scientific habits. They didn't like him; they thought he was a freak, but an interesting one to look at. But, by then, it mattered a lot less. She had walked into his life.
She didn't get along with others either, but they were perfect together. She compensated his faults, people called her kind and emotional, where as people called him cold and aloof, but of course, no one else understood them to know any better. He'd been working on the eye thing for a while, but it was only after she came into his life, that he made it actually work. The retina in his analytical engine is hers, a perfect matching map. He remembers her joking, her voice a lifting tone of brilliance, how every time he'd look in the mirror, he'd see one of her eyes looking back at him. Inaho only realized after she was gone that it was true, and regrets making the color his own, making it a dull boring red when her aqua had so enriched his life.
Eyes were an interest ever since he lost one, but they didn't become a career choice until he lost her, and she kept looking back at him through the mirror every morning. Yuki tells him to move on, to find someone else, to focus on his research if that's what he needs. She wants him to be normal again, but how can he let that gaping wound heal when the stitches come undone every time he looks in a mirror, catches his reflection in a cup of coffee, walks through the rain, sits in front of blank screens. There is no escape, there are so few solutions.
What the magazines don't publish, what the thesis didn't say, what the hypothesis doesn't include, is that he is right. None of them will ever say he is right. He will die with it unproven, untested, and likely a hack. He doesn't care, because the research, the toil, the proof that yes it's true and no other breathing soul will ever know, is because he needs her, not because he is some scion of science and knowledge. Science is only as good as its use, and he will keep it for himself, hideaway and burn the facts, the proofs, the undeniable evidence that he is right, because only he will use it. It only has one use, only ever did.
None of them need to know it is right, because he must continue to search, and as far as the inquires the interns the interested onlookers are concerned, he will never find what he searches for. Because when he does, they won't like it. There will be problems. People will be on his doorstep crying and wailing of lost sons and daughters, of loved one and tragedies and 'Find them, help us!' and he can't afford that. He doesn't have the time; he can't indulge every sob story that comes to his door, even if they have bags and bags of money. His heart is bleeding enough, he has to plug some of the wounds. Inaho knows the importance of time, has for ten years now and he refuses to waste it.
It is also a secret that his eye does the work. He has the interns take detailed pictures for comparisons, so that they can file the things away in cases and cases and storage sheds of cases, never to be looked at again. His eye does it all; it has the retina print it needs, so it's a simple comparison. All he needs is a glance, and he will know, but they still take the pictures, because he is not sharing his research, it's for him, but no one else is going to know that. The naysayers think he does them all himself, like the old finger print technicians, getting paid pennies to look at lines and bends and curves all day. They think he does that with those pictures, but they are wrong. He doesn't have that time, but he lets them think it none the less.
And there are millions and millions of pictures. Some days, he even pulls some out, tosses them in the air, and watches as they twirl like a beautiful woman in a while sundress dances on the crystal sands of the sea. Like the fluttering of milky lashes over delicate ocean eyes. None of the pictures match, no school he has ever gone to has provided the single child he is looking for.
The statistical impossibility is astounding. Inaho thinks of them often, but he doesn't allow them to slow him down. He has the rest of his life to look, so he will. They're soul mates, he'll find her or die trying; there are no other options.
Of course no one knows who he is looking for. Every record says he's looking for an old woman that died ten years ago. But no matter how the interns might look, they'll never find the eye they're meant to compare too. They aren't meant to, it's on no paper. He is the only one who checks, it is his research, it is his project, and Inaho is not good at sharing. If it got out, he'd sound like some Greek romance. He doesn't want Lolita. There is no perverse sexual fantasy to speak of, but if they find out, that is what they'd say. They'd call him crazy, and he isn't. He's driven and in love, and in mourning. There's a difference. He's looking for a piece of his soul that is missing, not flesh or kisses or even vows. All he wants is the piece that fit with his, and he can be happy, but no one will understand that. Not even Yuki would understand, so he can't let it go, he can't relay it to even a single soul. For the happiness he wants to preserve, for the security he will need when he finds that missing piece, Inaho keeps his lips shut, his genius wrapped in papers and ink that endlessly say nothing at all. It isn't for them, it's for her, because she is missing her part too; she doesn't know it yet, but she is, where ever she has landed.
Some days, he thinks she would be proud of him. She'd ruffle his hair and tell him how admirable his work has been. How only he can find her, flitting between the creases in a map that is too large. Other days, he thinks she would cry, tell him his wasting is wrong, his genius to squandered, his gaze to focused for the rest of the world to be let in. It doesn't matter. What does matter, is he doesn't know what she'd say. He loved and cherished and cared and looks at her eye every day of his life, and he doesn't know how she would react, and isn't that true love? When a person can so entirely surprise you that every day is new and bright and dangerous.
He wants it back.
It is a surprise that none of the papers do it. None of the magazine, none of the studies, none of the orphanage visits, and none of the schools the globe over. It is none of these things, it is none of the money that has been spent needlessly for the pursuit of the theory he has already proven.
It is a bakery in Paris, on a chilly winter morning in December. For once, he breaks his routine. For once, he leaves his hotel room, and walks down the street to acquire his breakfast. The bakery is small, new, and bright. His French is lacking, and he doesn't care enough to polish, so he points at something dismissively, and watches as the clerk sneers at him for his rudeness, and bags the item.
The shopkeeper is bagging, when the door to the shop opens, and the little bell jingles. The clerk looks up, and smiles brightly at the newcomer. They share greetings, and as the new customer speaks, Inaho realizes it is a child. He expects nothing, he has canvassed the Paris schools and academies and orphanages and hospitals in the seven years he has been looking. He still looks, as the child orders a pain du chocolat, and a profiterole. He takes no offense that the shopkeeper helps the younger customer first, though he should. Time is important, he should care, but he is not his usual self that morning, as his withering routine attests.
Inaho looks on instinct, as the child grabs the offered pastries, and hands over his money. Because Inaho has trained himself to check every small face he passes.
He gets one look, before the child hurries out of the bakery, and time stands still. His clock starts moving again; it's a match.