Angel Beats! エンジェルビーツ!

Our Beats Incarnate

Book I: The Station

Chapter 6: What Dreams May Come

-o-O-o-

The sun beat insistently down upon the world below, warm and welcome, driving the balmy summer breeze as it danced amongst the plants and flowers. It was still too early in the season for the heat to be oppressive, and the few fluffy little white clouds which ebbed lazily through the otherwise clear blue sky offered an occasional respite if they happened to make their way across the sun.

The garden was truly beautiful at this time of year, with all of the flowers parading themselves for the benefit of the butterflies and bumblebees, displaying an array of colours so vast and vivid that it was almost dizzying. Kanade was knelt on the very edge of the lawn, where short, carefully manicured grass gave way to deep and rich topsoil, leaning over the flowerbed and pulling the weeds out from between her chosen flowers with thick-gloved hands. Some were more stubborn than others, having taken deeper root, but her trowel and hand-fork sat readily by her side should she need them.

After uprooting some rather stubborn mare's tail Kanade allowed herself a moment to breathe, rising only so far as a kneeling position. Removing her gloves to avoid spreading the soil which now caked them, she lifted her hat and wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her sleeve, taking the moment to appreciate the area she'd liberated from the insistent little weed so far..

"Hard work?" a familiar voice interrupted her break.

"Well worth it," she smiled without turning to look, rising instead to her feet and completely removing her hat. A quick tug of her hair pins and her long, platinum hair fell free, shimmering in the bright sunlight. She fanned herself casually with the hat, though it did little to actually cool her down, "You should join me, Yuzuru. A little hard work would do you the world of good." She teased playfully.

"Hey," he protested with a smirk, less than convincingly attempting to feign indignation as he stood there with his hands behind his back, "I am working hard."

Kanade raised an eyebrow, wordlessly questioning the dubious claim.

"I am!" he objected, a suspicious looking grin putting the lie to his words, "Look!"

As Yuzuru brought his hands into view Kanade couldn't help but notice the two small half-litre bottles of water he'd carried with him, the dewy moisture clouding up the outside of the bottle steaming away lightly as it evaporated.

"You shouldn't risk dehydration." Yuzuru's tone took on a more serious timbre as he held out one of the bottles to her, already knowing she wouldn't refuse it.

Kanade accepted it gratefully, but she still couldn't resist the opportunity to play with him a little bit more, "Is that your professional opinion as my doctor?"

"No." he smirked, catching on instantly and retaliating, "It's my professional opinion as your husband and caregiver."

"Oh, Yuzuru…" she fanned herself with one hand and fluttering her eyelashes at him, pretending to swoon, "I had no idea you cared!"

They both shared a brief chuckle, enjoying the easy playful banter. It had come quite naturally to the pair of them over the years they'd know each other, becoming a cornerstone of their relationship and one of the most vocal expressions of their shared affections.

"Of course I care." Yuzuru smiled softly as Kanade took a sip of her water, speaking in earnest, "You're my dream girl, remember?"

Kanade swallowed, enjoying the cool relief the water offered on the way down. The near icy sensation when it hit her stomach cooled her core and actually sent the briefest of shivers down her spine.

She was about to say something to him in return, but a third more distant voice interrupted, drawing both of their attentions. The words were muffled and indistinct, but the intonation was clearly recognisable.

"We're in the garden!" Yuzuru shouted.

Sure enough from the path which led down the side of the house appeared Kasumi, her light summery dress accentuated by a wicker hat almost identical to Kanade's – except the for the bow being green rather than red – and two hands completely laden with overly full shopping bags.

"I've got something that belongs to you two." She declared as she passed through the gate which separated the side passage from the back garden, marking the point where the concrete path turned into a series of slabs which marked out a curving path from one corner of the garden to another diagonally opposite, ending in front of the garden sheds. It cut through the grass like stepping-stones through a mountain stream.

As if on cue a small, porcelain-pale face framed by messy platinum locks peered around from behind the mass of shopping bags, a pair of wide gleeful copper-hued eyes dancing with fervent excitement. Like a rocket, the little girl was off the mark and running straight for Kanade. With a wide grin she moved down onto one knee, opening her arms as the little girl ran excited straight into her.

"Mummy, mummy – look what I've got!" she chirped as Kanade rose again to her feet, arms protectively around her child as the young girl clung to her neck with one hand..

Kanade had to lean back slightly to make out exactly what it was she was being shown. There, in the smallest of hands, being held aloft like a trophy was a small little sapling. It looked a little bit yellowed and flaccid in the tips of its leaves, and the roots wrapped up far too tightly in a non-porous polythene bag. As a professional landscape gardener Kanade had developed an eye for these finer details over the years, but she was sure that with a little care and attention the tiny tree would recover.

"Where did you get that, Sayuri?" she asked the girl in her arms.

"At the fair with Nana and Aunt Hatsune," she hadn't taken her eyes of the delicate little shrub the whole time, as if she was trying to figure it out. The intensely serious concentration made her little nose wrinkle and her brow furrow.

Yuzuru stepped up a little closer, ruffling the girl's hair playfully – to her mild amusement – just to torment her, "Where is Hatsune, anyway?"

"She met some friends, so we let her go." Kasumi answered first, "Right Sayuri?"

"Yeah!" she was beaming brightly from ear to ear, "She'll be home for dinner! She promised me!"

"Well, then." Kanade rubbed her nose against her daughter's, eliciting a mirth-filled giggle, "I think we need to pick out somewhere nice to plant this little tree, don't you?"

The eager nod from Sayuri was confirmation enough, so Kanade returned her gently to her feet. With a reassuring pat on the back, she pushed her daughter gently forwards, pointing to the spot where she'd been weeding only a few minutes earlier and issuing a simple instruction, "Don't forget the trowel."

With a level of care practiced innumerable times over the few short years of her life, Sayuri managed to navigate the flowerbed without trampling a single flower – though she didn't grant the poor, unfortunate weeds the same courtesy – and retrieved her mother's soil-clad trowel, holding it safely and securely by the handle in just the way Kanade had taught her.

She handed it to her mother with an almost dutiful faux-salute, her eagerness bubbling over to the point where she practically bounced about on the spot, drawing out a grin from the three adults present.

Kanade, accepting the tool, offered her thanks with a good-natured salute of her own, "You remember which one's the southern corner of the garden?"

"Yeah!" Like lightning Sayuri was running off across the lawn. Kanade chuckled, picking up her skirt in her free hand to avoid tripping over it and giving chase.

Sayuri eagerly led the way to one of the far corners of the garden, where the rounded-off crook of the lawn gave way to bare, tilled topsoil. It was one of the few sections of Kanade's garden that remained uncultivated, experimenting as she was with the soil's composition – naturally it was quite poor quality, with an overly clay-based texture which made it cling to water far longer than desired, leaving it unsuitable for her usually favoured species of flowers and plants. She'd even considered the spot for a small water feature, perhaps a bubble fountain, though she hadn't committed to anything yet. But, if the little shrub in her daughter's hands was what she suspected – a fledgling sycamore of some sort – it should prove very hardy and able to cope very well indeed. Perhaps it would even thrive.

"I think this will do perfectly." Kanade caught up with Sayuri, handing the trowel to her and kneeling on the edge of the grass, leaving her at head-height with the small girl, "Now, I need you to measure out five paces from the edge of the grass. Think you can do that for me?"

Yuzuru watched the pair with a fond smile as they set about preparing the spot for Sayuri's tree, chuckling at the overly dramatic paces she was taking into the well-turned earth, "That'll be good firewood in a couple of decades!" he called out with a huge grin on his face.

Sayuri turned back to look at her father, sticking out her tongue in outrage, "You're so mean, Daddy!"

Yuzuru just held up his hands in mock surrender, Sayuri returning to the edge of the grass and beginning to count her paces again. Kanade, hand over her mouth to hide the smirk on her lips, offered him an amused look.

Yuzuru simply rolled his eyes playfully.

"So," Kasumi spoke softly from the side, watching as Sayuri picked out the specific spot for her tree, Kanade moving forwards to join her shortly afterwards. The small girl held the trowel and began to dig away at the soil under her mother's precise instructions. Yuzuru had almost forgotten that Kasumi was there with them, too busy enjoying the little pantomime his family was putting on, "Did this ever make its way into your dreams, Yuzuru?"

Kasumi had always known about the dream he shared with Kanade, the dream which had essentially brought them together – the very basis of their bond. He supposed that it was one of the things that made her so easy to approach and talk to, and over time he'd come to view her very much like his own mother as much as Kanade's.

"Oh, it did. Once." He admitted, thinking back to days past, though never for a moment looking away from the scene before him, "Then it became my reality."

He watched as Sayuri finished digging her little hole, tossing the trowel away with gusto, forcing Kanade to reach for it as quickly as her reactions would allow. She nearly overbalanced in trying to pluck it out of the air, but she managed to retain her footing. The tut she gave off matched the roll of her eyes, but the smirk betrayed her feigned outrage for what it really was - mild amusement.

All of this was lost on Sayuri, fully engrossed in the task at hand, who had already made her way over to the little sapling, tearing away the polythene bag as if she'd been told it contained the greatest treasure in the world. Little shreds of the plastic fell to the grass, the light breeze picking some of them up and spreading them all across the garden from one flowerbed to another. It would take weeks for them all to decompose… Kanade would no doubt love that.

Sayuri was inordinately careful, though, as she transported the miniature tree back towards what would be its new home, the look of concentration contorting her face as she bit her tongue between her lips. All of this was for naught, however, as she dropped the tree into the hole from a height, causing Yuzuru to laugh.

All the determination of her mother, all the patience of a five year old… Yuzuru thought fondly to himself.

Kanade was once again by their daughter's side, the pair of them kneeling together next to the tree. Yuzuru couldn't hear what they were talking about, but it was clear that Kanade was instructing Sayuri on how to fill in the topsoil using her bare hands – and her arms, sleeves, and torso too, it seemed... Clearly the little terror's bath later on was going to result in enough sediment to start a decent-sized beach in their bathtub.

Yuzuru couldn't hold back the smile, nor the pride, that the vision before him demanded. And to think that there would be more days like this.

His heart soared.

-o-O-o-

When Kanade opened her eyes the first thing she noticed was just how dark the room around her was, and she couldn't help but wonder if she'd managed to sleep away the entire day. That would please her mother, who was always adamant that after an episode she simply take it easy and let her body recover at its own pace. There was no point adding extra stress, after all.

It was an incredibly draining experience – it always had been – because it left her feeling almost completely deflated, as if something were sucking all of the energy from her body. She didn't mind the respite, but she would much rather have be outside in the open, taking in the fresh air. Come rain, sleet, snow or shine, outside was the place she always wanted to be – free, and alive.

The second thing she noticed, when she tried to move, was that something had her duvet pinned down behind her. It took another few moments for her to realise that there was also an arm draped over her.

Intense surprise caught her by the throat as she held in her startled yelp. Who could possibly be on her bed? Her mother never did anything like that, and the deep blue-purple veins which crisscrossed from wrist to knuckles were far too masculine. But who else could it be? Nobody could've gotten into the house without her mum noticing, much less all the way up the stairs and into her room – especially as she knew of her mum's regular check-ups on her condition.

As difficult as it was proving for her to escape the confines of her duvet, it wasn't too much of a challenge for her to roll over in bed to see who it was keeping her more or less pinned. When she finally came face-to-face with the placid, restful face and tussled, tangled mess of orange hair which she instantly recognised it took real effort to contain a stunned gasp.

"Yuzuru…" she whispered with awe into the silence.

But that shock was soon superseded by a warm, tender affection which manifested itself as a smile. She managed to somehow work one of her hands free, reaching out to tentatively trace the contours of his cheek with caring fingertips, worried that this may all have been yet another in a long line of dreams which could soon come to an end, as if the very act of touching him would anchor the moment to reality.

But he didn't vanish.

Vast oceans of cupreous hazel slowly revealed themselves to her as eyes lazy from the lingering effects of sleep opened to the small darkened world that was Kanade's bedroom. Yuzuru didn't seem to regain consciousness all at once, instead gazing dreamily into Kanade's eyes.

"Sorry." She apologised softly as he continued to slowly gather his wits, "I didn't meant to wake you."

There was a moment of silence in which he seemed to slowly comprehend, a light blush accompanying a few drawn-out yet clarifying blinks of his eyes as he recalled precisely where he was. His expression took on a certain apologetic pallor despite the redness in his cheeks, "I didn't mean to fall asleep with you." He didn't make any move to leave, though, nor to remove Kanade's fingertips from his cheek. All he offered her was his warm-hearted smile, "How are you feeling?"

"A lot better." She admitted quietly, not meeting Yuzuru's eyes with her own for a moment, a slight hint of unease or maybe even embarrassment giving a quiet reserve to her words, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

The smile which had spread thinly across Yuzuru's lips infused his words with a warm sympathy as he tried to reassure her, "Don't worry about it, Kanade."

Whilst he couldn't deny that he would've liked to know about her condition beforehand, Yuzuru wasn't about to hold it against her in any way at all. After all, something like that – serious as a hole in the heart may well be – was a very, very personal matter, and whether she'd wanted to keep it from him or just hadn't been able to find the right way to bring it up in the first place, he could fully understand – even if he did suspect that it was more for the latter reason than the former that she hadn't told him.

He didn't believe for an instant that she'd wanted to keep it a secret from him – both Kanade's current demeanour and the conversation he'd had with Kasumi, her mother, had put paid to that - but he accepted that it was very much her own secret to keep.

The timid silence which now punctuated her bashful reticence served only to make him realise how needlessly guilty she was feeling over the issue, and he couldn't stand to have her feel so ashamed that she dare not look him in the eye.

With as gentle a hand as he was capable of, Yuzuru lifted her chin so that he could meet her eyes. There was a sadness there which needn't have been, and he knew from somewhere deep within that he was the only one capable of dispelling it, if only for the reason that he had managed to cause it in the first place.

"It did make me realise one thing, though." He spoke at barely a whisper as Kanade's eyes trembled, hoping that his affections for her would somehow make themselves known to her in a wordless impart.

"What's that?" she asked so softly that her words, had he not been expecting them, may have gone unnoticed.

"I want to get to know you a lot better." Yuzuru's hand delicately embraced the side of Kanade's face, a reflection of the tactile expression which she herself had used to draw him back into the conscious world, "I want to know everything about you."

The earnestly endearing smile which unfurled itself gloriously across Kanade's lips instantly washed all trace of sadness from her eyes. It lifted Yuzuru's very soul to see, and it elicited the fluttering of his own heart with its radiant beauty.

It made him realise that there was something else he had to tell her, thoughts and feelings that needed to be given form and made real, and in her eyes he found the courage to do just that, "I've been thinking about the dream a lot lately too."

Kanade's eyes spoke of intrigue, though the smile remained, unwavering, "Oh?"

"We have met before."

Her curiosity only piqued further, "When?"

"I don't know..." he admitted, the only honest answer he could give. But there were feelings there when he recalled the dream, feeling which he knew – somehow – were as real as the ones she had reincarnated in him now. It was too much of a coincidence for him to doubt it anymore, it was all too real, and he no longer had the will to deny it, "Maybe in a past life?"

"I see."

He couldn't really tell if what he was seeing was scepticism or not.

"It's strange." He went on, hoping to convince her, "I can't explain it. It's just a feeling..."

Kanade honestly had no idea what Yuzuru was trying to get at, nor why he was being so overly cryptic, "What's just a feeling?"

Yuzuru considered several different ways to answer – the emotions which currently filled his being to the very brim of overflowing were so numerous it was difficult to pin each of them down with mere words. But then, at the same time, he knew that it all stemmed from a single truth, a single emotion which had been there for such a very long time now, longer than he'd actually known the platinum-haired Angel of his dreams.

She laid there beside him, looking up with eyes so full of wonder despite her apparently stoic mien, and he knew in that instant that she would understand the nature of the feeling. There was only one word which could describe it, and in that singular word he found the courage he needed to express it.

"I loved you there too."

Yuzuru was truly amazed by the sheer magnitude of different shades of red and pink which flushed Kanade's otherwise porcelain skin. It was the first time he'd ever seen anybody turn that intense combination of colours and not pass out, though the delight-filled smile which waxed across her lips and lit up her eyes with a bright, trembling sparkle reassured him that she wasn't in any real danger of a relapse.

For Kanade, the reasons were obvious – overwhelming, and thoroughly joy-filled – and her eyes began to blur as tears formed and started to run down her cheeks. She'd known, absolutely known, sure and certain for the longest of times that the boy from her dream – their dream, she reminded herself – had to have been real. The memories were just far too vivid, the emotions far too real to have been anything else besides a sweet, if lost, reality.

There had been times when she had doubted it, times when she'd wondered if the lucid events has somehow entrenched themselves so deeply within her subconscious that she'd simply managed to convince herself that it was a mere illusion.

All of that uncertainty had begun to vanish the day Yuzuru had literally stepped into her life. It was him. It could only ever have been him. And though it had taken the rational side of her mind so very much longer to sate its need for proof, her heart – frail, weak, imperfect - had known the truth for so very much longer.

She felt it now, beating in her chest apace, spurred into action by the revelation those precious few words he'd whispered to her, that fleeting confession of a connection both felt and both reciprocated. Since that first day together she'd felt it there between them. Their time together had simply nurtured the sensation, allowing it to grow and blossom like a magnificent yet delicate and tender rose.

And her heart sang because if it.

Without offering him a warning Kanade seized the moment. The hand on his cheek, having remained there the entire time, advanced to encircle his head and pull him forwards towards her. Kanade felt more than a little clumsy, perhaps even a little awkward. But the courage to see this through surged within her, rising up with the beat of her heart, a desperate need to express something so much beyond words the sole driving force behind her actions.

She had to tell him, to have him understand.

Her eyes fell shut, and their lips met. Before he knew it, Yuzuru's wide-eyed shock turned to tender reciprocation, and so much was said without the need for either one to speak. What could mere words hope to articulate when what each of them felt was so far beyond the verse of even the most fabled poets of forgotten lore?

Kanade kissed him. And he kissed her back.

It didn't last long – a momentary eternity in its own right – but it conveyed the truly fathomless depths of that one shared emotion.

She loved him too.

When their lips finally parted and copper eyed wonderment met deep aureate affection neither of them felt the need to speak. There was only the moment each needed to take in the other.

As Yuzuru simply gazed into the vibrant auric depths of her eyes he couldn't help but think of the dream he'd just had. The sensations it had stirred within him reminded him very much of the dream he had shared with Kanade of some mysterious, near-forgotten past, though it left behind the residual emotions of optimism and exhilaration instead of the prior's usual torment and unease.

Somehow, he just felt as if he were looking forwards instead of backwards, perhaps at a vision of his – of their – future. He knew that nothing could ever be set in stone; that much he knew for certain. How he knew it, he wasn't really certain, but something within him just understood the truth there.

The vision he'd been granted was a possible future for both Kanade and himself. And, like anything worth having, he had no doubt that it was something he'd have to work towards. It was something he'd likely have to fight for. And something that would take a lifetime for them both to work on and build.

He knew that he had that in himself, simply because he knew it was exactly what he wanted. And he knew he'd give anything to have it – a future together with this delicate, fragile angel of his dreams.

And now, looking into her eyes, the very window into her soul, something there told him that it was what she wanted to.

The way she smiled softly. The way she looked unwaveringly back into him. The way she never broke the touch they shared as her hand caressed his face.

The wordless emotions she was sharing with him.

He knew.

He knew.

"Kanade," he broke the comfortable silence with the most suitable word he could ever have imagined, "Have you ever done much gardening?"

Her expression remained the same barely-readable stoicism Yuzuru had come to expect from her – though her eye revealed everything she was feeling to him, as he suspected they always would. She blinked twice, slowly. "No." it was a puzzling thing for him to bring up, embracing as they were on her bed, "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no reason." He thought back to the dream once more, his eyes taking on a wistful, almost fanciful glaze. A single image – Kanade, and the little copper-eyed, platinum haired Sayuri together in their garden, giving a home, giving life to that little sycamore tree. Yuzuru, watching the pair, the both of them equally as much a part of him as his own soul. It was a dream he was definitely going to hold on to. "I just think you'd be really, really good at it."

Kanade simply looked at him for a few moments, thinking it over. Then, slowly, a warm, almost knowing smile spread across her lips, lighting up her face in a way that took Yuzuru's breath away.

That beautiful, beautiful smile.

Just for him.

His heart skipped a beat.

-o-O-o-

Chapter 6: What Dreams May Come