Angel Beats! エンジェルビーツ!

Our Beats Incarnate

Book II: The Beachfront

Chapter 5: The Departure

-o-O-o-

One Week Later…

-o-O-o-

Dear Hatsune,

I'm having an amazing vacation here at the resort. Almost two weeks into my holiday and I'm having the time of my life. The island is great, there's plenty to do, and I think I've just about tried it all.

I've even met somebody. Yes, a girl. Stop grinning.

Her name's Kanade. She's smart, beautiful, fun to be around. We've spent a lot of time together. I'm hoping to keep in contact with her after we get back from holiday – she doesn't live all that far away.

Hope everybody there is well.

See you all in a few days,

Yuzuru

-o-O-o-

The sudden, welcomed appearance of a steaming cup of tea on the edge of the desk he was sitting at returned Yuzuru's complete attention back to the room and the world contained within it. The pleasantly soothing aroma unobtrusively assaulted his senses, the subtle hint of cinnamon carried with the steam betraying its no doubt delightfully cloying sweetness. The timing was, of course, perfect to the second – though that in itself didn't really come as a shock to him.

Setting the pen down carefully at the top of the desk so that he could pick up the fresh beverage, Yuzuru turned to regard the almost mystic creature who had conjured this early-morning pick-me-up from the deepest nether realms of his hotel suite. Kanade stood, just beyond arm's reach, nursing her own morning mug. For somebody so guarded in expressing their own emotions – Yuzuru had to work very hard sometimes just to scratch the surface – she seemed to be very good at reading them in others. Or perhaps just in him.

Or maybe she'd just noticed over the past week that he liked to have his tea first thing in the morning?

Their eyes met, and they spoke wordlessly to one-another – he offering his gratitude, she accepting it with her usual silent grace – and they both turned back to what they had each been doing previously.

Yuzuru had never really been one for writing letters, but Hatsune has made him promise to send her something before he left, saying that a holiday didn't really count unless a traditional postcard was sent. It had been a challenge fitting all that he'd wanted to say onto the back of a single photograph, short as his message was – even on one of the larger varieties, he'd only just managed, with handwriting so small that his hand had cramped up at the end of the very first brief paragraph.

Reclining in his chair and stretching out an arm until his wrist clicked, Yuzuru basked in the warm sunlight which filtered down through the open window, accompanied by a soft, warm, humid sea breeze. He closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of paradise that the morning air carried into his room.

After all that had happened at the resort, it would be a shame to go back home.

"What are you thinking?" Kanade's soft voice came from just behind him. He didn't jump or start, having traced her steps by ear as she'd padded softly across the room barefooted. From where she was standing it looked as if Yuzuru were staring out of the window, but his slight reflection in the glass had let her see that he had actually had his eyes closed.

"It'll be a shame to go home…" there was a conflictingly bittersweet tone in his voice, almost as if he were mourning the future.

"Well," Kanade stepped up, placing her cup on the desk with her fingers still threaded through the handle, and perching lightly on its edge so that she was now facing Yuzuru, "We still have a couple of days left. There are still a few things we could do."

With a happy smile working its way across his face, cheek to cheek, he reached out and took her free hand between his own fingers. He brought it to his lips, imparting the softest of kisses on the back of her hand. As always, she was right – no point worrying about the future when there was still so much of the present left for them to enjoy.

Kanade's own smile was slight, almost imperceptible had he not known the signs to look for. The slight upturn at the corners of her mouth were the first sign. But the way her auric eyes positively danced with the halcyon mirth she so often kept hidden from the world was the real tell-tale that always made his heart reverberate in song.

"Okay," he spoke softly, "What did you have in mind?"

-o-O-o-

The amazing thing about moments and minutes is how easily they stack up when you're having fun and paying them no heed. The minutes turn into hours, into days, and finally into weeks. Time flies when you're having fun, and fastest of all when you're with those who mean the most to you.

Yuzuru's time was no different when he was with Kanade. It flew by faster than ever he'd known it. And through those minutes, hours, days and weeks he'd come to realise the inevitable truth of it all. Every breakfast-time shared; every joint hike and adventure into the island's almost-tamed wilderness; through every game of badminton, archery and tropical ocean swim, Yuzuru felt it with an ever-expanding depth of sensation. It caused the very foundations beneath him to crumble away, and quicker than he'd known or even suspected, he was falling.

With Kanade by his side throughout the short weeks he'd spent on the island, he'd fallen in love. Only with hindsight had he noticed the obvious truth, and realised that by the time he'd recognised all the signs it had already happened, with a pace that should have felt almost overwhelming.

But the scariest thing of all; it didn't scare him in the slightest. The sensation of admitting to himself precisely how he felt didn't leave him feeling daunted or as out of sync with reality as he'd expected. Rather, it was like slipping back under a comfortable blanket, warm and safe. Like it was where he belonged. Like he was meant to be there.

Like he'd been there before.

And as they spent their last few days together Yuzuru tried his hardest to not think about the impending date of his return home.

-o-O-o-

Kanade felt the radiant warmth of early morning sunlight as it imparted its welcoming morning kiss upon her face. It was enough to draw her out of the sweet realm of her dreams, her eyes opening slowly and banishing sleep with a gentle flutter of her eyelashes. From the bed she could see clearly out of the open balcony window, letting in the now familiar morning breeze and revealing the pale cerulean of a cloudless tropical sky.

Just inside the open sliding glass door stood the fully packed luggage, taunting her, reminding her that the end to the best holiday of her life was drawing close. Rude, obtrusive, obnoxious.

And it wasn't even her luggage!

With a rueful sigh, she tried to cast the thought aside and rolled over beneath the covers of the bed. Draping her arm over the bare chest of the man beside her, she rested her head across his bicep, in the nook between his chest and arm. A permeating joy filled her soul, and as she closed her eyes again even her well-practiced mien couldn't hide the smile she wanted to share with the world.

Her eyes reopened when she felt the delicate touch of fingertips caressing their way through the roots of her hair.

She looked up. Yuzuru's sleepy cupreous eyes and earnest smile met her in a silent good morning. The palest blush painted the wan porcelain of her features, but she didn't look away.

"Good morning." He began with a soft yawn, then placed a gentle kiss atop her forehead, "Today's the day."

Kanade's grip around him tightened for a moment, as if she were trying to hold on to the moment itself, "I wish you didn't have to go."

She wanted the moment to last forever.

But the intrusive, angry chirp of the alarm simply wouldn't allow that.

-o-O-o-

The airport was a hive of activity, despite its comparatively small size. It may only have served two outgoing and incoming flights per day, but the island was apparently popular enough to merit a rush hour preceding each arrival and departure.

Yuzuru stood, looking up at the information board with the details of his plane on it. The large clock in the bottom corner counted up each fleeting second as the deadline for his departure drew inexorably nearer.

The call for final boarding came unapologetically over the small terminal's announcement system, and instantly a crowd of people in the waiting area began to gather up their hand luggage and move towards the boarding gate.

Yuzuru felt the delicate tug of fingers pulling on the thin fabric sleeve over his elbow. When he turned to look he found himself face to face with Kanade, gazing up at him, an unusual intensity burning in her eyes.

For a moment she seemed about to speak, her lips parting to silence instead, and Yuzuru couldn't help but smile warmly. One of his hands found its way up to her cheek, the gentle caress of his fingertips against her soft, porcelain features drawing her eyes shut with a delicate sigh. There was something she wanted to convey, it seemed. But she was struggling within herself to word it.

"I have to go, Kanade." Yuzuru offered gently, "Or I'll miss my plane."

When her eyes opened they had softened, a glassy shimmer setting off their golden sparkle with an almost breath-taking awe.

Yuzuru would miss those eyes.

"Yuzuru, I…" Kanade fell into silence again. She knew precisely what she wanted to say to him, she just couldn't find the right words. Perhaps this was one of those moments where words weren't all that important, and her actions could do the talking for her?

Quicker than Yuzuru could react Kanade had her arms around him in a tight hug. It had caught him off-guard, but as his surprise turned into a smile and his arms returned the embrace, holding her close, the kiss his lips placed atop her head let Kanade know that he got the message. He understood.

"I'll miss you." She whispered into his chest. She wasn't sure if he'd heard or not, because he didn't reply. But he didn't really need to.

They separated after only a moment, before it could run away with them, and they parted company without a single utterance. The expression in Kanade's eyes and Yuzuru's slight, knowing smile ensured that they each heard every unspoken word that had been said between.

And just like that, their holiday together was over.

-o-O-o-

The fluffy white vapour of the cloud-tops floated lazily past the window, their ever-flowing , ever-changing beauty lost entirely upon Yuzuru as his eyes gazed vacantly into the middle distance. He may have been flying back home, but his thoughts were still back at the resort.

It was a moment or two before he registered that the deep, sad sigh which assaulted his ears was actually his own, and a moment more before he realised he was getting very close to risking genuine nostalgia.

Snap out of it, Yuzuru… he chastised himself with an ardent shake of the head, You'll see her again…

Another sigh escaped him and his eyes drew closed as Yuzuru resettled himself in his seat, trying to shift his thoughts back to the present. Absently, his hands found their way into his pockets, the tips of his fingers brushing against the serrated edge of an object he hadn't expected to be there.

Thin, light, sharp-edged – it felt like a piece of folded paper.

With an eyebrow piqued in curious interest, Yuzuru carefully extracted it between two fingers and brought it into daylight. It was a simple wide-ruled grain, folded over twice as if to protect its sacred contents from prying eyes.

He took extra care to unfurl it, intrigue plaguing his mind as to what its message could be. Much to his surprise the bare little notelet contained a string of simple numbers, undersigned with a name he knew all too well.

Kanade

A phone number.

With a happy smile, Yuzuru arose from his seat, and began to make his way to the back of the plane. There was a phone call that he just had to make.

-o-O-o-

A light, wistful sigh liberated itself from between Kanade's lips as her taxi conveyed her back to the hotel.

"Are you alright, Miss?" the driver asked, having clearly heard, his eyes in the rear-view mirror showing concern for his fare.

Admittedly, Kanade had been completely lost in thought. Almost a full week lay ahead of her still until she too returned home – a week that would no doubt feel like an entire month, now that she had to fill in the hours in Yuzuru's absence – and she couldn't quite suppress a fleeting moment of lonely distress at the thought.

But the sensation was ushered on its way as quickly as it appeared, replaced with the comforting warmth brought about by the prospect of seeing Yuzuru again when she returned home.

She had heard it said that holiday romances didn't always work out, being the whirlwinds of romance and passion that they so often notoriously were; a fire fading to mere embers when exposed to the dousing rigors of reality.

Something about Yuzuru felt different, though. Unlike anything she'd felt before, and yet at the same time strikingly familiar. It was a sensation she couldn't quite describe. One she wasn't entirely sure she understood herself.

"Miss?"

Shaking her head, Kanade came back to reality with a start, "Oh, yes. Sorry, I'm fine."

The driver offered an accepting nod as they pulled up outside the resort's main entrance. Kanade wasted no time in paying the man and making her way inside to the lobby in order to collect her room keys. The large, ornate clock that hung almost precariously on the wall directly behind the reception desk told her that it had only been an hour or so since she had parted ways with Yuzuru. Already it felt like it had been days since they'd last embraced.

As she approached the desk the entire on-duty staff, as well as a few of the guests mulling around in the lobby, seemed strangely distracted. They were all looking intently in the same direction, at the large flat television screen hung on the wall. Kanade offered it a cursory glance, some breaking news bulletin seemingly playing across it. She paid it no heed as she asked for her key.

One of the attendants, still seemingly distracted, fulfilled her request and handed Kanade the key card she required along with her other effects. The woman wasn't particularly rude, but she seemed to show very little interest in what was currently happening, the TV drawing her back in almost immediately.

The staff had never been anything less than courteous before, and Kanade felt her interests being genuinely piqued.

"What's going on?" she asked the woman.

"There's been some sort of accident." Came the brief reply, the uniformed woman's attention still focused almost entirely upon the screen, "They're still looking for survivors."

Kanade's eyebrow raised questioningly of its own accord as she tried to grasp at precisely what the woman was trying to say, "Was there an earthquake on the mainland?"

When there was no immediate reply, Kanade turned to see for herself, looking directly at the screen. The newsfeed was directly over the ocean. Below, several large ocean-going ships encircled a floating field of debris. She noted many much smaller craft in amongst the flotsam and jetsam, seemingly relaying between the wreckage and the larger vessels nearby. They were too small for her to make out precisely what they were doing, but it appeared to be a salvage operation of some kind.

"Has a ship gone down?" she asked again.

Her eyes fell upon the headlines flowing across the ticker at the bottom of the screen.

"Airliner from tropical island resort to Tokyo goes down in Sea of Japan. No survivors found."

Kanade felt a cold chill run down her spine, sapping all her strength and filling every fibre of her being with a growing sense of dread.

"W-which resort did that plane depart from?" she asked weakly.

The woman, still watching the screen intently, didn't even look her way, "It flew from here earlier today. To think, those poor people… We saw most of them this morning when they checked out." When she finally turned to look directly at Kanade, she asked, "Did you know any-?"

She fell silent.

Kanade had buckled to her knees, her legs no longer able to support her. Her hands cupped across her mouth as she struggled to draw breath, her body almost completely paralysed. Cold tears streaked freely down her cheeks.

She couldn't bring herself to speak, words faltering to silence upon her lips, though she tried to mouth a single inaudible name.

Yuzuru

-o-O-o-

Chapter 5: The Departure

Author's Note: I can only apologise for how long it's taken me to get this chapter written up. I have no excuses, but I have by no means forgotten about this story. So thank you for bearing with me. There will be more of this book to follow (this isn't the end), and a few more books in the works after this.

So thanks for your patience. I hope it was worth the wait.