Chapter 21: "Friends Close, Nothing Closer"
*Yukinoshita Yukino
*Yanaka, Bunkyo
[August 27th / 3:22 PM]
"Oh no!" A high-pitched voice exclaimed while still somehow managing to be a whisper.
I stopped mid-step on the stairs to the art museum and turned around slowly. "Is something wrong, Yui-san?"
"Eh he he." The teacher-to-be looked at me sheepishly with a hand held behind her head. "I think I left something back at the museum."
"Oh." I blinked, not at all surprised at the blunder. "We should make haste then, in case-"
"N-no!" Yui-san waved both hands at me in a panic. "I can do it alone. How about you go and save a bench at the park? We can go and eat after I come back."
"Are you certain－"
"Thanks, Yukinon! I'll be right back!" Like the human storm she was, Yui-san blasted away back into the museum before I could finish my sentence.
A sigh escaped me. I was not exactly sure what I was expecting from my friend. A bit wanting, perhaps.
This excursion was made on short notice, as Yui-san was given a sudden weekend break from her workplace and immediately jumped at the chance to come to Tokyo to "hang out" (in her words). I hadn't lived in Tokyo for too long, but I knew my way around most of the popular tourist destinations and offered to guide her through them. The trip began with sky-scrapper appreciation in the business district and ended at Yanaka's Tokyo National Art Museum.
A breeze pushed tendrils of hair to my face, reminding me of the present time. Standing on the marble staircase, my breath was momentarily caught by the view before me. It was a late summer evening told of in poems and books: a sky with a low setting sun that dyed the world in warm red hues alongside lazy clouds that moved slowly to the march of the whimsical breeze.
The museum was located within Ueno Park. Being here was like being engulfed in the tranquility of nature, completely contrasting with the atmosphere of oppressive 'humanness' that was metropolitan Tokyo. It was not to say that one was better than the other; the slowness and ambiance of the old town of Yanaka was as necessary to maintain a good temperance as was the city's sea of people and dynamism.
Taking care to place one stable foot down after another, I slowly followed the marble steps as they lowered me to the bottom of the hill. All the while, I listened to the sounds around me. Adults talked in hushed words that were indistinguishable from the wind at times. Children stampeded past, racing up and down the stairs of the museum in a made up game. But between it all, there were times where all that I could hear was the rustling of leaves and crashing of waves.
I strolled to a set of benches that overlooked the lake from beyond a black metal fence. It had a splendid view of a bright red pagoda a certain distance away, a beacon for attention. I sat down quietly on the wooden surface and looked around, noting the various carts that were serving food. It was getting to be quite late; perhaps we should have a light snack and simply settle for a more filling dinner?
"Yukinon!" that excitable voice yelled from behind me, disrupting my train of thought. I sighed once more, suddenly feeling much older than I was. Standing and turning around, I parted my lips in preparation of delivering a chastisement to Yui-san . But the words evaporated from my lungs as my eyes widened at the sight before me.
"Hey!" Yui-san waved at me with her right hand while skipping happily. Her left arm had an unfortunate person held in a visible vice grip. "Look who I found!"
"H-Hikigaya- kun…"
There before me was one of the detectives of Tokyo: Hikigaya Hachiman. The man looked haggard. Dark circles sat beneath his eyes and he wore an unkempt suit. A tie was strung haphazardly around his collar. His brown eyes flickered to me before glancing away, suddenly enamored with the pagoda on the lake. Butterflies were in my stomach now.
"It's nice he managed to come after all, isn't it?" Yui-san pinched Hikigaya-kun's bicep, causing him to yelp.
"Look!" Hikigaya-kun scowled as only a man being subjected to physical abuse could. "I only came because you sent me a text saying it was an emergency! I came as quickly as I could from work!"
He was at work? I was certain he had today off every week, since he usually worked the evening shift the night before.
Yui-san seemingly felt no shame and stuck out her tongue. "Well, it was an emergency! I'm in Tokyo to visit and my best friends aren't all here!"
An exquisite move. Hikigaya-kun was cornered and finished by the bait-and-switch Yui-san had pulled. He opened his mouth to say something, but shut it closed with an audible sound. He looked away and grumbled, an arm coming up to scratch the back of his bird's nest of a head.
Wait just a moment...
I narrowed my eyes at Yui-san . "Did you really forget your phone?"
"Ehhh… maybeeeee?" She responded, her eyes desperately looking in any direction but my own. I could only shake my head and saw Hikigaya-kun rolling his eyes, mostly likely also piecing together the situation and Yui-san 's master plan.
There was a brief lull of silence, none of us knowing what to say.
"... H-have you... eaten yet?" I asked. I had not seen him for nearly three days. He returned no responses to my calls or text messages. It would seem my theory that he was working himself to the bone again was correct, but this time… it felt different. He had a strange gait and countenance that radiated… something. Something was wrong.
And it scared me.
I suddenly felt as if I did not know the man across from me anymore. Like a new soul now inhabited the body of my former clubmate and dear friend. I shook my head, trying to assure myself that I was simply overthinking things. Yes. That was it… I was just being… paranoid.
Hikigaya-kun gently pried Yui-san's fingers from his arm. She gave a satisfied nod and allowed him to do so. He spoke so softly I nearly missed the words. "... no. I haven't."
"Then let's eat!" Yui-san grabbed both of our arms and pulled us towards the street vendors.
"OW! Woman, can you stop pinching me!?"
"Hikki's a real wimp."
"You two… please… public."
It took some deliberation, but eventually we settled on buying some cheese tarts. The mellow flavor truly suited the cooling weather of the season. We did not eat silently… or rather, Yui-san did not eat silently. With energy only she was capable of generating, she regaled Hikigaya-kun of our trip to the art museum with vivid descriptions and hand gestures.
Occasionally, I was asked to supplement the gaps in her knowledge, but for the most part she genuinely seemed to enjoy the outing. I felt relieved knowing that I was not a complete failure of a guide. Hikigaya-kun nodded and uttered some few words, doing the bare minimum responsibility expected of someone roped into a conversation. Just like he did at highschool. I stopped chewing at the thought, slowly lowering my hands that held the treat to rest on my lap.
Yes… highschool.
What was Hikigaya-kun like in highschool? Why did it seem so hard to recall? Back then, did he have the same vacant eyes that stared out over the lake as he did now? Did he always slump as if he was dead on his feet and was only able to continue functioning out of sheer willpower? Could I ever remember a time where his hands held a snack, pristine if not for a few nibbled edges indicating that someone had attempted to consume it?
A pit formed at the bottom of my stomach, denser than anything I had experienced in a long time.
"H－." I started in a low voice, but was cut off by the unexpected full sentence uttered by Hikigaya-kun.
"You know, I never expected you to be the type to enjoy stuff like that," he said casually. "Like the whole visiting museums, appreciating art, and whatnot."
All of my thoughts came braking to a halt, and reflex took over.
"Hikigaya-kun!" I exclaimed. His eyes widened as he probably realized what his words sounded like.
Before I could begin to admonish him for his rude statement, Yui-san began to giggle. It soon turned into full blown laughter, with Yui-san holding her stomach with both hands.
"N-no! It's fine, Yukinon!" She managed to convey between breaths. "Oh gosh, my sides. It's just like Hikki to be so blunt, right?"
Well… I could see the humor in his denseness. It made him feel endearing to a small degree. A very small degree. Infinitesimally small, in fact.
"But…" Yui-san began, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes, her words trailing as she looked up at the sky. "I guess it is sorta out of character, isn't it?"
"Not at all." Hikigaya-kun gave an undignified snort, letting the back of his neck hang over the bench. "Unless I missed the memo, and we were supposed to maintain character roles. I gotta quit my job if that's the case."
Yui-san let out a breath with a gentle smile from where she stood by the railing, finally looking down at us with hands folded. "I would probably have to say that teaching kids has made me a bit more interested in this stuff." "
"How so?" I asked.
"People always say that kids hate school, but that's not true." She explained. "Kids just get bored easily because they don't understand how the things they learn matter to them. They actually really enjoy stuff like history because they love knowing how people used to live and how it's different from our own lives."
"That's quite the observation." I was impressed. "But it does make sense."
"Doesn't it? So the more I thought about it and looked into it, the more I started liking this stuff too. We go to museums in Chiba and the kids love it when the tour guide talks and answers questions. I was thinking that there are some potential field trip ideas here."
Another moment came without anyone speaking, marked by the delighted yelling of children as they ran past us with crepes in hand.
"And…" Yui-san looked at me with confusion in her eyes, before dropping her gaze to her feet, where her feet shuffled along with hands fidgeting.
"Is something wrong, Yui-san ?" I asked with worry.
"N-no… well kinda."
"I'm perfectly happy lending an ear to whatever issue you may have. We are friends after all, are we not?"
"Thanks Yukinon, but it's a bit silly, I guess." Yui-san gave me a reassuring smile. She sat down on the bench in the vacant space between Hikigaya-kun and I. Taking out her phone from her skirt pocket, Yui-san deftly navigated with her thumb to the photo folder containing all of the pictures she had taken today.
"How so?"
"Well… there's all this amazing art from so long ago, and it's really obvious how much work they put into it. And-" Yui-san stopped mid-sentence as she bit her lip slightly.
"Go on," I said softly.
"... I can't really see how they used to live. All this early stuff doesn't give a sense of that. It's almost always about war."
The blood in my veins stilled.
"... I see," I said carefully, with the feeling that I was having to drag the words out of my mind. "W-well art during the early days was not viable as a way of life. Most of it before a certain time was commissioned works by the elite and ruling class. They were the only ones who could afford the time, labor, and material cost of art, and as a result they wanted self images for their future generations or for self-congratulation and status. The common person wasn't considered and so most art was just that."
"When did things change?" My best friend asked with serious eyes that seemed to shine.
My breath was nearly a whisper, and my heart was beating hard against my chest. Anxiety bubbled in my core, thick and heavy like sludge. Why? Why did Yui-san's words pierce me so? Why did I feel as if I was struck by lightning?
"I believe a shift occurred during the Renaissance, when the rich and nobility started the patronage system. They financially supported artists and allowed them to do as they pleased as a show of their cultured nature to their peers. As we come closer to the modern day, everyday life became an aspect of fascination too."
"Ohhh." Yui-san breathed and nodded her head slowly. "That makes sense."
"I'm sorry if my explanation was lacking." I hurriedly apologized.
"No, no, no! Not at all! Yukinon's explanation was great! I'm just sad." She let out a small, frustrated, breath. "Why did they think war was so important? It's so horrible, and evil, and… and…"
"Yui-sa-"
"Because war defines us." Hikigaya-kun's words cut through like a sharp blade, silencing both of us despite him speaking no louder than normal. "It's all that we know."
Dread returned as my mind processed the words.
"... what?" Yui-san asked, perturbed, speaking for the both of us.
"It's the mark of civilization. The sole metric that indisputably shows advancement." He continued, ostensibly ignoring Yui-san or simply not registering her words. "When two people fight, and one kills the other, doesn't it mean that one had made more progress than the other? What if the victor kept fighting and kept winning?"
Neither of us knew what to say. Hikigaya-kun leaned over in his seat, elbows resting on his knees. The motion caused his tie to slip from his collar and fall to the ground soundlessly.
"War is the final judge. Whose gods are stronger? Who has rights to this resource? Who should own all this wealth? 'Might makes right' in a simple world where it's dog-eat-dog. And why not? Take their water, their food, their lands for your own. Enslave their people. And with all these riches, erect monuments to your 'superiority' that will last millenia. For eons. War delivers all and decides all. That's why we relish it.
"It's our primal instinct. Our genes, our very nature, make us love war. It's why we keep doing it. It means superiority. War gives that: a failsafe legacy. A way to always be remembered… Yeah… that has to be it… The only explanation. Nothing else makes sense.…" His voice trailed off as he talked, and at some point had begun speaking to himself. "Always be remembered… Monuments… Don't forget them…."
Yui-san stared at the rambling detective with wide eyes, face devoid of any emotion other than confusion. I was sure I had something similar on my own visage, assuming my frozen veins would even allow my facial muscles to move.
Suddenly, Hikigaya-kun let out a rumbling chuckle. It lacked any sense of joviality or lightness even though his shoulders shook in amusement. It felt more akin to sheets of ice tumbling within a cavern. "Hilarious. I made a legacy so strong it follows me even in my dreams. What a joke."
What? Nothing he said computed. My mind blanked.
"Haaaah." The man let out a heavy sigh, reaching down to pick up his fallen tie. "I think that's enough break time for me. I got to get back—!"
As Hikigaya-kun had attempted to stand, his legs crumbled beneath him, causing him to go falling forward. He quickly grabbed the black railing for support, his head hanging over the edge and looking straight down into the depths of the lake. The violent sequence before me was enough to jump start my brain, and I got off the bench to move to his side. Yui-san was not far behind.
"Hikki!"
"Hikigaya-kun!"
He looked at us through bleary eyes, the bags underneath making his pupils seem blacker than coals. He blinked several times before pulling himself up. "I'm fine… just stood up too fast… low blood pressure and all. Low salt in my diet and all that jazz. Gotta watch out for that ha ha."
Empty laughter. Like Haruno used to. Like Mother used to.
I wrapped my fingers around the wrist of the hand that held his tie. "You can't expect me to honestly believe that, can you?"
I tried to ignore the crazed beating of my heart, but it echoed in my ears, threatening to swallow whatever words my former clubmate might say. Despite my better judgement, I looked straight into his eyes, willing myself to somehow transfer my concern through them.
I don't know what he glimpsed, but all that I saw was a tired void.
"Hikki." Yui-san spoke out clearly, with sternness I didn't know she was capable of. "You don't look okay."
Hikigaya-kun broke eye contact with me and looked over at my best friend before returning to stare at my hand that had his wrist imprisoned. He let out a frustrated sigh, standing up and brushing a hand over his face and hair before returning to rest in his pocket.
"I'm fine," he said, his voice going flat like the ECG of a dead patient. I had heard this so many years before. A neutral tone with no noticeable treble or bass to indicate any sort of emotion. It was well rehearsed to a sickening degree. As if it was said enough times to convince even the speaker of the falsehood. "And I'm busy. Can you please let go?"
"Absolutely not. Clearly, you are in no way shape or form able to -"
Suddenly, a generic ringtone went off, filling our surroundings with sounds of rendered windchimes and bells. It was not mine, so I looked over at Yui-san who shook her head.
"It's mine." Hikigaya informed, hand sliding out of his pocket with his phone in its grasp. He looked forward, away from either us and held the device to his ear. After a moment, he spoke. "Chief?"
Chief? Police Chief Tsurumi?
"Yeah, what's… yeah I didn't punch out… n-no I'll fix the time sheet… Wait, are you sure? We need to requisition server data? Hold on.…"
Hikigaya-kun lowered the phone to look at the time on the screen. There was no oddly positioned watch at the bottom of his wrist. "I'll be there in 20."
He tapped the screen to end the call, and looked over at me with an empty stare. "I have to go."
"Y-yes…" I slowly let go of his wrist. Chief Tsurumi had called. He and Hiratsuka-sensei were married. They had taken care of Hikigaya-kun when he came back from Sri Lanka. They looked out for him. They thought of him as family. He wouldn't knowingly be pushing Hikigaya. The older man was a good man, if the union with his wife was any indication. It was alright to let go. To unfurl my fingers.
"Thank you," he said in a small voice before stepping away from us. "Sorry I'm leaving on such short notice, Yuigahama. I'll make it up to you some other time."
"N-not a problem, Hikki!" She assured, with a pathetic attempt at boisterousness. He nodded at her and walked away, following the lake side edge which would eventually lead him to the exit near the subway station. I couldn't help but compare his receding figure to a wispy ghost.
Many years later, I would learn that Chief Tsurumi had not actually called Hikigaya-kun. In fact, no call had been made at all.
He faked the entire thing.
"Licht Meer"
*Hikigaya Hachiman
*Unknown location, Sri Lanka
[4 years prior / Unknown time]
"It's going to rain."
"But it was clear all day, Sarge. You sure?"
I turned my head to look over at Danny, who had strangely decided to join my stargazing session. The sky could be seen through a small opening in the canopy of "Banyan" trees, as the locals refer to it. In Sinhalese folk religion, these trees were sacred and worshipped, so it was one of the first flora I was able to recognize at distances.
"I'm pretty certain. The village farmers told me about some signs they use to predict weather."
"Yeah? Like what?" Danny took a sip from the mug that came in our mess kit. We had recently acquainted ourselves with 'artisan' coffee. By that, I mean we had come across wild coffee beans and crudely brewed some battery acid from it. Some of the villagers in our group had said that coffee wasn't native to the island, and had been planted here by the Dutch and then the British. It probably tasted like shit, but it reminded a lot of the men of home, and it revived their souls a bit. You could see it in their eyes and small smiles.
"Well, if you had looked up at the sky during the day, you would have noticed large fluffy clouds rolling across. They didn't make the sky dark or anything, but they're common rainstorm clouds. The air got a bit chillier as the day went on, with a stronger scent of ozone too. Also, hear that?"
I went silent. Danny followed my lead and ceased speaking as well. We strained our ears, listening for something from the environment around us.
"I don't hear anything, Sarge."
"Exactly. No calls of danger from the animals. No sounds at all. Animals can always tell when a storm is coming way faster than humans, it's a good idea to trust them. A silent forest means something is on its way."
"Wow, Sarge. That's kind of amazing. Do you think it's accurate?"
"Accurate enough, I would assume." I shrugged. "See, we didn't always have satellite weather forecasts-"
"... Sarge, I'm not the smartest guy in the squad, but I'm not stupid."
"Let me finish, you pigeon."
"Sorry, Sarge."
"Ahem." I cleared my throat to get my thoughts back into order. "What I was trying to say was that people back then didn't have a lot to go on. The sky was their television, you could say. What else was there to look at? People over thousands of years gathered data and noticed trends with these observations. If the ideas are still around, it must mean they got something right at least. I think it's okay to trust the legacy of hundreds of generations."
"You started saying a lot of artsy stuff again, Sarge."
"... you're right. My mistake."
We fell quiet once more as we watched the night sky. Beyond the occasional sound of Danny drinking his coffee or the rustling of trees in the increasingly fast winds, it was serene and silent.
The heavens over Sri Lanka were amazingly bright at night. Back in Japan, I hardly noticed the stars, and even if I did look up I could never see as many as what I saw now. No doubt because we were far away from any semblance of modernity, so light pollution was kept to a minimum. I had read a science magazine back in highschool that talked about this phenomena. How the light bulbs and electricity that allowed humanity to conquer the night had robbed us of this vista of the final frontier.
It was hard to describe what was before me as anything other than 'awe-inspiring.' Millions of glowing dots littered the night. So far away, yet making their presence known despite that massive distance. But all were easily overwhelmed by the ribbon of white that unfurled across the sky for as far as the eye could see. As if some deity had spilled countless celestial marbles across the reaches of space and created a structure in the universe filled with trillions of stars. Outside of pictures, I had never seen such a clear view of the Milky Way.
It really brought things into perspective. Think about it: we were on some tiny island, which was on some tiny rock that was rotating around a run-of-the-mill star like any other planet in the universe. And this just constituted one solar system among billions that resided in our spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. We were nothing special, or rather we should be nothing special. But if me being alive was any indication, Earth was some freak statistical outlier.
Was life on planet Earth just an accident? Was the reality I indulged in just a series of coincidences? Maybe. But I didn't like that answer for some reason. All this suffering had to be for something, at least. What did Lovecraft call this? Cosmic horror?
What a guy...
My gaze shifted upwards and scans the upper atmosphere carefully until I found the brightest star, and used it to reorient myself and my mental compass. We would be heading in that direction tomorrow. From the corner of my vision I spotted a dark blanket of clouds tumbling over the sky from the south.
"Hey, Sarge?" Danny beckoned to me with a quiet voice. "Want a bit o' joe?"
Without the moon, the night would make everything unnervingly pitch black. Thankfully it was a full moon and gave enough light to illuminate Danny's burly figure. I turned towards him and raised an eyebrow.
"... Danny? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine Sarge… uh, you want a sip or not?" I could detect some undertones of uneasiness in his voice. The characteristic sound of treachery.
"PFC." I called Danny by his rank, in a low but stern tone. A skill I had picked up through trial and error in having to keep the peace within a powder keg of 7 other men; each of whom were understandably extremely stressed out and prone to exploding over any minor conflict. "You're a terrible liar. What's in the coffee?"
Danny sighed dramatically. "... some seds…."
"Sedatives?" I parroted incredulously. "Danny, you were going to give me a spiked drink?"
Danny frowned. "When you say it like that, it sounds pretty bad."
"It is bad! What the hell, Danny?" And why do you genuinely sound so confused!?
"Sarge. You gotta listen. Me and the rest of the guys are worried about you. You haven't slept in three days." Danny spoke with unusual seriousness, belying my concern that his moral compass had reversed when I wasn't looking. I felt guilt creep up my stomach with claws digging into the folds of the organ painfully.
"Ok. I'll go to sleep after my watch-"
"Sarge." Danny interrupted me, a feat I thought he didn't have the nerve for. "You were the first one to take watch tonight. It's been three days and we burned the bridge. You need to sleep, the enemy isn't going to chase us. "
"..." I narrowed my eyes at him.
"..." Danny looked back at me with a neutral expression. He could have passed for Buddha at that moment.
"... you aren't going to go till I drink it, aren't you?" I hung my head with a sigh of resignation.
"We're not blind, Sarge. We know you can't sleep without seds for a week after a fight. You think the Doc wouldn't notice? Drink it."
Dammit, Murdoch! I thought we had a pact!?
"... this is mutiny. I'll have you monkeys court martialed," I said with a tinge of faux anger, taking the outstretched mug. My hands enjoyed the refreshing warmth being transferred from the drink through the metal container.
Danny chuckled. "If we manage to make it back, I'll let you take all of my ranks, Sarge. Hell, take my hazard pay while you're at it."
"Hey, if you keep telling me sweet nothings like that, I might just do so."
I had managed to sleep a solid 5 hours that night. Like a zombie, I had slumbered straight through the thunderstorm that I had said would come.
The thunderstorm passed with little fanfare, and we were relatively safe in this camp we made on top of a hill. Other places weren't so lucky. It wasn't just humans that were affected by the civil war. The fighting had left permanent marks upon nature, and we were just now seeing the consequences.
Rivers were blocked off to form dams and deny the enemy access to water. This created wastelands where flora shriveled and fauna evacuated. Bombs from skirmishes had decimated trees all over the forest and was further exacerbated by the airstrikes in the name of American 'intervention.' I doubted either side cared how this destroyed nature's natural mechanism to keep soil anchored, and now any sort of rainfall would lead to mudslides that could wipe out entire villages in seconds.
Even the hill we were on had an avalanche of earth and rock during the storm. I had made camp among the forest so we had avoided that. It was a tactically sound decision, regardless. From the top of the hill, we could see any enemies approaching, and the mudslide just made it harder for anyone chasing to continue doing so.
Ingenuity. I could turn horrible natural disasters into survival strategies.
For all my genius, I still needed sedatives to sleep the rest of the week.
Δ▼Δ
I jerked my head up and let out a pained groan at the burning light assaulting my face. I shut my eyelids tight and batted my hands feebly at the direction it shone from like a cat. A few moments passed before I regained my bearings and realized that it was the lamp I had at my desk at the police station. I sat up and let out a yawn while stretching. Satisfying pops of the vertebrae along my spine echoed throughout the empty office. With the department having been on high alert since early this morning, the Chief had given early leave. Even Shiba had gone home.
With the office to myself, I had taken the liberty of turning off the ceiling lights and all of the lamps on the desks of my coworkers. My eyes were killing me and I still had witness testimonies to go over.
I blinked rapidly and rubbed my eyes to get rid of any traces of sleepiness. How long had I slept? My phone was left charging next to my desk phone. I tapped the screen twice and squint. It was 0001. Midnight had just passed, and the 27th of August had turned to the 28th. I couldn't have slept more than an hour at most, since I remember opening an email at around 2300ish.
Oh… I also had about 15 missed calls from Shiba, the Chief, Rumi, Shizuka combined. And one missed call from... Haruno of all people? Oh, and a few from Yukinoshita.
I lock my phone once more and turn back to the reports. I had work to do. Important work. Necessary.
Life could wait.
Arc 1: "Detective Hikigaya Hachiman"
Author's Note:
The date and timing of the next few chapters is important, so I'm going to be using those special chapter headings that let the reader know of the identity of the POV, the location, and the date. This should make the progression of the story more coherent. If it doesn't, please feel free to sound off in the review section.
I had visited Yanaka only once in my few trips to Japan, but the atmosphere was entirely it's own and I tried my best to capture it in this chapter. Yukino and Yui have their own 'date' in Tokyo, and they're dancing around the issue of how strange Hachiman is acting. Our hero eventually shows up and I wanted to describe how others saw Hachiman when he was deep in work. I wanted to convey an atmosphere of worried and powerless friends and an unsettling feeling.
"Licht meer" means "more light" in German, and the sub-chapter title is taken from the Gundam Unicorn OST. I think this is pretty fitting, as the setting is a star-gazing session.
Once more, I want to express many thanks to my friend thatguy8801. His constant support has honestly been a lifesaver through this process.
-SouBU
(Editors: Lord of Admirals 412; Xynovitch)
Revision Log:
03/17/2020: Added a more detailed author's note.