Notes: Call me among the blessed.

oOo

They decided to stay a little longer with a couple of snacks and drinks. It wasn't as though Komachi had been particularly incorrect; he did have a fair amount of money left from his parents and he would always be willing to spend money on his little sister.

He did seat them a fair bit away from that seat, because knowing Komachi's extroverted nature he figured that there was always a chance she'd try to strike up a conversation with the young woman in the white dress. But he needn't have worried, Komachi didn't seem to be particularly interested in the young woman. It helped that Akari had no other customers to take care of, so she joined them at their table with a coffee of her own. Since Komachi was pretty curious about Akari, she wasn't about to go and try to talk with another random stranger, even though Akari didn't contribute much to the conversation initially.

Instead, the two of them simply listened as Komachi chattered on about her school and how much she looked forward to the new year after the classes got shuffled and how she got to meet a bunch of new people. They both nodded and hummed when appropriate. Of course, on his end, he was only partly following the conversation. In reality he'd felt completely lost with what his little sister was saying. Class shuffles had never had any impact on him. It wasn't as if he was going to exchange phone numbers with new classmates or anything like that.

Well, unless he counted the one year when he sat next to Orimoto Kaori.

But he preferred to avoid thinking about that time.

It was nice, however, to properly catch up with his sister after three weeks of staying in the hospital, even if it was a little awkward to reveal the sibling dynamic that Komachi and he shared to a relative stranger.

Of course, Komachi had no such qualms. Always a natural in any social situation, she had no problem being her usual bubbly self, oftentimes carrying the conversation while rapidly changing conversation topics, and never failing to poke fun at him when the opportunity presented itself.

"Komachi-san," Akari began, but she cut her off almost immediately.

"Nuh uh, nope. None of that san stuff. I'm just Komachi, or Komachi-chan if you insist."

"Err, okay. Komachi, you're very different from your brother aren't you?"

"Yeah! I don't know how we're so different; our parents talked about it a lot too when we were younger. They'd always joke that one of us was an alien or something, because there was no way that two siblings could be total opposites right? I always thought it was Onii-chan who was the alien, because only an alien would avoid human beings as much as he does, right? Ehehehe."

"I guess," Akari laughed awkwardly, her eyes briefly flickering in his direction.

Komachi noticed, of course.

She didn't miss those types of social cues, and she hurried to add, "Oh, nono, don't get me wrong Akari-san! I love my Onii-chan, he's the best Onii-chan in the world, even if he can be a bit of a blockhead at times. It's just a… family joke, I guess you could call it."

"I-I see," Akari said, although he couldn't help but feel that she was looking a bit overwhelmed.

That wasn't particularly surprising. Komachi tended to have that effect on even the more outgoing people he knew.

Things finally quieted down a bit after they had finally exhausted most of the readily available conversation topics. It got even quieter when Komachi excused herself in the midst of a lull in their conversation to head to the bathroom. He'd seen this sort of event happen often with the popular cliques at school before; when the lifeblood of the conversation wasn't present, the other participants tended to go quiet and get distracted by other things.

Indeed, he was about to pull out his phone and check for the latest manga updates when he noticed that Akari had turned to him with a very different expression from the norm on her face. It was a serious expression, with none of the aloofness that had so defined his early interactions with her.

"You're very close to your sister, aren't you?" She began without preamble.

"Huh? I mean… yeah I am, but why?"

"I just… do you love her?"

I nodded.

"More than anyone else in the world."

"...That's good… that's good."

He was more than a little weirded out by her strange behavior.

"Uhm, hello? Are you alright?"

She muttered something under her breath.

"Err, what? Couldn't hear you."

"I said I was sorry, alright?!"

"Sorry?"

This didn't make sense. What could she possibly be apologizing for?

"Yeah. I'm sorry. I might have… made some assumptions."

"Assumptions about what?"

"About you."

It seemed as though this had been bothering her a great deal. He wasn't entirely sure why; sure, she had never been the most pleasant person to deal with, but it wasn't as though she had much to apologize for in his eyes.

"I- what are you apologizing for?"

"I made some assumptions the last time we spoke, and I realized that I shouldn't have. I thought that your curiosity about the cafe stemmed from a place of ignorance, of privilege. You talked like you couldn't imagine a world where anyone would want to go back to the past, as if you were some spoiled kid who had no regrets at all about your life because everything had always been so easy for you. But when it became clear that things were a little more complicated than I had initially assumed… well, I still wanted to believe the worst in you. I guess that's what I'm apologizing for. I'm sorry for trying to hate you."

"Wow. That's… that's a bit heavy for a Saturday, yeah?"

"That's-that's all you have to say?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"You're such a…- such an idiot."

"I could tell you that I forgive you, if that makes you feel better? I don't think it's really my place to forgive anything, because it's not as though you did anything particularly bad. Your feelings are your own, you don't need to justify them to me or anyone else. You're entitled to hate me, whether or not it makes any reasonable sense."

Akari stared at him for a moment, almost as if she were judging him. He shifted in his seat; the intensity of her gaze was making him more than a little uncomfortable. He kind of wished that Komachi would hurry up already.

"My brother went abroad after he graduated from high school."

It was just a simple statement. Perhaps the opening line to a story. It wasn't particularly interesting or surprising; there were quite a few enterprising students that studied abroad. Hell, even Yukinoshita was one; she'd mentioned it the last time she'd swung by the hospital with his work.

But he slid his phone back into his pocket and gave the waitress sitting next to him his full, undivided attention.

Because it felt important. He didn't know much about Akari. They'd interacted, or more accurately argued, quite a bit during the time that he'd known her, but he knew nothing about her background. It wasn't as if he had ever been particularly interested in her before, and she had never given any indication that she'd be willing to share her story either.

But maybe bringing Komachi had changed something between them, he thought. Because suddenly, she was talking about herself, and he found himself leaning forward, focusing on her every word.

"I didn't want him to go. I was born into a wealthy family. But the only thing that meant was that my parents would always be overseas on business trips. So my brother became the only family that I would see for weeks on end. And even though I'm sure that there were a lot of things he'd rather be doing with his friends than taking care of his little sister who was six years younger than him, he always made time for me. We'd eat dinner together almost every day, to the point where I'd be upset if he had to miss it for some scheduled school event."

He could respect that. As an older brother himself, he too would always make time for his little sister.

Of course, most of the time it was because he really didn't have anything else to do. But he chose to ignore that fact.

"I always knew that my brother was brilliant. When I was younger he'd help me with schoolwork all the time. I was never a smart kid, so it always took me a long time to understand concepts, especially if I didn't want to learn the subject in the first place. I don't know how he ever managed to get enough time to study, because I'd monopolize his time until I was sleepy and wanted to go to bed. Looking back at it now, I'm sure that there were days that he wanted to just tell me to leave him alone, to let him study, or play video games, or really anything else that wasn't watching Sailor Moon for the fiftieth time. I'm sure that there were times he resented me."

She paused as if to collect herself, before she continued.

"And sometimes he could be short with me when I pushed him too much, or he would get frustrated and annoyed. There were even a couple of fights, as we both grew older and he took on more responsibilities which ate into his free time. But, the thing was, even if we'd just spent the past day fighting, he'd still come home the next day, after his clubs had ended, and just be there, as my older brother. And that… that really meant a lot to me, even if I didn't really realize it at the time."

"It sounds like you were really close."

She nodded.

"We were. It was like…like you and your sister, in a way I guess. She certainly reminded me of myself, when I was younger. There were days where I'd beg and wheedle my way into convincing him to take me to some candy store for a treat just like she begged you for that cake earlier. And sometimes I'd ask him to take me to Destinyland, or some other amusement park. Our parents, whenever they were around, would never allow for such frivolities. But he'd sneak us out with a smile and a finger to his lips, and take me to see all of my favorite exhibits."

"So what happened? You mentioned that he left?"

"It happened at the end of high school for him, when I was just entering junior high. He'd been thinking of applying to some of the top universities here in Japan. But my parents said that it would be better if he attended a foreign university. My parents were thinking of expanding their company beyond domestic borders, you see, specifically into western markets such as the US and UK. And they felt that, as heir to the company, it would be good for my brother to understand Western culture to some extent, so they decided to ship him off to Yale."

"Yale? Isn't that like…-"

"Yes, a top school in America. But I told you, my brother really was brilliant. Had he stayed… had he stayed here, he would have likely gone to Tohoku or Toudai."

"But he went off to Yale."

"Yes. I told him that I didn't want to go. I don't think he wanted to leave Japan either. But it wasn't his decision, not really. He didn't fight it, of course, when our parents told him that he was to go abroad. He wasn't really like that. He never really rebelled against our parents openly. The only time I ever heard him speak ill of them was when they were gone and it was just the two of us, and he'd complain about how, even on the other side of the world, they'd be monitoring him through the location tracker that they'd attached to his phone's LINE account. But on the big things, on all the big decisions about his life, he never once disobeyed them. And I got upset at him for that. I told him that I wanted him to stay, that he should convince our parents that he wanted to stay, even though I knew that changing my parents' minds when they were made up would be nearly impossible."

She paused, fiddling with the coffee mug in her hands.

"There were six months, from the time that he was informed of his acceptance into Yale to the day he left Japan at the airport. And I… after I finished screaming and crying when he told me that there was nothing he could do, I… didn't talk to him again during those six months, unless it was absolutely necessary."

"I see. And you wish you hadn't? You wish you'd just spoken with him, back then?"

"It's more complicated than that," she took a deep breath. "It wasn't until he had left that I realized how much I'd taken him for granted. The first time I came home from school to an empty house… I would've broken down in tears if not for the fact that I knew the butler and maid would probably report everything they saw to my parents. I missed him, but what could I do? I thought about writing a letter to him, and indeed I made many attempts at doing so, but I could never figure out how to start. It was like a wall had grown between us during those six months, a wall that I had built with my own words and actions. Nothing used to be able to come between us, but I had managed to separate us through my own stupidity."

"So then-"

"I begged my parents to transfer him back. I promised that I would do anything. They had never taken much of an interest in me, partly because my brother was so brilliant and capable, and partly because I was the very definition of average. In fact, I don't think they would have even spared me a second glance if not for the fact that I did have one particular talent."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." She held out her hands and examined her fingers. They were beautiful; long, slim fingers that moved with dexterity and grace.

"I had a talent for music. It was something that just happened. Our house always had a Steinway kept in pristine condition, but it was only ever used for when my parents would be hosting galas or some other party. They'd hire a performer for the night to be the entertainment. But when I was seven or eight, I'd decided that I wanted to try playing the piano. It looked fun, my brother encouraged me to play it, and I guess my parents saw no harm in it as they allowed it to continue, unlike many of my other hobbies."

"My interest in it waned after some time, but my brother encouraged me, telling me that I had a real talent for it and that he loved my playing. So I continued, and after a particular session in which Father had also sat in on, suddenly I was receiving formal lessons. I was to practice for at least an hour every day, and I had two lessons a week. And at formal parties, suddenly I was the one my parents would call on to perform. Not for the entire night of course, for I had other duties to attend to as the daughter of the Miyaji family. But at least for a few pieces, I'd be sitting on that stage performing for the crowd."

She looked down.

"I hated it. I never liked playing for other people. Especially for people who, no matter how brilliantly or terribly I played, would always treat my performance as if it were by Chopin himself. They praised me because of who I was, not for what I played. There was nothing to be gained from their words. And so I grew to hate playing for those parties. I had only really liked piano because it felt like, for once, I was doing something for my brother instead of the other way around. Because he liked to listen to my playing while he was doing homework, or some of the official family business that my parents always gave him."

She paused, glancing over at the bathroom door, but it seemed as though Komachi was taking her time.

"I quit after the whole fight with my brother. I told my parents that I didn't want to play anymore, and they expressed their disappointment in me quite clearly. I didn't care; it wasn't as if I'd ever played for them. But when I asked my parents to let my brother transfer back to Japan, I tried using the piano as a bargaining chip. I promised that I'd study music seriously, that I would choose it as a career path, if it meant that they'd agree to transfer back."

"Did they agree?"

"I thought they did. But they included a condition. They told me that since it had been a year since I'd last played, they would only agree if I could prove that I could return to my previous playing level."

"Your previous playing level?"

"Yes. In the intervening years, I had become decently skilled with the instrument. The year before I quit, I'd made it to the final round of the Tokyo Music Competition."

"I… sorry, but I don't know much about music and its competitions. Is that… good?"

"It's a very prestigious competition. First prize wins two million yen, among other things."

"Wow. You must have been incredible."

He hadn't expected that. The woman standing before him seemed as normal as anyone else. If he'd passed her on the road, he could never have guessed that she was one of the finest musical talents in the country.

"I suppose I was alright. But whether or not I was good didn't mean very much to me," she started.

"You shouldn't say that," he interrupted her.

"What do you mean?" She looked surprised.

"Even if you really think that music was nothing more than a way to reach out; to communicate with your brother, you were still really good at it, right? I wish that I was as good at something in my life as you were at piano. Don't you think that it's something to be proud of in its own right?"

"I… I guess?" she replied hesitantly.

It seemed as though she had never truly appreciated her own skill. Or perhaps it was the fact that the one person she played for would never be in the audience again that made her musical abilities so unimportant to her?

That was sad, he thought. If there was one thing he'd learned in his sixteen years on this Earth, it was that mediocrity was commonplace, and talent was remarkably rare. He had wallowed in mediocrity his whole life; indeed, he had spent a great deal of his middle school years imagining, pretending that he had some unique, hidden talents.

He was too old for those delusions now, of course. But that didn't mean he'd forgotten the origin of those feelings.

"You shouldn't be so dismissive of something you love, Akari-san," he said quietly.

"What? Love?" She gave a small laugh, as if his words were completely absurd to her.

"You played it for years, right? You were talented and practiced hard enough to make it to the finals of what I can only assume is one of Japan's premier musical competitions. I don't think that just anyone could do that. You must have really loved playing. I kind of envy you for that."

She stared at him, as if she'd never quite seen him in this light before.

"Envy…?"

"Yeah. I'm honestly jealous of you. I wish I was talented and loved something as much as you do with piano."

She looked down and away from him, a curtain of hair covering her face.

"You okay? I'm sorry if I was-"

"No. It's just… I haven't played in a while."

"The piano?"

"Yeah. I haven't touched it in years…"

"What? I thought you wanted to play for your brother?"

She was quiet for a very long time. He grew worried. Had he said something wrong; committed some faux pas that had so often ended his conversations with others in the past?

When she finally spoke up again, her voice was different. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something had changed.

"Well, after the conversation with my parents, I reached out to him. I thought about making an international call, but I… didn't want to call him at the wrong time and be a bother to him. So I just sent him a LINE message. I couldn't really figure out a way to apologize to him for everything, so I just tried to gloss things over and told him that I'd asked our parents to transfer him back to Japan. I told him that I was really excited to see him again, and that I missed him."

"And I'm guessing that your brother told you he didn't want to come home?"

Akari shook her head. "No. I wish he'd told me that. I wish he'd sent me anything. But the reality was, I never heard back from him again."

"I-what? What do you mean?"

She bowed her head.

"I don't know if he ever read my messages. There was a… he was robbed at gunpoint. Because people knew that our family was wealthy. And there was an accident. They never really told me what happened, but he-… I never got to see him again."

There was only silence. What could he say? There was nothing he could say. Because there was nothing that could make things better, nothing that would make things right.

"I want to go back. I want to go back to before he left, to tell him that I love him, and that I'm sorry that we parted on such bad terms. That I'm sorry for giving him the cold shoulder in those last six months we had together. You asked me… a long time ago, why people would risk becoming a ghost, just so that they could spend a few moments in the past. Do you understand now? I would… I would give anything, if it meant that I could go back. If it meant that I could tell him all these things that I wish I told him. Even if I couldn't change the present, even if I couldn't save him from his death, I would still go. Because… because I don't want him to remember me as a bratty, spoiled sister that told him she hated him. I don't want his last memory of me to be such an unhappy one."

She was looking at him, as if expecting him to answer her. As if expecting him to reassure her, to tell her that everything would be okay. That her brother wouldn't hate her, wherever he was. It spoke volumes to him that she would seek out consolation from someone who was a relative stranger to her.

"I- there's nothing I could say that would make things better." He hesitated, but forged on anyway.

"But from everything you've told me about your brother, I think that he wouldn't want you to beat yourself up about it."

"But-"

He cut across her.

"Instead, I think he'd be happy to know that his little sister didn't hate him. That in reality, she wanted him back by her side. And really, Akari, I think the thing he'd want most is for you to be happy. I can't really speak for him, because I didn't know your brother. But you mentioned how similar you guys were to Komachi and I, right?"

"...Yeah."

"Then trust me when I say this; the thing I'd want most in the world is for Komachi to be happy. I'd do anything for her, if it meant that she'd be able to live her dream.

"My dream, huh?"

"I'd love…" he paused, watching her carefully. "I'd love it if I could hear you play something, someday."

The squeak of the hinges on the door of the bathroom made them both jump.

"Hey guys! Did I miss something?" Komachi asked, stepping out of the bathroom and eyeing them with a curious expression on her face.

oOo

"Wow, that really sucks," Komachi commented as they rode back home. She had been impossibly curious after she had emerged from the bathroom to find him deep in conversation with Akari. Rather than try to lie to her, he just gave her a brief overview of what they'd spoken about. He didn't tell her about Akari's wish to time travel or anything along those lines, just that they'd had a conversation about siblings and how Akari had lost her brother.

"But I'm glad that you were the one to talk to her instead of me," Komachi continued. "I don't think that I would've been the best person to talk about that kind of stuff."

He grunted, partially in acknowledgement and partially with exertion as they crested a small hill.

"But Onii-chan, you've been holding out on me! When did you get chummy enough with some waitress that she's willing to talk about something so personal with you?"

"You're exaggerating, Komachi."

"Oh please, Onii-chan, I saw how you were with Yukino-san. You barely managed three sentences the entire time she was there. It was like you were scared of talking to her or something."

"That's because Yukinoshita is a demon incarnate." He shot back darkly.

Honestly, with the way that girl had been belittling him in those brief visits she made to the hospital, he was wondering if perhaps he'd been hallucinating that time he'd met her future self.

"You're just being mean! Yukino-san's actually really nice. She even gave me some Kameda rice crackers last time! They were really tasty, but kinda expensive I think."

"She's tricking you," He muttered under his breath. "And why didn't I get any of those snacks?

Komachi ignored him.

"You're heading back to school on Monday, right? Can you tell her I said thanks?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'll let her Majesty know."

"Seriously, Onii-chan, there are times when I think you're finally taking a step in the right direction, like today in the cafe, but then as soon as the moment ends you revert right back into the same dumb gomii-chan."

"Huh? What are you talking about, Komachi-chan?"

"I'm talking about that attitude of yours. Why do you keep accepting the status quo, as if you really want to be alone your whole life!?"

"But-"

"Honestly, you're going to a new school where nobody even knows who you are. This is the perfect chance to make some friends so that Komachi doesn't have to be worried about you all the time anymore!"

"I-"

"So you better not be the thick-headed gomii-chan that you have been for the past few years on Monday. And you should invite Yukino-san over sometime, you hear me? You need to thank her for visiting the hospital and bringing you all your work!"

"I think the only thanks she'd want from me would be for me to ignore her."

His remarks fell on deaf ears, however, and so on Monday he found himself tasked with extending an invitation to dinner to Yukinoshita.

A girl like that, going to his house for dinner? Not to mention her sister…

He shuddered.

This was absolutely not the dream start he'd wanted to his high school life.

oOo