AN: The rom-com mentioned in this chapter is fictional, but based on films like The Terminal and Lost in Translation.

The Flicker of the Streetlights

Chapter Four:

I had expected some kind of argument when I got back to our apartment that night, but if anything it was more painful to find Saki laid out asleep. The temperature inside was icy but she was lying there with the duvet half on and half off, her expression peaceful, her breathing calm.

She hadn't left a message for me- something like "we'll talk about this later"- and she hadn't texted either. Saki must have fallen asleep angry, worried and more than a little hurt.

I felt the need to kiss her on the forehead or offer up some other nondescript gesture of apology, but everything seemed so frivolous. I settled for laying the duvet over her properly and then settling down beside her, not touching and fully clothed. Tomorrow, I promised, though the sting of the last one I made to her had not yet ebbed away.

The dozens feelings I reserved for Saki swarmed around my heart as if it were a wasp's nest. I had also expected that I would struggle to get to sleep, what with the words of the Yukinoshitas harrying me, but the reality was worse.

I found myself caught somewhere between conscious and unconscious, slipping in and out of several variations upon dreamlessness. Blink and half an hour would have been wiped off the digital clock by our bed, or a newfound noise of the city would be heard from outside the window. A car alarm or the shouts of a rowing couple.

It was already near morning when I got to sleep properly. For what was the first time but certainly not the last, I dreamed of Yukinoshita Yukino.

I never dreamed of her the way that I dream of another. I still don't. Should it be Saki, Komachi or anyone else, then it will just be a blurred re-run of the happenings of the day; an echo of conversation that had struck me at the time, or a moment of tenderness.

Yukinoshita Yukino… she is never blurred to me, and rarely tender. That first dream- I remember it inexplicably clear- was disturbing. I had been on our bed with Saki in my arms, and we were kissing as fiercely as we always did. It had the strange intangibility of all dreams, only the feeling of Saki in my arms was pronounced as any waking passion between us.

My girlfriend's eyes had been closed, but it was her, her hair and her body; the haziness of the dream did nothing to lessen my certainty that it was Kawasaki Saki who I was kissing. That Kawasaki Saki was the only person I could ever kiss like that.

That may still be so, but when the woman in the dream opened her eyes… they didn't belong to Saki. They were cold and blue and young, but the emotion in them was her's. Yukinoshita Yukino stared back at me, even as the body I held, the blueish hair, the curves and sinews, were unmistakably my girlfriend's.

She opened her mouth and said, in Saki's voice, "My name is Yukinoshita Yukino".

Then, I woke up.

My girlfriend wasn't there. She had gone for another run. But, this time, there was a text on my phone.

Saki: sorry, we'll talk later, I didnt know what to say

Hachiman: Dont say sorry

Hachiman: Its me whose sorry

Hachiman: I love you

Saki: I love you too

I turned, reaching over the bed to open the curtains. Jaded morning sun, a yellow so sickly it might as well have been white, rushed into the apartment. I was still in the clothes that I'd worn last night and, breathing in, I picked up some of the smells of the Yurei no On'nanoko, the coffee and the incongruous gasoline.

Regrettably, I could only take it as proof that the previous evening had indeed happened. All of it. There was no running away from the fact I had let Saki down, or the necessity of reassuring her that it was no fault of her own.

I had enabled that sentiment- that she was a burden, that she was holding me back- just when the root cause of it, the breakdown of our marriage plans, had finally started to heal.

"You can see me…"

I tried to push away the other problem. Saki had to be my first concern. Saki. The woman I loved. Not some half-crazed schoolgirl.

It couldn't be her. Not for one second. I despised the idea that, from then on, my dreams seemed to contradict that.

"I looked up the Yukinoshita family, Hachiman."

That was how Saki chose to broach the topic. I'm sure both of us spent the work day that followed in a state rather like a prisoner awaiting trial. I dreaded having to apologise in person. Not because my apology would be insincere, but because the possibility of an argument with someone you love is far more galling than with someone you hate.

There was no extra work to keep me behind at Izumi, so I left the school grounds only a little later than the students. Just as the gates were behind me, I felt my phone ringing.

"Yes?" I picked up and answered it quickly, seeing it was from my girlfriend.

"… Hachiman." She sounded relieved just to hear my voice, and the sound of her's sent my regret into overdrive. I stopped where I was, phone suspended by my ear, in the middle of the street.

"Saki, I'm-"

"Do you… do you want to go for a walk? We haven't done that in awhile."

"Sure. Of course. We can get a drink as well, if you'd like?"

"Maybe." She hesitated. "… Mostly I just want to talk."

So did I. We chose to meet outside a metro station halfway between the elementary school she worked at and Izumi; I had to wait twenty minutes or so before she emerged from the underground, but the sight of her in a normal skirt and top, as if everything were completely normal, was almost upsetting.

She approached me, and the blueish hair, the almost violet eyes that I could stare into for hours on end, offered a stark reminder of how reliant I had become on this woman. She gave me a troubled smile, and I kissed her briefly, regretfully.

Passing over the usual trivialities, we did as we had planned in the haste of a phone call, walking ever so slowly back towards our apartment. In the wake of an awkward couple of minutes, Saki made her voice heard, bringing up the Yukinoshitas.

"… You looked them up?" I wasn't sure how to react.

She nodded. "I… if my boyfriend was going to meet one of them, I thought I should at least know what kind of people they are."

Not wanting to delay it any longer, I said, "I'm sorry Saki. I should never have gone, especially after promising-"

"They've been wealthy for generations. Politicians, lawyers, businessmen, that sort of thing. Yukinoshita Haruno is the first I could see whose become a model, though." She continued as if she hadn't heard me, and then laughed at the comment as if were at all funny.

"She… she isn't a nice person. I should never have gone." I was repeating myself, but meant it from the bottom of my heart.

"What about her sister? Was she a nice person?"

I winced. "… I couldn't say."

Saki glanced at me, her eyes strained. "You couldn't say? At first you were making her out to be some kind of stalker."

"…" I couldn't tell her my feelings towards the schoolgirl if I didn't know them myself. It wasn't hate, it wasn't ambivalence and it wasn't fear, but it might have been all three.

"What is she now, Hachiman? A friend?" She continued.

"She isn't anything to me. Hopefully, she's just some nutcase that we've seen the last of."

"You sorted it out then? What… whatever the matter was?"

"I still don't know what 'the matter' was. But she promised me that we'd be left alone from now on, yes."

"Who did? Yukinoshita Haruno?"

"No. She just wittered on about her sister."

"…" Saki sighed. "They must be keeping that schoolgirl of your's practically locked up. There wasn't any mention of her online."

"Saki, I'm sorry. Please don't make it out like I know her personally-"

"They've had losses in that family. It said that Haruno-san has a strained relationship with her parents because of it."

She said 'Haruno-san' sarcastically, and didn't expect my response of, "… Losses?"

"Yes, losses. Did that come up?"

"No. I- it wasn't that kind of conversation. But…" I looked away, aghast that my curiosity was getting the better of me once more. "… What kind of losses?"

Saki sighed again, seemingly frustrated at the same thing. "They lost their second daughter in a car crash. Apparently Haruno-san was in the car at the same time, or something."

"When was this?"

"I don't remember Hachiman, I wasn't reading it that closely-"

"But what was-"

"I don't know," she snapped. "If you want to know so badly, look it up yourself."

I bit my tongue. Why did it matter so much to me? Why couldn't I ever just let things lie?

"I'm sorry," came my third apology. It sounded more and more hollow and insufficient.

"… I… I think I knew you would go."

Looking back, her saying that hurt more than any barbed comment could. The notion that she had just assumed I would let her down… even if she hadn't said it to make me feel guilty, which I wouldn't lower her too, then it worked very well. I trusted Saki with everything. It was the same for her, but in this key detail, this pivotal regard, she had simply expected me to fall short.

"How could you have known that?" I rasped, as if it had been I that was treated wrongly.

She shook her head. "You've never been one for wilful ignorance, even if things would be better that way. It's one of the things I love about you."

We were several streets away from the metro station and, I noted, not too far from the park where I had met Yukinoshita Yukino. It was a shopping street with a fair amount of people about- mothers, workers, school kids, the like- but I stepped in front of my girlfriend when she said that, bringing us both to a halt right in the stream of pedestrians.

"You shouldn't-" I began loudly, but reigned my voice back in so that only Saki could hear. I coaxed out her purple eyes, hoping she would see what I felt too. "You shouldn't just accept that about me. It isn't fair on you."

She shook her head. "You expect me to control something like that? I love you, Hachiman, so I love that you can't lie to yourself."

We kept walking. "That doesn't mean I can lie to you too."

To that, she didn't reply.

"… Don't forgive me so easily, Saki. I'd rather you didn't."

"Oh shut up, you idiot. I was too worried about you to be angry. I'm only angry now because I was worried. Just tell me, Hachiman. Tell me next time, and don't make a promise you can't keep."

"I won't."

"Really?"

"Yes. I promise not to make a promise I can't keep."

She nearly laughed, but I wasn't finished.

"Saki, I… I don't like that you weren't… that you weren't surprised by this. If that's how you really feel, then I need to be better. Hold me to that."

Saki didn't reply again, and I sensed in her the self-denial. How she had convinced herself it was only altruism on my part that she remained in my life. She thought her place in my heart could be refilled at a moment's notice, like plugging the hole in a sink, when in truth she was probably the only thing that kept me together.

"You don't… I really don't think you know…" I tried, but couldn't find the words.

Nonetheless, I think Saki realised what I was trying to convey. Her breath hitched, and the silence that swamped us until we got back to the apartment was heavy, but not as tense as before.

Not being able to find the right words was probably the most articulate apology I could have hoped for.

We only started speaking again once the apartment door was closed, and the only thing in our lives was each other again. Just as it should be, I thought.

It was her turn to make dinner but I wouldn't let her do it; anything that would reaffirm how irreplaceable she had become, I leapt at. Making her dinner, kissing her before we ate, whispering unintelligible nothings once we had washed up and, in theory, doing such things for the rest of our days.

Once we were in bed, huddled together so that we morphed into what was rather like one body, Saki asked if we could watch her favourite movie. It was a rom-com that would have been indiscernible from any other rom-com were it not for the charm and chemistry of the two leads.

"Of course," I said. We started watching, and the sheltered familiarity of the film pushed away the thought that Yukinoshita Haruno was starring as the lead in a rom-com just like this one.

We must have watched it dozen of times before, but it was one of those rare movies that only endeared itself with repetition. The premise was simple: a young man and woman, both in unfulfilling relationships that they want to get out of, are stuck waiting for delayed planes in an airport terminal.

Told in short, they end up together after various misdemeanours in the airport. The final shot of the film is the man running to kiss his new partner before they get on different planes, exchanging numbers and promising to make things work.

This didn't occur to me at the time- I was too busy whispering in my girlfriend's ear- but now I can't think of the ending of that movie without also thinking of Yukinoshita Yukino. There's no guarantee that the lovers in that film will actually live happily ever after. They still live on different sides of the world. It will still be a long distance relationship.

How did either of them know for certain that they were in love? How did either of them know that they'd made the right choice? What about the partners they left behind?

Such a film doesn't command being questioned in this way. But I suppose its connection with Saki, as with everything else about my time with her, has led me to put it on a pedestal.

Before the film was even over, we had forgotten about it. Sub-consciously, I suppose Saki must have wanted to feel needed, and I had no shortage of need for her. We undressed and made love, panting loudly with the expectation that the other would be unequivocally reminded of the trust, the respect, that made us an 'ideal' couple.

All I could see and feel was Saki. The satisfaction was so hot-blooded that its afterburn, that time and many other times, has become like a scar to me. Physicality is undoubtedly a part of being in love, but can never be the pre-requisite. I knew that even then.

Yukinoshita Yukino didn't so much as cross my mind that evening. I didn't dream of her either. I didn't dream at all, and thanked Saki and my own inelegant apology for the kindness. We needed it.

You'd probably call the rest of the week the calm before the storm. We went about our routines with due diligence, going to work, leaving work, rinse and repeat. It was a time for reflection and quiet evenings, with more of the subtle persuasions that I hoped would bring back Saki's confidence in us.

To that aim, I resisted the urges that had led to me going to the Yurei no On'nanoko, that had led to this mess. Despite the new possibility that they were just a family stricken by grief, I refused to look up the Yukinoshitas as Saki had, and pave a way for the schoolgirl to re-assert her place in my head. We didn't speak about the incident, and kissed each other whenever it seemed like we might.

They were a moderately happy few days. Happy, and straightforward. I even found the time to finish the Last Children of Tokyo.

The only lapse I can think of was down to the photograph. The one that Yukinoshita Haruno had given me. I was sat at my work desk in Izumi, rummaging through my work things for books to mark. My fingers settled on the image, and though I didn't pull it out, the thought of the Yukinoshita sisters sat in that mall booth hit me like a freight-train.

"Keep hold of that photo. It might answer some more of your questions." I blinked as Yukinoshita Haruno's words washed over me, and then blinked again as I pushed them away.

I closed the bag, and vowed to get rid of the photo later that night.

I forgot about that vow. Or maybe I just preferred to forget. Maybe that was more straightforward than ridding myself of it.

On the Friday of that week, the photo was still in my workbag. Halfway through the afternoon, my phone buzzed with a string of texts from Komachi. We'd made a habit of catching up every week, though my sister's living situation was far more unstable than my own. She moved around a lot; that came from waltzing between jobs as she did. I surely can't imagine why employers always gave her another chance.

Komachi: your gonna come over this evening?

Hachiman: Am I?

Komachi: you are now! Like 6?

Hachiman: If I get off by then, yes

It was more like six thirty when I decided my workload was sufficiently thinned enough to leave, and seven when I arrived at the steps of Komachi's place. Her apartment was also part of a block, but the building itself was one of those horrible concrete monstrosities that, thankfully, have nearly all been knocked down by now.

Her's was on the ground floor, but seemed to me as if it were buried underground, with how cramped it was. This was my least favourite of Komachi's innumerable apartments thus far- mine and Saki's was small too, but I suppose her presence brightened things significantly. At least as far as I was concerned.

I knocked on the door, and heard scrambling from inside.

"Komachi?"

"Just a second, Onii-chan!"

I rolled my eyes. A couple of minutes later, my sister opened the door and smiled brightly enough to kick-start the sun. The dishevelled hair and hastily thrown on bathrobe rather lessened the effect.

"Good to see you! How do I look?"

"Absolutely radiant. Marry me please," I replied, earning my points for the day, before ducking under her arm.

"H- hey! The compliments were good, but you really should ask before entering."

"And you should practice what you preach. I seem to recall my bedroom being free game for you when we were teenagers."

"Yes. That led to some unpleasant discoveries, didn't it Onii-chan?"

Wishing she was just referring to my untidiness rather than a stash of indecent manga, I took a seat on her bed. There weren't many other places to sit: in true Hikigaya fashion, the place was a bomb-site of clutter and strewn clothes, and in spite of the dirty underwear I almost felt a speck of pride.

She hopped over and planted herself beside me, still smiling infectiously. I rolled my eyes again, but my heart wasn't in it.

"The day you lose the energy to smile, I'll know something really is wrong."

"People appreciate a good smile. You should try it sometimes, Onii-chan."

"Never. Besides, with most people I find it highly irritating."

"Yeah yeah. Only Saki-chan and I are qualified to smile, right?"

"Something like that."

It started to rain heavily outside, spitting onto the concrete and the single glass window of Komachi's apartment, but it did nothing to discomfort us. As much as I loved Saki, the week had hardly been relaxing, and spending time with my sister brought back memories as soft and welcome as silk.

I imagine, from the tone of her voice, that the same was true for Komachi. I didn't notice this until the watch that was sitting on her bedside also caught my eye. My imouto didn't wear watches, and it looked unmistakably like the kind a guy would wear.

Midway through reminiscing some more about our adolescent years, I mentioned the watch, expecting to hear of another short-lived romantic escapade. Instead, she briefly averted her eyes.

"Oh, uh… yeah, that just some guy's, he he. I'll give it back to him the next time I see him."

"The next time?" I laughed, but was very aware of the change in her reaction. "Most of the guys you hook up with don't last a day."

"Well… I probably won't see him again. It's unlikely, after all. But, uh…" She scratched her head, a little sheepishly. "Y'know how it is."

"No, I don't. You're talking to someone in a long-term relationship, remember?"

"That's true, Onii-chan. How is Saki-chan, by the way? I sure hope you guys sorted that thing out!"

Komachi's ability to change the subject was incomparable to almost anyone I'd met. The purple eyes of Yukinoshita Haruno sprung to mind, but I didn't want to think about that.

"Oh no, you can't get past me that easily." I grabbed the watch from the bedside table and inspected it- the brand didn't seem all that expensive, but I wasn't exactly an expert. "If you brought him back here, he can't have been too-"

She nudged me and deftly snatched the watch from my grip. "Don't be silly, it's nothing like that… He just… He wasn't quite what I expecting when we first met, is all."

"What's his name?"

"Kiyoshi. Hata Kiyoshi."

"You're already on first names with him."

She snorted. "I'm on first name terms with everyone, Onii-chan."

"That's true."

There was an awkward silence, where I realised she was running her fingers over the surface of the watch. Her eyes had turned absent.

"You're not in love, right? Surely this Hata idiot hasn't already conquered the great Komachi's heart?"

It was a feeble joke, but one that still might've got her to laugh in a normal situation. Here, she just sighed.

"No. I'm not in love."

"… What, is… is this guy-"

"No no no, nothing like that," she interrupted, waving her arms. "I just hadn't expected it, is all."

"Would you rather we didn't talk about it?"

"… No. I…" She shuffled a bit closer to me and rested her head on my shoulder. Her hair was fuzzy, but I could never t get used to it being that long. "… It'll be good to talk about it. You know more about being in love than I do, Onii-chan."

The sensation of her breathing in and out left me feeling chilly, though her body temperature practically scorched through the bathrobe and into my side. The Hikigaya-pride would never let her admit something like that, so I knew she was serious. The rain roared on outside.

I thought back to our last conversation on the phone, when I had vowed to be there for her when she first encountered the full breadth of a person's feelings. Vows were being broken too often for my liking. I told myself I'd be damned if I broke that one too.

"Go on then. I'm used to this being the other way round, but I'll always listen, at least."

"I know." Her thumb glided almost longingly over the watch. "Kiyoshi is… he's just this guy that works a couple of desks down from me. He's one of the worst sellers on the floor, so he's a bit of an ongoing joke with the others. Socially awkward, messy suit… He reminds me of you a bit, Onii-chan, only he hasn't quite given up on other people yet."

"How do you mean?"

"He still talks openly, tries to go along with the joke, that sort of thing. No one dislikes him since he's so nice and… harmless, I guess. Still, he'll be the butt of the joke for the rest of his life."

"So you go up, do the whole cutesy girl shtick, and in five minutes he thinks he's in love?"

"I thought so. He definitely liked me, but they all do, really. Kiyoshi was… a bit more earnest about it though. Kind. If I didn't have a pen he'd make sure to be the first who offered me his."

"Cute," I said drily.

"You're so cynical, Onii-chan… But I didn't think he was any different. I really didn't. Then this week, we all ended up going for a drink after work. He tagged along at the back, and no one really wanted him there, so I made an extra effort to be nice to him. Only then, I… once we got talking, and drinking, I stopped just being nice.

It was the earnestness of it. I'm repeating myself, but it's true. He was so genuinely thrilled we were spending time together, talking together, that I couldn't help but feel… special. How else are you supposed to feel when a guy looks at you with that kind of sparkle in his eye?"

Her breathing was steady, but her body felt tense against me.

"… And you hooked up afterwards, I'm guessing?"

"Once I'd drunk enough, it seemed like a great idea. I thought he'd leap at the chance of coming back here, but when I suggested it he… he actually tried to say no. Those kind of guys are the worst. A girl's all over them and all they can think of is crap like 'oh, I'm taking advantage of them' or 'oh, I don't wanna have sex like that'. Nine times out of ten, they just end up making you feel unwanted.

But I wanted him. I really did, even if we were drunk out of our minds. And he wanted me too, so he caved in. We ditched the rest of the group from work and came here."

No matter how old Komachi got, it still made me uncomfortable to hear her talking about such things. She would still be the younger sister I had to protect, even if she was the one protecting me more often than not. Still, she needed to vent, so I let her.

"He was still trying to worm his way out of it once things started. I was drunk, but he was too, and if anything that just made me want him more. I must've thought it would be his first time. Maybe it was just the alcohol making him braver. Either way, it felt good." She hesitated. "Not just nice and earnest. Good."

Komachi went silent, and I looked down at her, confused. "Is that all-"

"He said he loved me."

"… He said what?"

"Right there and then, after we'd finished. He stared right into my eyes and said 'I love you Komachi'."

"… That… must have been… What did you do?"

"I told him to leave. I ended up shouting at him. And he left this stupid watch on my bedside."

"… Fuck. Some guys really are clueless."

She didn't respond.

"… Komachi?"

She lifted her head and met my gaze, her expression unsure. "That's the thing, Onii-chan. I'm not sure he was clueless."

I was flabbergasted.

"You think I'm just being naive, right? That's what I want to think. That's what I've been telling myself. It's just… every time I think back to that moment, with us lying there naked and him staring into my eyes… He wasn't just saying he loved me because he thought it was the right thing to say. He believed it. Doesn't that… doesn't that mean that he felt it too?"

"Of course not. Saki and I will tell you the same thing. Love doesn't work like that," I insisted.

"But what if it does? What if that's really all it takes to fall in love? Just one night, or even one glance?"

In the silence that followed, Komachi shook her head and laid her head on my shoulder again. "That… that was your cue to tell me I'm wrong, Onii-chan."

I had wanted to do just that. Tell my sister she was wrong, and that Hata Kiyoshi was just a starstruck idiot who'd been reading too many cliched romance novels. But the deja vu collapsed over me like a tsunami.

Wasn't this the same conversation I'd had with Yukinoshita Yukino outside the Yurei no On'nanoko? What would happen next is that I would espouse the importance of caution, of the vacuity of a sudden declaration of passion. Then, I would be confronted with a set of words plucked straight from the heart, leaving me to question everything I knew about my own.

"You are wrong, Komachi. This Kiyoshi guy is wrong." You have to be.

"… Thank you for trying, Onii-chan."

We sat there, the only noise between us being the storm pounding on the window. I hadn't intended to confide in my sister about the Yukinoshitas, but talk of her own troubles that week must have encouraged me, because I found myself spilling all of it. Seeing Yukinoshita Yukino by the apartment, the invitation, the cafe, the photograph.

I held back on her telling her about myself and Saki's more personal troubles; she just assumed the issue we had spoken of over the phone was the same one. It was still my girlfriend's choice to keep it a secret.

"… I don't know what to say."

"Anything. As long as it's coming from you, I'm sure it will help."

"This schoolgirl. Yukinoshita Yukino, you said? Do you think she's…?"

"Crazy? No," I said, with a conviction that surprised me. "I told Saki that she was because I thought it might ease her mind a bit. But no. I don't think she's crazy."

"I dunno Onii-chan. The things you told me sure-"

"She's not crazy. In all honesty, I'd say her sister was the crazy one. She herself was more…" I searched again for the right word to describe her, and eventually settled on, "… Sad."

"Sad?"

"Sad. Repressed. However you want to put it." The dull shine of the schoolgirl's eyes in the darkness of the alley, the things she'd said to me, all enforced what I said next. "I… I don't think I've ever met…"

"… Someone like he-"

"No no, that's not what I mean. I just… I thought I knew what sadness looked like, Komachi. But talking to that girl, looking into her eyes. It was like she was barely even alive."

"You said there was a photo? Can I see it?"

I nodded in assent, digging into my bag and pulling it out.

I should have thrown that fucking thing away.

I should have made sure there was no photograph to show her.

"This is it," is what came out of my mouth.

Komachi blinked. "… Oh, right. She looks like her sister. That's what you're saying."

"Yes."

She handed it back to me. Though the response hadn't been quite what I expected, it wasn't off-colour enough to concern me too much. I failed to catch how her eyes only lingered on Yukinoshita Haruno's side of the photograph, not catching, not perceiving the rest.

After that, we shifted onto meaningless chatter, the kind you indulge in after sharing the burdens weighting your chest. Both of us preferred, after all the seriousness, that we kept things vaguely light.

She told me about a sales call she'd had with an elderly woman which made me laugh. I complained to her about an aggravating student at Izumi, and she retorted that they sounded like a certain brother of her's.

I had messaged Saki that I would be meeting up with Komachi; though it was normal for these meet ups to last hours, I wanted to pay back the time I owed my girlfriend, the time she lost on the night of the Yurei no On'nanoko. At about fifteen past eight, I stood up and told my sister I should be going.

"Really, Onii-chan? But I'll be so lonely without you," she droned teasingly.

"Who wouldn't?"

She opened the door and soon I was stood back in the corridor of her apartment block. Komachi faced me, still in her bathrobe.

"It really is pouring out there. Hope you're not planning on walking back."

"Not the way whole way, at least. I don't mind rain as much as you. It can be quite refreshing."

She shot a glance back at the rain peppering her window. "You call that refreshing?"

"Maybe I do." My face turned serious. "Komachi. I know you have to give this Hata guy his watch back, but you're not planning on meeting him again, are you?"

"Why? Are you worried about me?"

"Yes. Always."

"Well, let's make a pact of it. I won't see Kiyoshi again if you walk away the next time you see Yukinoshita Yukino."

"… She said I would never see her again."

"You're a realist, Hachiman. A realist would never believe something like that."

"I suppose they wouldn't."

We hugged each other reflexively. It was only a revision of the oldest Hikigaya sibling pact- when things get tough, they get tough for both of us.

Stepping out of the concrete building was like stepping out into an air-raid. It was true enough that rain can be refreshing, but not this kind of rain. This was the thick, sloppy kind that seeps into everything like tree-sap. I hadn't brought a coat, and was promptly soaked to the bone. Gritting my teeth, I ploughed through it on my way to the nearest metro station.

Alongside the storm came echoes of the conversation I'd just had. My footsteps carried me past a few other stragglers, but my head was in the clouds, lugged there by a persistent thought that something had gone over my head. That something wasn't quite right.

I replayed everything Komachi had said. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I could have assured you, without any doubt, that I had overlooked some detail. The detail didn't have to be of any importance, though it turned out to be.

It was as if someone were walking beside me in the rain- I could hear their footsteps, but I couldn't see them.

"You can see me."

Whether it was that thought or another that made things click in my head is irrelevant. It clicked. That's what matters. It clicked, and suddenly I was stood there in the rain, absolutely still, as an awful impossibility somehow became possible.

"She looks like her sister. That's what you're saying." Komachi had said that as if it hadn't been plainly clear in the photograph that Yukinoshita Yukino and Yukinoshita Haruno looked alike. How could that be, when the evidence had been directly in front of her?

My fingers shook from the cold as I ducked underneath the overhang of a shop. I knelt down and inspected the photograph once more. There she was. Yukinoshita Yukino. Real as anything.

But Komachi had implied the opposite. There was a still chance that I had misinterpreted her, but I would leave no room for that. I'm a realist, and a realist would never believe something like that.

Lifting my head, I saw another unfortunate soul making their way through the wetness towards me. As they came under the overhang, I stepped in front of them, bringing them to a stop. It was a middle-aged woman with a pale yellow anorak.

"Ex- excuse me," I all but stuttered, "could you look at this photograph for me?"

"What? Look at this?"

I nodded, and after talking away her cynicism, she took it from my hand.

"What am I supposed to be seeing?"

"Just tell me what you see. Tell me whose there."

She peered closer. "… Oh. It's that model. Um… Yukinoshita Haruno, isn't it?"

"Yes. Anyone else?"

"What?"

"Is there anyone else there with her?"

My voice was turning panicked, and she sensed it. "I do have somewhere to be you know-"

"Please, just tell me. Is there anyone else with her-"

"No, there isn't. Satisfied?"

She thrust the photo back into my hands, and walked on.

I stood there, staring at the girl, at Yukinoshita Yukino. The girl who hid in plain sight, whose outline flickered like neon in the darkness.

With that, I couldn't stop myself any longer. The urge I had suppressed for the whole of that week came bursting out like a long-awaited breath. I looked up the Yukinoshitas on my phone. I read what was available to anyone who looked up the family of one of Japan's most famous models, and what Saki had read too.

But I looked deeper. I looked for Yukinoshita Yukino, and I saw her. I saw the truth.

I didn't dream it. I didn't.

What happened next is a little unclear. My head was ringing so loud, louder than all the rain plummeting onto Chiba that evening, and I kept walking through it in the hope that all those revelations would be drowned out of existence. I walked past the metro station, my hair dripping, my legs unsteady. Anyone who saw me must have thought I was about to collapse.

In taking however many wrong turns, I soon lost track of where I was. The place I ended up at was an old, moss-ridden underpass. Once, what had run over the top of it must have been a secondary train-line, but now it had been reduced to a short-cut for those well-acquainted with the area.

That evening, the underpass serviced as my shelter. I sat down, my chin rested on my damp knees, my back leant up against the side of the concrete wall. The noise of the city and the weather fell away, and I was left alone. I barely had the energy to be tired.

At some point, amidst the imagined silence, my eyes slipped closed. There would have been other thoughts too, but the one I can remember most clearly was this: I wish that Saki was here.

When they opened again, I was no longer alone. Sat beside me was a schoolgirl. She was completely dry, not a drop of rain-water on her pristine uniform, and there couldn't have been. There hadn't been for a long, long time.

I didn't move, nor was I surprised. Just as before, Yukinoshita Yukino couldn't look me in the eye, and the trembling anxiety that kept her staring at the ceiling of the underpass submerged me.

"… I… I miss the rain, Hikigaya-kun."

"…"

"I used to find it quite refreshing. That, and the snow. They were-"

"You promised I would never see you again," I said matter of factly.

"… I couldn't do it," she rasped. "I just couldn't."

'Why not?"

"… I've…" Her voice became like a surrender. "… I've let you too far into my head. I think… I think I've made you into my last chance at happiness."

"… And am I?"

"You're-"

"Am I your last chance at happiness? Is that why only I can see you?"

"… You know."

I laughed bitterly. "I would have thought that was why you're here. But yes, I know. Or I think I know."

Her fingers fell to her school skirt, both of them as intangible as the other. "… Ask me. I'll tell you anything, Hikigaya-kun."

"What are you?" I said bluntly. "What are you, and why can only me and your sister see you?"

There was a long pause where I thought for a moment she would disappear without answering any of my questions. And then, she started to speak.

"November 17th."

"What's important about that?"

"Th- that day, ten years ago. That was the day of the crash."

"… The day you died, you mean."

"… Yes, Hikigaya-kun," she murmured. "The day I died."