We sit there looking at each other, and I should really say something, but words are stuck in my throat. The situation is about to explode into good, old, familiar violence and it almost feels like a relief. Yukino needs just a small push, and all this, and I mean all of this might just end here and now, all my nights of revisiting memories full of razor-sharp edges until my mind bleeds. All the days spent with people who say little and feel less. The pure desire for release grips me with such force that even in this cold room I can feel sweat breaking out in tiny droplets on the back of my neck.

And there is poetic justice in the girl who began my story ending it, too. Or, at least, there is some kind of justice. If I mention what happened to Yui, what I did, surely it will be enough to push her over the edge…

This is just selfish fantasy. If Yukino shoots she will likely miss from that distance. Even if she didn't my personal guardian angel would be here within a minute, and I suspect mercy would not be his top priority. What my men would do to this city when they heard what had happened is another topic that doesn't bear thinking about.

So I look away from her empty gaze. The words come slowly, like honey dripping from my lips.

"No. The thought never crossed my mind." It's nothing but the truth. There are ideas that the mind recoils from, like from a raw nerve.

"I just wanted to visit as a... just wanted to see you and talk some things through." I couldn't sound any lamer if I tried.

"Oh." Some profound change is taking place on that face, and it is like watching ice crack and dark and deep water show through. Then it freezes over again, but the shield is nowhere near as flawless as before, and a current of raw emotion touches the surface. "Oh."

She stands up quickly, eyes still full of tears. "Please, excuse me". The words are formal, but Yukino leaves the room almost at a run. It is slightly depressing, but not really surprising, that these days girls I have dinner with fear more for their lives than for their chastity.

I walk around the room, looking at half-remembered souvenirs and photos. I wish nothing has changed. I wish everything has changed. But, as always, I get something in between, the worst of both worlds.

I sit in her chair and check the gun out. It is an old Japanese Nambu pistol, probably more dangerous to the owner than to the target. Yukino herself in a nutshell. I leave it in place. She has few enough options as it is.

Footsteps wake me up from my window reverie, and I turn away from the dark sky where city lights used to be. Yukino has changed into a fashionable evening dress that looks completely out of place in this dusty room full of memories. The world has changed since that shiny company reception, and she has changed, too. Her arms have grown too thin, her face too sharply outlined for the glittering gown, a trembling smile starting and fading away, like a car engine on a cold morning. There is hope there, if I still can recognise it, and it is so out of place and out of date that my eyes sting.

"So, Hachiman, you are not here to kill me." Not your traditional dinner conversation.

"No, Ha… Yukinoshita."

"Please, Hachiman, please let us stop playing these games. We have lost enough time. We see each other so rarely that there is a good chance that one of us won't live until the next time. Let us at least try to be honest with each other tonight." There is an intensity to her that will not be denied and, as always, I yield to it.

"Fine, Yukino. Fine. Let us speak honestly, for once." Her ghost of a smile fades completely. "I need your help. And you need mine. We have arrested and executed most of the smugglers, criminals and resistance members." Good times for undertakers.

"The city is as peaceful as I can make it. But I have to move on. There are other places in need of… pacification. I was going to ask you to take over as the civilian governor of Chiba. We have a few dozen resistance sympathisers in prisons, you can start your rule by releasing them. I've also brought in and stockpiled some food so you can distribute it to citizens. You being a Chiba native they are bound to love you. It will be a piece of cake." I smile enthusiastically. You've missed your calling, Hachiman. Should have been a politician or a used car salesman. Back when there were politics and used cars.

"All these years and you haven't changed a bit," Yukino says bitterly. "I still hate your methods. Doing terrible things to make others look good. The most hated man in the school grew up to become the most hated man in the city. What next? Become the most hated man in the country?"

"We can't all be good guys in this play. I do what is necessary." But I can't look her in the eye. I keep forgetting how well she knows me.

"What happens if I refuse?"

"I can keep you out of prison," keep you alive, "even if you continue doing what you have been doing so far." Kanji wouldn't be happy, but he owes me.

"But… sooner or later, in a week, a month, half a year, one of those resistance riajuus will come close enough to me before blowing themselves up," I smile wryly, "and what I think and want will have become irrelevant. After that, unsurprisingly, I can't make promises." But I wouldn't be saving for retirement in your place.

She glares at me in exasperation laced with more than a bit of some more primal emotion. "You shouldn't joke about that stuff." Of course, it is only a joke.

But there are more important things than life and death to be discussed. I can feel it coming.

"Are you… have you found something genuine?"

"Yes." I look everywhere but at Yukino. In the periphery of my vision, I can still see her elegant hands lying on the table, clenching, relaxing, clenching again. It is like watching a heart beat to an irregular rhythm. It slows down until just two tight fists remain, white with the effort.

I can't leave it at this. I never could do what is best for her. "I have found genuine," that stupid word that has haunted us all for far too long.

"I had it for five years. Don't think I am complaining. I am not. It is longer than most people manage. Why, most people never find it at all. Five years is… plenty." It didn't feel that way. It felt like a moment.

"Though it ended… the way it ended." As all such years do, in heartbreak and sorrow and regret. With some blood and death added for good measure in our special case. "Those five years cannot be taken away. And I thank you for giving them to me." I bow slightly.

Yukino's hands are now relaxed, and I dare raise eyes to her face. She is calm and composed, but white as a sheet. "Do you think you can find it again?" Don't look at me that way. I can't save myself, let alone somebody else.

"No." I know this. I feel this. My every day is a proof of this. Even before her marriage and all the deaths that now stand between us I was… changed. Sometimes I think I never really returned from those faraway lands where so many of my friends rot in their early graves.

Her face crumbles. I always thought the expression was just a literary gimmick but her face just falls to pieces. Muscles go slack, eyes go empty, and any expression is erased completely. I've seen corpses showing more emotion.

"So." I watch Yukino's throat convulse as she swallows. "I started this evening thinking that you came to kill me, so I guess I am still ahead." Yukino's smile is so empty that I shudder. "Still, wanting to kill me would have implied some emotion on your part. All things considered, I think I much prefer that."

I don't have to ask. She won't agree to take over as the governor. Which means she faces a short life and a brutal death. Unacceptable. Appealing to the greater good and the duty to citizens won't work, not when you have nothing left to hold on to. Which leaves me with very few options. 'Very few' meaning precisely one.

Forgive me, Yukino. I never lied to you in all our long years.

"But." And her eyes flick to my mouth and stay there, unblinking. "If I can't have a genuine thing perhaps I might have… something. For whatever time is left, until some roadside bomb or a sniper bullet or the end of the world, I still might want something to rely on. Some place to come back to and forget about the outside world. Someone to share those months with." And even I can't say which part is the truth, which wishful thinking and which just lies.

"I-I see." The way she looks at me is intensely embarrassing. There is nothing sexual in it, just a steady, thirsty gaze of somebody trying to remember how water used to taste. It is easy to recognise the expression. I see it in the mirror every morning.

"You killed my husband," she whispers.

"Yes." What else is there to say? No, I just didn't save him when I could have? I see no difference.

"And you left my mother to starve," I counter. "But what is a spouse or a parent among friends?" My laugh is more like a bark.

"Soldiers came for us late that night," Yukino looks through the window. "We were quarrelling again. Like we did every night since that reception. Hayato never forgave me for forcing him to attend. I noticed your name on the invitation list and threw it away before he could see it. It was ill-advised but… sometimes you have no choice at all." She looks back at me, and I see in her eyes a calm and acceptance of fate that I could never match. "Soldiers in black uniforms blew up our front gate and shot everybody who tried to resist. They put a bag on Hayato's head, and I never saw him again."

"The officer kept repeating 'watch out for the woman'. They never touched me. I knew it was you." She is not asking for confirmation. None is needed.

"Is there hope, Hachiman?"

No.

"There is always hope, Yukino." I dream of dandelion seeds in the wind every night.

"We just need to find somebody worth sharing that hope with." The lie is ash on my tongue. I try to recall the way I used to smile at her, across this very table, years ago. I must be doing it right because I see a slow, dazzling smile spread across her face like a ripple on a pond, lighting up her eyes the last. God, I've never seen anything so beautiful.

"I will serve as the governor, Hachiman. I will do what I can for the city. But I can't do it without you. Together we will live through all this. If you will have me." Her gaze is steady and clear.

I only nod, my throat tight with shame. But some things must be done, no matter how much they hurt others. And us.

Because, dandelion.

Two months ago we had a session of the Imperial General Staff. There was a thin folder waiting for each of us. No security marking, no author, nothing. Just the title. Operation Dandelion.

It started off innocent enough. Things we already knew. Food shortages, fuel shortages, civil disorder, loss of control, collapse of government authority in cities. Two to three years.

But the last page was different. In order to save at least the rural population and food production from millions of refugees escaping from cities, Operation Dandelion proposed synchronised nuclear strikes on major Home Islands population centres. Destroying our own cities to save at least the countryside. Chiba was on the list.

There was no discussion. Just a unanimous vote of rejection. There are things even war criminals won't do.

But the unthinkable has been thought of. The unspeakable has been spoken.

When the situation becomes desperate enough there will be somebody willing to do what needs to be done. What must be done. Nobody knows that better than me.

I have been dreaming of dandelion seeds blown away by gusts of wind since.

"Would you care for a walk, Yukino?". I put my coat over her shoulders. She raises her blushing, smiling, gaunt face to mine. I look away, my mind stuttering, unable to cope with all the hope and… other emotions that show so clearly in her eyes.

But I have to try. No, I have to make it work. I will go and speak to that European ambassador who likes her so much. Surely his interest in this dashing raven-haired beauty who courageously fights a military junta all on her own can't be purely professional. We will understand each other, I think. A passport for her and a way out when everything starts falling apart. When dandelion seeds start floating.

I will have to talk to Kanji to have a team ready to snatch her and deliver to the embassy even if I am not… available. There might be a few good years left in Europe still, if she is lucky.

We walk out and down the gravel path. Crunching footsteps fall in behind us, and I relax a bit. Makino's presence is reassuring. Nothing has changed.

"The falcon cannot hear the falconer;" I whisper

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."

"The blood-dimmed tide is loosed," Yukino adds, smiling still. "I didn't know you liked Yeats."

She sneaks her hand into mine. It feels like ice.