Prologue

Three years, three months, three weeks, three days, three hours. Third luck…but it doesn’t feel lucky. It doesn’t feel much of anything. Shock settles in as a suddenly weightless hand puts down the phone and his body slumps down to lean against the table, eyes seeing nothing, mind an empty mass of static. His hands clench so tight his knuckles are white and when he turns them over, Tachibana Kippei can see the blood pooling they’re fisted so tight, nails digging in to hard, calloused flesh. But he can’t feel it, all the pain in the world suddenly gone and he knows. Deep down he knows it’s a tsunami, receding in a rush, building in the distance, and soon…soon it will come and wash away everything else, and then there will just be the pain.

He stands quickly, eyes searching the apartment. It’s not a mess, but not tidy either. There is nothing precise about it, nothing that screams out to him that a certain person lives here. It’s just comfortable, shared and lived in and there had never been any fights over where things went or when things got done. It was a place to live, and he loved it, there was no denying that. But it was still easy to leave every morning, go down to the courts, meet his trainer, come back for lunch…

He had come back by chance today, something nagging at him, like he had forgotten it. Barely walked in when the phone rang. Three years, three months, three weeks, three days, three hours. Three minutes. Typical.

He didn’t bother calling his coach. He would wait all afternoon and Kippei really didn’t care. That didn’t matter; tennis didn’t matter, was merely something to do; something to distract himself with when there wasn’t anything else. So it wasn’t hard to just walk away, if that was even what he was doing. He wasn’t sure what he was doing. Walking down the street, onto the bus, begging it to go faster, glaring at the driver as if he could read his mind and take them there, now. Right now. He was already late. He had waited so long, had all the time in the world to get there…three years…and he was still late. Too late.

His eyes closed and he rested his head against the cool metal rail, forcing himself to calm down. There would be things to do, before he was allowed in. He wasn’t late. He would be on time. This time, he would.

“You’re late.” He could still hear that voice, clear as if it were yesterday, but the face had changed, unmoving, still like the dead. He had forgotten what a smile looked like on those lips, forgotten what colour the eyes were. The way he moved had faded in his memory. Time was a terrible thing.

The bus jolted and he almost screamed, gasping as his eyes flew wide, staring around. An old lady looked at him strangely and he forced a wan smile. Today was worth smiling for, and yet he couldn’t think of much to smile about. He could still hear the screech, feel the wild jolt that woke them and then the tumbling, wild madness, the screams and sound of crushing metal, the blazing pain that took him out and then that emptiness he couldn’t stand. Why would anyone stay in that emptiness? Three years, three months…and the memories were there as if it were yesterday. He wasn’t sure they would ever go away.

Three weeks. He’d been feeling odd for three weeks now. Not sick or tired, just odd. He kept drifting, almost daydreaming but never quite getting there. He felt loose and at odds with himself, as if he had forgotten…He had forgotten. So many things, all of them so incredibly important.

The bus came to a halt and he ran off, feet hitting the ground and they wouldn’t stop, pounding the pavement, dodging people who seemed to move too slowly. Why did they just stand there? They were in the way, between him and that was suddenly annoying, so infuriating he wanted to push them, shove them all away, like the years.

He pushed the doors open and raced upstairs, heading to the room he had given up coming to a year ago. Up the stairs, down the hall, up more stairs, but a voice called out from a different direction and he paused, barely recognising it, turned and just stared.

Ibu-san walked forward, beckoning him the other way and he wanted to scream that no, that was the wrong way, but he didn’t know. Didn’t know anything anymore. Had stopped coming. Guilt rose as bile in his throat as he walked forward, closer, Ibu-san’s smile weak but there when it hadn’t been in so long. So very long. But the pain in his eyes was immense and it made Kippei’s heart pause for a beat before continuing.

“We didn’t expect you to come right away! But Sada said you hung up the phone and I knew, so I came to meet you…he’s been moved, because…god. Because he’s awake…”

Awake. Not one of them anymore. Not on the other side of living. Awake. The word meant nothing and everything and made every bone in Kippei’s body feel weak and brittle, as they had been for months. Months of waiting, hoping, visiting and more waiting, for nothing. Until all hope was gone, and now…now.

“When…” He didn’t even know what to ask.

“Some time last night.” But somehow Ibu-san knew what he was asking. Some time, not even his father knew. What did some time mean?

“You weren’t here?” Of course not. He had been at home, in bed, probably with his wife, watching over his house with his two beautiful daughters. But there was that sadness in his eyes again as he glanced at Kippei.

“No one was here.” Of course. Who would watch over the sleeping? They were as good as dead. Kippei felt sick to his stomach and looked around for a bathroom, but he saw Sada instead. Cute as all hell little Sada, just sitting there, swinging her legs and looking around as if she expected someone to come along and tell her what to do, wide eyes staring at nothing and who the hell even knew what went through the minds of ten year old girls at a time like this? Ashi came down the hallway, two huge cups of steaming liquid in her hands and Kippei knew, immediately, it was hot chocolate. They huddled together on the seat, heads bowed together, complete opposites, but for once they looked like family.

The family he had wanted with everything he was, and had lost in three years, three months, three weeks, three days…

“Can I…”

Ibu-san’s hand on his shoulder nearly broke his heart, most of all because he knew it expected nothing from him. Hell, they hadn’t expected him to come right away. Thought maybe he would wait a few days, a few weeks, a few years maybe. He was not a part of their lives anymore and it slay him inside to realise it. The silence had stretched on too long.

“He’s still…” Ibu-san hesitated and took a breath, shrugging. “The doctor is still with him, but they’ll be done soon…” No indication of how soon was soon. A few minutes, a few hours…a few days? Kippei just nodded, feeling the shock finally settle, the tsunami coming closer but still not crashing, hovering above his head. He wandered over to the wall and took a seat a few spaces down from the girls and put his head in his hands. He had no idea what to do, what to say, what to think! One phone call and the life he had finally manage to build was completely changed.

“Did you call Akira?”

Ibu-san had been going somewhere, but he stopped and looked back and nodded, but said no more. Kippei knew Akira hadn’t hung up the phone, hadn’t dropped everything and run. Akira wasn’t so rash anymore. He thought before he leapt; thought hard. He was probably writing out all the things he wanted to say and crossing off all the bad things. He was probably wondering about them and their apartment and their life.

“Shinji didn’t know who I was.”

Startled, Kippei looked up to find Sada nose to nose with him. He just blinked. What?

“Do you think he’ll know you, when he didn’t know me?” Her eyes were so huge, like the ocean on a stormy day. Exactly the same…that was what his eyes looked like open. Were they still the same? Was that really the same colour, just like that…He felt like he was drowning.

“What?” Was all he managed to gasp out through the shock and the cold dread seeping through his veins.

“It’s because you’re twelve. I told you this five times already!” Ashi looked tired and exasperated, almost at the end of her rope. Kippei had never seen her lose her temper. Sada, plenty of times, but not Ashi. She rolled her eyes and looked at Kippei sympathetically. “She’s supposed to be nine, but she’s twelve and all tall and lanky and gorgeous and she’s got boobs for crying out loud!” Sada gasped and covered her admittedly small chest, but it was true…she was not the small nine year old girl waiting for a growth spurt any more. What had he thought, when he saw her? Kippei couldn’t do anything but blink and Ashi grabbed Sada’s arm and hauled her off somewhere, muttering darkly about having to repeat herself.

Kippei sat back and rested his head against the wall, staring at the ceiling, blinking back the tears he refused to acknowledge until someone tapped him on the shoulder and Ibu-san was there, with his wife, Shinji’s mum who looked just like Sada, and just like Shinji. Kippei swallowed and she just smiled, bright and sunny as if the world had never been more brilliant than it was today but Kippei still remembered the months of afternoons he came through the doors and found her sitting there, just staring at him sleeping, unaware of them, pale as a ghost, the two of them perfectly still as if they could hear each other in some world all their own. He used to pick up the blanket at her feet, refold it across her knees and she never even blinked. But she moved today, smiled, clung to Ibu-san’s arm. She was beautiful today, when it mattered.

She didn’t say anything, just nodded her head and pointed down the hallway and a nurse was by a door, smiling. Everyone was smiling, but Kippei couldn’t think of anything to smile about. He didn’t understand why everyone was so happy, while everything in him was screaming to run away. But he stood and walked down the hallway, aware of the squeak of his tennis shoes on the hard floors, the way the light came in through the window and hit the wall at just the right angle to be even with the door handle, making it glow, silver and shiny and beckoning.

His hand shook as he pushed the door open and stepped inside, blinking at the dark room, closing the door before taking a deep breath and moving forward, toward the bed and the body and it wasn’t moving and they lied and it wasn’t true and everything hurt, but then the sheet shifted. He heard it, and the beeping of the monitors finally reached his ears and it wasn’t the same, erratic and wild and alive.

“Shinji?” The fingers on the bed twitched and the head moved a little and Kippei strode across the rest of the room, but his body halted beside it and he didn’t climb up like he wanted to, just stood staring as storm blue eyes blinked lazily, a little confused, watering a little as if it hurt just to be looking. As if everything in the whole world hurt, even him.

“Oh god…Shinji.” He didn’t know what to do. Didn’t have any fancy words to say and Shinji just stared at him as if he didn’t want to see him. As if he knew something Kippei couldn’t think of yet. Then a small frown appeared on the delicate face and Shinji licked dry, chapped lips. His voice was little more than a ragged breath, but it reached Kippei and the tears really did fall then and the tsunami fell over him, filling him with salt water and building an ocean between them for Shinji to look across.

“It really was…three years.”