Chapter Text
He sees you in the yellow meadow that you can find only after taking a left at the broken tree, he sees you in the flowing rivers that carry the freshly fallen blossoms away, but most of all, he'll see you everyday, without fail, in his younger sister, and in the way she wears her braids, and lets the wind ruffle them. The familiar twin braids, decorated with the flowers of yesterday, bright and yellow. In her, he can feel your presence most of all.
'One two three, you left me, but I hear your breath from somewhere...'
There's more, because to Kita, it feels as if all you ever touched as a child will forever safe- keep a part of you. Even now that you're indefinitely gone, and have been for many years, he finds your younger half-sister, who he passes every now and then on the street, but doesn't really know, who talks like you, and sometimes looks a bit like you, too. But she is still someone else.
'Once again, four five six...
Red tears fall down, I miss your scent that embraced me...'
She is someone else in the way she thinks, he can see that, and in the way she acts, and the way she smiles. You are there, but it's never the real you, and given what's happened to you, this presence of yours is something that weighs down on everyone who ever knew you. Even ten years later, you have a considerable presence.
'Why?
Why?
You have gone away...'
Remembering you, your smile is always at the forefront of his mind, warm and jittery. Your smile always spoke of an adventure, and it's because of your smile that people like his grandma and your mother still believe that you're alive. Kita knows this isn't the case. You've been the lost child for ten years now. Kita knows you're not suddenly going to become unlost.
But your mother, young at the time of your disappearance, to this day, still goes around telling everyone what will happen 'when' you came back, never 'if'. She talks proudly of your achievements, says that at age nine, you were smart and kind like no other. Having known you personally, Kita can't help but agree.
You were all that. But your mother says you still are.
It's that strong presence of yours that does this, Kita's sure. But while there are still those who believe, Kita knows that in these last years, everyone save for your mother has, in one way or another, managed to move on.
His sister, two years after your disappearance, by the time life for him was somewhat 'normal' again and he had learned how to deal with grief, also started detaching herself from your disappearance. It was slow, and it happened with the air of someone who was lost, and shunned by society, gradually returning, and relearning the most basic of tasks. It started with her slowly learning how to talk properly again.
After your disappearance, his sister developed a tic in her left eye, and her speech was often reduced to a slurred mess. She messed up sentences, couldn't spell simple words without mistakes, and moved with a limp in her left leg. It was partly the lack of sleep getting to her, but there was more to it as well.
'Come back home...'
Only two years later, things started improving, but with this improvement, Kita started witnessing a change taking place in his sister. It was hard to describe what was happening, but if he had to, Kita would use the word 'assimilate' in this context.
And this word, defined by the dictionary that his school gave him, and that he still likes to calmly leaf through on some evenings, means to take something into the mind, to absorb something into the system, and to take in something that can be utilized as nourishment for something else.
So, his sister, in her desperation to move on, to cope, was assimilating you, and in an odd show of a coping method, was turning some of your virtues into hers. Even in her face, in the curve of her nose, the crinkle of her eyes, his sister was starting to resemble you. It made him nervous, how she was taking your mind and putting you into her own, absorbing you into her system. And she was using this, all of you, as a nourishment for her grief.
The braids that were you, the color yellow that was you, the way you spoke with little dialect, the way you animated your gestures, colored your voice, and looked at the world through a certain lens: all of this, she assimilated.
She did this as a plea of sort, too, Kita thinks.
'Can you come back?
Don't leave me at the end of the cold world...'
His grandmother reacted kindly to everything his sister did, to everything that was happening to her, but sometimes, she'd give his sister quiet advice: when you're older, you'll see what I see, too, but for now, go for it slowly, it's not a race, taking care of yourself is not something that happens overnight, so don't rush.
He didn't understand, but her words, even though they were meant for his sister, helped him somehow, and he stopped feeling that odd nervousness around her. It was unnecessary, not logical at all, and while it was true that you were gone, his little sister wasn't, and that meant there was someone he had to be close to, and take care of. She was his sister, after all, and she wasn't lost.
'But come back to my side.
Come back home.
Can you come back?'
━━━━
'I'm pushing back all the pain, I'm still waiting for you like this...'
More years went by, Kita got older, Kita became the captain of the volleyball team, and Kita lived, in a happy, but always subdued, gentle way. This didn't necessarily have anything to do with the loss of you, however. Kita just was as Kita was, and the words attributed to him even then were those of a quiet, gentle, but coldly logical player. Not much changed since childhood.
In truth, Kita just took his grandmother's words, the ones that said someone is always watching, and lived by them. Living through a hard situation made him also appreciate wise advice more, and listening to his grandmother was something that never lead him astray.
Someone is always watching.
It didn't matter who was watching, because someone always was, and that knowledge helped him implement a routine that he could live by. Kita wasn't emotionless, he wasn't really cold either, he felt a lot, he cared a lot, but he lived by words that told him he could choose when and how to express emotions. There was a right time and a wrong time for things.
His sister learned that, too, but she didn't live by it the way he did.
She became happier, stopped resembling you so much physically, too, but started, even more than before, thinking like you, so that in the end, Kita recognized the way the people in the village were treating his sister. They were treating her in the way they once treated you.
But his sister didn't notice, because after the first few years went by, she got busy, studied harder than everyone, and made big plans for her future. A lot of people were happy, because it seemed that you, and more so the trauma of losing you, was slowly being erased from her memory. Kita, however, knows that they were always wrong about this, because you never left his sister. That was something that just wasn't possible, really.
You were there, but you were also not there. Instead of having you haunt her like a constant horrible reminder, his sister figured out ways to remember you vividly, but only at those times she specifically chose. It helped her a lot, helped her make sense of the world.
At all times she kept pictures of you in her breast-pocket. On the holidays she insisted on showing them to everyone, even though they had seen them before. But she made them look at them again, pointing out how fascinating you looked at this angle, and in this light, or in that summer dress. Sometimes, she'd bring back the old art projects, your white angels in yellow flower fields. On some occasions, although these were rare, she'd even bring out the old videos where you could be seen talking.
You were always captured on video in your most euphoric moments.
But watching your videos was not something she did often, because more so than even your smile, it was your voice that made her remember everything, and suffer. That was why she only did it on special occasions, and never shared it with her school friends like she shared her pictures of you. The videos were only for when his grandmother could take her into her arms and brush her hair.
She had rules for remembering you, because even when she was young, she knew of the possible dangers. She was sensitive, and remembering you too fiercely was always a danger for her mind, for her state of being, and her ability to live normally.
Kita, on the other hand, didn't need to be as cautious as she did, he wasn't in danger of collapsing if he thought about you one moment too long. He could think of you every now and then, go on his usual, nighttime walks, because that was what he owed you, and still be perfectly fine. He'd be sad, but he'd be fine.
Sometimes, usually every year on the exact day you went missing, the day before his birthday, Kita would reserve a day for you. And then he'd think of you, not in a horribly sad manner, but in his manner, and on those days, his replies were more laconic than ever.
But that was the only thing he couldn't really help. The memories were vivid at times, and Kita always remembers a lot on those days. Sometimes the occasion on which you and his sister excitedly dressed up for Halloween, and dragged him out with you, only to find that nobody in the village had prepared sweets. He remembers how you told his sister that it didn't matter, and asked instead if the two of you could have popsicles from the convenience store.
"Now? It's cold out, you'll get sick."
"No! I won't, it's cold, just like my heart," you said, excitedly gesturing to your witch costume. You grinned up at him with your painted lips that were starting to smudge, and Kita remembers that in order to not make that grin fade, and to cheer up his still slightly miffed and huffing sister, he quietly nodded, digging in his pocket until he found the right amount of money.
He bought you your popsicles.
Sometimes he'd think about how you and his sister would play with the flowers and the plants. Out of the mud, a bit of water, and some old, rundown pots his grandmother didn't need anymore, the two of you created your own kitchen. You'd make mud dishes, soups sprinkled with yellow flowers, cake out of weeds, decorated with a mud glazing, and lots and lots of cookies of different shapes and size, out of various 'ingredients' he couldn't even hope to name. Then, on some days, after the two of you spent hours 'cooking', you would invite him, his grandmother, and when she had time in the evenings, even your mother, to come dine at your fine restaurant.
Kita also remembers the day you presented him with one of those carefully woven wreaths. He remembers exactly how he briefly looked down at you, patted your head, and gave you a smile.
You were nine and tiny, but you boldly announced your affection for him, and even asked him to marry you. In return, he remembers that he only ruffled your head again, before joining his grandma to help her with the housework. He didn't really bother with a reply, because at the time, as kids, it seemed a given that he had years to formulate that reply.
'I hate you for not answering, I wonder if you'll miss me, sometimes, too, yeah...'
But it didn't happen that way, and the time you did have turned out to be months rather than years. Thinking back, Kita knows that because the village was so small, and because the three of you were always together despite the fact that he was a bit older (Kita never really had any friends his age before he joined the volleyball club), and that he didn't really play with you, and more so preferred watching over you, everyone did think the two of you would one day get married. Your mother thought so, his grandmother secretly thought so, and his sister (and here he could tell very clearly, because she was always mean to him when the thought occurred to her) also occasionally, albeit begrudgingly, thought so.
'I'm trapped in a time without you
I can't see ahead, I'm scared...'
He doesn't admit it, but maybe, just maybe, it is true that it's because of you that he can't really get himself to date at all. Marriage seems wrong, too, especially when he hasn't even responded to the first proposal he got.
'The many days that are unfinished, it seems like they'll be waiting for us...'
You actually disappeared on the day before his birthday. His sister even told him that you were out for his sake, picking flowers because you lacked the money to buy a proper present. She didn't want to tell him this, but Kita wanted to know. He's logical enough to know that it doesn't mean it's his fault, and it's only fair that he learns as much as he can about what happened. He owes that, along with the walks, to you.
'Where are you? Where?
Too far away...'
His sister was the last person to really see you, and she talks to him often, now older, about the sight she still can't get out of her head: you waving a hand in farewell, as you march onwards towards the river, basket in hand, clothed in a yellow dress, your hair in your typical braids. She tells him how the sun is going down in that image, how it cast shadows on your shrinking figure as you walk away.
'The only thing left here is your shadow, my longing for you tortures me more than my loneliness...'
This dream, this horrible dream, in which she is chasing after you, her nineteen year old self, running after your nine year old self, trying to stop you, is something that Kita thinks will never leave her alone. He knows this as she explains to him that she can never reach you, for the distance keeps growing, and no matter how much she cries and shouts, you don't stop. Little, cheerful you keeps walking off into those woods, where everyone, at least deep down, knows your death awaits.
'Seems like I can catch the sound of your laughter, but the moments weakly scatter like a sand castle...'
The worst thing, his sister tells him, is that you're so unaware of your fate in that dream of hers. Sometimes she can even talk to you, and she always tries to convince you not to go out, or to take her with you, but you don't listen, you shrug her off with a grin, you hug her in reassurance — and always, no matter what, you still end up leaving alone.
This is what haunts his sister.
'Every night, I get nightmares,
even in my dreams, I call out your name...'
She'll scream until her throat is sore, like your mother used to, but you don't hear, you never do.
━━━━
It's at the end of this year that something changes. Your presence emerges for a moment, in a way he never thought it would. At the end of the river, not so far away from the meadow, and at the entrance of a small cave, your remains are finally found. The storm shifted the rocks, and as a result, you were found. The lost child was found, and stopped being the lost child.
The story that was passed around in earlier years soon became the told truth. This is your story, and your story ends with a funeral, with the sobs of his sister, and the shivers of his grandmother. But everyone, including Kita, is relieved. The lost child finds a new home under the earth, with wreaths of yellow, and with words of love.
Your mother only nods gratefully to the boys, and at first, Kita wonders if this means she'll get better again now that she has a grave to cry on.
His thoughts here are wrong.
'In a time where everything changes, the one thing that doesn't change...'
Your mother's grief can't change. And a couple of young boys, only fifteen years or so of age, who venture out to go fishing, make him understand that two months later, and they do this by carrying back home with them the news that in the river, near the rocks, there is a body floating face down in the water. And although the young are frantic, the children crying, nobody who was there for the searches ten years ago is. Everyone knows that the body is that of your mother, before anyone even goes down to check. They know that her body and grief are now washed away in the same river that washed away the lost child.
And so in the end, the lost child never came back home, but home will gradually find the lost child, with one part already having arrived.