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Yumeno can still see Saihara sitting across from her through the fishbowl between them, distorted as his form may be. Her face is at eye level with the bowl, and through her looking glass, she can see two fish—one pretty and delicate and one not—swimming in lazy circles around Saihara with his straight back and steady hand moving across the paper he’s writing on. The beautiful fish flicks its tail suddenly when it changes direction. Saihara sets the now finished paper aside and dutifully grabs another blank sheet from the stack beside him.
Yumeno’s eyes are fixed on his movements through the lens of the fishbowl. She says, “Who’s was that?” and disrupts the languid stillness that had settled between them.
Saihara blinks at her. Then, “Gonta-kun’s,” he makes to reach for the paper before stopping midway, hand hovering inelegantly over it. He tries to make eye contact with her through the fishbowl. “Do… do you want to read it, Yumeno-san?”
The beautiful fish swims fluttering circles around the other. Yumeno sits up slightly and props her head up with one hand, her other stretched across the table to Saihara. “Yeah.”
He hands it to her, and Yumeno begins to read Saihara’s laundry list of regrets and apologies and screaming self-hatred over everything that happened to their dead friend. It’s a calm, subdued day with a gentle storm outside insolating them from the rest of the world, and the sheer agony of Saihara’s survivor’s guilt pours off the page like a roaring waterfall threatening to drown them both in the quiet of their apartment.
The rain drums almost tenderly against the sliding door next to their place at the table. Saihara bites his lip and turns back to his writing. Yumeno’s eyes flick off a cramped “I never should have” to the finished stack beside him. The pile of corpses to apologize to grows smaller and smaller as the overcast afternoon stretches on.
He had read somewhere in a self help book Yumeno wants to tear to shreds that writing letters to people you can’t talk to anymore can be an emotionally positive and cleansing experience. Saihara had weighed the book deliberately in his hands and said, “It couldn’t hurt to try, right?”
Yumeno had frowned when he pointed to the passage. “I think I’ll cleanse my emotions some other way.” Then, on their way home, the damned book held to his chest, Yumeno said, “hey, Saihara, can we get a pet?”
She pointed through a shop window to a beautiful blue-green fish flicking its fins like ribbons on each sharp turn in its wide tank. “I want a fish,” she had said. Saihara bought her two.
He had also yet to complain about the task of feeding them always falling to him when she inevitably forgets each and every passing day. But it’s not like he has anything better to do with his mornings. Yumeno doesn’t know why she forgets. She doesn’t have anything to do either.
Yumeno sets the letter aside and leans down to make a gurgling noise at the fish when it swims closer to her side of the glass prison. Saihara smiles at the sound even as his eyes never leave the newest letter to someone else he couldn’t save.
Saihara had wanted to buy her two beautiful fish that day, but a brightly smiling employee at the pet store told them animatedly at how the beautiful ones were the males and they would tear each other to bloodied shreds if kept together. He had jerked a thumb too cheerily at a rust red female one barely moving with its half-dead swishes. Yumeno had pulled at Saihara’s sleeve and he bought them both immediately.
Outside the pet store, she had held one plastic bag up in each fist and said, “If I can find the right spell, we should have a full fish family in no time.”
Saihara had just smiled.
They had walked home in a silence only interrupted with Yumeno occasionally making bubbling noises to the blue-green and rust red fish held in the palm of her small hands.
It had been just over a week since Maki had made her decision to go find herself. To discover what the freedom of choice meant.
Apparently part of it had meant leaving them behind.
An understanding hung between them filled with fish and the silent sound of Saihara writing his heart out.
He finishes penning the latest letter and pauses expectantly before beginning his next one. He says, “Yumeno-san, I’m,” he tugs at his bangs, “I’m going to write Chabashira-san’s letter now.”
Nothing else needs to be said, and Yumeno moves around the table to settle herself next to him. She stares hard at the crisp, snow white page. She doesn’t give him any warning when she says, “Dear Tenko,” Saihara sputters into writing her words in his own cramped hand. “It’s been raining lately and the fern I bought drowned.”
Saihara stops and turns to her. “I bought the fern.”
Yumeno pushes at his arm with her shoulder. “Details, details. This is my letter, y’know,” he sighs but returns to writing without protest when she says, “Splashing in the puddles is pretty good, though. I remember you said it was good to enjoy little moments like that and stuff. Saihara gets mad when I get his coat all muddy, but I do it anyway. He tries to pretend he isn’t upset, but he’s really bad at it. And then he makes me do the dishes that night.”
Saihara pulls a face, but any reprimands die in his throat when Yumeno pulls her knees to her chest and says, “You’d probably say he was just being a dumb boy, and I should do whatever makes me happy. I know I want all my friends to get along and stuff, but it’d be kinda nice to hear you say that again. It’d be really nice to hear you say anything…” She frowns. “Cut that part out.”
“Yumeno-san…” he begins.
But she’s already saying, “I got some fish a few days ago. I’m still thinking up names, but right now I kinda like ‘Pinwheel’ for the boy, but you’d probably hate that.” She rests her chin on the tops of her knees. “It’s kind of a mouthful, too, so it’d probably get shortened to ‘Pin’ and that’s kind of a dumb name. So I’m still thinking.” Yumeno pauses and waits for Saihara’s pen to catch up with her rambling. Then, “Saihara’s no help,” she smiles up at him, “he’s good at some stuff, but he’s still an awful boy, y’know. So I gotta do the important things myself. Like naming fish.”
She goes on, describing the menial details of the life they staggered into as they come to her. Saihara takes to recording dutifully, providing little comment other than an occasional correction to which she argues against immediately.
The rain pours on around them, and Yumeno’s chest feels both tight and hollow when she finally says, “I dunno if I have anything else to say. Guess that’s everything.” She hugs her legs tighter. “Goodbye, Tenko.”
Saihara ends the letter with “Love, Yumeno Himiko,” and a word doesn’t pass between them when he writes her love confession for her.
The letter sprawls on much longer than any of the ones before it, and Saihara takes to stretching and rubbing at his writing hand now stained with ink. Yumeno says, “What are we doing with all these letters anyway?”
“Well,” he says. “The book says you burn them. It’s supposed to be a release or something.” He frowns. “Or maybe just symbolic of something. I’m not sure.”
She groans. “But I worked so hard on it.”
Saihara smiles down at her. “You can keep it, if you want to.”
Yumeno glances over to the pile he trudged through alone. “And you’re gonna burn all of yours?”
“I think so,” he nods. “I feel… cluttered enough as it is, if that’s the right word for it.” He shakes his head. “It probably isn’t, but… I don’t know how to describe it.”
The rain beats on. The beautiful fish swims laps around the other one. Yumeno pulls away from him to begin shuffling through his finished letters. She’s already splayed them out in front of her to pick apart and browse through at her leisure, when a thought strikes her. Yumeno whips her head back to him. “It’s okay that I read these, right?”
“Ah,” Saihara fiddles with his pen. “Yes… I think so. You,” he squirms, “You can read them… but I don’t want to talk about them.”
She nods. Time passes and the array of Saihara’s grief stretches out like a rainbow across the table. She reads. He writes on.
The letters heaviest in the words left unsaid—the ones that are the most painful for him—are the shortest. Yumeno marvels that Saihara managed to write neat, two page letters to everyone else, from Amami—who neither of them ever really knew—to Shirogane. The fact that Shirogane’s letter isn’t just the words “It’s all your fault” in big, ugly letters is even more of a surprise to Yumeno.
But while Shirogane gets a letter where Saihara half concedes that she, too, was likely manipulated, the three people who mattered the most to him get single sentences dedicated to their corpses. They’re also the only letters, Yumeno realizes, where the words “my fault” don’t appear. She looks up at him with wondering eyes after she finishes the first one, and he tugs on his bangs.
“I feel like,” he says, “there’s so much I have to say that trying to pretend I could get it all out…” Saihara pushes a few stray stands of hair behind his ear and stares down at the table in preparation to begin his next too formal address. He shakes his head. “I think I’m done with lying to myself like that. Also I think,” and he gives Yumeno an odd, defeated smile, “I’d prefer not to have a break down today.”
So Yumeno runs her fingers of the neat pen strokes on the first letter that says:
Dear Momota-kun,
You will always be my best friend.
Yumeno picks up a pencil lazily discarded on the table. She says to Saihara, “is it okay if I write on this? Since we’re gonna burn them and all.”
Saihara glances up, eyebrows furrowed. “What do you want to write on it?”
With the pencil, Yumeno’s deliberately light strokes spell out:
Except for Himiko.
She holds her revised edition up to him, already saying the words “I’ll erase it—just thought I’d lighten the mood—”
But then Saihara laughs. “Keep it.” The rain pitter-patters outside. “It’s nice.”
Yumeno holds up a letter that says:
Dear Ouma-kun,
I’m sorry it took me so long to understand.
“Can I write on this one, too?”
He shrugs. “If you want.” And his already melancholy smile is too sad when he says, “he’d probably like a joke, too.”
She writes:
You’re still a total brat, though.
One letter remains, and she scribbles over her joke as soon as she makes it. Saihara peers over her shoulder to see:
Dear Kaede,
My love for you will live forever.
And then below in Yumeno’s hand,
Even if you didn’t.
Saihara blinks, more surprised than anything else.
“Sorry,” she says. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“No,” he shakes his head. “It’s okay.”
Yumeno stills all of a sudden and turns to give him a long look. “But…” she thinks. “It’s not?”
Saihara chokes on a laugh. “No, I guess not, but nothing’s really okay.” He runs a hand through his hair. “It doesn’t matter. This is all going to be ashes anyway.”
He repeats, “It doesn’t matter,” to someone that's not her, and that makes Yumeno’s heart sink.
It’s less a hug she gives him and more of a graceless slump against his chest, small hands gripping the front of his shirt. Yumeno mumbles, “you’re not mad me?”
She hears the sound of Saihara’s pen clicking sharp against the table, and then one of his hands is resting against her back. “No,” he answers. "I'm not."
“So you’re not gonna make me do the dishes tonight?”
Saihara sighs, and his hand reaches up to pet her hair. “We’ll see.”
The rain pours on against them. Yumeno’s sole beautiful fish swims slower.
They’re stagnant and time passes around them.
Night eventually surges forward, and Saihara eventually finishes emptying his heart into thirteen letters to be burned like nothing. Yumeno gives him another long look, and he repeats, "It doesn't really matter."
“I wanted to do this outside,” Saihara says later. “But I guess we’ll just have to use a candle.”
He lights it, and Yumeno watches the flame dance, distorted and wet through the fishbowl. Saihara’s folded all the letters except Tenko’s, so it’s a mystery which one he’s burning first. They watch it darken and curl and fade to nothing, and Saihara curses under his breath when the embers reach his fingers. He waves his hand and the flame skips wildly and ashes crumble over their table. Saihara curses again.
Yumeno begins burning the next one. Staring directly into the brightness of the fire hurts her eyes, but neither of them look away and the world is speckled with spots of darkness when half of the letter disappears. Yumeno keeps her gaze fixed on the paper, but says, “What am I supposed to be feeling again?”
“You know,” he says. “That’s a good question.”
She hums.
They burn all the folded letters, and Saihara’s absently sucking on his singed fingers when Yumeno folds Tenko’s.
They burn that one, too.
-
It’s still raining and achingly stagnant the next morning.
Saihara’s already sitting at the table when Yumeno stumbles out of her room. She stops in her sleep dazed tracks when she notices the straightness of his back and the way his hands are tightly folded in his lap. He doesn’t speak when he sees her, so Yumeno prompts, “Did something happen?”
“I’m really sorry, Yumeno-san,” he says, and she shuffles over to him a beat too quick to convincingly hide her anxiousness. “It was like this when I woke up this morning. I’m not sure what happened.”
His eyes dart worryingly to the fishbowl, and Yumeno drops to her knees at the table when she sees only the rust red fish lazily flittering around. She can only gape. Dimly, she hears Saihara move behind her, and then his hand is on her shoulder. “I’m really sorry, Yumeno-san,” he says again. “I already got rid of it…I didn’t think you’d want to see… sorry.”
Yumeno shakes her head. “Why does this always happen? It was just a dumb fish. I just wanted a dumb fish,” she doesn’t know why she’s trembling. “Why does this… why does everyone leave?”
Saihara is silent for a moment too long, then slowly, painfully slowly, wraps his arms around her thin shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Yumeno-san. I wish I knew.” The hug becomes tighter. “I really, really wish I knew.”
Yumeno places her shaking hands over his.
It’s quiet. It’s raining.
Yumeno’s voice is thin when she eventually says, “you’re not allowed to leave, by the way,” she squeezes his hands. “Thought I’d mention that.”
Saihara is barely audible over the drum of the storm outside. “I know.”
She hums and leans back against him. “Yeah, thought I should remind you, though.” Her tired eyes drift to the crystal trails left by the raindrops on the sliding glass door. “Guess I didn’t remind Harukawa, enough.”
Yumeno doesn’t look back at him but hears Saihara’s breathing hitch. He says, “Yumeno-san, please don’t even joke about that being your fault.”
“Why not?” she asks. “I made lots of jokes about our dead friends yesterday.”
The rain streaks over their blurred reflection, and Saihara is quiet far too long. Eventually, Yumeno hears him sigh. “I want to say that’s different,” he breathes out. “But I don’t know. I guess it stings less when someone doesn’t leave you by choice.”
Yumeno finally turns her head to him when she hears the chocked laugh. “That’s the most awful thing I’ve said in a long time,” Saihara says. He shuffles a hand out of her grip and presses it over his eyes. “I just said it’d be better if Harukawa-san was dead. What’s wrong with me?”
She twists around and encircles her arms around his neck, pressing her check against his shoulder. “I’m sorry for bringing it up,” she mumbles. Saihara doesn’t move.
Her eyes drift across the table. Where the letters had been. Where the one fish swims dizzily around where the other was. “It’s my fault.”
Saihara stiffens at the phrase. “It’s not… it’s,” he finally hugs her back. “I don’t know.” His words drift over her head and through the stagnant air. “I don’t know.”
There are a lot of things Yumeno could say. They circle her, and she clings to Saihara in the eye of the hurricane that is the rest of their lives.
The morning fades to ashes around them. The sun has yet to peek through the clouds, but the rain has broken down to a fragile drizzle, and she says, “So you’re not mad at me?”
“No,” and then some cheer returns to his voice. “You’re still a brat, though.”
Yumeno pulls away and lightly swats his shoulder. “And you’re still a dumb boy.”
The remaining, half-dead fish swims in circles, and they see each other clearly.